My favorite “Wayfaring Stranger”

Of all the versions I have heard of “Wayfaring Stranger,” this is my favorite. This is Tennessee Ernie Ford singing with a lone guitarist on Ford’s television show way back in the late 1950′s. What makes this version stand out to me is Ford’s voice (if you haven’t heard it, treat yourself), the sparseness of the instrumentation (which suits the song), and the classical guitar (which is a performance in itself without ever getting in the way of the vocals).

The My favorite “Wayfaring Stranger” by Alan Burrow, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

1. 

   Valerie (Kyriosity) says:

   January 2, 2013 at 2:10 am

   My favorite version is Tim O’Brien’s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBt5PQ3hs4c

   I sang this at my cousin’s funeral a few years ago.
2. 

   Alan Burrow says:

   January 2, 2013 at 10:49 am

   Nice. My favorite of the country music versions is Emmylou Harris’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt7viU91DTg. It’s a great arrangement, and Harris had a great band. One of the musicians and background vocalists is Ricky Skaggs before he made it big.