Tennessee Ernie Ford - Wayfaring Stranger

Just want to give you a shout out for a job well done.

Tennessee Ernie has a beautiful voice, and your film is very compelling.

Beautiful job!

Simply haunting..... LOVE IT

Gives me chills. Of course it's talking of Heaven. His Saviour shed His precious blood for me...
how could that be misconstrued?

Perfect voice for ther song Ernie! Great! Two thumbs up !!! This was 1956.

Really, and why would that be the case, because I know Bill Monroe couldn't sing? I've heard Monroe's version and it's terrible and I'm a bluegrass musician and singer. Did you ever wonder why Monroe's most popular time and biggest selling records were when two guys named Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs were playing and singing in The Bluegrass Boys? Wow, if I know more than you about this and I'm the "village idiot," what does that make you?

He's come a long way from Lucy's 'Cousin Ernie!'
...Sort of like Jim Nabors' 'Gomer Pyle!' (ha ha!:o)

No, Ernie never recorded Old Man River. There's a CD by him called "This Lusty Land" that has some nice folk songs on it though. I would recommend it to anyone who likes this type of music.

Sweet, thanks so much! I'll check that out

However being "very likely" isn't exactly the truth, I don't want to be presumptuous, we really have no idea where it comes from. I think that's what makes folk songs so haunting and brilliant and still effective today. We really can't put ourselves in the orator's shoes and go anywhere we want. As I said before I used to think it was a song simply about a traveler weary for home because I didn't make the religious connection.

The thing with songwriters is that they often times tell their troubles to music, I think that's why so many songs throughout the centuries have been about love for example. It's very possible that the song may have been casual and then altered for religious settings. Or if it was written by an African American, a spiritual journey would have been the most obvious considering their treatment at the time. I'm leaning more towards the latter because Over Jordon is frequently used in AA folk songs