excellent read from Joel Harrison. was unaware the origin of “high lonesome sound”—as brilliant a description of a sound I’ve ever come across.

The singing elevates the impact, a high, reedy tone like barbed wire that literally changed folklorist and New Lost City Ramblers guitarist John Cohen’s life. It startled him so much he made a movie about Holcomb, and coined the phrase “high lonesome sound” to describe Holcomb’s effect.