Burnett and Rutherford Biographies 1926
In 2003, “Man of Constant Sorrow” was voted the number 20 song in CMT’s 100 Greatest Songs in Country Music. That’s the 20th greatest song all-time! The song appeared in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, under the title "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow." Performed by the fictitious Soggy Bottom Boys in the movie, it was recorded by Dan Tyminski, Harley Allen, and Pat Enright. It was a hit in the movie for the Soggy Bottom Boys and later became a hit single in real life. It received a CMA for "Single of the Year" and a Grammy for "Best Country Collaboration with Vocals" and it peaked at #35 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart.
When asked about “Man of Constant Sorrow,” a song he called “The Farewell Song” that appeared in his 1913 songbook, Dick Burnett replied, “It might be my song- I dunno.” The success is a testament to how important the songs in this book really are or could be. The fact that Burnett never recorded the song and probably didn’t write doesn’t matter. What matters is that the songs of early Country Music are preserved and shared in this and future generations.
On November 6, 1926 Burnett and his playing partner Leonard Rutherford made their first recordings for Columbia in Atlanta, Georgia. They started the session for Columbia exec Frank Walker by playing an up-beat bluesy tune titled “Lost John.” They finished the six-song set with the classic ballad, “Pearly Byran.”
Early Life
Richard “Dick” Burnett from Monticello, Kentucky was one of nine children. They were orphaned when Burnett was only twelve years of age. In his youth he worked as a logger and wheat thrasher then a driller and tool dresser in the oil fields in Aspen Valley. While growing up he sang and learned to play banjo, dulcimer, fiddle and guitar.
After he married and had a small child, an event happened in 1907 that would change his occupation and his life forever. Dick Burnett was walking home for his job at the barbershop in Stearns, Kentucky when he was robbed at gunpoint by a railroad tramp. Rather than lose his money, he rushed the robber and was shot in the face by a shotgun blast, leaving him blind. Unable to work at the barbershop, he decided to become a musician to earn money for his wife and small child. Soon after healed from the shooting, he began traveling from town to town playing on the street for nickels and dimes with a tin cup tied to his leg. When he could afford it he took the train, sometimes he’d walk.
By 1909 he was nicknamed Blind Dick Burnett (also the “Blind Minstrel of Monticello") and was touring the South from Florida to Ohio, entertaining at fairs and schoolhouses. He sold ballets (single sheets with the words to the song ptinted on them) to earn extra money. In 1913 he earned enough money to publish his book of ballets in Danville, Virginia. It included “The Lost Ship” about the Titanic sinking of 1912, “The C & O Railroad” (Along Came The Wreck of the FFV), “The Reckless Hobo,” The Jolly Butchers” (which he claimed sold 4,000 copies); and the “Farewell Song” (known now as “Man of Constant Sorrow”). According to Charles Wolfe, the melody of “Man Of Constant Sorrow” was based on an old Baptist hymn, “The Wandering Boy.”
Teams Up With Rutherford
By 1914 he had found a 14 year old boy, fiddler Leonard Rutherford, to accompany him on his travels. Rutherford was from nearby Sommerset and was learning to play the fiddle. Burnett was willing to teach him if Rutherford would help him get around and play with him. It was the star of a 35-year partnership with Rutherford playing fiddle and Burnett singing and playing banjo.
“Other people cut their music up,” said Burnett. “Me and Leonard, we played every note exactly together.” This unison style was typical of many early string band and country musicians.
Dick Burnett and Leonard Rutherford both came from south central Kentucky, a few miles north of the Tennessee border and about 60 miles west of the coal-mining belt. They spent most of their lives in Monticello, Wayne County, in an area rich in musical heritage. John Lair's Renfro Valley settlement was only 50 miles to the northeast, and many of his musicians were drawn from the southern Kentucky region. Emry Arthur and his brothers, prolific recording artists in the 1920'sand 1930's, were raised "just up the road" from Dick Burnett; other musicians from the area included banjoist Marion Underwood, singer-guitarist John Foster, the Walker string band, and fiddler Elmer Stanley. Monticello itself boasted a stately old courthouse with a big shady front lawn, which was the Saturday gathering place for musicians from miles around. Even today the people of Wayne County have a strong appreciation of traditional music, and the songs of Burnett and Rutherford are still very much alive in the community in spite of the fact that fiddler Rutherford died in 1954 and Dick Burnett in 1977.
W.L. Gregory, a Monticello fiddler: “I was born in 1905 at a place called Rocky Branch, about 15 miles southeast of Monticello. When we were young, our family used to play a lot of music. My brother Jim- he’s dead now- was a good banjo player. As kids we would play on old homemade fiddles, syrup buckets, wooden necks. I’ve played on ‘em since I was 12 years old. Jim and I, we used to enter a lot of contests in the Monticello area, did pretty good too, up till along in the 1930’s. Then we stopped playing. Just got married off, got separated. Broke up playing, and that was it. Went to doing this veterinarian work about 1926, and I’d have to say that was my occupation. Music’s been a hobby, just played on the side. But I had stopped playing for 18 or 20 years there, and just started getting back to it here these last 6 or 7 years, playing with my grandson and then Clyde [Davenport] here.”
“The first time I saw Leonard Rutherford was in 1923. He was sure a better fiddler than I was - - I was young, and he had me worsted by 7-8 years. When I got in with him, got to playing, me with the fiddle and him with the bow, playing tunes together on the fiddle, that’s the way I began. I began to step it up, stepped it up in his style. I learned most of my style from him. Then I met Dick and travelled with him for a while about 1929-1930, sometimes sort of replacing Leonard; Dick would play banjo, I played violin. We would go out 75-80 miles, be gone a week at at time. We’d set up shows, sell tickets back at the door in those days; didn’t hand out bills, just advertised maybe in stores and restaurants. Once I remember we was playing in King Mountain and they called out from the audience and asked up to play Ladies On The Steamboat and we did, and Dick got in a big way, and slapping the hide you know and playing his juice [Jews] harp [Dick Burnett did and uncanny imitation of a juice harp with his throat]. And he knocked the thumb screw out of the neck and hit the string loose and it wound around the neck and Dick, he just kept going through it on four strings and finally wound it up and he laughed real big and said, ‘Folks, I knocked my thumb screw out but I finished for you on four strings’, and the house, well, it went wild. Dick was a showman, a real comic in his younger days. He was a great entertainer. And he’d fiddle ever once in awhile. He could play good breakdowns, but was a little rough. Buckin’ Mule, stuff like that, Train 45. When me and Leonard played with him, out somewhere, we would always give him the fiddle on those number cause he’d cut up with it, you know, but come to a slick one that had to be slicked up, he’d hand it back to us then. But he could always attract a crowd.”
Charles K. Wolfe interviewed Burnett, who was still working as a chair maker at the age of 90 in Monticello, in April 1973 (Old Time Music 9). During the interview, Burnett claimed that he and Rutherford initially recorded because a furniture storeowner at the Bonnie Blue Coal Camp in Virginia wanted to sell records of them. Because of the storeowner's interest in the two musicians, he talked a Columbia talent scout in Atlanta. They had just established their “Country” 15000-D series (Old Familiar Tunes) the year before with Riley Puckett, Ernest Thompson, Samantha Bumgarner and Eva Davis. Curiously, both Puckett and Thompson were blind. Frank Walker wrote to them and invited them to record at the representative’s recommendation. Burnett & Rutherford made their first recordings for Columbia in Atlanta, Georgia on November 6, 1926.
“You know in traveling everywhere I’d meet people selling song ballets,” said Burnett in an interview with Charles Wolfe. “(I’d meet) other blind people in particular that way. We’d always swap ballets (songs) if somebody had a good one. I’d get them all. I’d get someone to hum the tune to it, I was always quick to catch the tune. I would get the tune then somebody would read the words.” Burnett remembered learning "Willie Moore" from a printed ballad.
The region produced other banjoists like Buell Kazee, Marion Underwood, B.F. Shelton and Lily Mae Ledford (Coon Creek Girls). Another recording artist Emry Arthur, who was friends with Burnett, also claimed to have written, “Man of Constant Sorrow.” Emry was the first to record the song in 1928 for Vocalion. Burnett never recorded the song but his version was similar to Arthur’s, both sang a different melody than the more modern version included in this book.
Burnett and Rutherford crossed paths with nearly all the greats of old-time music: the Skillet Lickers, the Carter Family, Mae and Bob, George Reneau, Charlie Oaks, Byrd Moore, Arthur Smith, Emry Arthur, and many others. They recorded some of the classic sides in old-time music, and their popularity on records kept them recording steadily throughout the 1920's. Their appeal on radio allowed them to broadcast from places like WLW in Cincinatti and from the famous Renfro Valley Barn Dance. Countless fiddlers, singers, and pickers learned from them, either via records or through their many personal appearances.
Rutherford died in 1954 from complications related to epilepsy. Burnett died in 1977, four years after his interview with Charles Wolfe.
Complete Recordings of Burnett and Rutherford: All Night Long Blues; Are You Happy Or Lonesome?; Billy In The Low Ground; Blackberry Blossom; Bonnie Blue Waltz; Cabin with the Roses at the Door; Cumberland Gap; Curly Headed Woman; Going Around The World; Going Across The Sea; Grandma's Rag; Green Valley Waltz; I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow (Credited to Burnett but not recorded); I’ll Be With You When The Roses Bloom Again; Knoxville Rag; Ladies On The Steamboat; Little Stream Of Whiskey; Lost John; My Sarah Jane; My Sweetheart in Tennessee; Pearl Byran; Ramblin' Reckless Hobo; She Is A Flower From The Fields Of Alabama; She’s A Flower; Short Life Of Trouble; Sleeping Lulu; Taylor's Quickstep; There's No One Like the Old Folks; Two Faithful Lovers; Under The Pale Moonlight; Weeping Willow Tree; Willie Moore