7
Carson Robinson
played guitar on Dalhart’s record,
used a moralistic template for
songs about train wrecks and
natural disasters. Bob Miller, who
hailed from Memphis, penned
songs that addressed populist
issues. Miller’s left-leaning songs
like
Eleven Cent Cotton and Forty
Cent Meat
anticipated the
People’s Songs movement of the
late ’40s.
Folk songs continued
making inroads into American
popular culture during the Jazz
Age of the ’20s. Millions of radio
listeners tuned into the Chicago-
based WLS every Saturday night
to hear ‘The National Barn Dance’
and its sweet-voiced Kentucky
