Introduction A few weeks back I assembled a list of my âessential elevenâ traditional murder ballads. Â While we here at Murder Ballad Monday usually delve deeply into one ballad or theme, we saw some possible value in a lighter âlist-basedâ … Continue reading →
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 →
Bob Weir [This is the fourth post this week on Marty Robbinsâs âEl Paso.â Â You can find the first one here, the second here, and the third here.]Iâve found over the course of doing my weeks at the blog that … Continue reading →
[This is the third post this week on Marty Robbinsâs âEl Paso.â Â Read the first here, and the second here.] In todayâs post, letâs give a listen to some of the Western material that Robbins created both at the time … Continue reading →
Laurette Luez [This is the second post on the song âEl Paso.â  Read the first one here.]Crossing BordersIn his essay on âEl Pasoâ in The Rose and the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad,â music critic and … Continue reading →
Out in the west Texas town of El PasoOf all the songs Iâve explored so far in this blog, none has proven quite as elusive as âEl Pasoâ to find the proverbial handles to grab on to it and open … Continue reading →
