Songs About John Henry

Bill’s lyrics from more than a half a century ago are somewhat inappropriate by today’s standards. Even back then he received criticism for describing the young John Henry as a “little colored boy”. Other classic John Henry versions also refer to the adult John as a “boy” as we will see below. “Boy” is certainly not an appropriate or respectful term then or now for an adult male of any race. But if you ignore the inappropriate cultural stereotype references, all of these songs about John Henry have one thing in common: they idolize him as a strong, determined hard working mountain of a man.

John Henry is considered a folk character but he might have existed in real life. Guy Johnson, a professor at the University of North Carolina investigated the legend in the 1920’s and interviewed a man named Neil Miller, “(who) told me in plain words how he had come to the tunnel with his father at 17, how he carried water and drills for the steel drivers, how he saw John Henry every day, and, finally, all about the contest between John Henry and the steam drill.”

Miller was quoted as saying: “When the agent for the steam drill company brought the drill here, John Henry wanted to drive against it. He took a lot of pride in his work and he hated to see a machine take the work of men like him. Well, they decided to hold a test to get an idea of how practical the steam drill was. The test went on all day and part of the next day. John Henry won. He wouldn’t rest enough, and he overdid. He took sick and died soon after that.”

Mr. Miller described the steam drill in detail. Johnson made a sketch of it and later when he looked up pictures of the early steam drills, he found the description correct. And when the professor asked people about Mr. Miller’s reputation, and they all said, “If Neal Miller said anything happened, it happened.”

There are more than a few good songs about John Henry, all with different but sometimes intersecting melodies. Next most familiar to Bluegrass fans is The Death of John Henry. Uncle Dave Macon recorded an early version of this ballad but my favorite version comes from Ralph Stanley:

Doc Watson recorded one of my other favorites when it comes to John Henry songs. The song Walk on Boy was written by Wayne Walker and Mel Tillis. In the last verse, our fully grown hero refers to himself as a “boy” but we’ll let that slide because it’s a great song:

The song gives a different version of John’s childhood’ like when he leaves home at the age of ten and gets a job “workin’ on the levee takin’ water to the hard workin’ men.” But there’s no mistaking that we have the right John Henry after the last verse:

Unfortunately in my experience, John Henry songs do not tend to make very good jam material. The standard Bill Monroe version is familiar to most but it has never gone over all that well when I have attempted it in a jam. Too bad because it has lots of verses so everybody gets a break or two.

This last song Walk on Boy, is even more of a jam buster because it has a lot more than “three chords and the truth.” For example, if you start at the lyric above, “Tell him I’m the boy…”, the chord changes on every beat in the sequence E minor, G, C, A minor, B7, B7, E minor (or something like that, I’m never quite sure).

My final suggestion for your listening pleasure is a song by Justin Townes Earle. Justin is the son of Steve Earle and named for Townes Van Zandt. They killed John Henry isn’t exclusively about our favorite steel driving man but it’s still a good indication that the fascination with this iconic American hero lives on:

John Henry. Maybe you lived in real life. Maybe you didn’t. One way or the other, your legend lives on.