John Hartford wrote “The Julia Belle Swain” about a real boat, a steam-powered sternwheeler designed and built in 1971 by Captain Dennis Trone at Dubuque, Iowa. In the 1970s and 1980s the boat was based at Peoria, Illinois, making short excursions on Peoria Lake and two-day cruises to Starved Rock State Park. Hartford earned his steamboat pilot’s licence in the 1970s and worked as a pilot on the Julia Belle Swain during summers for many years.
The song is a roll call of the boat and the people who ran her. The singer announces that he cannot stay put and is bound for Chattanooga, Tennessee, banjo on his back, to meet the boat when she comes down the river. Another verse looks forward to August in Peoria, when the arrival of the steamboat means summer has come. Hartford names members of the crew and calls them “one big steamboat family,” and he calls the boat a “women’s lib boat,” with women in the pilothouse, on deck and in the engine room. He also boasts of her racing: she beat the Belle of Louisville and the Delta Queen. The Julia Belle Swain entered the Great Steamboat Race in 1975 and 1976 and won in 1976.
Hartford recorded the song for Mark Twang, issued by Flying Fish in 1976 and produced by Michael Melford. Much of the album drew on his experience working on riverboats, and he made it alone in the studio, playing banjo, fiddle and guitar and clogging on a sheet of plywood. On “The Julia Belle Swain” he plays banjo, with foot percussion. Mark Twang won the Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording at the 1977 awards.
