John Henry (folklore)
Folklore character / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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"The Ballad of John Henry" redirects here. For the album by Joe Bonamassa, see The Ballad of John Henry (album).
John Henry is an American folk hero. An African American freedman, he is said to have worked as a "steel-driving man"—a man tasked with hammering a steel drill into a rock to make holes for explosives to blast the rock in constructing a railroad tunnel.
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The story of John Henry is told in a classic blues folk song about his duel against a drilling machine, which exists in many versions, and has been the subject of numerous stories, plays, books, and novels.[1][2]