Merle Travis was an American country singer-songwriter and guitarist born in 1917 in Kentucky who wrote songs like "Sixteen Tons" and pioneered a style of guitar picking called "Travis picking". He had a rough personal life but was influential as a musician, being inducted into the Country Music and Nashville Songwriters Halls of Fame. However, he is best known for his innovative guitar playing and the song "Sixteen Tons" which describes the difficult life of coal miners exploited by company towns and stores.

1. 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

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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

8.  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).

9.  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

10. 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.

11.  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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. RHETORICS
In 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.

18. RHETORICS
In 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