The song "John Henry," perhaps America's greatest folk ballad, is about an African-American steel driver who raced and beat a steam drill, dying "with his hammer in his hand" from the effort. Most singers and historians believe John Henry was a real person, not a fictitious one, and that his story took place in West Virginia-though other places have been proposed. John Garst argues convincingly that it took place near Dunnavant, Alabama, in 1887. The author's reconstruction, based on contemporaneous evidence and subsequent research, uncovers a fascinating story that supports the Dunnavant location and provides new insights. Beyond John Henry, readers will discover the lives and work of his people: Black and white singers; his "captain," contractor Frederick Dabney; C. C. Spencer, the most credible eyewitness; John Henry's wife; the blind singer W. T. Blankenship, who printed the first broadside of the ballad; and later scholars who studied John Henry. The book includes analyses of the song's numerous iterations, several previously unpublished illustrations and a foreword by folklorist Art Rosenbaum.

First found in Georgia at the beginning of the nineteenth century, in the Bahamas in the 1920's and 1950's, and popularized during the folk revival of the 1960's, variations of the song "Delia's Gone" have been in circulation for over a century. The murder of an obscure woman has been celebrated by bluesmen, country singers and folk singers across North America. But less well known is the fact that Delia was a real person. Here, for the first time, John Garth presents the full story of the crime behind the song.