Take This Hammer - Field Recordings

Field Recordings

In 1933 John A. Lomax and his 18-year-old son Alan, recording for the Library of Congress with the aid of an aluminum flat-disc-cutting recording machine, recorded Allen Prothro, a prisoner in Chattanooga, Tennessee, singing "Jumpin' Judy", with a theme and verses in common with "Take This Hammer", including reference to the "captain" (i.e., white prison guard), with his 44 in his right hand, and the fantasy of escape. They printed a longer version of the text in their anthology American Ballads and Folk Songs (1934), stipulating that it be performed "rather slow, with pathos."

John A. Lomax and his colleague Harold Spivacke made another Library of Congress audio field recording on June 14, 1936, of "Take This Hammer", performed by Jimmie Strothers, a blind prisoner at the State Farm (Virginia State Penitentiary), at Lynn, Virginia, performing with finger-picked banjo accompaniment.

In December 1947, Alan Lomax, recorded it again on (then newly invented) reel-to-reel tape at Lambert Camp, Parchman Farm (Mississippi State Penitentiary), performed by three prisoners with axes: "Bull" Hollie Dew, "Foots" Milton Smith, and "Dobie Red" Tim Taylor.

In 1959, Alan Lomax and English singer Shirley Collins revisited Parchman Farm in Mississippi, bringing along with them reel-to-reel stereo equipment. Among other songs, they re-recorded "Take This Hammer", performed by L. C. Hoskins and an unidentified group of prisoners cutting wood with axes. As late as 1965, folklorist Bruce Jackson, while doing field work in the Texas prison system, collected it from prisoners who sang it (also while cutting lumber), as "This Old Hammer Killed John Henry".