Frank Noah Proffitt was an Appalachian old time banjoist who preserved the song "Tom Dooley" in the form we know it today and was a key figure in inspiring musicians of the 1960s and 1970s to play the traditional five-string banjo.
He was born in Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee, United States, and was raised in the Reese area of Watauga County, North Carolina, where he worked in a variety of jobs and lived on a farm with his wife and six children. He grew tobacco, worked as a carpenter, and in a spark plug factory. He was known for his skills as a carpenter and luthier; Proffitt's fretless banjos and dulcimers were homemade.
In 1937, Frank Proffitt met folksong collectors Anne and Frank Warner. Frank Warner was searching for a dulcimer builder and thus began a 30-year friendship and song swapping. Warner collected his songs and shared them with Alan Lomax, who included many, including the ballad "Tom Dooley" that Warner had learned from Proffitt, in his book, Folksong U.S.A.. Proffitt had learned the song from his aunt Nancy Prather, who had in turn learnt it from her mother Edy Adeline Proffitt, who had known both Dula and Laura Foster.