JOE BOWERS
Sung by: Fred High
Recorded in High, AR 8/26/59

 Click here to listen to the original recording
(Mr. High: "They want me to sing the song of Joe Bowers. Joe Bowers was my wife's uncle, and he was raised over in the edge of Missouri, and he went to California to get rich. And this is a song he made while he was out there, but he come back a time or two, but he's lost now and we don't know where he's buried at, and we can't get no communications with his children and his wife . . . his last wife. But he failed to get this one down here in Missouri, in Stone County, about 20 miles from here. And this is how it goes. He made the song when he got to California, and this is how it goes.")

My name, it is Joe Bowers;
I have a brother Ike.
I come all the way from Missouri,
All the way from Pike.
I'll tell you how it happened,
And how I came to roam
And leave my dear old mother,
So far away from home.

I used to court a girl there
By the name of Sally Black.
She said . . .

(Mr. High: "Stop it a minute; wait just a minute . . . All right. I'll sing you "House Carpenter.")

All Songs Recorded by John Quincy Wolf, Jr., unless otherwise noted

The John Quincy Wolf Folklore Collection
Lyon College, Batesville, Arkansas
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