When musicologist Doctor Lily Penleric is passed over, again, for a prominent teaching position, she decides to leave the city to visit her sister in the rugged mountains of Appalachia. While there, Lily, discovers a well spring of emotional "love songs" (ballads) that have been passed down through generations from the original Irish and Scottish immigrants who have settled in the area. Determined to document the history of the songs, and the recording of them as well, she is profoundly changed by the generosity, strength and freedom of the fiercely proud mountain people.