Close-Ups Pretty Little Widder

Hi,

Here are close-ups of Pretty Little Widder (Click to enlarge)




The first is the pretty little widow herself!

Below is Clayton McMichen who learned the song from his father in 1908.

The last pic is "Black my boots and I'm goin to git 'er!"

Pretty Little Widder

Hi,

My painting of Pretty Little Widder is done (Click to enlarge). It's a tribute to Clayton McMichen, the leader of the Skillet Lickers band. My article on Clayton will be coming out soon in The Old-Time Herald. For a few years he owned and operated the Spring St. Bar and Grill in Louisville which is less than a block from my house.

Hopefully we can get the Skillet Lickers in the Country Music Hall-of-Fame this year. We're planning a tribute May 8, to another Louisville fiddler, Sleepy Marlin, who played with Merle Travis in the Drifting Pioneers. Sleepy is another championship fiddler from this area.

More news on the concert soon- plus I'll have more pics of Pretty Little Widder!

Thanks all for now,

Richard

John Henry- Dying

This is a close-up (click to enlarge). This is a touching powerful final scene. John's wife cradles his head as he lays dying with an onlooker kneeling behind.

CC Spencer an eyewitness described this scene and I painted it. The tunnel with a faint light leads John to the afterlife.

John Henry Full view

Hi,

Here's the full view, 26 characters, 6 scenes. (Click to enlarge)

Then there's the background with the tunnel- the steam drill on the left and John Henry on the right.

John won the contest but lost his life.

New John Henry Pics- Steam Drill

Hi,

Here are the final pics of the finished painting- there's steam coming out of the steam drill now!

(Click to enlarge)

Anatomy of a Painting- John Henry: Captain Dabney

Hi,

On the left is a photo of Captain Dabney, who according John Garst, helped organize the competition between John Henry and the steam drill.

The photo is taken of Dabney in 1857 almost 30 years before the contest with John Henry.

I decided to paint Dabney standing next to the steam drill operator. I used the photo as a basis for my portrait.

(click to enlarge)

John Henry; Anatomy of a Painting

Hi,

On the left is a photo of the Oak Tunnel in Alabama. The arrow points to the spot where legend has it that John Henry drove a steel into the rock that still remains.

So, after consulting John Garst, John Henry expert and reading about the Alabama location, I used the Oak Moutain tunnel as the background for my painting.

Whether the tunnel was completed when John Henry died is not important but having John Henry die on these train tracks would make a powerful image. C.C. Spencer claimed to witness John Henry's death and it is his description that I used to create the death scene in my painting:



(Click photo to enlarge) This touching scene uses the triangle
of three people- if you draw a line from each head you can see the triangle.

To compliment the scene there are three workers in the background. The workers watching from a distance also add perspective.

Here are some facts about the Alabama location quoted from John Garst:

Chasing John Henry in Alabama and Mississippi: A Personal Memoir of Work in Progress
Tributaries: Journal of the Alabama Folklife Association
Issue No. 5 2002 pp 92-129 Synopsis

In my opinion, the data gathered by Guy Johnson and Louis Chappell, and published in their books of 1929 and 1933, respectively, make it very unlikely that John Henry raced a steam drill at Big Bend Tunnel. These workers made a massive effort, focused on Big Bend, and failed to find anything definitive, despite the fact that they were able to interview about a dozen men who had worked on the construction of that tunnel.

Only one of these men claimed to have seen the race and his testimony was very weak. Others testified that it could not have happened at Big Bend - they would have known about it if it had. Johnson received letters from C. C. Spencer, F. P. Barker, and Glendora Cannon Cummings, all of whom placed John Henry and his race with a steam drill in Alabama during the 1880s.

Cummings stated that John Henry beat the steam drill and died at Oak Mountain in 1887, an event that her uncle witnessed. Barker said that John Henry was at "Cursey Mountain" while he, Barker, was driving steel on Red Mountain (which lies along the southeastern edge of Birmingham, Alabama). Spencer's letter was especially rich in detail, but Johnson was frustrated by the failures of his attempts to verify some of Spencer's facts. Spencer mentioned "Cruzee" Mountain, similar to Barker's "Cursey," which Johnson could never find, in Alabama or anywhere else. Spencer also named the railroad under construction as the Alabama Great Southern, which exists but does not go over or through a mountain with a name similar to "Cruzee" or "Cursey." These failures caused Johnson to abandon Alabama, in favor of Big Bend, in his unsuccessful pursuit of John Henry.

Spencer said that he personally witnessed John Henry's death. He described how John Henry fell into a faint near the end of the all-day contest on September 20, regained consciousness, said that he was blind and dying, and asked that his wife be summoned. His wife came and cradled his head in her lap. He asked, "Have I beat that old steam drill?" Measurements gave John Henry 27 1/2 feet and the steam drill 21. Further, he said that John Henry was an ex-slave from Holly Springs, Mississippi; that he took his former master's surname, Dabner; and that he was working for contractors Shea and Dabner when he died. Cummings gave the contractors' names as Shay and Dabney, and a "Jamaica" informant, C. S. Farquharson, gave them as Shea and Dabner.

In fact, Captain Frederick Yeamans Dabney was Chief Engineer for the Columbus & Western Railway Company during the construction of their line between Goodwater, Alabama, and Birmingham in 1887-88. He was a Rensellear-educated civil engineer who made a career of railroad design and construction. Captain was his Confederate army rank. He was born in Virginia in 1834/35; raised in Raymond, Mississippi, from about age one; and settled his family in nearby Crystal Springs, Mississippi, after the Civil War. Between Raymond and Crystal Springs lay Burleigh Plantation, which was owned by Captain Dabney's uncle, Thomas Smith Gregory Dabney.

In 1860 T. S. G. Dabney owned 154 slaves, while Philip Augustine Lee Dabney, Captain Dabney's father, owned eight. (Note: Since the publication of the article I have learned that one of P. A. L. Dabney's slaves was Henry, born in 1844. If this is John Henry, he would have been 43 years old in 1887. I'm told that this is a reasonable age for a champion steel driver. - JG) About 15 miles east of Birmingham the C & W line (later Central of Georgia and now Norfolk Southern) passes through Coosa and Oak Mountain Tunnels, which are two miles apart, portal to portal.

Obviously, "Coosa" was intended by "Cruzee" and "Cursey" in Spencer's and Barker's letters. "Coosa" is locally pronounced "Koo'see" and is even spelled that way in some old documents. The discoveries that Coosa and Oak Tunnels exist, that they have railroad tunnels through them, that these were built in 1887-88, that a Dabney was the engineer in charge of construction, that he was from Mississippi, and that his family owned slaves near Crystal Springs lend credence to the testimonies of Spencer, Barker, and Cummings.

Evidently Spencer simply got his Mississippi "Springs" towns confused when he mentioned Holly Springs, which, being near Memphis, is not very close to Crystal Springs, south of Jackson. In addition, there is a strong local tradition among Central of Georgia employees and around Leeds, Alabama, that John Henry raced a steam drill and died just outside the east portal of Oak Mountain Tunnel, between Oak and Coosa Mountain Tunnels. This tradition is as old and strong as that for Big Bend.

John Henry- Full View

Hi,

On the left is a photo I took of the whole painting (Click to enlarge). The quality of the photo isn't good but you can get an idea.

There are some gr8 scenes and in order to cram all this into one painting and add the lyrics- 9 verses, well- it wasn't easy.

Did I succeed? On some levels- yes. The individual scenes are good, not sure if I should have added the scenes in the rocks although they are more of an afterthought than a focus. I'm wondering if I should have added John Henry as a baby "sittin' on his Pappy's knee" with a piece of steel in his hand.

The overall seting is good- Oak Mountain. The trees and background above the tunnel are came out well. There's some light in the tunnel- making it a bit mysterious.

I tried do do a portrait of Col. Dabney next to the steam drill operator. It was a bit too small to do details, I don't have brushes small enough for this type of miniture.

Let me know what you think- check out the close-ups following,

Richard

John Henry- Steam Drill

Hi,

Here's the steam drill (click to enlarge) racing to beat John Henry. To the right of the steam drill is Captain Dabney, who organized the race- man vs. machine; John Henry vs. steam drill.

Behind them is the mechanic with a wrench who struggles to keep the steam drill going.

In the final painting you can see the steam coming out of the drill (this was taken several days ago).

Richard

John Henry Close-Up Left corner

Hi,

Here is the left-corner with ther lyrics (click to enlarge).

It simply shows John Henry with his hammer and the lyrics.

More to come,

Richard

John Henry Close-Up Right side

Hi,

On the left is a close-up (Click to enlarge) of my painting of John Henry. It shows John Henry with his shaker racing the steam drill (the steam drill is on the other side of the canvas).

Behind him a crowd has gathered. Several people in the background hold steels- the steel rod that John Henry is pounding into the solid rock.

The shaker turns the steel after every blow with the sledgehammer.

A family is gathered on the left side to watch.

More on John Henry to come,
Richard

John Henry: Preview

Hi,

I just finished my painting of John Henry (click to enlarge). Here is a close-up of the center of the painting showing John Henry dying with a hammer in his hand. Behind him is the Oak Mountain tunnel in Alabama.

John Garst, John Henry researcher, helped me with details. John is writting a book about John Henry.

This is a large and complex painting with around 40 characters and 6 scenes- 2 of them hidden in the rock wall.

This is just one scene.

More on John Henry to come,

Richard