No mandolin, I recorded this old murder ballad tonight on my new guitar. I've had a pretty bad "players block" and been unable to record myself, mandolin tunes, Woodshed studies, etc. ... so I decided to work up this tune that I've been playing and performing on guitar for years, and I actually went through with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffBszfoI1hs I know, it's a macabre sort of video, but this is a macabre sort of song. Little Sadie is a tragic but tongue-in-cheek telling of a murder from way back when. By way of explanation: I wanted to make a collage of imagery for visual interest as a backdrop to display the lyrics of this song. In doing it, I included a few personal photos of myself and of my late 'significant other'. No, I didn't kill her, I lost her a couple years ago - long enough now that I could use my images in an art project, even a macabre one. I do confess, however, there may have been times I wanted to kill her. And I know the feeling was mutual from time to time. There is an image of my grandson choking me from a few years back ... his name is Devon, his nickname is The Devonator, and we were goofing around in the little park outside my favorite coffee shop. There is an image of "Angie" - Phyllis Hunnicutt and I - in Las Vegas, and a few other personal images, which was my pleasure to include in this video. I hope that the song and the video is not off-putting for anyone. It was fun for me to make. Lyrics: "The hacks and the buggies were waitin' in line" --- a "hack" is also a type of horse-drawn buggy. That word is not well known these days. And, "standin' on a corner, readin' a bill" --- this in in reference to a handbill, or "wanted poster".
As my old radio boss used to say - that was very 'Old-Timey'. Keep up the good work!
Quite nice, as usual. I can sure hear the Doc Watson influence. I think he would say "you did good".
Good one, Mark. Only 41 years? I think he got off easy. For some reason the melody sounds familiar. It must have some relatives out there.
This was a good listen, Mark. Great work!
Murder ballads—a peculiarly American art form? Well done on this one, and a sweet use of old photos.
Not at all, Louise, many of these came down from the Isles, I believe, but yes there are many that arose here like Stagger Lee (or Stack-o-lee), The Ballad of Tom Dula (Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley), Frankie and Johnnie, Naomi Wise (Omie Wise), etc. But some have been appropriated from Europe or the British Isles like Knoxville Girl which is believed to have derived from The Wexler Girl (Ireland) or from The Oxford Girl (England - and this is the original as far as we know). For a quick, interesting 5 paragraph read check out the History section of this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_ballad
I'm a sucker for the old murder ballads, especially the folk tradition versions rather than the polished pop versions. Compare Doc Watson's Tom Dooley (Dula) to the familiar version most people know from the Kingston Trio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkzgNgBk8_E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H0QqBcOwDY
No apologies necessary, Mark, it's a heck of a song and your treatment is spot-on, both musically & visually. Hey, life isn't just kittens & flowers, you know. The guitar is sounding good, and you're enjoying the exploration, it sound like. Me & everyone else hopes your writers PAUSE passes quickly. Good job as always!
Thanks for the kind words, everyone. The article I linked to mentioned a parody song written by Tom Leher titled The Irish Ballad in which he pokes a bit of fun at the folk murder ballads ... I had to look it up, here goes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47bKTtIwrO4
