BIOGRAPHY

Merle Robert Travis

Name: Merle Robert Travis

Born: November 29, 1917 Rosewood, Kentucky USA

Died: October 20, 1983 (aged 65) Tahlequah, Oklahoma USA

Genre: Country, Western swing

Occupation: Musician, Songwriter

Years Active:

1936 – 1983

Label: King, Capitol

Merle Travis was an American country and western singer, songwriter, and musician. Born Merle Robert Travis in Rosewood, Kentucky, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1977. Some of the songs he wrote or performed include: "Sixteen Tons", "So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed", and "Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that Cigarette"; however, it is his masterful guitar playing that he is best known for today. "Travis picking", a style of guitar picking, is named after him.

His very first instrument was a five-string banjo, but when he was 12 year old his older brother gave him a homemade guitar. His first break came during a visit to his brother's home in Evansville, IN, in 1935, where his chance to entertain at a local dance resulted in membership in a couple of local bands and a chance to appear on a local radio station. Travis spent a short stint in the Marines, but was quickly discharged and returned to Cincinnati.

Travis was one of those musical figures who was referred to constantly, either musically or literally, by dozens of major figures, but he was never able to ascend the charts himself again. Much of the problem lay in his personal life. Along with a reputation as one of country music's top axemen, Travis also became known as a wildman, especially when he drank.

BACKGROUND

When an operator was unable to expand his mining capacity or the volume of his sales, he would increase the number of his miners. This would so cut each man's working time and earnings that it left no surplus to spend outside the camp. Because of monopoly, there was no limit to the height to which a company store could hike its prices. John McBride, president of the United Mine Workers of America (1892-1894), related how an Ohio coal operator of his acquaintance worked two mines for thirteen months and made a profit of only $287. During the same period his store, which without the mines would have been worth nothing, earned him a net profit of $22,000.IT IMPLIES THAT THOUGH THE MINE OWNERS COULDN'T EARN PROFIT BY SELLING COAL, THEY EARN BY SELLING GOODS TO THEIR LABOURS AT THEIR OWN OWNED MONOPOLISED STORE.

Moreover the work was risky. There was no insurance policy,no health check up,no any type of fund. So if they worked,they could eat.Otherwise no one was there to feed them.They could be hired and fired as the owner liked.So there was no employee right.

BACKGROUNDThe coal miner's of South Eastern Kentucky comes from a special breed of man who works in the darkness under dangerous conditions and breathes the coal dust that gives him black lung and no hope of a retirement future. This site is about coal miners - Where They Worked And Where They lived. Some insight about coal mining, coal education,coal mining disasters and history of coal mining. I know about this life. I am the son of a coal miner. It is my small way of commemorating and paying tribute the coal miners of America. The work is dirty and dangerous and many lost their lives due to the neglect of mine operators and poor implementation of state and federal laws regulating the way mining should be conducted. The miners and their families lived in a settlement called "coal camps" The houses, merchandise store, church, and schools were owned by the coal company

Miners should purchase from the company store though the prices were much higher than those charged by independent retail stores, their grocery and supply bills were checked off their earnings even before they received their pay, and trading was compulsory. It hurt the miner's pride to know that he was being robbed in the "pluck-me,'' his term for the company store. Responsibility for budgeting family income was shifted from the housewife, where it was in normal households, to the company store manager. Moreover, the debts which a miner piled up in the store bound him as securely to his employer as miners were bound to feudal barons (nobleman;aristocrat).

Many coal corporations issued their own money, which for all purposes took the place of United States currency. This phony money, called scrip, took various forms such as pasteboards, coupon books, paper bills called shinplasters, brass checks, and metal discs .In states where the law barred the issuance of scrip, coal companies distributed wage advances or store orders, but the miners regarded them as just another form of scrip.... Chronic layoffs, part-time work, and low wages made the ground fertile for scrip as its purpose was to tide over the miner from one payday to another. IT MEANS THE LAW WAS ALSO UNABLE TO SECURE THE RIGHTS OF EMPLOYEES.

Interpretation

The notion of the song or music is a force for a social change.Song can evoke emotions and those emotions can in turn push people to make a change in their lives,including their work lives.

The song in fact is indicating the miserable life of coal miners.The song is associated with the domination of the physical workers.The writer argues that coal mine workers are merely for physical work not for creative and mind related works.The line from the chorus(a piece of music sung by many at once) “ another day older and deeper” as well as “I owe my soul to the company store” is a reference to the truck system and debt bondage.Under this system workers were not paid cash;rather they wetre paid with unexchageable credit vouchers for goods at the company store. Such vouchers were usually called “scrip”.This made it more impossible for workers to store cash savings. Workers usually lived in company owned apartments; the rent for which was automatically deducted from the pay.

Lack of workers union also was the cause for their plightful life.

The song also says that the workers are born on the black day like no sunshine in the morning. so the very first day of their life starts with black which ironically implies coal and their dark future.Workers are misfortune by their birth.So fighting and trouble is associated with their name.

Since most of the workers suffer from communicable lung disease, they request not to come near them. Also workers are exploited to the extent that they work with either of their hand in the need circumstance.

RHETORICS

"Sixteen Tons" is a song about the misery of coal mining. Although generally credited as being written in 1947 by U.S. country singer Merle Travis, it has also been claimed that the Travis version was actually a rip-off of an earlier song called "Nine-to-ten tons", written by a singer called George S. Davis in the 1930s.

The line from the chorus "another day older and deeper in debt" was a phrase often used by Travis's father, a coal miner himself. This and the line "I owe my soul to the company store" is a reference to the truck system and to debt bondage.

RHETORICS

RHETORICS

Under this system workers were not paid cash; rather they were paid with unexchangeable credit vouchers for goods at the company store (usually referred to as scrip). This made it impossible for workers to store up cash savings. Workers also usually lived in company-owned dormitories or apartment buildings, the rent for which was automatically deducted from their pay.

RHETORICS

In the U.S. the truck system and associated debt bondage persisted until the strikes of the newly-formed United Mine Workers and affiliated unions forced an end to such practices.

RHETORICSIn Russia, Moscow's venue "Sixteen Tons" is named after the song by Merle Travis. "Sixteen Tons" track is a house song and can be heard before each concert held in the club. In Russia this song has been famous since the Soviet times, but in the Platters' version. The song was so influential, that in the USSR several cover versions were made in Russian.

RHETORICSIn one of the Russian versions the words in the chorus were about US plans to attack the USSR with 16 tons bombs:Sixteen tons, the the heavy load Planes are flying to bomb the Soviet Union The planes are flying to the East To bomb a simple soviet village