Musicians
- Charlie Waller — Lead Vocals, Guitar
- John Duffey — Tenor Vocals, Mandolin
- Eddie Adcock — Baritone Vocals, Banjo
- Tom Gray — Bass
“500 Miles” is generally credited to Hedy West, a folk singer born in Cartersville, in the mountains of northern Georgia, in 1938; a 1961 copyright is held by Atzal Music. Some recordings have also credited Curly Williams or John Phillips, though Phillips said he had only rearranged it. West’s paternal grandmother, Lillie Mulkey West, played the banjo and passed on songs she had learned as a child, and the raw materials for “500 Miles” came from her. The older song “Nine Hundred Miles” (Roud 4959) is a traveller’s lament that has been traced to the early twentieth century or before; West’s song has a different tune but several overlapping verses. David Neale suggests that “900 Miles” may itself be related to the fiddle tunes “Reuben’s Train” and “Train 45.” The melody of “500 Miles” is very close to that of “You’ll Never Miss Your Mother Till She’s Gone,” an 1885 song published in Boston under the name Harry Birch, and Fiddlin’ John Carson recorded both that song and “900 Miles” in 1923–24.
The lyric is a traveller’s lament, one short line sung and then echoed. The singer has no shirt on his back and not a penny to his name, so he can’t go home the way he is. He walks the ties with tears in his eyes, trying to read a letter from home, and says that if the train runs right he will be home tomorrow night, though he is five hundred miles away. The refrain tells whoever misses the train that they will know he is gone, because they can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.
The Journeymen’s 1961 debut album may have been the first release of the song. The Kingston Trio included it on their live album College Concert in February 1962, and Peter, Paul and Mary on their debut album that May. Bobby Bare’s 1963 version, with new lyrics, was a Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and a Top 5 hit on both the country and adult contemporary charts. Johnny Cash put it on his list of 100 essential country songs in the early 1970s.
The Country Gentlemen recorded “500 Miles” at Wynwood Studios in Falls Church, Virginia, in 1962, with Charlie Waller singing lead, John Duffey the tenor and Eddie Adcock the baritone; it came out on Design in June 1963 on Hootenanny: A Blue Grass Special. The Seldom Scene recorded it on 5 March 1972 for their debut LP Act 1 (Rebel), with John Duffey on high lead, John Starling and Mike Auldridge on the other vocal parts, and Mike Auldridge on dobro. The Special Consensus included it on Scratch Gravel Road in 2012.
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