John Henry: A Song History

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In "John Henry," a steel driver on a railroad gang pits himself against a steam drill brought in by the boss; most versions have him beat the machine, at the cost of his life.[1] Britannica calls him the hero of a "widely sung African American folk ballad," and observes that his story has lived mostly in song, with few tales told about him outside it.[2] The Traditional Ballad Index dates the song to at least 1909, when it turned up in the Journal of American Folklore.[1]

Gouache of a railroad tunnel cut through rock, with a blast going off nearby

Nicolino Calyo, View of the Tunnel of the Harlem Railroad, gouache, about 1837. A New York railroad tunnel being blasted through rock, shown for the tunnel work in the song; it has no connection to John Henry.

Whether a real John Henry stood behind the song, and where, is still argued.[1] The first two major scholarly books on the question, by Guy B. Johnson in 1929 and Louis Chappell in 1933, both searched around the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad's Big Bend Tunnel in West Virginia, the location the ballad most often names.[1] Britannica dates the tunnel's construction to 1870 through 1873 and says modern steam drills first came to the South in 1870, so in its view a test of hand against machine there was possible.[2] The West Virginia Encyclopedia notes that Johnson and Chappell talked with tunnel workers and their families yet neither fully traced the man, and that a John Henry statue and historical park now stand near the tunnel at Talcott.[3] In 2006 historian Scott Reynolds Nelson argued instead for a young Black man from New Jersey, convicted of theft in Virginia in 1866 and sent from the state penitentiary to work on the C&O's Lewis Tunnel, where, by his account, at least 300 prisoners died.[4][1] John Garst, a retired chemistry professor, argued that the contest took place in Alabama in 1887, near Leeds, and Nelson replied that Garst's case rested on old oral testimony, a census entry and supposition, with no archival research behind it.[5] One Ballad Index editor now finds Garst's case very compelling, while awaiting a full-length publication of his evidence.[1]

Fiddlin' John Carson recorded a fiddle-and-voice "John Henry Blues" for OKeh in Atlanta in March 1924, and Gid Tanner and Riley Puckett sang "John Henry" with fiddle and guitar for Columbia in New York that September.[6][7] As a fiddle tune it is widespread across the upland South and has been a favorite among musicians around Galax, Virginia, and Mount Airy, North Carolina, Tommy Jarrell among them.[8] Bing Futch includes it, in DAD tuning, in All Over The Map, a collection of dulcimer tablature for jam sessions that mixes a few of his own pieces with folk classics, published by J.O.B. Entertainment and downloaded with MP3 recordings of each song.[9]

Our book that contains the song "John Henry"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Ballad Index: "John Henry [Laws I1]".
  2. Encyclopaedia Britannica: "John Henry".
  3. e-WV, The West Virginia Encyclopedia: "John Henry".
  4. Publishers Weekly: "Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend".
  5. History News Network: "On the Trail of the Real John Henry".
  6. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "OKeh matrix 8610. John Henry blues / Fiddlin' John Carson".
  7. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia matrix 140031. John Henry / Riley Puckett ; Gid Tanner".
  8. The Traditional Tune Archive: "John Henry".
  9. Bing Futch: "All Over The Map".
  10. Image: Nicolino Calyo, View of the Tunnel of the Harlem Railroad, gouache, about 1837. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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