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Eight More Miles To Louisville
Old-Time, Song and Fiddle Tune; Words and music by Louis "Grandpa" Jones.
ARTIST: Recorded by Grandpa Jones CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes DATE: 1947
RECORDING INFO: Blake, Norman; and Tony Rice. Norman Blake & Tony Rice. Vol 2, Rounder 0266C, Cas (1990), cut#A.07; Brickman, Weissberg & Company. New Dimensions in Banjo and Bluegrass, Elektra EKS-7238, LP (197?), cut# 5; Davys. Davys, On Tour OPT-941, Cas (1994), cut#A.01; Fennigs All-Star String Band. Fennigmania, Front Hall FHR-024, LP (1981), cut# 14; Kweskin, Jim. Relax Your Mind, Vanguard VSD-79188, LP (1965), cut#A.06; Old Hat Band. Concert, Voyager VRLP 307-S, LP (197?), cut# 13; Pruett, Bill. Comin' Round the Mountain, Voyager VLRP 302, LP (197?), cut# 15; Sexton, Lee "Boy". Whoa Mule, June Appal JA 0051, LP (1987), cut# 17; Warner, Jeff; and Jeff Davis. Days of Forty Nine, Minstrel JD-206, LP (1977), cut#B.04; Front Hall FHR-024, Fennig's All-Star String Band - "Fennigmania" (1981).
SOURCES: Front Hall FHR-024, Fennig's All-Star String Band - "Fennigmania" (1981); Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc;
NOTES: The title appears in a list of traditional Ozark Mountain fiddle tunes compiled by musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph, but the song was written in 1947 by Grand Ole Opry star Louis Marshall ('Grandpa') Jones. (Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc).
Although the song was written by Jones, it is a rewrite of an early Delmore Brothers song, "Fifteen Miles to Birmingham." ["I wrote that off of an old Delmore Brothers song, 'Fifteen Miles to Birmingham, '" Grandpa remembers- from Charles Wolfe.] Another of Grandpa's other early hits, "Mountain Dew" was written by Lunsford circa 1920 (and Lunsford probably based the well-known Chorus on another older song).
The same melody is played on the fiddle with different lyrics by the Shelor Family on their 1927 song "Big Bend Gal." It's possible the Delmores and Jones were influenced by the song.
LYRICS:
I've traveled o'er this country wide a seeking fortune fair
I've been down the two coast lines, I've traveled everywhere
From Portland East and Portland West and back along the line
I'm going now to a place that's best, that old home town of mine.
Chorus: Eight more miles and Louisville will come into my view
Eight more miles on this old road and I'll never more be blue
I knew some day that I'd come back, I knew it from the start
Eight more miles to Louisville, the home town of my heart.
There's sure to be a girl somewhere that you like best of all
Mine lives down in Louisville, she's long and she is tall
But she's the kind that you can't find a rambling through the land
I'm on my way this very day to win her heart and hand.
Chorus:
Now I can picture in my mind a place we'll call our home
A humble little hut for two, we'll never want to roam
The place that's right for that love site is in those bluegrass hills
Where gently flows the Ohio by a place called Louisville.
Chorus:
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