“Railroad Bill” is an African-American blues precursor and ballad that celebrates the exploits of former slave and railroad outlaw Morris Slater, a.k.a. “Railroad Bill”. Not long after his demise in a shootout in 1896, songs were written about the notorious folk hero,  many of which borrowed lyrics from other nineteenth-century songs about characters named “Roscoe Bill”, “Shootin’ Bill,” and “Buffalo Bill”. Folklorists collected and published verses in 1911. Country music pioneers Riley Puckett and Gid Tanner were the first to record a version in 1924. The ballad has been sung ever since by an inordinate number of musicians employing varying lyrics but always with a bad-man theme. In 1929, early country bluesman Frank Hutchison was the first to record the song with the distinctive Piedmont finger-picking style and with the Major III chord following the I chord behind the second line of the verse. But it was Appalachian banjo virtuoso Hobart Smith who popularized it in the 1940’s, and was also the first to use the now standard refrain “Ride, ride, ride.” Folk revival era recordings included versions by Cisco Houston (1953), Ramblin’ Jack Elliot (1961) and Bob Dylan (1961). British skiffle singer Lonnie Donegan’s 1956 version influenced a generation of young British artists including the Beatles.