“Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar” was written by Alton Delmore and first recorded by The Delmore Brothers on December 6, 1933, with the recording released in January 1934 paired with “Lonesome Yodel Blues.” The song was one of the duo’s strongest early Bluebird/Victor releases and helped establish the Delmore Brothers as one of the most influential close-harmony acts of the early country era.
The song’s premise is one of the most poignant in the country-music repertoire: a singer who has come to the end of his road, putting his guitar down for the last time. Alton Delmore’s writing characteristically pairs straightforward narrative with elegant melodic construction, and the song’s combination of clear emotional arc and singalong chorus has kept it in the working-band repertoire for nearly a century.
“Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar” sits alongside “Brown’s Ferry Blues” and “Fifteen Miles from Birmingham” as one of the most-covered Delmore Brothers songs. It crossed into the bluegrass canon through Doc Watson and Merle Watson, and above all through Norman Blake and Tony Rice, who cut it on their 1987 duet album Blake and Rice. Its melody is all but identical to “There’s More Pretty Girls Than One” — Rice recorded that one with Ricky Skaggs and this one with Blake, two songs riding a single tune. It remains a reliable feature at jam sessions where the singer wants a piece that puts the guitar at the center of the emotional weight.
