“Dollar Down and a Dollar a Week” I suspect no one knows who was the first person to get in debt trouble — probably Oog the caveman who promised his potential father-in-law a certain number of spearheads as a bride price and couldn’t deliver. Certainly it has been a recurring theme in history.
Hence songs like this one. It’s usually listed as “traditional” — but it seems as if every known version goes back to the 1931 recording by the “Arkansas Woodchopper” (a pseudonym for Luther Ossenbrink) on Conqueror 7887. Most of Ossenbrink’s songs are attested by other sources, but I think in this case we have to admit at least the possibility that he wrote the song himself
Songs with Banjo from Harold Hagler
