This a song about the bandit Otto Wood. My friend Tobias on banjo.
Walter Kid Smith made this song in 1931 about a man who was known as North Carolinas one man crime wave, Otto Wood. Also dubbed the Houdini of Cell Block A, Wood had cemented a national reputation for his crimes, but it was unquestionably his daring prison escapes that most caught the public imagination. It was his string of daredevil jail breaks—four of which were from North Carolinas Central Prison in Raleigh—that gained Otto Wood such notoriety. His escapes were all the more remarkable considering that he had a crippled foot and was missing his left hand!