BALLADS AND TRADITIONAL FOLKTALES

Story Telling and The Ballad of John Henry

John Henry Using Traditional Folktales in the Classroom
Story Telling, The Oral Tradition,
Ballads, Folkmusic, and Folktales used in the classroom.

The song is about a terrible kind of accident or crime. It's a mourning song,
a hammer song, a work song. Tunnel work in the 1870s was widely recognized
as the most dangerous and nastiest job. You needed some sort of force to get
people to do that work. African Americans went westward as workers, both
as slave laborers and free men and women laborers between 1870-1885.


Something within his story established John Henry as a fixture of
the popular imagination. He has been the subject of novels, a
postage stamp and even animated films. Above all, "John Henry"
is the single most well known and often
recorded American folk song.

John Henry's life, has become the stuff of myth.

Most accounts have set the ballad of John Henry at the Big Bend
Tunnel, near Talcott in Summers County. Originally called the Great
Bend Tunnel, it was built between 1870-72 for the C & O Railroad.

He has embodied the spirit of growth in America for over a century.
But his legacy cannot be solely summed up in the image of a man
with a hammer, a former slave representing the strength and drive
of a country in the process of building itself.

The Coosa Tunnel -- one of two railroad tunnels built in 1887-88
for the Columbus & Western Railroad near Leeds, Ala., may have
been the site of the events in the ballad.

Something within his story established John Henry as a fixture of
the popular imagination. He has been the subject of novels, a
postage stamp and even animated films. Above all, "John Henry"
is the single most well known and often
recorded American folk song.

HEAR SOME SONGS

John Henry (mp3) Man Trouble Blues - The Saga of John Henry (mp3) 

John Henry (mp3) - Joe Uehlein & The U-Liners (Web Site)

John Henry (mp3) - Van Morrision

----ACTIVITIES FOR THE CLASSROOM-----

1) FOLK MUSIC - Lessons, Lyrics, Curriculum, History and Copyleft.
Folk music lessons and plans at the Educational CyberPlayGround.
Learn about folk music history and find lyrics to popular folk music songs.

3) Learn History through Song

3) The Ballad of Tom Dooley aka Tom Dula

----ONLINE ACTIVITIES ABOUT Parody and Copy Left------

The Ballad of Sarah Palin

The Ballad of Davy Crockett by Fess Parker

The Ballad of Davy Crockett - 1955

 

This Land is Your Land and Woody Guthrie

This Land is Your Land Parodies Copyright vs. Copyleft.
"Attorneys for JibJab also said they have found evidence that the
copyright on Guthrie's song expired in 1973, meaning that anyone
can use it for free." This song belongs to you and me