Dick Burnett
Musician · 1883–1977 · Monticello, Kentucky
Best known for
Songwriter
Dick Burnett was a blind Kentucky banjo player, fiddler, and songster whose 1913 self-published songbook contained the first known printed version of “Farewell Song” — the lyric that, after passing through Emry Arthur, the Stanley Brothers, and eventually the Soggy Bottom Boys, came to be known the world over as “Man of Constant Sorrow.” His Burnett & Rutherford duo with fiddler Leonard Rutherford spent decades touring the Cumberland Plateau.
Assisted by AI.
Spot something off? Help us fix it.
- Born Richard Daniel Burnett on October 8, 1883, near Monticello, Kentucky.
- Blinded by a robber’s shotgun in 1907; turned to music for a living after losing his sight.
- Performed on banjo, guitar, fiddle, and vocals, drawing on both inherited Appalachian repertoire and his own original material.
- Around 1914 he engaged the teenaged Leonard Rutherford as a sighted traveling companion; the two began performing together as Burnett & Rutherford after Rutherford’s parents died and he came to live with Burnett full-time.
- Self-published a six-song booklet — Songs Sung by R. D. Burnett — The Blind Man — Monticello, Kentucky — in 1913; the booklet contained “Farewell Song,” the semi-autobiographical lyric opening “I am a man of constant sorrow.”
- Recorded as the Burnett & Rutherford duo for Columbia in 1926 and 1927; their sides are foundational documents of pre-bluegrass Cumberland string-band music.
- “Man of Constant Sorrow” entered the standard country repertoire via Emry Arthur’s 1928 recording, became a Stanley Brothers signature in the late 1940s, and reached a mass audience again via the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?
- Died January 23, 1977.
