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Coda – “Where’s my daughter?  She seems so hurt …”

I don’t mean to claim that my preferred Appalachian version of “The Railroad Boy” is not cautionary.  As with “Omie Wise,” it certainly is.  It had currency among people with a well-defined moral sense.  It’s just that, without the moralizing a couple of exceptional things can happen through the art of the ballad.

Naomi Wise’s headstone, Providence Cemetery, Randolph County, North Carolina – photo by ‘sleepingdog’ added to findagrave.com

First, it’s easier for young people to hear a message when the themes of sin and judgment are absent in the medium of its delivery.  Like today’s youth, nineteenth century young people experienced plenty of tumult, both hormonal and social.  What we don’t hear today in these ballads, though, would have been all too clear to anyone young or old in antebellum Appalachia.  Whether it be “The Railroad Boy,” “Omie Wise,” or one as old as “Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight,” the situations described in these ballads were quite obviously outside normal, proper behavior.  There was no need to emphasize that at the expense of the core narrative.

That leads to the next point. The lack of any overt didactic device makes it possible for the terrible reality of that core narrative to take center stage.  In simplest terms, the lesson of such a ballad is drawn from the showing, not the telling.  More deeply, such art allows for a higher level of compassion for the characters.  It might even lead to empathy.  In this sort of ballad we are free, behind our own eyelids, to see ourselves in the subjects’ love, desperation, and death.

Indeed, one reason this ballad strikes me so powerfully is because of a personal connection.

In 1926, my grandmother Mary was a twenty-year-old school teacher in West Virginia.  That summer and fall, contractors built part of Route 19 through Lewis County, near her parents’ farm.  My grandmother me told stories of that time when I was young.  They were nothing profound, but they contained a ‘romantic’ nostalgia such as Kazee described above that I still can recall.  The mountains were opening up.  New people and new ideas were coming.  Even as a young boy I could tell that it excited her, after all those years.

My Great-Grandparents, ca. early-to-mid-1930s.

I found out later that one of those new people, an operator who worked on the big machines necessary to construct the road, lodged for the winter on my great-grandparents’ farm.  The next spring, when he went back to work on the highway, my grandmother was with child.  That was my mother.

I never heard how my great-grandparents took the news, but I know my grandmother was not disowned or any such thing.  She lost her job as a schoolteacher, of course.  She married a drunkard and moved out, though I never heard much about that either.  However, I know my great-grandparents raised my mother on the farm, and after the Depression my grandmother found work as a ‘Rosie the Riveter’ in the factories producing for the war effort.  She remarried after she found her true love, Lawrence, and they went on to live as normal and happy life as any of us can reasonably expect.

My point is this.  In 1927, a young Appalachian woman had a child out of wedlock and, with the help of her family, eventually overcame the social and economic consequences.  I’m not saying it was easy, and I’m sure I don’t know and can’t imagine the half of it.  Yet, I wonder.  What if it had been 1827?  Isn’t it possible that my grandmother would have been the young woman that Ritchie and Kazee evoke in “The Railroad Boy?”  I imagine she felt the same desperation.  Thankfully, she lived in a world that offered a few more options.

Thanks for reading and listening today, folks!

Post Script

I left provenance to the end because it matters little to the points I made above.  Raw sugar may be sweet, but it’s what comes from the distillery on this one that matters most.  For reference, if you’re interested, here’s the skinny on the ballad outside of the Appalachian version that’s been my focus.

The earliest written record of “The Butcher Boy” currently comes in the form of American broadsides ca. 1860, which can be found online here and here.  Malcolm Laws cataloged the ballad in his 1957 volume American Balladry from British Broadsides as entry number P24, and today the Roud Folksong Index lists it as #409 with well over 300 citations.  Waltz and Engle’s online entry for the ballad in their Traditional Ballad Index provides extensive evidence and citation for the ubiquity of the song in the Anglophone world.  They point out that scholars see this song as derived from two to four others, and that’s just the start of it.  It’s something of a hot mess.  Their work is probably your best starting point if you want to dig more.

In the world of electricity, Kazee’s 1928 recording was not the first to be waxed.  Kelly Harrell, of Wythe County,Virginia, appears to hold that honor.   He recorded the tune in January of 1925 (Victor 19563, released that March) and again in June of 1926 (Victor 20242, released that December, probably right around the time my unknown grandfather was making himself comfortable on the farm.)   If you listen for yourself, you’ll hear Harrel’s approach has little in common with Kazee’s.

Henry Whitter, of Grayson County, Virginia, recorded “The Butcher Boy” for Okeh Records in April, 1925.  Vernon Dalhart, of Marion County, Texas, cut “The Butcher’s Boy” in February of 1927 for the Perfect label.  I can’t find either of these tracks online currently, so I can’t be sure of their relation to the Kentucky version.  My suspicion is that they, too, are rather different.

Kazee’s though was the most influential, thanks to Harry Smith.  That track led to quite a new life for this ballad in Post-Modern America.  Some use his version for inspiration, and others use what seem to be the older lyrics.

Joan Baez derived her classic Folk Revival performance from Kazee.  It’s not my cup of tea, but I suspect some of you will enjoy it.

More recently, two performances stand out.  Elvis Costello absolutely tears up Kazee’s version in one of his contributions to the 2006 album The Harry Smith Project.

Natalie Merchant and Kronos Quartet recorded a unique quasi-classical version for the latter’s 2017 album Folk Songs. The lyrics derive from other branches of the ballad wherein lack of gold is the reason for the butcher/railroad boy’s rejection of the young woman.  It’s a delicate, haunting performance.

There’s plenty more to hear as well.  If you want to check out other recordings, please enjoy exploring this Spotify playlist with over sixty tracks.  Thanks again for listening!