"Let's All Go Down to the River" is a song originally recorded as a duet by American singers Jody Miller and Johnny Paycheck. The earliest known version of the song, titled "The Good Old Way," was published in Slave Songs of the United States in 1867. The song (#104) was contributed to that book by George H. Allan of Nashville, Tennessee, who was the transcriber, but the author was enslaved at that time and Alan did not record his or her name. It may have been arranged by Earl Montgomery and Sue Richards for the Miller-Paycheck recording, but they are absolutely not the authors of the song. The Miller-Paycheck rendition reached the top 20 of the American and Canadian country charts after being released as a single in 1972.
In 2000, Alison Krauss brought renewed interest to the song when she sang it for the soundtrack of O Brother where Art thou.