Back Home (Merle Travis album)

Infobox Album |
Name = Back Home
Type = studio
Artist = Merle Travis

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Released = 1957 (Capitol T-891)
Recorded = 1945-1947
Producers = Lee Gillette
CD Reissue = reissued in 1996 with an additional track under the title "Folk Songs of the Hills"
Genre = Traditional, Country, Americana
Label = Capitol Records
Reviews =
*Allmusic Rating|4.5|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:kzfqxqrhld6e]

"Back Home" is the LP reissue of Merle Travis's first album, "Folk Songs of the Hills" (1947), with four previously unreleased tracks and a new cover. This seminal album marked a new turn in Travis's career, bringing his Kentucky-style fingerpicking and down-home vocal stylings to the attention of a broad public of country and folk music enthusiasts at the onset of the American folk music revival. Together with another Capitol release the following year, "The Merle Travis Guitar", it introduced the style of guitar playing that came to be known, in simplified form, as Travis picking. The album includes a selection of traditional country songs such as "John Henry", "Muskrat" and "Lost John (from Bowling Green)", the ancient ballad "Barbara Allen", Travis' signature gospel song "I am a Pilgrim", and original compositions including his legendary crossover hits "Dark as a Dungeon" and "Sixteen Tons". All songs are introduced by a spoken narrative.

This was Travis' first LP to be played entirely on acoustic, instead of electric, guitar. The cover shows a grist mill powered by a water wheel, a main source of energy "back home" before the arrival of electricity.

Track listing

#"Nine Pound Hammer" (Travis)
#"John Henry" (Traditional)
#"Sixteen Tons" (Travis)
#"Dark as a Dungeon" (Travis)
#"That's All" (Travis)
#"Over by Number Nine" (Travis)
#"I Am a Pilgrim" (Traditional)
#"Muskrat" (Traditional)
#"John Bolin" (Traditional)
#"Possum up a Simmon Tree" (Traditional)
#"Barbara Allen" (Traditional)
#"Lost John" (Traditional)

Tracks 9-12 were not included in the original release "Folk Songs of the Hills"

Personnel

*Merle Travis - vocals and acoustic guitar