Harry McClintock

Harry McClintock, also known as Haywire Mac, was an American singer, songwriter and itinerant railroad worker whose songs grew directly out of a life spent drifting across the country and the world. Born in Tennessee, he worked railroads on multiple continents, took part in labor movements including the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and absorbed the oral tradition of hobo and railroad songs from fellow workers along the way.

His music sits at the root of American folk and country, built on plainspoken storytelling, wry humor and the rhythms of railroad and labor life rather than polished studio craft. As a labor organizer and singer connected to the IWW, McClintock's repertoire carries the fingerprints of the protest-song tradition alongside comic hobo ballads and frontier narratives.

He is best remembered for «Big Rock Candy Mountain», a hobo's fantasy of an idle paradise that became a Billboard hillbilly hit and later reached new audiences through its use in the film «O Brother, Where Art Thou?». Other songs such as «Hallelujah! I'm a Bum», «Sweet Betsy from Pike» and «Long Haired Preacher (Preacher and the Slave)» reflect the same blend of vagabond wit and working-class commentary that defines his catalog.