POOR MAN
Created on 22/11/2005Latest update on 14/10/2024
Artist: Louisiana Honeydrippers
Author: Dave Rankin
Label: Folklyric
Year: 1961
Harry Oster recording in Baton Rouge. Reissued in '72 on Arhoolie as by Jim Smoak & The Louisiana Honeydrippers. On that Folklyric LP (Bayou Bluegrass) author Dave Rankin is lauded as "the Woody Guthrie of North Carolina". The Poor Man tune comes from British ballad Pretty Polly. In a call & response form it became Po' Lazarus (see there).
Covers:
- 1962:
Tom Rush [on Live At The Unicorn, his officious debut sold at concerts; Tom made it an official release when re-cutting a version for his third album Tom Rush in '65 (Elektra); Tom admits he didn't write Poor Man, but claims Dylan knew his song when he wrote Ballad Of Hollis Brown]
- 1963:
Bob Dylan [melody in The Ballad Of Hollis Brown; that Hollis murdered his whole family, lyrical inspiration from The Murder Of The Lawson Family (see there); Dylan copied Tom Rush's guitar part, or was it the Honeydrippers's banjo loop (who knew it from Dave Rankin)]
- 1965:
- 1973:
- 1989:
- 1994:
- 2000:
- 2007:
Pretty Things [all as Ballad Of Hollis Brown]
On Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin' album there's another song the Neville Brothers covered: With God On Our Side.
