This post on “Gambler’s Blues”/”St. James Infirmary” is the second installment on variants of the “Unfortunate Rake” ballads. The first installment was on an older, British “Rake” ballad, called “Pills of White Mercury,” in which the narrator comes across a … Continue reading →
WFDU-FM’s TRADITIONS Playlist for November 30, 2014 As many readers will know, I wear two hats – one as the host of WFDU-FM’s TRADITIONS and another as the President of the Hurdy Gurdy Folk Music Club in Fair Lawn, New … Continue reading →
Note: this is Part 2 of a two part series. Read Part 1 here. So, down to the jewelry store packing a gun he said, “Wrap it up, I think I’ll take this one.” “A thousand dollars please,” the jewelry … Continue reading →
Note: This is Part 1 of a two-part series on “Delia’s Gone” – See also Part 2 Introduction – “O, I am fortune’s fool!” I wonder if you’ve seen that ‘meme’ that goes in part like this – “Romeo and … Continue reading →
Introduction A few weeks back I assembled a list of my ‘essential eleven’ traditional murder ballads. While we here at Murder Ballad Monday usually delve deeply into one ballad or theme, we saw some possible value in a lighter ‘list-based’ … Continue reading →
Despite the fact that I think there was some “hourglass moment” where this song slipped through a narrow channel to flow back out again, there is still so much diversity to the lyrics of this song that a “close … Continue reading →
Monday night, Monday, February 23rd at 10:00 pm Eastern Standard time, The History Detectives go in search of the guitar of the legendary blues singer/guitarist Josh White (PBS.WNET-TV Channel 13 in New York). During the investigation, they show footage of … Continue reading →
