Poor Boy Blues
Encyclopedia
"Poor Boy Blues" or "Poor Boy, Long Ways From Home" is a traditional blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 song of unknown origin. As with most traditional blues songs, there is great variation in the melody and lyrical content as performed by different artists. However, there is often a core verse containing some variation of the line "I'm a poor boy a long way from home." The song is often associated with a slide guitar
Slide guitar
Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...

 accompaniment.

The song is often cited as one of the oldest in the blues genre

Many artists have recorded versions, including:
  • Barbecue Bob
    Barbecue Bob
    Robert Hicks, better known as Barbecue Bob was an early American Piedmont blues musician. His nickname came from the fact that he was a cook in a barbecue restaurant. One of the two extant photographs of Bob show him playing his guitar while wearing a full length white apron and cook's hat.-Early...

     - "Poor Boy a Long Ways from Home" (Columbia 1927)
  • R. L. Burnside
    R. L. Burnside
    Not to be confused with R. H. Burnside, stage director.R. L. Burnside , born Robert Lee Burnside, was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist who lived much of his life in and around Holly Springs, Mississippi. He played music for much of his life, but did not receive much attention...

     - "Poor Boy"
  • The Black Keys
    The Black Keys
    The Black Keys are an American rock duo consisting of vocalist/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer/producer Patrick Carney. The band was formed in Akron, Ohio, in 2001. As of October 2011, the band has sold over 2 million albums in the U.S....

     - "The Moan"
  • Furry Lewis
    Furry Lewis
    Furry Lewis was an American country blues guitarist and songwriter from Memphis, Tennessee. Lewis was one of the first of the old-time blues musicians of the 1920s to be brought out of retirement, and given a new lease of recording life, by the folk blues revival of the 1960s.-Life and...

  • Mississippi John Hurt
    Mississippi John Hurt
    John Smith Hurt, better known as Mississippi John Hurt was an American country blues singer and guitarist.Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself how to play the guitar around age nine...

     - "Poor Boy, Long Ways From Home" ("Last Sessions", 1966)
  • Gus Cannon
    Gus Cannon
    Gus Cannon was an American blues musician, who helped to popularize jug bands in the 1920s and 1930s. There is doubt about his birth year; his tombstone gives the date as 1874....

     - "Poor Boy Long Ways From Home" (Paramount 12571, 1927)
  • Peg Leg Sam
    Peg Leg Sam
    Peg Leg Sam was an American country blues harmonicist, singer and comedian. He recorded "Fox Chase" and "John Henry", and worked in medicine shows...

     - "Poor Boy" ("Early In The Morning", 1975)
  • Ramblin' Thomas
    Ramblin' Thomas
    Ramblin' Thomas was an American country blues singer, guitarist and songwriter. He was the brother of another blues musician, Jesse Thomas. Thomas is best remembered for his slide guitar playing, and recording several pieces in the late 1920s and early 1930s...

     - "Poor Boy Blues" (Paramount 12722A, 1928)
  • Howlin' Wolf
    Howlin' Wolf
    Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player....

     - "Poor Boy"
  • John Dudley - "Po' Boy Blues"
  • Booker "Bukka" White
    Bukka White
    Booker T. Washington White , better known as Bukka White, was an American Delta blues guitarist and singer. "Bukka" was not a nickname, but a phonetic misspelling of White's given name Booker, by his second record label .-Biography:Born between Aberdeen and Houston, Mississippi, White was the...

      - "Po' Boy" (field recording by John Lomax
    John Lomax
    John Avery Lomax was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist and folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk songs...

    , 1939)
  • Rochelle French - "Po' Boy, Long Ways From Home" (field recording by Alan Lomax
    Alan Lomax
    Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...

     and Zora Neale Hurston
    Zora Neale Hurston
    Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance...

    , 1935)
  • Bo Weavil Jackson
    Bo Weavil Jackson
    Bo Weavil Jackson , was an African American blues singer and guitarist. Some sources claim he was born in Birmingham, Alabama....

     - "Poor Boy" - (Paramount 1926)
  • John Fahey
    John Fahey (musician)
    John Fahey was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who pioneered the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been greatly influential and has been described as the foundation of American Primitivism, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the...

     - Takoma, 1959
  • Sonny Terry
    Sonny Terry
    Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.-Career:Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia...

     and Brownie McGhee
    Brownie McGhee
    Walter Brown McGhee was a Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaborations with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.-Life and career:...

    - "Po' Boy"
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