{"id":43878,"date":"2021-06-21T07:55:19","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T11:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/?p=43878"},"modified":"2021-06-21T07:55:19","modified_gmt":"2021-06-21T11:55:19","slug":"history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/lifestyle\/heritage\/history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored\/","title":{"rendered":"History Feature: \u201cAunt\u201d Samantha Bumgarner\u2019s Musical Legacy to Be Honored"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_43881\" style=\"width: 1210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-43881\" class=\"wp-image-43881 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/History-replacement-1-copy.jpg\" alt=\"History Samantha Bumgarner\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1200\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-43881\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Samantha Bumgarner. Original photo courtesy of Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill<\/p><\/div>\n<p>By Lauren Stepp<\/p>\n<p>It is the early 1900s in a Haywood County cove. The Pigeon River is roaring and a tall, ruddy-faced woman wielding a 10-cent banjo is about to forever change the course of hillbilly music.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe was in Canton, and they was havin\u2019 a fiddlers\u2019 convention,\u201d Samantha Bumgarner, a Dillsboro resident, would tell the <em>Sylva Herald<\/em> years later. \u201cSomebody entered me in the contest. It was the first banjo contest I was ever in, and I was nervous. And here I looked up and saw all these fine banjos coming in from Asheville. I wanted to leave, but they wouldn\u2019t let me. I tell you I was so nervous I didn\u2019t know I was hitting the strings. But I won that contest. And I\u2019ve been winning them ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bumgarner would do more than win a handful of local contests. In April 1924, she and her friend Eva Davis of Sylva traveled to New York City to record songs for Columbia Phonograph Company. This was the first recording of women in the history of hillbilly music, a genre heavily commercialized in the late 1920s.<\/p>\n<p>An unsung matriarch of mountain music and culture, Bumgarner will be inducted into the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame on Friday, June 18. Based out of the Wilkes Heritage Museum in Wilkesboro, the Hall of Fame exists to preserve the musical heritage of the greater Blue Ridge Mountains area. The honor will be bestowed posthumously, some 60 years after Bumgarner\u2019s death. \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time coming,\u201d says local musician Laura Boosinger. \u201cI just don\u2019t think many people understand who she was.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Born on Halloween in 1878, Bumgarner spent most of her life on the banks of the Tuckasegee River in Jackson County. Her father, Has Biddix, was a skilled musician who could make his sourwood fiddle \u201ccroon like a lovin\u2019 woman,\u201d reads an <em>Asheville Citizen-Times<\/em> article published in 1977.<\/p>\n<p>Since playing the fiddle was thought to be sinful, especially for women, Bumgarner learned in secrecy, doing the same with her father\u2019s banjo, though Biddix eventually made her one using a gourd, a cat\u2019s hide and cotton thread. She received her first \u201creal\u201d banjo when she was 15.<\/p>\n<p>In 1929, and for the 30 years that followed, Bumgarner performed at Bascom Lamar Lunsford\u2019s Mountain Dance and Folk Festival.<\/p>\n<p>Not much is known about who \u201cAunt Samantha,\u201d as many called her, was off-stage. She married Carse Bumgarner, never had children and lived out her later years in a \u201ctypical mountain home&#8230;in the heart of the Cowee mountains.\u201d <em>(Sylva Herald, 1945)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cHer music, whether you call it hillbilly, mountain, bluegrass or old-time, is so much a part of the culture of our country,\u201d says Art Menius, a North Carolina radio host. \u201cThis music reflects how different traditions have intertwined and created something that is wholly American.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The 13th Annual Blue Ridge Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be hosted on Friday, June 18. To learn more about the ceremony and Samantha Bumgarner, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/WilkesHeritageMuseum.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WilkesHeritageMuseum.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWe was in Canton, and they was havin\u2019 a fiddlers\u2019 convention,\u201d says Samantha Bumgarner, a Dillsboro resident. &#8220;Somebody entered me in the contest. It was the first banjo contest I was ever in, and I was nervous. And here I looked up and saw all these fine banjos coming in from Asheville. I wanted to leave, but they wouldn\u2019t let me. I tell you I was so nervous I didn\u2019t know I was hitting the strings. But I won that contest. And I\u2019ve been winning them ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":43881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainmentandmusic","category-heritage"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>History Feature: \u201cAunt\u201d Samantha Bumgarner\u2019s Musical Legacy to Be Honored - The Laurel of Asheville<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cWe was in Canton, and they was havin\u2019 a fiddlers\u2019 convention,\u201d says Samantha Bumgarner, a Dillsboro resident. &quot;Somebody entered me in the contest. It was the first banjo contest I was ever in, and I was nervous. And here I looked up and saw all these fine banjos coming in from Asheville. I wanted to leave, but they wouldn\u2019t let me. I tell you I was so nervous I didn\u2019t know I was hitting the strings. But I won that contest. And I\u2019ve been winning them ever since.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/lifestyle\/heritage\/history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"History Feature: \u201cAunt\u201d Samantha Bumgarner\u2019s Musical Legacy to Be Honored - The Laurel of Asheville\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cWe was in Canton, and they was havin\u2019 a fiddlers\u2019 convention,\u201d says Samantha Bumgarner, a Dillsboro resident. &quot;Somebody entered me in the contest. It was the first banjo contest I was ever in, and I was nervous. And here I looked up and saw all these fine banjos coming in from Asheville. I wanted to leave, but they wouldn\u2019t let me. I tell you I was so nervous I didn\u2019t know I was hitting the strings. But I won that contest. And I\u2019ve been winning them ever since.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/lifestyle\/heritage\/history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Laurel of Asheville\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thelaurelofasheville\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-06-21T11:55:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/History-replacement-1-copy-e1624276400964.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Amy Pryor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AshevilleLaurel\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AshevilleLaurel\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Amy Pryor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thelaurelofasheville.com\\\/updatestage\\\/lifestyle\\\/heritage\\\/history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thelaurelofasheville.com\\\/updatestage\\\/lifestyle\\\/heritage\\\/history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Amy Pryor\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thelaurelofasheville.com\\\/updatestage\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/13d76582350fe4093b37d2b69174af00\"},\"headline\":\"History Feature: \u201cAunt\u201d Samantha Bumgarner\u2019s Musical Legacy to Be Honored\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-06-21T11:55:19+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thelaurelofasheville.com\\\/updatestage\\\/lifestyle\\\/heritage\\\/history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":535,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thelaurelofasheville.com\\\/updatestage\\\/lifestyle\\\/heritage\\\/history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thelaurelofasheville.com\\\/updatestage\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2021\\\/06\\\/History-replacement-1-copy-e1624276400964.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Entertainment and Music\",\"Heritage\\\/History\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/thelaurelofasheville.com\\\/updatestage\\\/lifestyle\\\/heritage\\\/history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thelaurelofasheville.com\\\/updatestage\\\/lifestyle\\\/heritage\\\/history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thelaurelofasheville.com\\\/updatestage\\\/lifestyle\\\/heritage\\\/history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored\\\/\",\"name\":\"History Feature: \u201cAunt\u201d Samantha Bumgarner\u2019s Musical Legacy to Be Honored - The Laurel of Asheville\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thelaurelofasheville.com\\\/updatestage\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thelaurelofasheville.com\\\/updatestage\\\/lifestyle\\\/heritage\\\/history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thelaurelofasheville.com\\\/updatestage\\\/lifestyle\\\/heritage\\\/history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thelaurelofasheville.com\\\/updatestage\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2021\\\/06\\\/History-replacement-1-copy-e1624276400964.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-06-21T11:55:19+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thelaurelofasheville.com\\\/updatestage\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/13d76582350fe4093b37d2b69174af00\"},\"description\":\"\u201cWe was in Canton, and they was havin\u2019 a fiddlers\u2019 convention,\u201d says Samantha Bumgarner, a Dillsboro resident. \\\"Somebody entered me in the contest. 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It was the first banjo contest I was ever in, and I was nervous. And here I looked up and saw all these fine banjos coming in from Asheville. I wanted to leave, but they wouldn\u2019t let me. I tell you I was so nervous I didn\u2019t know I was hitting the strings. But I won that contest. And I\u2019ve been winning them ever since.\u201d","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/lifestyle\/heritage\/history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/lifestyle\/heritage\/history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/lifestyle\/heritage\/history-feature-aunt-samantha-bumgarners-musical-legacy-to-be-honored\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/History-replacement-1-copy-e1624276400964.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/History-replacement-1-copy-e1624276400964.jpg","width":1200,"height":675,"caption":"Samantha Bumgarner. 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