 In 1926, she met James William Day, a blind fiddler from Rowan County.Using the skills she had acquired as a press agent, she changed his name to Jilson Setters, secured recording contracts, and booked him (as the "Singin' Fiddler from Lost Hope Hollow") in theaters.As Jilson Setters, Day eventually played in London's Royal Albert Hall at the Festival of the English Folk Song and Dance Society, for Thomas subscribed to the belief, also held by many of her contemporaries, that in Appalachia, "the speech, song, and traditions of old England still survived" (Thomas 1940, p. 88).