Annotation:Lonesome Road Blues

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LONESOME ROAD BLUES. AKA and see "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad." Old-Time, Bluegrass, Song/Breakdown. The blues-tinged song is widely known and recorded as "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad" (or "Good"), deemed by Ralph Rinzler to be of "universal appeal and uncertain origin." It was locally called "Lonesome Road Blues" in the Round Peak, North Carolina/Galax, Virginia area, and fiddler Tommy Jarrell remembered the tune "coming 'round" to the area about 1918 or so. It is widely disseminated and has been recorded numerous times by various old-time and bluegrass groups, including Henry Whitter, Cliff Carlisle (as "Down in the Jail on My Knees"), Flat and Scruggs and Bill Monroe. The lyric begins:

I'm going down this road feeling bad,
I'm going down this road feeling bad;
I'm going down this road feeling bad, lord, lord,
And I ain't a-gonna be treated this a-way.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources:

Recorded sources: County 778, Tommy Jarrell - "Pickin' on Tommy's Porch" (1984).

See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]

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