Billy Strings
Billy Strings Song
Dark Hollow
Song Information
- Artist:
- Jimmie Skinner
- Debuted:
- 2019
- Play Count:
- 8 times
- Other Notes:
- In 1958, the little-known West Virginian Bill Browning released his rockabilly country song "Dark Hollow" as a b-side to "Borned with the Blues". Luke Gordon and Jimmie Skinner quickly covered the song in a more Hank Williams-style set more closely to the tune of the traditional Appalachian song East Virginia. Their versions had much wider distribution and have been covered by countless others, including The Grateful Dead. Many of the bluegrass versions of "Dark Hollow" incorporate some of the verses from the "East Virginia" family of songs and are harder to classify. Browning's original song had very simple lyrics - he essentially copied the first verse of lyrics from Buell Kazee's 1927 "East Virginia" and Clarence Ashley's 1929 song "Dark Holler Blues" (which itself was a derivative of "East Virginia") that said "I'd rather be in some dark holler where the sun don't ever shine....".