Jeffrey Foucault and Mark Erelli This is the second post this week on Norman Blakeâs âBilly Gray.â  Read the first here. Outlaw Rhetoric That I havenât read Aristotleâs Poetics yet is a gap in my education.  Iâll need to get right … Continue reading →
Norman Blake (photo by Henry Horenstein) This is the first of three posts on âBilly Gray.â Read the second here, and the third here. Prelude:  But I regress⌠After last weekâs focus on re-thinking gender roles in both new murder … Continue reading →
Christine Stulik (photo by Logan Futej) This is part two of our interview with Eileen, and the third post of the week. Â You can read the first part of the interview here, and read our introduction to their song âIâll … Continue reading →
Becky Poole (photo by Logan Futej) Here is Part One of our interview with the Chicago-based duo, Eileen. Â Today, we meet the duo and dive more deeply into the song âIâll Lay You Down,â which we introduced in the previous … Continue reading →
Eileen, the band (Christine Stulik [l] and Becky Poole [r], photo by Logan Futej) Prelude (or Preamble, take your pick) âThe murders of men tend not to alarm us because, on a certain level, we perceive men as voluntarily accepting … Continue reading →
Prince Charles Edward Stuart arrived on Northwest coast of Scotland in July 1745. When he arrived on Eriskay it was the first time Charles had ever been in Scotland and yet he announced his arrival with the words âI am … Continue reading →
Robert Burns Robert Burns was born in 1759, 13 years after the last battle fought on the United Kingdom mainland at Culloden Moor near Inverness. In celebration of Robert Burnsâ 254th birthday this weekâs Murder Ballad Monday takes a tangential … Continue reading →
âCain and Abel,â by Titian When I wrote last year about Jesus and the murder ballad, I thought I would finish that week by looking back to other Biblical stories that also provided symbols for music in this genre. Â I … Continue reading →
Elvis Presley, 1970 In considering Chris Smitherâs song âEvery Motherâs Sonâ in preparation for this weekâs first post, I kept being drawn to the contrast between it and Elvis Presleyâs blockbuster âIn the Ghetto.â Â The two songs appeared within three … Continue reading →
Chris Smither I envisioned our December break as a chance for me to dip into some other interests and, perhaps, generate some new ideas for the blog through unrelated reading. Â It hasnât exactly worked out that way. Â I pay attention … Continue reading →
