Panchoâs StepchildrenâPancho and Leftyâ has been a foray into a more Western genre of murder ballad, building on Patâs discussion of âJack Straw,â I suppose.  The Wikipedia entry on murder ballads cites Olive Burtâs 1958 article, âThe Minstrelsy of Murder,â which … Continue reading →
The English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) received ÂŁ585,400 in funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to archive, conserve, and digitize material from six different archives containing some of the countryâs most important folk music collections. The project … Continue reading →
Steve Earle and Townes Van Zandt After such a long post last time, I plan for this one to be long on music and short on text. Â If thereâs a narrative to capture here, itâs that I think âPancho and … Continue reading →
Walking Man, by Alberto Giacometti A Work of Betrayal Iâm about to spill a good bit of ink, figuratively speaking, on a song that is only around 270 words long (including repeated words). Â I want to (re)introduce you to âPancho … Continue reading →
Big Brother and the Holding Company and the Grateful Dead â by Irving Penn, 1967 Janis Joplin â James Gurley â Ron McKernan â Jerry Garcia (This weekâs first set.)   (This weekâs second set.) When I look at portraits from the … Continue reading →
Concert Poster, Oakland Coliseum â Peter Barsotti, 12/31/91 I recently wrote about âJack Strawâ as the Grateful Deadâs only true murder ballad. That effort spurred me to begin this week with a broader look at the act of murder in the Deadâs … Continue reading →
The Union Grove Old Time Fiddlerâs Convention was started by H.P. VanHoy as a way to help raise funds to support North Carolinaâs Union Grove School in 1924. This charity fiddle contest grew exponentially, attracting some of the top bluegrass … Continue reading →
âListening for the secret, searching for the soundâŚâ I am one of those people who early in life, somewhere around age four, started grappling with the existential âproblemâ of death.  I donât know why. Maybe it was because my grandmother … Continue reading →
As I mentioned in my first post, âBallad of Hollis Brownâ was presented and received as a sad story about something that happened to a man, not about what that man did to six other people. The song brings us … Continue reading →
The Times They Are aâChanginâ included numerous songs that addressed current events and real crimes. âOnly a Pawn in their Gameâ deals with the assassination of civil rights worker Medgar Evers by Byron De La Beckwith; âThe Lonesome Death of … Continue reading →
