"Aunt" Samantha Bumgarner (October 31, 1878 - December 24, 1960) was an American early country and folk music performer and singer from
Dillsboro, North Carolina. She won much praise for her work with the fiddle and banjo. In 1924, accompanied by guitarist Eva Davis, she traveled to
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
and recorded about a dozen songs for Columbia Records.
[Country: The Music and Musicians, The Country Music Foundation, New York, , page 320.] The recordings are also notable for being the first use of a
5-string banjo on a recording. She was a yearly staple at
Bascom Lamar Lunsford
Bascom Lamar Lunsford (March 21, 1882 – September 4, 1973) was a folklorist, performer of traditional Appalachian music, and lawyer from western North Carolina. He was often known by the nickname "Minstrel of the Appalachians".
Biography
...
's
Mountain Dance and Folk Festival from 1928 until shortly before her death.
Folksinger
Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and social activist. He was a fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s and had a string of hit records in the early 1950s as a member of The Weav ...
attended Lunsford's festival in 1935 at the age of 16 in the company of his father, musicologist and composer
Charles Seeger, then working for the music division of the
WPA, and his stepmother, noted modernist composer
Ruth Crawford Seeger, and would have heard Bumgarner perform there. Seeger has credited Bumgarner as his inspiration for wanting to learn the five-string banjo. "He learned (he says) to play the banjo after first hearing one played by a mountain girl named Samantha Bumgarten
ic��came from the Great Smokies"
Royal command performance
Bumgarner was also among the artists Lunsford assembled to play before
George VI
George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until Death and state funeral of George VI, his death in 1952 ...
and
Queen Elizabeth of England in June 1939 at the invitation of
President and
Mrs. Roosevelt at a
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...
concert of American music arranged by Charles Seeger and Adrian Dornbush (of the WPA) for the benefit of the first visit by a reigning British monarch and his consort on American soil. Among the other (racially integrated) performers were American concert artists
Marian Anderson,
Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Mervil Tibbett (November 16, 1896 – July 15, 1960) was an American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone with large, deep, and dark-timbred voice. His dynamic range (in ...
, and
Kate Smith, singing classical and light popular music; and folk performers
Lily May Ledford and the
Coon Creek Girls;
Josh White; the
Golden Gate Quartet; Sam Queen and the Soco Gap Square Dance Team, who demonstrated clog dancing; and
Alan Lomax, singing cowboy songs. According to
Judith Tick, Professor of Music at Northeastern University, "It was a singular moment of glory for the Washington WPA folklorists."
[Judith Tick, ''Ruth Crawford Seeger: A Composer's Search for American Music'' (Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 257.]
First female Country recording artist
Bumgarner and her friend, Eva Davis, recorded
[ the same year as another female country singer, Roba Stanley.][Women in early Country Music: A Tribute to the First Female Recording Artists]
Stanley, whose recordings were made in July, 1924, is believed by many to have been the first female to record country music, but Bumgarner and Davis' recordings were made three months earlier, in April.[ The pair recorded both in duet and as singer and accompanist and thus qualify for the distinction of having been the first female country solo recording artists.][
]
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bumgarner, Samantha
1878 births
1960 deaths
American women country singers
American country singer-songwriters
Old-time musicians
Singer-songwriters from North Carolina
People from Jackson County, North Carolina
20th-century American singer-songwriters
American fiddlers
American women violinists
20th-century American violinists
20th-century American women singers
20th-century American singers
Country musicians from North Carolina