Tennessee Stud

A folk-country narrative ballad written by Jimmie Driftwood and first recorded by him on November 26, 1958 for RCA Victor. The lyric is a tall tale that follows a man and his sun-colored, green-eyed stallion across roughly two decades — outlaw scrapes, a flight to Arkansas, the Great Flood of 1844, marriage, and a colt of the Stud’s own — and Driftwood based the horse on a real stallion owned by his wife’s grandfather Jess Goodman of Timbo, Arkansas. Eddy Arnold’s June 1959 RCA single reached #5 on the country chart and earned Grammy nominations in both country and folk categories. Doc Watson cut definitive readings on Southbound (1966) and Will the Circle Be Unbroken (1972), the latter cementing the song in the bluegrass and old-time repertoire.

Jimmie Driftwood (1907–1998), born James Corbitt Morris in Mountain View, Arkansas, was a schoolteacher who wrote songs to teach history; his “Battle of New Orleans” won the 1960 Grammy for Song of the Year.