Well, at least I'm not more than a week late for this post....
My introduction to this week's tune was farting around one night looking for different music and coming across a version (note the joy in the performers as they sing it) of it by Johnny Cash and the Carter Family, which led me to finding out that this week's artist was among the first to popularize it (though the Carter Family were the first to record it). It's become such a standard of folk that if Jesus and the Twelve Apostles came back to earth and decided to be a folk band, it'd be one of the first songs they'd record....
I wrote about Woody Guthrie in Jukebox XLVIII (the first year I wrote posts for FNJ), but in my enthusiasm for writing his short bio, I neglected to mention that Guthrie has been elected into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and was the recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. I also failed to note his rather lengthy discography. And because of the times we live in, I'd like to remind everyone that Guthrie had a sticked affixed to his guitar that said, "This Machine Kills Fascists." Amen.
"Worried Man Blues" is a folk song that has been passed down through the generations, with the lyrics often changing by recording, though the chorus generally remains the same. As noted above, the Carter Family is the first mention I found of recording it (in 1930). Guthrie recorded his version in 1940. It appears on the Asch Recordings, a noted series of Guthrie albums featuring his most well known songs.
Fun Fact: Not that anyone but me gives a shit, but I can play this week's tune on the guitar from beginning to end, all by my lonesome. Woot, woot!
One of the beauties, for me, of American folk music is its simplicity. Not that I don't love a song full of extravaganza, but there's something about an acoustic guitar or a banjo or a fiddle and the accompanying harmonies that I've always loved. "Worried Man Blues" follows this tradition (at least in Guthrie's version)--it's just Guthrie and his guitar and as a performer it is his job to sell the story (convicted man regretting his "awful crime"), and he nails it. There's a down home touch to the vocals and the twang of the guitar fits perfectly for a simple man reflecting on the error of his ways. It's an American classic, and among the best of what the roots of American folk has to offer.
Lyric Sheet: "That train pulled out/Twenty-one coaches long/And the woman I love/Is on that train and gone..."
Enjoy:
Republicans = Nazis
Peace,
emaycee
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