"John Hardy" is a traditional
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
folk song
Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...
based on the life of a railroad worker living in
McDowell County, West Virginia
McDowell County is a county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 19,111. Its county seat is Welch. McDowell County is the southernmost county in the state. It was created in 1858 by the Virginia Genera ...
in the Spring of 1893. The historical John Hardy is believed to have gotten into a drunken dispute during a craps game held near
Keystone, and subsequently killed a man named Thomas Drews. Hardy was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and was hanged on January 19, 1894, with 3,000 people allegedly in attendance. Hardy is believed to have made peace with the Lord the morning before his death by being baptized in a river.
Overview
The song has been performed by numerous artists from the 1920s through the present, including (in alphabetical order)
Tom Adams,
Clarence "Tom" Ashley,
Long John Baldry
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,
Bobby Bare
Robert Joseph Bare Sr. (born April 7, 1935) is an American country music singer and songwriter, best known for the songs "Marie Laveau", " Detroit City" and "500 Miles Away from Home". He is the father of Bobby Bare Jr., also a musician.
Early ca ...
,
Leon Bibb
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...
,
Norman Blake,
Billy Strings
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Early life
Billy Strings was born William Lee Apostol on October 3, 1992, in Lansing, Michigan. His fath ...
,
Dock Boggs
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,
Jimmy Bowen
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Early life ...
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The Carter Family
Carter Family was a traditional American folk music group that recorded between 1927 and 1956. Their music had a profound impact on bluegrass, country, Southern Gospel, pop and rock musicians as well as on the U.S. folk revival of the 1960s.
...
,
Billy Childish
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,
Roy Clark
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,
Michael Cleveland
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Early life
Cleveland was born in Henryville, Indiana. He was born completely blind and a childhood ear infection caused him to lose 80% of his hearing in one ea ...
,
The Coachmen
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Fred Cockerham
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Cockerham was one of the seven children of Elias and Betty Jane Cockerham in North Carolina. He was one of the most accomplished of al ...
,
Country Gazette
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The Country Gentlemen
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,
The Dillards
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Band ...
,
Lonnie Donegan
Anthony James Donegan (29 April 1931 – 3 November 2002), known as Lonnie Donegan, was a British skiffle singer, songwriter and musician, referred to as the "King of Skiffle", who influenced 1960s British pop and rock musicians. Born in Scotl ...
,
The Easy Riders
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Their gre ...
,
Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Ramblin' Jack Elliott (born Elliot Charles Adnopoz; August 1, 1931) is an American folk singer and songwriter.
Life and career
Elliott was born in 1931 in Brooklyn, New York, United States, the son of Florence (Rieger) and Abraham Adnopoz, a ...
,
Paul Evans,
Raymond Fairchild
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,
Flatt & Scruggs
Flatt and Scruggs were an American bluegrass music, bluegrass duo. Singer and guitarist Lester Flatt and banjo player Earl Scruggs, both of whom had been members of Bill Monroe's band, the Bluegrass Boys, from 1945 to 1948, formed the duo in 1948 ...
with
Doc Watson
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,
Bela Fleck
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*Bela Pratapgarh, a town in Pratapgarh District, Uttar Pradesh, India
*Bela, a small village near Bhandara, Maharashtra, India
*Bela, another name for the biblical city Zoara
* Bela, Dang, in Nepal
* Bela, Janakpur, ...
,
Michael Fracasso
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He was a regular performer at the Cornelia Street Cafe's Monda ...
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Bill Frisell
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The Gun Club
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History Early days (1979–1980)
The Gun Club w ...
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Alvin Youngblood Hart
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Hart was born in Oakland, California, and spent some time in Carroll County, Mississippi, in his youth, where he was influenced by the Mississippi ...
,
Roy Harvey
William Charles Roy Harvey (6 January 1921 – 23 April 2006), was Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia from 1982 until 1985. A member of the Labor Party, he spent a total of 27 years on the Council.
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Higher Ground Bluegrass Wayne Henderson,
Bart Hopkin
Bart Hopkin is a builder of experimental musical instruments and a writer and publisher on the subject. Hopkin runs the website windworld.com, which provides resources regarding unusual instruments.
Hopkin published the magazine ''Experimental Mus ...
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Lightnin' Hopkins
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,
Cisco Houston
Gilbert Vandine "Cisco" Houston (August 18, 1918 – April 29, 1961) was an American folk singer and songwriter, who is closely associated with Woody Guthrie due to their extensive history of recording together.
Houston was a regular recording ...
,
Burl Ives
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Tommy Jarrell
Thomas Jefferson Jarrell (March 1, 1901 – January 28, 1985) was an American fiddler, banjo player, and singer from the Mount Airy region of North Carolina's Appalachian Mountains.
Biography
He was born in Surry County, North Carolina, United ...
,
Buell Kazee
Buell Kazee (August 29, 1900 - August 31, 1976) was an American country and folk singer. He is considered one of the most successful folk musicians of the 1920s and experienced a career comeback during the American folk music revival of the 1960 ...
,
Kentucky Colonels
The Kentucky Colonels were a member of the American Basketball Association for all of the league's nine years. The name is derived from the historic Kentucky colonels. The Colonels won the most games and had the highest winning percentage of ...
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The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and ...
,
Koerner, Ray & Glover
Koerner, Ray & Glover was a loose-knit group of three blues musicians from Minneapolis, Minnesota: "Spider" John Koerner on guitar and vocals, Dave "Snaker" Ray on guitar and vocals, and Tony "Little Sun" Glover on harmonica. They were notable fi ...
, Tim Lake,
Lead Belly
Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...
,
The Lilly Brothers
The Lilly Brothers, (Bea Lilly, born Michael Burt Lilly, December 15, 1921 – September 18, 2005 and brother Everett Lilly, born July 1, 1924 – May 8, 2012) were bluegrass musicians born in Clear Creek, West Virginia. They have been credited ...
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Laura Love,
Manfred Mann
Manfred Mann were an English rock band, formed in London and active between 1962 and 1969. The group were named after their keyboardist Manfred Mann, who later led the successful 1970s group Manfred Mann's Earth Band. The band had two differen ...
(as the
B-side
The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...
to their hit single "
Sha La La
"Sha La La" is a song written by Robert Mosely (whose name is spelled "Moseley" on the record) and Robert Taylor. The Shirelles released the original version of the song as a single in 1964 which reached #15 on the U.S. R&B chart and #69 on the ...
"),
Ed McCurdy
Edward Potts McCurdy (January 11, 1919 – March 23, 2000) was an American folk singer, songwriter, and television actor. His most well-known song was the anti-war " Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream", written in 1950.
Career
Born to ...
,
John McEuen
John McEuen, born December 19, 1945 in Oakland, California, is an American folk musician and a founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
Career Solo work
John McEuen was born in Oakland, California. In 1964, at age 18, he became intereste ...
,
Joni Mitchell
Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell ( Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American musician, producer, and painter. Among the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her sta ...
,
Katy Moffatt
Katherine Louella "Katy" Moffatt (born November 19, 1950) is an American musician, lyricist, composer, vocalist. She is the sister of country singer-songwriter Hugh Moffatt.
Midnight radio
Moffatt became impassioned by music as a child grow ...
,
Bill Monroe
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The genre take ...
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Andrew Morse
Andrew Morse (born March 10, 1974) is an American journalist and television news executive. He was the Executive Vice President of CNN US, as well as EVP and chief digital officer of CNN Worldwide from 2013 until 2022. Morse is also the co-founder ...
,
Alan Munde
Alan Munde (pronounced "mun-dee") (born November 4, 1946) is an American five-string banjo player and bluegrass musician.
Biography
Born in Norman, Oklahoma, Munde learned banjo from a well-regarded Oklahoman banjo player, Ed Shelton. He frequen ...
,
Northern Lights,
Osborne Brothers
The Osborne Brothers, Sonny (October 29, 1937 – October 24, 2021) and Bobby (born December 7, 1931), were an influential and popular bluegrass act during the 1960s and 1970s and until Sonny retired in 2005. They are probably best known for ...
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Peter Ostroushko
Peter Ostroushko (August 12, 1953 – February 24, 2021) was an American violinist and mandolinist. He performed regularly on the radio program ''A Prairie Home Companion'' and with a variety of bands and orchestras in Minneapolis–Saint Paul an ...
,
Pine Valley Cosmonauts
Pine Valley Cosmonauts (PVC) are a musical ensemble from Chicago, Illinois.
History
The group was initiated by Jon Langford (also of the Waco Brothers and The Mekons) as a covers group, with both repertory and cast of backing members constantly ...
,
Jerry Reed
Jerry Reed Hubbard (March 20, 1937 – September 1, 2008) was an American singer, guitarist, composer, and songwriter as well as an actor who appeared in more than a dozen films. His signature songs included " Guitar Man", " U.S. Male", "A Thi ...
,
Ola Belle Reed
Ola Belle Reed (August 18, 1916 – August 16, 2002) was an American folk singer, songwriter and banjo player.
Early life
Reed was born Ola Wave Campbell in the unincorporated town of Grassy Creek, Ashe County, North Carolina, to Arthur Camp ...
,
Don Reno
Donald Wesley Reno (February 21, 1926Trischka, Tony, "Don Reno", ''Banjo Song Book'', Oak Publications, 1977, – October 16, 1984) was an American bluegrass and country musician, best known as a pioneering banjo and guitar player who pa ...
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Tony Rice
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,
Luther Russell
Luther Russell (born November 30, 1970) is an American musician who has been recording since 1991. He is the grandson of songwriter Bob RussellBessman, Jim (8 January 2005)Russell's Songs Still 'Get Around' At ASCAP Fete ''Billboard (magazine)'' ...
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Doug Sahm
Douglas Wayne Sahm (November 6, 1941 – November 18, 1999) was an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist born in San Antonio, Texas. Sahm is regarded as one of the main figures of Tex-Mex music, and as an important per ...
,
Earl Scruggs
Earl Eugene Scruggs (January 6, 1924 – March 28, 2012) was an American musician noted for popularizing a three-finger banjo picking style, now called "Scruggs style", which is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. His three-fin ...
,
Charles Seeger
Charles Louis Seeger Jr. (December 14, 1886 – February 7, 1979) was an American musicologist, composer, teacher, and folklorist. He was the father of the American folk singers Pete Seeger (1919–2014), Peggy Seeger (b. 1935), and Mike Seeger ( ...
,
Mike Seeger
Mike Seeger (August 15, 1933August 7, 2009) was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, ...
,
Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...
,
Silver Apples
Silver Apples were an American electronic rock group from New York, active between 1967 and 1970, before reforming in the mid-1990s. It was composed of Simeon (born Simeon Oliver Coxe III, June 4, 1938 – September 8, 2020), who performed o ...
,
Martin Simpson
Martin Stewart Simpson (born 5 May 1953) is an English folk singer, guitarist and songwriter. His music reflects a wide variety of influences and styles, rooted in Britain, Ireland, America and beyond. He builds a purposeful, often upbeat voi ...
,
Sir Douglas Quintet
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Sleepy Man Banjo Boys
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,
Hobart Smith
Hobart ( ; Nuennonne/Palawa kani: ''nipaluna'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Home to almost half of all Tasmanians, it is the least-populated Australian state capital city, and second-small ...
,
Chris Smither
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Early life, influences and educat ...
,
Roger Sprung
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,
John Stewart John Stewart may refer to:
Business
* John Aikman Stewart (1822–1926), American banker
* John Killough Stewart (1867–1938), businessman and philanthropist in Queensland, Australia
* John K. Stewart (1870–1916), American entrepreneur and inve ...
,
Ernest Stoneman
Ernest Van "Pop" Stoneman (May 25, 1893 – June 14, 1968) was an American musician, ranked among the prominent recording artists of country music's first commercial decade.
Biography
Born in a log cabin in Monarat (Iron Ridge), Carroll Count ...
,
The String Cheese Incident
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, Steve Suffet,
Todd Taylor
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,
George Thorogood
George Lawrence Thorogood (born February 24, 1950) is an American musician, singer and songwriter from Wilmington, Delaware.
His "high-energy boogie-blues" sound became a staple of 1980s rock radio, with hits like his original songs "Bad to the ...
,
Tony Trischka
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,
The Twilights
The Twilights were an Australian rock band that formed in Adelaide in 1964. The band developed from a three-piece acapella group consisting of Glenn Shorrock, Mike Sykes and Clem "Paddy" McCartney, who merged with instrumental group the Hurric ...
,
Uncle Tupelo
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,
Ben Webster
Benjamin Francis Webster (March 27, 1909 – September 20, 1973) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.
Career Early life and career
A native of Kansas City, Missouri, he studied violin, learned how to play blues on the piano from ...
,
The Williamson Brothers
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and
Glenn Yarbrough
Glenn Robertson Yarbrough (January 12, 1930 – August 11, 2016) was an American folk singer and guitarist. He was the lead singer (tenor) with the Limeliters from 1959 to 1963 and also had a prolific solo career. Yarbrough had a restlessne ...
.
The earliest known recordings are credited to Eva Davis for
Columbia in 1924,
Ernest Stoneman
Ernest Van "Pop" Stoneman (May 25, 1893 – June 14, 1968) was an American musician, ranked among the prominent recording artists of country music's first commercial decade.
Biography
Born in a log cabin in Monarat (Iron Ridge), Carroll Count ...
for
Okeh
Okeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Ott ...
in 1925, and
Buell Kazee
Buell Kazee (August 29, 1900 - August 31, 1976) was an American country and folk singer. He is considered one of the most successful folk musicians of the 1920s and experienced a career comeback during the American folk music revival of the 1960 ...
for
Brunswick in 1927. As with many other traditional folk songs, lyrics change from version to version. Early folk historians confused the ballads of John Hardy and
John Henry. This has led to a mixing of stories related to Hardy and Henry. In fact, the historical John Henry was a steel driver, not a railroad worker.
John Harrington Cox, in an early (1919) article in ''The Journal of American Folklore'' attempts to disentangle the history of the two songs and their main characters, and provides a detailed discussion of five versions of "John Hardy."
Interestingly, most later versions of the song open with the lyric, "John Hardy was a desperate little man." But all contemporary accounts of the real John Hardy describe him as about six feet tall and strongly built.
Alternate early lyrics describe him as a "brave little man" or a "brave and desperate man."
Martin Simpson
Martin Stewart Simpson (born 5 May 1953) is an English folk singer, guitarist and songwriter. His music reflects a wide variety of influences and styles, rooted in Britain, Ireland, America and beyond. He builds a purposeful, often upbeat voi ...
has written and recorded a song 'Thomas Drew' which recounts the tale from the POV of the victim.
See also
* "
Stagger Lee
"Stagger Lee", also known as "Stagolee" and other variants, is a popular American folk song about the murder of Billy Lyons by "Stag" Lee Shelton, in St. Louis, Missouri, at Christmas 1895. The song was first published in 1911 and first recorded ...
," another standard folk ballad of a gambler-turned-murderer
References
External links
Historical account of John Hardy's trial and execution
{{authority control
American folk songs
Burl Ives songs
Lead Belly songs
Songs about West Virginia
Year of song unknown
Songs about criminals
Cultural depictions of American men
Murder ballads