NINE POUND HAMMER

Created on 21/12/2006
Latest update on 21/03/2024

Artist: Al Hopkins & his Buckle Busters
Author: traditional
Label: Brunswick
Year: 1927

Learned from Afro-American railroad workers in 1903-1905 and they of course used floating verses while spikedriving. No wonder it's thematically linked with Spike Driver Blues (see there). They're like two children of the same parent. Roll On Buddy, Take This Hammer and even John Henry are also related somehow. The Nine Pound Hammers apparently stand out with refrain: "Roll on buddy, Don't you roll so slow, How can I roll, When the wheels won't go".

Covers:

1928:

Frank Blevins & His Tar Heel Rattlers [reissued on cd Music From The Lost Provinces: Old Time String Bands 1927-1931 with recordings from the Ashe County, NC area (Old Hat); Frank was 16]

1928:

Grayson & Whitter [duo credited for cutting the original of Tom Dooley among others (see there)]

1934:

Ernest Stoneman & Eddie Stoneman

1936:

Monroe Brothers [as Nine Pound Hammer Is Too Heavy]

1947:

Merle Travis [miner song in league with his Dark As A Dungeon and Sixteen Tons (see there)]

1955:

Tex Williams

1956:

Sanford Clark

1961:

Stanley Brothers

1962:

Johnny Cash

1962:

Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs

1962:

Lorne Greene

1962:

Bill Monroe

1962:

Brothers Four

1963:

Tom Rush

1964:

Chet Atkins

1967:

Beau Brummels

1972:

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band [with Merle Travis]

1973:

Townes Van Zandt

1992:

Doc Watson

1998:

Jorma Kaukonen

Most covers credit Merle Travis, who by the time of these earliest recordings was only 10 years old. On Bear Family comp The Johnson City Sessions there's a Roll On Buddy from 1928 by Charlie Barnum & his Brothers, recorded by Frank Warner for Columbia.

Contact


If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:

Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)

info@originals.be

No Facebook No Twitter