Radio John

Started out working in the summertime On the docks of the Mississippi Valley barge Line Stoking towboats on those long hot days Getting half days off, sometimes with pay Became a steamboat captain Wrote the songs to Mark Twang Rolling down the river to New Orleans Oh, I can hear something coming up around the bend It's the Julia Belle Swain, boys, gleaming and steaming on in And it's Radio John standing at the helm With a wave and a smile and some yarn to tell He loved life on the river and the fiddle tunes Of blind Ed Haley and Benny Martin too He always played them songs with a Vamp in the Middle With a hustle and a shuffle and a skittle wah diddle He wrote songs every day, lord, he'd scratch and scribble So the tunes that he wrote, he could play on his fiddle Well, I went up the river come away last Sunday night With my fiddle and my banjer and my baby there to hold me tight A banjo man, he rolled while he sang With rhythm like a piston on a railroad train Gotta see Radio John with his two-toned shoes A-slipping and a-sliding while he danced for you He knew every crooked turn, up 'n' down the Mississippi He was a Huckleberry Finn, an airwaves hippie Radio John, a steamboat troubadour A Mississippi Sawyer, like we'd never seen before He spun those tunes in St. Louie and Illinois, they say He played Bill, Earl and Lester and some boys named Bray You could hear his voice every night 'til dawn So cut your television off and turn your radio on It's Radio John He danced, and he played in the bars and the halls While he was tapping his shoes, we was having a ball Yeah, Radio John had us all sing along Just a-clapping and a-stomping to every one of his songs He could make us happy and sometimes make us cry And looking back now, I wish we never had to say goodbye It was 6-9-0 KSTL Where he played those songs we all knew so well Radio John