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Nine Pound Hammer (Roll On Buddy/Take This Hammer)
Old-time Song; widely known.
ARTIST: Hill Billies with Charlie Bowman
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes DATE: Late 1800’s- Early 1900’s
RECORDING INFO: Brothers Four. Brothers Four Greatest Hits, Columbia CS 8306, LP (1962), cut# 12; Brothers Four. Rally 'Round!, Columbia CL 1479, LP (196?), cut#A.01; Cobb, Roy. Roy Cobb, Old Homestead OHS 90057, LP (1975), A.06; Faier, Billy. Travelin' Man, Riverside RLP 12-675, LP (196?), cut# 12; Ferguson, Hank. Behind These Walls, Folk Legacy FSA-013, LP (1963), cut#B.09; Flatt & Scruggs & the Foggy Mountain Boys. Folk Songs of our Land, Columbia CL 1830, LP, cut# 10; Flatt, Lester; & Earl Scruggs. Changin' Times, Columbia CL 2796, LP (197?), cut#B.03 (Buddy, Don't Roll So Slow); Grayson and Whitter. Recordings of Grayson and Whitter, County 513, LP (197?), cut# 9; Greenbriar Boys. Greenbriar Boys, Vanguard VRS-9104, LP (196?), cut#A.03; Jenkins, Snuffy; and Pappy Sherrill. Crazy Water Barn Dance, Rounder 0059, LP (1976), cut# 14; Jim & Jesse and the Virginia Boys. Bluegrass Classics, Columbia Special Prod. BN-26074, LP (197?), cut# 7; Marten, Buzz. Fire at Club 47, Talkeetna 25001, CD (1999), cut#16; Monroe Brothers. Feast Here Tonight, Bluebird AXM2-5510, LP (1975), cut# 5; Monroe Brothers. Are You From Dixie? Great Country Brother Teams of the 1930's, RCA (Victor) 8417-4-R, Cas (1988), cut# 13; Pine Island. Live Inside, Fretless FR 124, LP (1977), cut#B.02; Reno, Don; Bill Harrell and the Tenn. Cutups. Don Reno and Bill Harrell with the Tennesse Cutups, Rural Rhythm RR 171, LP (196?), cut# 9; Rice, Tony. Guitar, King Bluegrass KB-529, LP (197?), cut# 7; Rush, Tom. Tom Rush, Fantasy 24709, LP (1972), cut# 8; Thieme, Art. Outright Bold-Faced Lies, Kicking Mule KM 150, LP (1977), cut# 12b; Travis, Merle. Will the Circle Be Unbroken, United Artists UAS 9801, LP (1972), cut# 13; White, Roland. I Wasn't Born to Rock'n Roll, RidgeRunner RRR 0005, LP (1976), cut# 9b; Roscoe Holcomb, "Roll On, Buddy" (on Holcomb2, HolcombCD1); Mississippi John Hurt, "Spike Driver Blues" (OKeh 8692, 1928; on AAFM3, BefBlues3); South Carolina ditch diggers, "Ten Pound Hammer" (on LomaxCD1700); Aunt Molly Jackson, "Roll On Buddy" (AFS 2548 B, 1939; on LC61); Charlie Bowman & his Brothers, "Roll On Buddy" (Columbia 15357, 1929); Al Hopkins & his Buckle Busters, "Nine Pound Hammer" (Brunswick 177, c. 1928); Sweet Brothers, "I Got a Bulldog" (1928; on TimesAint04); Frank Blevins & his Tar Heel Rattlers, "Nine Pound Hammer" (Columbia 15280-D, 1928; on LostProv1) Meade gives a April 17, 1928 recording date for Blevins' 'Nine Pound Hammer'. Marshall Wyatt also confirms this date in his notes to 'Music From The Lost Provinces' Old Hat CD-1001 (Music at Honkingduck- online); Art Thieme, "Railroad Blues and Nine Pound Hammer" [medley] (on Thieme01)
Swannanoa Tunnel Clayton, Paul. Dulcimer Songs and Solos, Folkways FG 3571, LP (1962), cut# 14; Darling, Erik. Erik Darling, Elektra EKL-154, LP (196?), cut# 11; Darling, Erik. Folk Box, Elektra EKL-9001, LP (1964), cut# 19; Lunsford, Bascam Lamar. Smokey Mountain Ballads, Folkways FP 40, LP (1953), cut# 1; Norton, Dellie. Appalachia, The Old Traditions, Home Made Music LP-001, LP (1982), cut# 3 (Oh, Lord Ellie); Rosenbaum, Art (Arthur). Folk Banjo Styles, Elektra EKL-217, LP (195?), cut# 17; Swannanoa Town Toelken, J. Barre (Barry). National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest & Folk Music Festival. 1965, Century, LP (1966), cut# 20 Sandburg 457-458, "My Old Hammah"; Asheville Junction Axton, Hoyt. Greenback Dollar, Vee-Jay VJS-1126, LP (1964), cut#A.02; Warner, Frank. Come All You Good People, Minstrel JD-204, LP (1976), cut#B.08; Warner, Frank. Folk Music of the Newport Folk Festival 1959-60. Vol 2, Folkways FA 2432, LP (1961), cut#A.08 I Got a Bulldog Famous Pyle Brothers. Up on Pyle Mountain, Pyle, Cas (1989), cut#B.05; Roundtown Boys. Deadheads and Suckers, Swallow 2001, LP (1978), cut#B.04 (I Got a Bulldog); Sweet Brothers. Round the Heart of Old Galax, Vol 3., County 535, LP (1980), cut# 1; SkirtLifters: Fire Alarm- I've Got A Bulldog/Fort Smith Breakdown;
RELATED TO: "Swannanoa Tunnel" "John Henry" [Laws I1] (lyrics) "Jumpin' Judy" (lyrics); "Walking Boss" (lyrics); "Swannanoah Tunnel" (floating lyrics); "Don't You Hear My Hammer Ringing" (lyrics); "Old Rattler" (lyrics); "Hammer Ring" "I Got a Bulldog" “Sugar in My Coffee” “Bald Headed Woman” “east Colorado Blues”
OTHER NAMES: “Spikedriver Blues;” “Roll On, John;” “Roll On Buddy, Roll On” “Take This Hammer”
SOURCES: Anthology of American Folk Music, Oak, Sof (1973), p112; Cooper, Wilma Lee. Songs to Remember, Cooper, Fol (19??), p 8; New Lost City Ramblers. Old-Time String Band Songbook, Oak, Sof (1964/1976), p 94; Friedman, p. 383, "John Henry" (6 texts, but only the last three belong with this song) Sandburg, p. 376, "Ever Since Uncle John Henry Been Dead" (1 text, 1 tune, which I believe belongs here although the text is too short to be sure); 457-458, "My Old Hammah" (1 text, 1 tune); Lomax-FSUSA 93, "Take This Hammer" (1 text, 1 tune) Lomax-FSNA 145, "Roll On, Buddy"; 297, "East Colorado Blues" (2 texts, 2 tunes -- both, especially the former, folk processed and expanded and perhaps derived in part from other songs.); Asch/Dunson/Raim, p. 100, "Spike Driver Blues" (1 text, 1 tune); p. 112, "Nine Pound Hammer" (1 text, 1 tune); Cohen/Seeger/Wood, pp. 94-95, "Nine-Pound Hammer" (1 text, 1 tune); Botkin-AmFolklr, p. 913, "Take This Hammer" (1 text, 1 tune); Courlander-NFM, pp. 137-138, "(John Henry)" (1 text, with a fragment of the plot of "John Henry" but many lyrics from "Take This Hammer"); pp. 285-286, "John Henry (Version III)" (1 text, 1 tune); Darling-NAS, pp. 234-235, "Spike Driver Blues" (1 text, filed with three texts of "John Henry"); also pp. 327-328, "John Henry, " "This Old Hammer" (2 texts); Silber-FSWB, p. 69, "Take This Hammer" (1 text); p. 124, "Nine Pound Hammer" (1 text) Archie Green- 'Only A Miner'; "Long Steel Rail" – Cohen;
NOTES: One part; Key of E; Key of G. Although played on the fiddle, this American song popularized by Merle Travis is known primarily as a fingerstyle guitar solo. The song is related to the “John Henry” songs and has a variety names including “Spikedriver Blues;” “Roll On, John;” “Roll On Buddy, Roll On” “Take This Hammer.” There are a number of closely related offshoots such as "Swannanoa Tunnel," "Asheville Junction," "Jumpin' Judy," "I Got a Bulldog," “Sugar in My Coffee,” and “Bald-Headed Woman.”
The basic plot of Nine Pound Hammer songs: The singer tells a fellow prisoner to take his hammer to the captain; the singer is running away. The hammer which killed John Henry will never kill him.
“Nine Pound Hammer” is one of the few work songs to ever enjoy popularity. Early string bands such as Frank Blevins’ Tar Heel Rattlers and Al Hopkins Bucklebusters were the first to introduce it as a performance piece. Bluegrass pioneers Bill and Charlie Monroe and finger picker Merle Travis brought it to a wider audience and are largely responsible for its continuing popularity.
It is said of Merle Travis that he could write you a hit song and sing it; he could draw you a cartoon, play you a great guitar solo, or fix your watch. He was born in western Kentucky in the heart of coal mining country and he would become one of country music's true legends. Merle developed a style of picking the guitar based on the “Kentucky choke style” which was introduced to him by local players Mose Rager and Ike Everly (father of The Everly Brothers). Soon this approach to playing the guitar would be internationally referred to as “Travis picking.”
Archie Green's 'Only A Miner' gives information about the “Hammer” Songs. Travis recorded his influential version in 1946. It was derived from the Buckle Busters' variant via 'Texas Ruby' Owens with whom Travis had worked before WW2 on WLW, Cincinnati. Travis changed the chorus and added bits. Evidently, his 'Harlan' stanza caused many people to think he was from Harlan/Hazard area, but he hailed from Ebenezer, KY, about 200 miles away. In later years, he said: 'It's strange that people would get mixed up about the old hammer song. I've sung about heaven all my life and nobody ever thought I was from there'. His reference to 'hammer song' is pertinent. Green in 'Only a Miner' and Norm Cohen in 'Long Steel Rail' make the point that the song is not occupation specific, but rather a 'hammer' song that was adapted for various tasks associated with the steel hammer. Green groups the songs in this complex into 'hammer' and 'roll' songs.
Charlie Bowman was born in 1889 in Fordtown, Tennessee and came from a talented family of musicians. In 1925 he joined the Hillbillies (Al and John Hopkins, Tony Alderman, John Rector, and Jack Reedy in later sessions), also known as the Bucklebusters. They became the first professional country string band to achieve wide popularity on both records and radio. Charlie's version of "Nine Pound Hammer" was to become an immensely popular song, recorded by many such as Doc Watson and others. He apparently learned the tune from a black railroad construction crew in East Tennessee around 1925. He added to it and reworked it with Al Hopkins and they recorded it for Brunswick in 1927. The Hillbillies employed many different musicians during their career and at one point convinced Uncle Am Stuart to join them briefly, as well as the Roe Brothers, with steel guitar player FrankWilson. They toured widely in the south and north in the mid 1920's and disbanded around 1932, but Charlie and his brothers continued to perform and record as the Bowman Brothers.
Green also has a chapter on 'Nine Pound Hammer' mentioned above by Pinetop Slim. This is mostly a member of the traditional 'hammer songs' family with an additional verse by Travis. Green says that he took it as a mark of Travis' sophistication that he carefully credited Texas Ruby as his source for 'Nine Pound Hammer' and did not ascribe it to some mythical strike veteran from Harlan. Green describes the process: 'When Travis accepted the assignment from Capitol Records in 1946 to put together an album of coal-mining songs, he pulled Texas Ruby's traditional song out of memory and extended it with a Harlan-Hazard stanza from his sure knowledge that Harlan conjured up visions of coal and mountaineers to many Americans'. (Stewie)
From Traditional Ballad Index: The connection between this song and "Swannanoa Tunnel" is very strong; there are so many intermediate versions that we can hardly draw a clear distinction. But the extreme versions are sufficiently different that I have listed them separately. Paul Stamler suggests that "Take This Hammer" and "Nine Pound Hammer" can be distinguished by the chorus (found in the latter) "Roll on buddy/Don't you roll so slow/How can I roll/When the wheels won't go." Paul adds, "According to the liner notes on LC61, the cited 78s (by Charlie Bowman and Al Hopkins) are the first recorded under these names, indicating the variant existed when these records were published. The Aunt Molly Jackson field recording dates from 1939. So I think we've established the variant's presence in tradition as early as the late 1920s. I think it's time to split 'em, with cross-referencing notes.
Swannanoa Tunnel/Asheville Junction variants are based on tunnel made for the The Western Carolina Railway in North Carolina. Sharp collected two versions of "Swannanoa Tunnel" He heard "Swannanoa Town, O" for "Swannanoa Tunnel." Here’s some background information on the tunnel: Swannanoa Tunnel- In 1871 the 2,200-acre plantation of G.S.F. Davidson was sold for thirty thousand dollars to the Catawba Vale Land Association, two years after the Western North Carolina railroad had reached Old Fort. “The Town of Catawba Vale was quite large on paper, but small on the ground,” wrote one of the speculators in the letter to a friend up north. The Western Carolina Railway had reached Old Fort in 1860. The circuitous route of the track through the western hills to the top of the mountains at Ridgecrest was made necessary because of the lack of earthmoving machinery and by the need to keep the grade easy enough for a steam engine to pull a train of heavy cars. In March 1879, the Swannanoa Tunnel was completed and the road reached Asheville in 1880. Seven hand-dug tunnels, nine miles of track, and eleven years later, the new railroad reached Asheville. Three hundred lives were lost building the Western Carolina Railroad; nonetheless, the coming of the railroad meant economic, intellectual, and industrial opportunity from the mountain people.
OTHER VARIANTS: Another related variants of the Nine Pound Hammer are the "Don't You Hear My Hammer Ringing," "Hammer Ring," "I Got a Bulldog," “Sugar in My Coffee,” “Bald Headed Woman” songs also from the early 1900’s.
John Garth, an a discussion at the Ballad-L list, brought up the point that flesh-and-blood bulldogs don't bark and made a convincing argument that "bulldog" in many songs referred to a stub-nose style of revolver.
Sharp collected two versions of "Swannanoa Tunnel" with the 'Bull-dog' verse. From Sarah Buckner and Mrs. Ford 1916, "Swannanoa Tunnel" No. 91 A:
When you hear my bull-dog barking,
Somebody 'round, baby somebody round.
Sharp's version from 1918 also has the same verses but in different places. The same lyrics appear in "My Old Hammah" from Carl Sandburg's book. From Brian Hoskin: In a paper in Journal of American Folk-Lore from 1915, entitled 'Songs and rhymes from the South', E. C. Perrow lists a song entitled 'Franky' (obviously a version of Franky and Johnny), which has been collected from 'Mississippi; Country whites' in 1909. A stanza in this song suggest the use of bull-dog as a gun:
Franky went down a dark alley;
Heard a bull-dog bark:
And there lay her Albert,
Shot right through the heart.
"Oh, he's my man; but he's done me wrong.
Alan Lomax also collected other versions of the "I Got a Bull Dog". He has them as "Well, I Wonder" sung by Dobie Red & group at Parchman Farm 1947, "Black Woman" sung by BB & group again at Parchman Farm 1947, "Black Gal" sung by Lightning Washington & group at the Darrington State Farm, Texas 1934. He says that this was a railroad song that made it's way into the Prisons. As a railroad song he's got it as a Tie-Tamping and a Track Lining song. In the prisons he has them as a flatweeding song. Bruce Jackson also collected two versions of "Black Gal" one from Joseph "Chinaman" Johnson & group at the Ellis Unit Texas 1965 & the other from JB Smith & Louis "Bacon & Porkchop" at the Ramsey Unit, Texas 1965 again as a flatweeding song. All these tunes are fairly close to "I Got a Bulldog". (Barry Finn)
NO MORE NOTES: The main identifying lyric for “Nine Pound Hammer” is the Chorus: “Roll on buddy/ Don’t you roll too slow/ How can you roll / When the wheels won’t go.” In some versions the last two lines of the Chorus appear: “How can you roll / When the wheels won’t roll,” which is a puzzling lack of rhyme.
Buell Kazee recorded "Roll on John" in 1927, which is a similar version of the “Roll On” chorus found in the Nine Pound Hammer. The chorus for “Roll on Buddy” dates back at least to 1924; Al Hopkins (and his Buckle Busters) recorded Nine Pound Hammer in 1927 while "Roll On John" in the same year. Here’s a verse (Chorus) from Buell Kazee’s "Roll on John:"
Oh roll on John, don't roll so slow;
When the sun goes down, we'll roll no more.
Of Buell Kazee's 'Roll on, John' [Banjo tuning, GDGBD], Buell said that his 'Roll On, John' 'must have been a perversion of "Roll On, Buddy"' with 'vagrant stanzas' [his term for 'floaters']. Loyal Jones noted that the first and last stanzas of Buell's version 'are related to the teamster trade of hauling a commodity, probably coal, with income dependent on delivered loads'. (From notes in booklet accompanying 'Buell Kazee' JA009).
There's a Jack Elliott version of “Roll on Buddy.” The fullest recorded version by Jack and Derroll was in their early Italian sessions reissued on the 2CD set 'Selection of America' De Luxe DCD-768. More accessibly, it was also reissued on Tradition label. The version by them on the Topic Legendary Masters reissue - Jack Elliott 'Ramblin' Jack' [Topic TSCD477]. This is similar to the version by Bascom Lamar Lunsford/George Pegram and Red Parham 'Music from South Turkey Creek' Rounder LP 0065. These 'Roll on Buddy' versions are unrelated to 'Nine Pound Hammer' except for the 'roll on' motif. In structure and content, they closely resemble 'Mole in the ground' - and, in style, also banjo songs like 'New River Train', 'My Last Old Dollar Is Gone' etc. (Stewie)
Charlie Bowman was born in 1889 in Fordtown, Tennessee and came from a talented family of musicians. In 1925 he joined the Hillbillies (Al and John Hopkins, Tony Alderman, John Rector, and Jack Reedy in later sessions), also known as the Buckle Busters. Charlie's version of "Nine Pound Hammer" was apparently learned from a black railroad construction crew in Gray station (East Tennessee) around 1905. He added to it and reworked it with Al Hopkins and they recorded it for Brunswick in 1927. Their record features Elbert Bowman making a real hammer sound by pounding a steel rod against a steel banjo hoop on the first beat of every measure.
Here are the lyrics to Nine Pound Hammer from the Hill Billies:
PRECHORUS: This nine pound hammer (nine pound hammer),
Is just a little too heavy (a little too heavy),
For my size (for my size),
Yes, for my size.
Chorus: Roll on buddy! (Roll on buddy!)
Don't you roll so slow (roll so slow)
Baby how I gonna roll (how I gonna roll),
When the wheel won't go.
Oh way up on the mountain (way up on the mountain)
For to see my darlin’ (for to see my darlin’ )
And I ain't comin' back (I ain't comin' back),
Lord, I ain't comin' back.
This nine pound hammer (nine pound hammer),
Well it killed John Henry (killed John Henry)
It ain’t gonna kill me (ain’t gonna kill me),
Ain’t gonna kill me.
[Some body stole,
My nine pound hammer
Baby took it and gone,
Baby took it and gone]
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