“Orphan Annie” is an original song by the guitarist and singer Norman Blake, a quiet master of traditional-style American music. He recorded it for his 1972 album “Home in Sulphur Springs.”
The song is a traveling piece — its narrator out on the road, far from a woman named Annie, turning over his longing to be back with her. Blake wrote it in the plain, time-worn idiom that made so much of his original material sound as though it had been handed down rather than newly composed.
“Orphan Annie” has been embraced by later acoustic and bluegrass musicians, recorded by the Punch Brothers among others.
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