Henry Thomas was an East Texan who recorded all of his most well known songs in the late 1920s when he was in his fifties, then disappeared. His “Old Country Stomp” and “Fishin’ Blues” feature the slide whistle that caught the ear of Canned Heat and inspired their flute part on their “Going Up the Country” and inspired the Lovin’ Spoonful’s goofy “Henry Thomas.” But his “Texas Easy Street,” in contrast to all that, is just Henry and his guitar, dreaming up a version of the good life.

Some famous covers of his songs:
“Honey Won’t You Allow Me One More Chance” (Bob Dylan)
“Going Up the Country” (Canned Heat)
“Fishin’ Blues” (Lovin’ Spoonful, Holy Modal Rounders, Taj Majal)
“Don’t Ease Me In” (Grateful Dead)

Henry Thomas – “Texas Easy Street”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006 at 8:30 am and is filed under Folk Music, Song IDs, Texas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.