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John Hardy [Laws I2]
Traditional Old-Time Breakdown and Song; Widely Spread
ARTIST: From Dwight Diller, "New Plowed Ground", Yew Pine Mountain Music, 1998
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes. DATE: 1916 by Cecil Sharp.
RECORDING INFO: Carter Family, "John Hardy Was a Desperate Little Man" (Victor 40190A, 1928; on AAFM1). Sweet Bros. & Ernest Stoneman, "John Hardy" (probably Gennett 6619, c. 1928; on RoughWays1); Dock Boggs, "John Hardy" (on Boggs3, BoggsCD1); Buell Kazee, "John Hardy" (Brunswick 144, 1927; on BefBlues1); Pete Seeger, "John Hardy" (on PeteSeeger16) (on PeteSeeger27);
SAME MELODY: Tom Joad
OTHER NAMES: "John Hardy Was a Desperate Little Man"
SOURCES: Columbia 167?D (78 RPM), 1924, Samantha Bumgarner and Eva Davis (Asheville, N.C.). Folk Legacy FSA?17, Hobart Smith ? "America's Greatest Folk Instrumentalist" (appears as last tune of "Banjo Group 2). Library of Congress (2742-A-2), 1939, H.L. Maxey (Franklin County, Va.). Marimac 9009, John Cohen, Bill Christophersen, Pat Conte ? "Old Time Friends" (1987). Lomax-FSNA 141, "John Hardy". Randolph 163, "John Hardy;" Laws I2, "John Hardy;" Randolph 163, "John Hardy;" Leach, pp. 759-761, "John Hardy;" Friedman, p. 393, "John Hardy;" Lomax-FSUSA 85, "John Hardy;" Lomax-ABFS, pp. 124-126, "John Harty;" Asch/Dunson/Raim, p. 50, "John Hardy Was A Desperate Little Man;" Cohen/Seeger/Wood, p. 142, "John Hardy;" Hodgart, p. 246, "John Hardy;" JHCox 35, "John Hardy;" (9 text, some of John Henry, some of John Hardy, some mixed: A is John Hardy with a John Henry second verse, B, C, and G are John Hardy with a John Henry opening verse, D, F, and I are pure John Hardy, E is John Hardy with material from John Henry and a "Pretty Little Foot" song, H is John Henry); Courlander-NFM, p. 179, "John Hardy;" Darling-NAS, pp. 235-236, "John Hardy" (1 text); Silber-FSWB, p. 197, "John Hardy;" American Ballads and Folk Songs, MacMillan, Bk (1934), p.124 (John Harty); Native American Balladry, Amer. Folklore Society, Bk (1964), p246; Anthology of American Folk Music, Oak, Sof (1973), p 50; New Lost City Ramblers. Old-Time String Band Songbook, Oak, Sof (1964/1976), p142
RECORDINGS: Carter Family, "John Hardy Was a Desperate Little Man" (Victor 40190A, 1928; on AAFM1); Sweet Bros. & Ernest Stoneman, "John Hardy" (probably Gennett 6619, c. 1928; on RoughWays1); Dock Boggs, "John Hardy" (on Boggs3, BoggsCD1); Buell Kazee, "John Hardy" (Brunswick 144, 1927; on BefBlues1); Pete Seeger, "John Hardy" (on PeteSeeger16) (on PeteSeeger27); Alden, Ray. Old Time Friends, Marimac 9009, Cas (1987), cut# 21; Ashley, Clarence (Thomas/Tom)). Fiddlers Convention in Mountain City, Tennessee, County 525, LP (1972), cut# 2; Bird, Elmer. Elmer's Greatest Licks, Bird, Cas (1980), cut# 8; Camp Creek Boys. Original Camp Creek Boys Through the Years, Mountain 312, LP (197?), cut# 5; Carter Family. Anthology of American Folk Music, Smithsonian/Folkways SFW 40090, CD( (1997), cut# 17; Carter, Maybelle (Mother Maybelle). Dixie Darling, Mountain Dew S 7014, LP (197?), cut# 7; Clayton, Paul. Dulcimer Songs and Solos, Folkways FG 3571, LP (1962), cut# 18; Clayton, Paul. Bloody Ballads, Riverside RLP 12-615, LP (1956), cut#B.06 (John Hollin); Diller, Dwight. New Plowed Ground, Diller, CD (1998), cut#18; Flatt & Scruggs with Doc Watson. Strictly Instrumental, Columbia CS 9443, LP, cut# 7; Greer, Jim; and the Mac-O-Chee Valley Boys. Stars of the WWVA Jamboree, Rural Rhythm RRGreer 152, LP (197?), A.03; Hamilton, Frank. Frank Hamilton Sings Folk Songs, Folkways FA 2437, LP (1962), cut# 5; Harmon, Austin. Library of Congress Banjo Collection, Rounder 0237, LP (1988), cut# 9; Howard, Clint. Looking off Down the Road, Old Homestead OHS-80060, LP (1983), cut# 11; Hunter, Max. Ozark Mountain Folksongs, Folk Legacy FSA-011, Cas (1963), cut#B.06 (John Henry (the Steel Driving Man)); Hutchins, Esker. Clawhammer Banjo, Vol. 3, County 757, LP (1978), cut# 3; Ives, Burl. Wayfaring Stranger, Columbia CS 9041, LP (196?), cut#A.09; Jarrell, Tommy. Come and Go With Me, County 748, LP (1974), cut# 9; Kingston Trio. At Large, Capitol T 1199, LP (1959), B.02 (Getaway John); Koken, Walt. Hei-wa Hoedown, Rounder 0367, CD (1995), cut# 4; Leadbelly. Good Night, Irene, Allegro LEG 9025, LP (195?), cut# 4; Ledford, Lilly Mae. Banjo Pickin' Girl, Greenhays GR 712, LP (1983), cut# 13; Leva, James (R.). Tribute to Tommy Jarrell, Heritage (Galax) 063, LP (1986), cut# 1; McBee, Hamper. Raw Mash, Rounder 0061, LP (1978), cut# 18; McCurdy, Ed. Blood, Booze 'n Bones, Elektra EKL-108, LP (1956), cut#B.03; Miller, John. Let's Go Riding, Rounder 3002, LP (1974), cut#B.06; Montgomery, Chris. Folk Favorites, Clodhopper, Cas (1989), cut# 10; Naiman, Arnie; and Chris Coole. 5 Strings Attached with No Backing, Merriweather, CD (1997), cut#16; New Tradition. 51st Annual Galax Old Fiddlers Convention, Heritage (Galax) 703, LP (1987), cut# 15; Penix, Ron. Reflections on the Carter Family, Take II T2P 002, LP (1981), cut# 6; Pickin' Around the Cookstove. Pickin' Around the Cookstove, Rounder 0040, LP (1975), cut# 8; Poor Richard's Almanac. Poor Richard's Almanac, RidgeRunner RRR 0002, LP (1976), cut# 9; Poston, Mutt; and the Farm Hands. Hoe Down! Vol. 7. Fiddlin' Mutt Poston and the Farm Hands, Rural Rhythm RRFT 157, LP (197?), cut#A.04; Price, Bill & Betty. Bill and Betty Price, Rural Rhythm RRBP-239, LP (197?), cut#A.02; Reed, Ola Belle. Ola Belle Reed, Rounder 0021, LP (1973), cut# 14; Rice, Tony. Guitar, King Bluegrass KB-529, LP (197?), cut# 6; Roberts, Dink. Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia, Smithsonian SF 40079, CD (1998), cut# 8; Round Peak Band. Round Peak Band, Marimac 9044, Cas (1992), cut#B.02; Rutherford, Betsy. Traditional Country Music, Biograph RC-6004, LP (197?), cut# 3; Seeger, Mike. Old Time Country Music, Folkways FA 2325, LP, cut# 15; Seeger, Mike. Philadelphia Folk Festival, Vol. 1 (1962), Prestige International PRI 13071, LP (196?), cut# 8; Seeger, Mike. Folk Songs with the Seegers, Prestige PR 7375, LP (1965), cut# 17; Seeger, Mike. Hootenanny!, Prestige Folklore 14020, LP (1963), cut#A.03; Seeger, Pete. American Ballads, Folkways FA 2319, LP (1957), cut# 6; Smith, Hobart. Hobart Smith, Folk Legacy FSA-017, LP (1964), cut# 19; Stoneman, Ernest (V., "Pop"). Round the Heart of Old Galax, Vol 1. Featuring Ernest Stoneman, County 533, LP (1980), cut# 4; Tenenbaum, Molly. And the Hillsides Are All Covered with Cakes, Cat Hair, Cas (1994), cut# 3; Ward, Fields and Wade. Country Music - Fields and Wade Ward, Biograph RC-6002, LP, cut# 11; Weissberg, Eric. Folk Banjo Styles, Elektra EKL-217, LP (195?), cut# 3; Yarbrough, Glenn. Come and Sit by My Side, Tradition TLP 1019, LP (196?), cut#B.04; Musical Traditions, MTCD 321-2, Ted Boyd/Dan Tate (two versions) - "Far on the Mountain, Vols. 1&2" (2002). Rounder CD 0394, Buell Kazee. Smithsonian Folkways SF CD 4018, Doc Boggs. Smithsonian Folkways SF CD 40079, Dink Roberts. Yodel-Ay-Hee 05, The Wildcats - "On Our Knees" (1992).
NOTES: One Part; A Major (Fiddle)- AEae. Key G major (guitar) (begins on C chord). John Hardy is popular not only as a song but also as an instrumental solo (banjo, fiddle, or guitar).
Here’s some info about John Hardy:
John Hardy was a black man working in the tunnels of West Virginia. In fact, as Alan Lomax remarks, "the two songs ["John Henry" & "John Hardy"] have sometimes been combined by folk singers, and the two characters confused by ballad collectors...."). One payday, in a crap game at Shawnee Coal Company's camp (in what is today Eckman, WV), John Hardy killed a fellow worker. Lomax provides the following additional info- His white captors protected him from a lynch mob that came to take him out of jail and hang him. When the lynch fever subsided, Hardy was tried during the July term of the McDowell County Criminal Court, found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. While awaiting execution in jail, he is said to have composed this ballad, which he later sang on the scaffold. He also confessed his sins to a minister, became very religious, and advised all young men, as he stood beneath the gallows, to shun liquor, gambling and bad company. The order for his execution shows that he was hanged near the courthouse in McDowell County, January 19, 1894. His ballad appears to have been based upon certain formulae stanzas from the Anglo-Saxon ballad stock.... Alan Lomax, The Folk Songs of North America, Garden City, 1960, p. 264; lyrics on pp. 271-273. Harry Smith adds the following info- No absolutely authentic information is available on John Hardy except the order for execution on file in the court house at Welch, McDowell County, "State of West Virginia vs. John Hardy. Felony. This day came again the State by her attorney and the prisoner who stands convicted of murder in the first degree.... The prisoner saying nothing why such sentence should be passed.... It is therefore considered by the court that the prisoner, John Hardy, is guilty... and that the said John Hardy be hanged by the neck until dead... on Friday the 19th day of January 1894." Witness of the trial states that Hardy worked for the Shawnee Coal Company and one pay day night he killed a man in a crap game over 25 cents. From Harry Smith, liner notes, p. 5.
From Ceolas: Mike Yates (2002) says that the historical John Hardy, similar to the legendary and better-known John Henry, was an African-American who drove steel for the Shawnee Coal Company in West Virginia. He was hanged for murder in 1894 in McDowell County, West Virginia, soon after which a song gained increasingly popular circulation among both black and white Appalachian singers.
An eyewitness, one James Knox Smith, an African-American lawyer of Keystone, McDowell County, was present at John Hardy's trial and execution. Hardy was "black as a crow, over six feet tall, weighed about two-hundred pounds, and had unusually long arms. He came originally from southeastern Virginia, and had no family. He had formerly been a steel driver and was about forty years old or more." Smith gave this account in 1918: Hardy worked for the Shawnee Coal company, and one pay-day night he killed a man in a crap game over a dispute of 25 cents. Before the game began, he lay his pistol on the table saying to it 'Now I want you to lay here; and the first nigger that steals money from me, I mean to kill him.' About midnight he began to lose, and claimed that one of the negros had taken 25 cents of his money. The man denied the charge, but gave him the amount; whereupon he said 'Don't you know that I won't lie to my gun?' Thereupon he seized his pistol and shot the man dead.
Hardy was defended by Judge H.H. Christian, who visited him in jail before the execution and, in the company of a white Baptist minister, brought about a last minute religious conversion. The men gave Hardy a new suit and had him taken to the nearby Tug River where he was baptized. Just prior to the carrying out of his sentence, it was reported, Hardy begged the sheriff's pardon and advised young men to avoid drinking and gambling.
Alan Lomax, in Folk Songs of North America (1960), records: His white captors protected him from a lynch mob that came to take him out of jail and hang him. When the lynch fever subsided, Hardy was tried during the July term of the McDowell County Criminal Court, found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. While awaiting execution in jail, he is said to have composed this ballad, which he later sang on the scaffold. He also confessed his sins to a minister, became very religious, and advised all young men, as he stood beneath the gallows, to shun liquor, gambling and bad company. The order for his execution shows that he was hanged near the courthouse in McDowell County, January 19, 1894. His ballad appears to have been based upon certain formulae stanzas from the Anglo-Saxon ballad stock....
From Mudcat: A parallel situation is outlined in "Folk Songs of the South" by J. H. Cox, 1925, a respected folklorist of his day. The governor of West Virginia from 1893-1897, in a letter, said John Hardy was a "steel-driver and was famous in the beginning of the C & O Railroad. It was about 1872 that he was in this section." The letter goes on to describe his prowess. A Mr. Walker reported a "current belief" about John Hardy, working for a railroad contractor named Langhorn, working on the Big Bend Tunnel. The contractor on the other side of the tunnel had a steam drill. A wager was made that Hardy could drill a hole in less time than the steam drill. Hardy won but died. Some of the ballads, however, go on to describe a John Hardy who later became a gambler and murdered a man. Cox wrote a thesis (Harvard Univ.) and an article with material "showing" that John Hardy was the steel driving man of the ballads. I haven't seen the thesis, but the material in the book on folk songs contains only information from "informants." This is another good story but several scholars have thrown cold water on it, as well.
Ballad Index: Cox prints a copy of the execution notice for John Hardy, who was convicted of first degree murder. He follows this with assorted personal reminiscences about Hardy. Unfortunately, the texts he quotes are very confused (most include John Henry verses among the stanzas about John Hardy), and one has to suspect that the reminiscences are also confused. We also note that Sharp was finding North Carolina texts of the song only 20 years after the murder- a surprisingly quick diffusion. One is tempted to wonder if Cox's John Hardy is indeed THE John Hardy.
The liner notes to the Carter Family CD "Anchored in Love", from the Complete Victor Recordings series, this one being for the years 1927-8, has the following comments on the song: A genuine folk ballad which Maybelle had known all of her life was "John Hardy was a Desperate Little Man." Though early folk collectors sometimes confused John Hardy with John Henry, they were in fact two different men, with two different legends. John Hardy was a West Virginia outlaw who was hanged in 1894; the Carters' reference to the "Keystone Bridge" refers to the town in McDowell County, West Virginia, not far from where Hardy worked and, supposedly, killed a man over a 25-cent gambling debt. During the early days of the centry, dozens of versions of the Hardy ballad circulated, but after the Carter recording, everyone from Johnny Cash to Bob Dylan used this version (notes by Charles Wolfe, 1993).
Here are Dwight Diller’s lyrics to John Hardy:
John Hardy, he was a ramblin' man
Packed a gun and a razor every day
Hopped off a freight at the North Fork station,
There he aimed to stay, oh, boy,
There he aimed to stay.
Said he wasn't gonna work in no sunshine
And he wasn't gonna work in the rain
Just lay around till the pay train come
And he roll in a big crap game, oh, boy
Roll in a big crap game.
John Hardy was a-standin' in the Darksey bar
Unconcerned in the game
When a yella gal threw down a fifty-cent piece
Said, "Now John Hardy's in the game," oh, boy
"Now John Hardy's in the game."
John Hardy pulled out his blue steel gun
Laid it by his side
Sayin', "The very first punk that steals Lou's dough,
"Gonna blow his belly open wide," oh, boy,
"Gonna blow his belly open wide."
He rolled them bones on the barroom floor,
Won the twenty-cent pot.
Up grabbed a rounder for the very next throw,
It cost him a fatal shot, oh, boy,
Cost him a fatal shot.
"I never lied to my forty-four gun,
"And hit's never lied to me.
"That feller skinned me in craps last week,
"We're as even as can be," oh, boy,
We're as even as can be."
Oh, Lou cried, "Get out of this Shawnee Camp,
"You better get out when you can!" "No!
"When I leave it'll be at a walk.
"Nobody ever said I ran," oh, boy,
"Nobody ever said I ran."
John Hardy hid out in the camps and the hills,
There along the line,
When he slipped into Grover for to catch that train
The law had figgered out his mind, oh, boy
The law had figgered out his mind.
Tom Campbell throwed the cuffs around his wrists,
Carried John down to Keys Cove
Said, "The sheriff and the judge is a-waitin' for you there,
"Show you to your new home," oh, boy,
"Show you to your new home."
The jailer was a-comin' down the street,
With John Hardy's breakfast in his hand,
Oh, somebody'd wrote upon the plate,
"John Hardy's killed another man," oh, boy,
"John Hardy's killed another man."
John Hardy went before old Judge Herndon,
'Quirin' about his bail.
"Well, there ain't no bond for a murderin' man,
"Get John Hardy back in jail," oh, my,
"Get John Hardy back in jail."
John Hardy stood on the scaffold high,
In the year of ninety-four.
Said, "Heaven's baptized me in the cold Tugg Ford,
"I'm ready for eternity's door," oh, boy,
"Now I'm ready for that door."
"I repent of my ways and what I done
"But hit's too late to change.
"Oh, gamblin' and a-drinkin' have done me bad,
"Boys, don't follow in that game," oh, my,
"Boys, don't follow in that game."
John Hardy's woman was a-standin' by;
She was all dressed in red.
When they slipped the noose around his throat, says
"Johnny, how I hate to see you dead," oh, boy,
"Johnny, how I hate to see you dead."
They slipped the black cap over his head,
The hangman was a-standin' by
Hundreds of people had gathered 'round
To watch John Hardy die, oh, boy,
Watch John Hardy die.
The trapdoor dropped, and there he hung.
When they finally cut him down
They dumped his body in a six-foot hole
There in the buryin' ground, oh, my,
There in the buryin' ground.
John Hardy, he lived a gambler's life,
But he died a disciple's death.
His body lays a moulderin' in that cold tomb
But his soul has gone home to rest, oh, boy,
Yes, it's gone on home to rest.
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