John Henry was commissioned by Dr. Timothy Mahr and the University of Minnesota-Duluth Wind Ensemble and premiered by that group on November 7, 1990.

The legend of John Henry has always struck me as being unique in American folk literature. The story itself is certainly entertaining, but the deeper universal conflict of man versus machine is what intrigues me. In this case, the resolution of the conflict is not at all what we might expect. Although John Henry does win the race against the steam drill, it is the machine that is the eventual winner, because John Henry literally wears his body out in his effort to beat the machine.

When I decided to write a piece based on the legend of John Henry, I initially considered writing it for wind ensemble alone but eventually felt that the piece would be more effective with a narrator telling the story. As a result, I decided to write music to go with the wonderful text written by my mother, Lynne Boysen. Musically, the piece is not so much telling the story as it is setting moods and reacting to the narration. I chose to use a variety of styles within the piece, depending entirely on what would function best with the story.