Song Rail 2 - Button 4: Industrialization and the Civil War

"Peg and Awl"

Clarence “Tom” Ashley, vocal and banjo, Doc Watson, guitar and vocal. A mid-19th-century cobbler bemoans the arrival of the shoemaking industry.

"John Brown’s Dream"

Josh Ellis, banjo, and Eddie Bond, fiddle and vocal, central Blue Ridge tune concerned with John Brown. His attempt to lead a slave rebellion resulted in his execution at Charles Town, Virginia, in 1859.

"We’re Stole and Sold From Africa"

Addie Graham, an 1840s abolitionist lament relating the horrors of slavery

"Railroad Bill"

John Jackson, Piedmont blues songster, “badman” ballad about Bill McCoy, a murderer and train robber killed at Atmore, Alabama, on March 7, 1896