Furry Lewis's versions of 'John Henry'

Subject: Furry Lewis's versions of 'John Henry'
From: Jim Hauser
Date: 07 Jul 26 - 10:24 PM

I've posted in the past about my interest and research in the John Henry ballad and in how African Americans sang it as a form of protest and resistance. Mudcatters who've taken an interest in my work might enjoy reading an article I've written published in Tidings of Magpies magazine that revolves largely around Furry Lewis's versions of the ballad. It's titled "Independence Day Tears: The Memphis Blues of Furry Lewis. You can read it at the link below. Additional info about the article is below the link.

Independence Day Tears: The Memphis Blues of Furry Lewis

The essay is centered on Furry's teary-eyed performance of the John Henry ballad at a house party on July 5, 1968, and it places that moment in the context of the opening words of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Along the way, I weave in the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers' Strike, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, delivered in Memphis the day before his assassination, and Frederick Douglass's powerful July 5,1852 speech, "What to the slave is your Fourth of July?"

In part, I wrote this to bring about some reflection upon the great distance between the promise of America's very first Independence Day and the lived reality of African Americans for the last 250 years. The Memphis sanitation workers who went on strike in the spring of 1968 carried signs that read I AM A MAN. Furry Lewis, who retired from his sanitation department street sweeper job two years before the strike did not carry that sign. But he carried his own I AM A MAN sign throughout his performing career: the John Henry ballad's key line, "A man ain't nothin' but a man."

Subject: RE: Furry Lewis's versions of 'John Henry'
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Jul 26 - 01:47 PM

Here's s Furry Lewis recording of this song - recorded in Memphis TN 3 Oct 1959 by Samuel B. Charters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r17if3OGZIQ

John Henry (The Steel Driving Man) -2, recorded between 1927-29:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOlsMXySHhw

A more recent one, but undated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqyp_jp_slM