SPIKE DRIVER BLUES

Created on 21/01/2002
Latest update on 03/03/2023

Artist: Mississippi John Hurt
Author: traditional
Label: Okeh
Year: 1928

Mentioning John Henry in the lyrics (see there). This second song about him concentrates on the working conditions of these railroad men. This man is fed up with it all, delivers his hammer to the captain and calls it quits. A job is important but so is freedom. Thematically linked with Nine Pound Hammer (see there) and lyrically linked with I Got A Bulldog by the Sweet Brothers & Ernest Stoneman (Gennett - '28). This John Hurt song is featured on the Anthology Of American Folk Music.

Covers:

1934:

Lead Belly [as Take This Hammer; Lomax recording in Angola Prison Farm]

1936:

Jimmie Strothers [idem; Lomax recording in Virginia]

1937:

Blind Teddy Darby

1937:

South Carolina Ditch Diggers [as Ten Pound Hammer]

1940:

Lead Belly & The Golden Gate Quartet

1949:

Bascom Lamar Lunsford [in Swannanoa Tunnel]

1954:

Jesse Fuller [as Railroad Blues]

1954:

Emmett Brand [former slave, older than Lead Belly; recorded when he was an old man]

1955:

Ken Colyer [with Alexis Korner as Take This Hammer]

1957:

Odetta [as Take This Hammer]

1957:

Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee [idem]

1957:

Big Bill Broonzy [as Railroad Blues]

1959:

Lonnie Donegan [idem]

1961:

Dave Van Ronk

1963:

Jean Ritchie

1966:

Spencer Davis Group [as This Hammer (Hammer Song) on second lp]

1971:

Doc Watson

1984:

Philadelphia Jerry Ricks

1988:

Jerry Garcia

1989:

Brendan Croker [as Railroad Worksong]

1990:

Notting Hillbillies [idem; vocal: Brendan Croker]

1992:

Ray Stubbs [as Take This Hammer]

1999:

Taj Mahal & Toumani Diabaté [idem]

2003:

Harry Manx & Kevin Breit [idem]

2006:

Marianne Faithfull [on The Harry Smith Project Revisited]

2006:

Meindert Talma & The Negroes [as John Henry]

2009:

Pines

2013:

Rory Block

2014:

Yusuf Islam [as Tell 'Em I'm Gone, taking the credits]

2018:

John Oates

2018:

Mitch Woods [as Take This Hammer with Van Morrison and Taj Mahal]

2018:

Harry Manx [in film Time Keeper]

2023:

Van Morrison [as Take This Hammer]

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