Hard Travelin'

Recorded during his marathon sessions for Moses Asch, this is Woody Guthrie chronicling the exhaustion of the itinerant worker. He's backed by Cisco Houston on guitar and Sonny Terry on harmonica. Terry's whooping, rhythmic harmonica playing firmly anchors the song in the blues tradition, providing a frantic, percussive counterpoint to Guthrie's flat, Oklahoma drawl. It's a collision of white folk narrative and Black country blues instrumentation, illustrating how closely the two traditions shared the realities of poverty and travel.