Introduction: “It’s the butcher boy I love so well …” The title of today’s song suggests a narrative consistent with the stereotype of violent misogyny in our genre of choice. Strictly speaking, this time that could lead to some inaccurate … Continue reading →
“The way the band kept playing was a noble thing. I heard them first while still we were working wireless, when there was a ragtime tune for us, and the last I saw of the band, when I was floating … Continue reading →
“Fatal Flower Garden,” recorded in 1929 by Nelstone’s Hawaiians, is only the second of eighty-four songs on Harry Smith’s epochal Anthology of American Folk Music – a collection justly celebrated in some macabre corners (mine, for instance) for its songs … Continue reading →
Leonard Rutherford (fiddle) and Dick Burnett (banjo) – Theirs is the earliest known recording of “Willie Moore” Introduction One thing I find about murder ballads in my own life is that I often remember the first time and place I … Continue reading →
G.B. Grayson and Henry Whitter [This is the second post this week on “Tom Dooley.” The first post gives the basics of the underlying story.] Hardly a fiddler or a banjo picker in our county… “I’ll tell you all Verlee and I … Continue reading →
Elvis Costello appeared five or six years ago as part of “The Harry Smith Project,” a musical renewal of the songs collected by Smith in the Anthology of American Folk Music, providing his proposed resolution of the Omie Wise tale. … Continue reading →
Harry Smith’s Anthology incorporated his somewhat idiosyncratic, news-brief style summaries for the songs he included. The brief on “Ommie Wise” reads as follows: GREEDY GIRL GOES TO ADAMS SPRING WITH LIAR; LIVES JUST LONG ENOUGH TO REGRET IT … Continue reading →
This week’s installment is a decidedly American contribution to the genre, and one not completely shrouded in the mists of history, but only partly so. The events of “Omie Wise” can be pinned down to a known historical event—the drowning … Continue reading →
