“Sixteen Tons” is a song written by Merle Travis about a coal miner, based on life in mines in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. Travis first recorded the song at the Radio Recorders Studio B in Hollywood, California, on August 8, 1946. Cliffie Stone played bass on the recording. It was first released in July 1947 by Capitol on Travis’s album Folk Songs of the Hills. The song became a gold record. The line “You load sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt” came from a letter written by Travis’s brother John. Another line came from their father, a coal miner, who would say: “I can’t afford to die. I owe my soul to the company store.” A 1955 version recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford reached number one in the Billboard charts, while another version by Frankie Laine 1956 was released only in Western Europe, where it gave Ford’s version competition. On March 25, 2015, Ford’s version of the song was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry.

Merle Travis singing Sixteen Tons	Tennessee Ernie Ford & Merle Travis Sixteen Tons 1977

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Merle Travis

Merle Robert Travis (November 29, 1917 – October 20, 1983) was an American country and western singer, songwriter, and guitarist born in Rosewood, Kentucky, United States. His songs’ lyrics often discussed both the lives and the economic exploitation of American coal miners. Among his many well-known songs are “Sixteen Tons,” “Re-Enlistment Blues,” “I am a Pilgrim,” and “Dark as a Dungeon.” However, it is his unique guitar style, still called Travis Picking by guitarists, as well as his interpretations of the rich musical traditions of his native Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, for which he is best known today. “Travis Picking” is a syncopated style of guitar fingerpicking rooted in ragtime music in which alternating chords and bass notes are plucked by the thumb while melodies are simultaneously plucked by the index finger. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1977.

Did you know?? In 1983, Travis died of a heart attack at his Tahlequah, Oklahoma home.

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