George S. Davis
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George S. Davis (1904 — 1992), The Singing Miner, composed and worked as a disc jockey on the radio stations in Hazard, Kentucky from 1947 until 1969. He began his career about 1933, about the same time the United Mine Workers of America began organized the Coal Mines in Eastern Kentucky.
Among the songs Davis wrote and sang were "White Shotgun," "Buggerman in the Bushes," "Coal Miner's Boogie," "When Kentucky Had No Union Men," and "Harlan County Blues." "Sixteen Tons" the song about the misery of coal mining. Although generally credited as being written in 1947 by U.S. country singer Merle Travis, it has also been claimed that the Travis version was actually a rip-off of an earlier song calld "Nine-to-ten tons", written by George S. Davis in the 1930s. George's D28 Martin Guitar that he played from 1947 until 1992 will be displayed in the new studios of WKIC and WSGS on Main Street in Hazard.
Davis was 88 years old when he died in 1992, in London, Kentucky.
