Cover of Pete Seeger's album American Industrial Ballads.

Pete Seeger

American Industrial Ballads
Smithsonian/Folkways CD SF 40058, 1992.

Liner notes on "Roll Down the Line":

"In the 1890s, in the mining country of eastern Tennessee, convict labor was used in the mines to force the miners' union to accept company terms. Over a period of months open warfare broke out between the miners and the National Guard. The miners actually took over the mines and released the convicts. Eventually, the miners were starved into submission and defeated in battle. Their leaders went to prison.

"This song, from the town of Coal Creek, comes from that intense struggle. Apparently it is a miner's version of a song which was sung by the Negro convicts who were working the mine. As presented here, it is from the singing of Uncle David Macon, long a star on Nashville's Grand Old Opry radio program. Uncle Dave was a young man at the time of the Coal Creek Rebellion, and probably learned the song first hand."