Goebel Reeves

Goebel Reeves was a singer/songwriter who eschewed his middle-class upbringing to become a hobo known as "the Texas Drifter" and sometimes as "George Riley, the Yodeling Rustler"; he penned one of Woody Guthrie's signature tunes, "Hobo's Lullaby" (drawing the melody in turn from a Civil War song, "Just Before the Battle, Mother"), and according to legend and his own claims, he taught Jimmie Rodgers to yodel. (They are thought to have traveled and performed together in the early '20s.) Reeves was born in Sherman, TX, and grew up in Austin after his father was elected to the Te...