Woody Guthrie wrote this song, also called "The Dying Miner," about the Centralia, Illinois, mine disaster of 1947, in which 111 men died. The lyrics are taken from notes left by the doomed miners (audio only).
Update: "The Bells of Rhymney" is Pete Seegerf's setting of a poem by the Welsh poet Idris Davies
about a mine disaster in 1926. It was released by the Byrds in 1965.
In September 2019, the Washington Post's obituary of Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter noted that he had considered the highest compliment paid to him to have been made by a fellow audience member at one of the group's performances: not knowing whom he was talking to, the guy said, during "Cumberland Blues," "I wonder what the guy who wrote that song a hundred years ago would think if he knew the Grateful Dead was doing it."
Posted by: Walter Effross | January 28, 2023 at 10:24 AM
nice selection. some additional suggestions: Miner's Prayer (Dwight Yoakam); Anna Mae (Gene & Gayla Mills); Dark Black Coal (Logan Halstead); My Father's Son (Ricky Skaggs); and Tecumseh Valley (Townes Van Zandt, Nanci Griffith, others).
Posted by: John Steele | January 28, 2023 at 03:33 PM
What about my late friend and brother, Nimrod Workman?
https://youtu.be/4WYBGMO-MBY
Posted by: Steve | January 28, 2023 at 04:38 PM
Used to teach Mining Law...off the top of my head
Mining for Gold (Cowboy Junkies); Fire in the Mine & Muckin' Slushers (Stompin' Tom Connors); Red Hill Mining Town (U2); Uranium Fever (Elton Britt); Working in the Coal Mine (DEVO version); Fire on the Mountain (Marshall Tucker Band); Rox in the Box (Decembrists); Deep in the Motherlode (Genesis); 5:15 A.M. (Mark Knopfler); and, what the hell, The Ecstasy of Gold (Ennio Morricone)
Posted by: Red State Kulander | January 30, 2023 at 12:51 PM