John Henry
John Henry is an American folk hero: a Black steel-driving man who, the story goes, raced a steam-powered rock drill while cutting a railroad tunnel, won, and died with his hammer in his hand. His story lives on in one of the most recorded songs in American music.
- Type
- Narrative ballad and work (hammer) songs
- Setting
- Railroad tunnel building in the South after the Civil War
- Possible sites
- Big Bend Tunnel (West Virginia), Lewis Tunnel (Virginia), Coosa Mountain Tunnel (Alabama)
- Early recording
- Williamson Brothers & Curry, 1927
The legend
In the story John Henry is a "steel-driving man", hammering steel drills into rock to make holes for explosives as a railroad tunnel is cut. When a steam-powered drill is brought in, he challenges it to a race and wins, but his heart gives out and he dies with his hammer in his hand.
Was there a real John Henry?
Historians still debate how much of the legend is true. In the late 1920s the sociologist Guy Benton Johnson investigated the Big Bend Tunnel in West Virginia and concluded that a case could be made either for or against it. In his 2006 book Steel Drivin' Man, the historian Scott Reynolds Nelson argued that the real John Henry was born in New Jersey around 1848, appears in Virginia Penitentiary records as a prisoner and died of silicosis, and placed the contest at the Lewis Tunnel in Virginia. Other researchers have pointed to the Coosa Mountain Tunnel in Alabama.
Ballad and hammer songs
Two kinds of song carry the story. The ballad tells the tale from start to finish. The hammer songs are work songs, sung by men swinging hammers to keep time, with lines saying that the hammer that killed John Henry won't kill the singer. Some versions mix him up with John Hardy, the subject of another ballad, and scholars disagree about which songs came first.
We describe this song rather than print its words: versions differ from singer to singer, and many of the best-known texts come from particular recordings.
Recordings
| Year | Artist | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1927 | Williamson Brothers & Curry | "Gonna Die With My Hammer in My Hand" |
| 1928 | Mississippi John Hurt | Recorded as "Spike Driver Blues" |
| 1940 | Aaron Copland | Orchestral piece "John Henry", revised 1952 |
| 1960s | Johnny Cash | "The Legend of John Henry's Hammer" |
The tune is a favourite in old-time, bluegrass and country blues alike. Related: House of the Rising Sun · Tom Dooley