DESCRIPTION:
Song lyrics available here: http://www.balladofamerica.com/music/indexes/songs/brazosriver/index.htm

Visit http://www.ramblingstringband.com for a free song download and more about the band and the music.

Recorded live at Luna Star Cafe on May 30, 2015.

The origins of The Brazos River, also known as The Texas Rivers Song, are unknown. It was first collected by Vance Randolph from the singing of Irene Carlisle in Fayetteville, Arkansas on January 30, 1942. It first appeared in Randolph's collection "Ozark Folksongs (Volume 2)." Carlisle said she learned it from a Texas man who boarded with her while he was working cutting timber in the Ozarks.

Pete Seeger supposedly had bemoaned the fact that the song hadn't been published in Sing Out! magazine, and that it was in danger of being forgotten.

The Brazos River itself was called the Rio de los Brazos de Dios by early Spanish explorers, which means "The River of the Arms of God." The river features prominently in a number of prison songs, because at one time nearly every prison in Texas was near the Brazos.

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