This is a recording of a song titled "John Henry" played on guitar by Gabriel Brown. Zora Neale Hurston recorded this performance in Eatonville, Florida in 1935. In Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, God is an abstract character. God is not referenced in a solely biblical sense. The characters see God in many forms, even in the darkness. During a debate in their home, Tea Cake and Janie's friends argue that God would rather hear a guitar than any other instrument. Blues was gaining popularity alongside its own identity around the same time as Hurston published Their Eyes. Perhaps her recording reflect the images and ideas Black creators interpreted as God.