Murder Ballads - Pretty Polly and more - NMC

[HonketyHank]

Josh Turknett's latest banjo tune of the week is Pretty Polly and in his blog post he refers to research by the London based journalist Paul Slade into the facts (if any) behind the ballad. Paul's website is http://www.planetslade.com/index.html . If you go there, you will see that Paul has done research on several murder ballads. I just finished a fascinating reading of his work on Pretty Polly and have started with Tom Dooley.

Paul's style is light but not frivolous, so it is easy reading. His research appears to have been exhaustive - so much so that his articles are too long for a quick read. But they are really interesting.

He also has a bunch of articles on various other subjects which I intend to explore.

I suspect there are other nuts like me here who enjoy knowing the story behind some of the tunes we play, so I thought I would pass this along with my recommendation.

[CarlM]

Doc Watson would tell stories about the Tom Dooley (Dula) ballad when he sang it. He said his grandmother knew Annie Melton and was at her bedside when she died. His family knew all the characters in the story and he learned it first hand before it became popular. He tells the whole story on his Legacy cds and did so in concert when he was doing those legacy shows with David Holt.

[allenhopkins]

North Carolina folk singer Bobby McMillon has done a lot of research and collecting around the Tom Dooley/Dula story, as well as another well-known murder case, that of Frankie Silver, who in 1833 became the first woman executed in North Carolina, for the axe murder of husband Charlie.

If you want to find the stories behind a lot of well-known songs (including murder ballads), from Stackolee to Frankie & Johnny, Omie Wise, Poor Ellen Smith, John Hardy and others, I recommend Richard Polenberg's book Hear My Sad Story (Cornell University Press, 2015). Prof. Polenberg's done a lot of research in contemporary press accounts, and come up with details I never found in liner notes.

[re simmers]

Banks of the Ohio. “...,and watched her as...she floated down.
Bob

[Ivan Kelsall]

''Wild Bill Jones'' has been a favourite of mine for ever (so it seems). English /Scottish / Irish folk genres are littered with murder ballads of one sort or another & of course many were 'transplanted' over to the US with the immigrants,then of course the US had their own murder ballads to add to them. Bob Dylan famously wrote about one of them - 'The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll',
Ivan

'Wild Bill Jones - AKUS
'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll - Bob Dylan

[Charlieshafer]

And, from the 1600's, The House Carpenter, or the Demon Lover, wherein a woman who decides to leave her husband finds the man she left hi for is the devil, and is subsequently drowned in a shipwreck.

[mandocaster]

Long Black Veil has always been a favorite of mine, being one of the few tunes I will sing in public. It combines murder, adultery, mistaken identity, and ghosts. I would love to know if there was any story behind it.

[Mark Gunter]

From 22:00 to 25:20 - comments on the local legends passed around about the case of Tom Dula, Laura Foster and Ann Melton



It's an Appalachian speech affectation that changes "Dula" to "Dooley" and "Laura" to "Laurie". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Dula

Folk in the Carolinas often pronounce a trailing "a" as "ie" or "ey".

I like Doc's version of the Dula ballad way better than the one the Kingston Trio popularized, which according to Alan Lomax in the documentary Appalachian Journey was based on a ballad by Frank Proffitt.

Here it is, starting at 15:00 - 19:00 or so.

[Willie Poole]

Knoxville Girl, along the same line as Banks Of The Ohio....99 Years And One Dark Day.....

Willie

[CarlM]

Long Black Veil has always been a favorite of mine, being one of the few tunes I will sing in public. It combines murder, adultery, mistaken identity, and ghosts. I would love to know if there was any story behind it.

Long Black Veil is a modern, commercially written song, written in 1959 by Marijohn Wilkin and Danny Dill. It is not based on any real events except very loosely.

[Mark Gunter]

Poor Ellen Smith is a good one; another is Omie Wise.

[Ivan Kelsall]

There's a few here. Most likely lots more if you look for 'em !,
Ivan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_ballad

[ManjoMan]

Don't forget the "Knoxville Girl", whose name was never mentioned. Of course, that may have
been written without any reference to an actual murder.

[smokinop]

Chris Stapleton & Mike Henderson penned several modern classic on the first Steeldrivers album.

[Steve VandeWater]

The Mourning Cloak by Laurie Lewis and the Right Hands is another great one.
Little Sadie by Doc Watson
Matty Groves, also by Doc

[Ky Slim]

"Dreadful Wind and Rain" This one is really dark IMO

[Steve VandeWater]

I've been reading some of the stories from the link in the OP's thread. It is great stuff and definitely worth a read! I've always been fascinated with murder ballads.