“Ole Slew Foot” is credited to Howard Hausey, a songwriter from northern Louisiana who also recorded under the name Howard Crockett. Born in 1925 at Yellow Pine, near Minden, Hausey pitched in the Brooklyn Dodgers organization until an arm injury ended his baseball career. He then turned to writing songs, several of them for Johnny Horton, including “Honky Tonk Man.” Some later releases list a second writer: Buck Owens’s Capitol recording credits H. Hausey and E. Manney.
Horton first recorded the song at the Bradley Film and Recording Studio in Nashville on 28 September 1959, but that take was not issued. He recorded it again there on 7 March 1960 with producer Don Law. Grady Martin, Hank Garland and Tommy Tomlinson played guitars, with Joseph Zinkan on bass, Buddy Harman on drums and the Four Gays singing chorus. Horton died in a car crash in November 1960, and Columbia released “Ole Slew Foot” with “Miss Marcy” on 21 July 1961 (4-42063).
The song is a comic hunting story. Bear tracks on the mountain and a stolen pig send the men for their rifles. Slew Foot is huge and fast, and has never been caught or treed, and people say he looks a lot like the singer. He has also cleaned out the singer’s honey. With winter coming and the river frozen, the hunters plan to corner him at last.
Jim & Jesse and the Virginia Boys recorded it at Columbia’s Nashville studio on 28 December 1964 for the Epic LP Y’all Come! Bluegrass Humor, issued in March 1965. Jim McReynolds sang the verses and Jesse led the choruses, with Ray Edenton on guitar, Allen Shelton on banjo, Jim Brock on fiddle, Lightnin’ Chance on bass and Buddy Harman on drums. The brothers kept it in their stage show: a performance from Bill Monroe’s festival at Bean Blossom appears on MCA’s Bean Blossom (1973), and it is also on their Japanese live album Jim & Jesse Show Live in Japan. The Stonemans recorded it for their MGM album All in the Family (1967). Buck Owens and the Buckaroos cut it at Owens’s studio in Bakersfield for the Capitol LP Ruby, with Owens singing lead and Don Rich and Doyle Singer on harmony.
