16 tons (cover)

A Knesper Knorr cover on
Merle Travis great song from late fourties


Wikipedia artikle:


Sixteen Tons

Tennessee Ernie Ford's version of "Sixteen Tons" was a number one hit in the United States.

The chorus sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford
"Sixteen Tons" is a song about a coal miner, based on life in coal mines in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.[1] It was written and first recorded by Merle Travis at the Radio Recorders Studio B in Hollywood, California on August 8, 1946. Cliffie Stone played bass on the recording.[2] It was first released by Capitol on the album Folk Songs of the Hills (July 1947).[3] 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' brother John.[1] 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."[4]

A 1955 version recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford reached number one in the Billboard charts,[5] while another version by Frankie Laine was released only in Western Europe, where it gave Ford's version competition.

On March 25, 2015, it was announced that Ford's version of the song will be inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry.[6]

Authorship Edit

"Sixteen Tons" is attributed to Merle Travis on all recordings[5] beginning with Travis' own 1946 record, and is registered with BMI as a Merle Travis composition. George S. Davis, a folk singer and songwriter who had been a Kentucky coal miner, claimed on a 1966 recording for Folkways Records to have written the song as "Nine-to-ten tons" in the 1930s;[7] he also at different times claimed to have written the song as "Twenty-One Tons". There is no supporting evidence for Davis' claim.[8] Davis' 1966 recording of his version of the song (with some slightly different lyrics and tune, but titled "Sixteen Tons") appears on the albums George Davis: When Kentucky Had No Union Men[9] and Classic Mountain Songs from Smithsonian.[10]

According to Travis, the line from the chorus, "another day older and deeper in debt", was a phrase often used by his father, a coal miner himself.[11] This and the line, "I owe my soul to the company store", is a reference to the truck system and to debt bondage. Under this scrip system, workers were not paid cash; rather they were paid with non-transferable credit vouchers which could be exchanged only for goods sold at the company store. This made it impossible for workers to store up cash savings. Workers also usually lived in company-owned dormitories or houses, the rent for which was automatically deducted from their pay. In the United States the truck system and associated debt bondage persisted until the strikes of the newly formed United Mine Workers and affiliated unions forced an end to such practices.

Other versions Edit

Tennessee Ernie Ford recorded "Sixteen Tons" in 1955 as the B-side of his cover of the Moon Mullican standard, "You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry". With Ford's snapping fingers and a unique clarinet-driven pop arrangement, it quickly became a million seller.[5] It hit Billboard's country music chart in November and held the No. 1 position for ten weeks, then crossed over and held the number 1 position on the pop music chart for eight weeks,[12] besting the competing version by Johnny Desmond. In the United Kingdom, Ford's version competed with versions by Edmund Hockridge and Frankie Laine. Nevertheless, Ford's version was the more successful, spending four weeks at number 1 in the UK Singles Chart in January and February 1956.[13][14]

Laine's version was not released in the United States but sold well in the UK. Ford's version was released on 17 October and by 28 October had sold 400,000 copies. On 10 November, a million copies had been sold; two million were sold by 15 December.[15]


Child coal miners in West Virginia, 1908
The song has been recorded or performed in concert by a wide variety of musicians:

1955: Sung live by Elvis Presley in his early 1950s concerts, but never recorded.
1955: The Weavers performed the song on their concert album The Weavers at Carnegie Hall.[16]
1955: Red Sovine recorded the song, released on the Brunswick label
1955: B.B. King & His Orchestra recorded on RPM Records
1955: Larry Cross recorded on the Embassy label
1956: Ewan MacColl with Brian Daly [17]:2 recorded on Topic Records
1956: Michael Holliday recorded the song on the Columbia
1956: Eddy Arnold version released on the compilation album Dozen Hits, RCA Victor
1957: The Platters recorded the song, released on the Mercury Records.
1960: Bo Diddley released a version on his album Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger.[18]
1961: Jimmy Dean recorded a cover on his Big Bad John and Other Fabulous Songs and Tales album
1963: Alberto Vazquez (singer), Mexican bass-baritone singer, covered this song for the market in Mexico.
1964: Louis Neefs, Belgian singer, played and recorded the song live in Belgiu