“Philadelphia Lawyer” was written by Woody Guthrie in 1937, and he first called it “Reno Blues.” The liner notes to This Land Is Your Land: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 1 say that his singing partner Lefty Lou Crissman showed him a newspaper article about a jealous cowboy shooting a “Philadelphia lawyer” in Reno, Nevada; Guthrie found the story funny, and the notes say he apparently set his words to the traditional ballad “Jealous Lover (Florella).” In Guthrie’s time the phrase “Philadelphia lawyer” could mean a shyster. Guthrie recorded the song for Asch, with Cisco Houston singing harmony.
The song’s story is set in Reno, where a Philadelphia lawyer falls for a Hollywood girl and offers to win her a divorce so they can marry that night. Her sweetheart Bill, a cowboy with ten notches on his gun, returns from riding the range, sees two shadows on her window shade and overhears the lawyer asking her to leave with him for Philadelphia. The last verse reports that back in Pennsylvania there is one less Philadelphia lawyer.
The Maddox Brothers and Rose recorded it in 1948, with Rose Maddox singing lead; Praguefrank dates the session to about December 1948 at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, and Four Star issued it as 1289. Rose Maddox later said she had learned the song by standing outside a tavern where Woody and Jack Guthrie were playing. Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs recorded it on 18 March 1962 at Columbia Studio in Nashville, with Flatt singing lead, Curly Seckler on mandolin and Paul Warren on fiddle, for the Columbia LP Folk Songs of Our Land (August 1962). The Lilly Brothers recorded it at Hillbilly Ranch in Boston on 20 December 1960, with Everett Lilly singing, and J. D. Crowe and the Kentucky Mountain Boys recorded it in December 1968 at Lemco Studios in Lexington, Kentucky, with Red Allen on lead, for Bluegrass Holiday.
