…but he got the nickname “Furry” as a child and it stuck. Furry Lewis sings a very idiosyncratic version of Kassie Jones on the Anthology, combining verses about the famous engineer with verses from another ballad, I’m a Natu’al Born Eastman, and in the process portraying Casey as something less of a hero than we expect. Furry is another of the Anthology singers rediscovered during the 1960’s and he had an eventful second career as a musician: he opened for the Rolling Stones (in his hometown of Memphis, where he’d worked many years as a streetsweeper), appeared on the Johnny Carson show, had a role in a Burt Reynolds movie (W. W. and the Dixie Dancekings) and sued Joni Mitchell for royalties on a song she wrote about him. Not bad, eh?
Anyway, here’s a video of Furry Lewis performing Kassie Jones. He’s toned down the lyrics some, but streetsweeping seems not to have hurt his guitar playing much at all.
