Yahoo Web Search

Search results

      • This folk song tells the story of John Henry, an enormous man who worked on the Big Bend Tunnel near Talcott, West Virginia. The tunnel was carved through the Big Bend Mountain so the railroad could go through it instead of around it. Work began on the mile-and-a-quarter tunnel in 1870, and the project was completed three years later.
      www.songfacts.com › facts › traditional
  1. People also ask

  2. May 13, 2024 · John Henry, hero of a widely sung African American folk ballad. It describes his contest with a steam drill, in which John Henry crushed more rock than did the machine but died “with his hammer in his hand.”

  3. The story of John Henry is traditionally told through two types of songs: ballads, commonly called "The Ballad of John Henry", and "hammer songs" (a type of work song), each with wide-ranging and varying lyrics.

  4. The Ballad of John Henry was an Afro-American folk song dating back to the late 1800s. The song tells of a man who worked as a steel driver when the railroads were being built across Western America.

  5. by Traditional. Album: various ( 1890) lyrics. Songfacts®: This folk song tells the story of John Henry, an enormous man who worked on the Big Bend Tunnel near Talcott, West Virginia. The tunnel was carved through the Big Bend Mountain so the railroad could go through it instead of around it.

  6. May 5, 2024 · The Ballad of John Henry is a folk song that tells the story of a man named John Henry, who challenged a steam-powered drill to a race. The song represents the struggle between man and machine and celebrates the bravery of the working-class heroes.

  7. Dec 9, 2020 · According to the historian Carlene Hempel , John Henry, the best and fastest of the thousand workers on the C&O Railway, took up two hammers in an attempt to prove the enduring value of the human labor of himself and his fellow steel drivers. In a steel-driving race against the machine, it is said that Henry managed to drill 14 feet into the ...

  8. lyrics. Songfacts®: John Henry was an American folk hero who, legend has it, built the mighty railroads that span the United States. While the character may or may not have been based on a real person, Henry became an important blue-collar icon as the saga of his race against a steam powered hammer developed mythic proportions.

  1. People also search for