Put My Little Shoes Away

12. Put My Little Shoes Away
(Samuel N. Mitchell and Charles Pratt/public domain)

Track 12 – Put My Little Shoes Away (MASTER MA 81)
Written by Samuel N. Mitchell and Charles Pratt in 1873, this was the sort of sentimental parlor song popular in American homes for almost seven decades. Guthrie may have learned it from his mother’s singing early on, or from a phonograph record sometime later. (It was recorded no fewer than seventeen times, the last by the Everly Brothers as late as 1958, according to the redoubtable Meade, Spottswood,Meade bible, Country Music Sources, p. 283.

Guthrie plays mandolin and sings lead on this master recorded on April 24, 1944. Houston
plays guitar and sings harmony. An almost restrained Sonny Terry is on harmonica.