Frank Noah Proffitt (1913-1965)
By Anne Warner and Frank Warner
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 81, No. 321 (Jul. - Sep., 1968), pp. 259-260
[Frank Profitt's father in law Nathan Hicks was featured in my grandfather's book, "Beech Mountain Ballads." My grandfather, who played one of Hicks dulcimers, suggested Warner could also get a dulcimer from Hicks. Warner then traveled to Beech Mountain and the rest is....history. Richard Matteson 2011]
FRANK NOAH PROFFITT (1913-1965)
As TIME AND FAME GO, it is a long time since Frank Proffitt left us in November of 1965-nearly three years. But it is not too late for us to pay a tribute to Frank, for to those who love traditional music, sung as it should be sung, Frank Profitt will always live. In the last few years of Frank's life he had becomea prototype of the traditional singer. He was recognized as the source of the song "Tom Dooley," which catapulted The Kingston Trio to fame in I959 and is said to have begun the widespread popular interest in folk music. He had made recordings for Folkways and Folk Legacy. He had left his farming from time to time to sing at festivals, including the Newport Folk Festival, and at universities and colleges. He had won the Burl Ives Award for traditional banjo playing.
His homemade dulcimers and fretless banjos were being ordered by people near and far. He had been featured in stories about folk music in national magazines. He had been chosen by the Governor to participate in North Carolina Day at the New York World's Fair. His picture was used by the state in a booklet encouraging summer visitors (of this he said, "I have become a scenic wonder!"). His friends and admirers and correspondents-and visitors-were innumerable. When he died, leading newspapers across the country carried the story of Frank Proffitt and his music.
Frank was born in Laurel Bloomerie, Tennessee, in 19I3, but lived in the Beaver Dams Section of Watauga County, North Carolina, for the last forty-three years of his life. He was a mountain man. During his boyhood life was very much like colonial pioneer days, when each family made nearly everything they used, including musical instrumentsM. usicw as a part of life. Frank early learned the old songs and ballads from his father, his grandfather, his aunt and uncle:
"Bo Lamkin was as fine a mason as ever laid a stone ...";
"George Collins rode home one cold winter night.. .";
"O, it's where have you been, Lord Randall my son?"
Frank had a storehouse of old ballads-and of newer songs too:
"It's hard times on the Beaver Dam road . . .";
"Goin' up Cripple Creek, goin' on a run...";
"I'll tell you a story about Omie Wise.. ."
He did not sing for effect but to satisfy something within himself.
Frank was sixteen when he walked barefoot across the mountains to see his first town-Mountain City, Tennessee. He had little formal education, but he had a keen and contemplative mind. He read whateverh e could and had time to think and wonder. His intelligent grasp of ideas, his compassion, his fun and humor, his strength and wisdom, his pride and dignity and humility-all the facets of his personality continually delighted and amazed, as did his artistry. He said once, "While I know I'm not much musically speaking, I do what I am able... trying to keep to the original as handed me from other days." So he handed his songs to us.
We first met Frank and his wife Bessie on a June afternoon in 1938-the day he first sang "Tom Dooley" to us. Our friendship was close and constant from that time on. We have watched the Proffitt children grow up: Oliver, now in the Air Force, stationed in Thailand; Ronald, a candidate for a Ph.D. degree in physics at the University of Kentucky; Frank Jr., a fine singer and instrumentalislti ke his father; Phyllis, now Mrs. Lynn Hicks; Eddie and Gerald, still in school. A family to take pride in. Frank Proffitt is buried in a little family burying ground on a mountainside not far from his home. On the simple headstone is a line from a song he always sang, "I'm going across the mountains, O fare you well."
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"Proffitt Sang the Legend of Tom Dooley"
by Amaris O. Lynip
In 1958, a new song called "Tom Dooley" meant a national hit for the Kingston Trio. For Frank Noah Proffitt, it meant that part of his heritage had suddenly been launched into national fame. Born to Wiley Proffitt and Rebecca Creed Proffitt on June 1, 1913, in Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee, Frank moved to and grew up in Pick Britches, now known as Mountain Dale, at the foot of Stone Mountain in Watauga County. He learned how to make banjos and dulcimers from his father.
Wiley Proffitt was not the only family member who taught young Frank folk songs and instrument-making. Frank learned traditional folk songs from his aunt, Nancy Prather, and from his father-in-law, Nathan Hicks, who also made dulcimers. His grandmother, Adeline Perdue, who lived in Wilkes County during the Tom Dula trial, taught Frank "Tom Dula." According to family legend, she saw Tom riding in a coffin, and as he strolled down the street to his hanging, he sang a song--the same song she taught her grandchildren.
As a family man, Frank made his living growing tobacco and strawberries and making instruments as his father and father-in-law had done. One day in 1937 a couple from New York named Warner visited them to buy one of Nathan Hicks' dulcimers. The man, Frank Warner, was particularly interested in learning Appalachian folk songs, and Nathan sang some of the ones he knew. The next year, when Frank Proffitt was visiting his father-in-law, Frank and Anne Warner returned, and Proffitt sang "Tom Dula" for them.
"His eyes sparkled as I sing Tom Dooley to him and told him of my Grandmaw Proffitt knowing Tom and Laura.I walked on air for days after they left," Frank said about Frank Warner's visit.
The Warners used one of the first battery operated recorders to capture the songs Frank sang for them.
What happened after that visit sparked the eventual recording that made the Kingston Trio famous.
Surprised that others were interested in the folk songs he had grown up with, Frank Proffitt decided to try to collect as many songs as he could. He sent a book of songs to Warner, who modified several of them and performed them himself.
Shortly after that, in 1947, Warner shared "Tom Dula" with Alan Lomax, a professor at New York University, who published it in his collection titled "Folk Songs USA."
In 1958, the Kingston Trio heard the song almost by accident, adapted it, and added it to their stage act. They renamed the song "Tom Dooley" and recorded it for their album that year. Frank Proffitt heard the Kingston Trio perform the song on the Ed Sullivan show and was completely surprised.
Eventually Proffitt and Warner filed a joint lawsuit for legal claim to "Tom Dooley." Three years later, they began receiving royalties.
Frank Proffitt agreed to accompany Warner to performances in the early 1960s. Proffitt received numerous invitations to perform around the country, with Warner's encouragement. He also participated in workshops in Chicago and at a camp in Massachussetts.
In 1962 Folkways Records and Service Corp. recorded him, and Folk-Legacy Records, Inc. released Frank Proffitt, of Reese, North Carolina as their first album.
Even with the hundreds of invitations and the travel, Frank Proffitt's first priority was always his farmwork. In fact, he eventually refused to sing for free. In fact, he sang the songs for people not out of a motive for personal gain, but to give tribute to the people who had taught him the songs. He said the songs helped him remember his older family members and even picture them.
Frank never let his fame prompt him to move out of Watauga County. On November 1, 1965, he drove his wife, Bessie to a hospital in Charlotte for surgery and returned home. Later that evening, he died, at age 52.
The Kingston Trio's rendition of the song made the legend of Tom Dula a national fascination. Because Frank Proffitt sang the song for the Warners, and the Warners gave it to Alan Lomax, the Kingston Trio launched an old country folk ballad about a century-old murder in a small, rural county into immortality.
Source: Lynip, Amaris O. "Proffitt Sang the Legend of Tom Dooley." The Democrat.