MY CURIOUS AND JOCULAR HEROES is the latest offering from academic/collector/archivist Loyal Jones, recalling and lauding four noted icons of Southern Appalachian folk scholarship.

In the 1950s and ’60s, nearly a hundred years after Francis James Child wandered the Appalachians in search of authentic English ballads, there was a resurgence of interest in the haunting story-songs that had come to America in a pure, simple, usually unaccompanied form from the British Isles.

Bascom Lamar Lunsford, an eccentric known as the “minstrel of the Appalachians,” believed there was a distinct backwoods sound and accent that needed to be preserved along with the music. His collected jokes and songs charmed both the city slickers and the hill people, who still remember him with a yearly festival in his name in North Carolina.

"Jones, a recognized folklore expert, has collaborated with and written about his subjects previously, and brings a wide range of knowledge and research to each portrait."

Josiah Combs was influenced in his avocation as a folklore authority by attending the Hindman School, a government settlement project, in his teens. But by that time, Jones relates, Combs “already had a head full of his mother’s old British ballads.” Combining a scholarly bent and a love of earthy humor, Combs wrote, among other works, a genealogy of his family that included the classic “I Am My Own Grandfather.”

The vivid family recollections of Kentuckian Cratis D. Williams went back to pioneer days. He became a major source of information about southern Appalachian speech patterns and strove through his academic role to infuse the mountain people with a sense of pride in their heritage. The graduate school of North Carolina’s Appalachian State University is named for Williams.

Attending a one-room schoolhouse as a boy, Leonard Ward Roberts studied at Berea College, famed for its promotion of folk arts and crafts. Like others in Jones’ examination, Roberts collected folk tales and songs in a very local area of Kentucky. Many of the original sound recordings collected by all four men are still accessible.

Much of the charm of MY CURIOUS AND JOCULAR HEROES comes from the collected materials particular to each “hero,” recounted when appropriate in a local vernacular, such as this from the Combs collection: “My nose informs me hit’s time to stick my feet under the dinner table.” Roberts noted an old-timer bragging that the land in his area was so rich that “it only takes three ears of corn to make a dozen.” Ballad selections (with musical notation and lyrics) include better-known offerings like “Little Marget” and “The Darby Ram” and old-time hoedown favorites like “Cluck Old Hen.”

Jones, a recognized folklore expert, has collaborated with and written about his subjects previously, and brings a wide range of knowledge and research to each portrait. With one foot in academia and one in the hills of home, each of these men, and Jones himself, has kept the spirit of mountain music, humor and folklore alive --- and kicking --- as a heritage for all Americans.