a folksinging link to Blair Mountain

'When asked by an interviewer how he made up songs, Nimrod Workman replied, "I make up songs to fit my own category." Born in 1895 in the hills of eastern Kentucky, he entered the mines at age 14 and in the early 1920s he worked alongside Mother Jones in West Virginia, and participated in the Battle of Blair Mountain uprising. Forced to retire decades later due to black lung disease, he continued to sing at folk festivals and made appearances in the films Coal Miner's Daughter and Harlan County U.S.A. In 1986 he received the National Endowment for the Art's National Heritage Award in recognition of his ballad singing and musical repertoire.'

http://mudcat.org/Detail.CFM?messages__Message_ID=2099226