Brown's Ferry Blues

13. Brown’s Ferry Blues (previously unreleased)
(traditional, arr. Guthrie-Houston-Terry/Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc., BMI-copyright control)

Track 13 – Brown’s Ferry Blues (MASTER MA 98)
Near the end of the marathon sessions, on April 25, 1944, Guthrie, Houston, and Terry assayed “Brown’s Ferry Blues,” an upbeat country tune associated indelibly with the Delmore Brothers, who first recorded it in 1933. It is nothing more than an anthology of traditional verses or tropes – “two old maids sitting in the sand/each one wishing the other was a man,” etc. – set to a not very imaginative tune.

Nonetheless, Guthrie, Houston, and Terry jam their way through it, Terry obviously tentative at first (Guthrie probably told him nothing more than the key signature, E, and let Terry find his way). But coaxed or urged by Guthrie’s “Play it again, I didn’t hear you,” Terry responds.