Steven L Jones

Murder Ballads Old and New (eBook, ePUB)

A Dark and Bloody Record

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Murder Ballads Old & New: A Dark and Bloody Record is an exploration of an age-old topic our human need to document the horrors of the world around us. The murder ballad, here expanded to include songs about traumatic loss in modern variants and multiple styles, including punk, post-punk, alt-country, and folk. The book is a graveyard stroll past tombs both well-kept and half-hidden. Murder Ballads Old & New excavates facts about killers, victims, and the folkloric storytellers who disseminated their tales in song.

Author Steven L. Jones focuses the tragic ballad as an act of remembering and a soul-reckoning with the ineffable. Songs examined range from obscure tunes from the founding days of the United States to familiar canonical songs learned in schoolrooms and honkytonks. Jones tackles each song in a manner that's equal parts musicological, psychosocial, and genealogical as he uncovers stories that reveal larger contexts and maps the lineages of songs and themes, forebears, and ancestors.

Murder Ballads Old & New includes a wide range of songs and performers from the relatively unknown (Boiled in Lead, Freakons, Nelstone's Hawaiians) to the ironically famous (Johnny Cash, Lou Reed, Sonic Youth). Highlights include tales of Muddy Waters guitar sideman Pat Hare, whose incendiary blues boast I'm Gonna Murder My Baby proved grimly prophetic. And honky-tonk pioneer Eddie Noack, whose morbid stab at late-career rebirth, Psycho, couldn't match the bottomless tragedy of his own life. As well as Depression-era holdup man Pretty Boy Floyd, Schubert's mythical Erlkönig, and the Manson Family.

Murder Ballads Old & New is a compelling delve into the perennial American fascination with True Crime. Includes archival and historical black & white images.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Feral House
• Erscheinungstermin: 12. September 2023
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781627311359
• Artikelnr.: 69085435

Autorenporträt

Steven L. Jones is an artist, writer, musician, and former instructor at Virginia Commonwealth University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Kentucky-born, the son of a choir director and violinist, he lives with his wife Catherine and dog Mojo in his adopted hometown, Chicago. A longtime writer for magazines and online journals, including the Woody Guthrie Foundation magazine Sing Out. Murder Ballads Old & New is his first book.

Inhaltsangabe

Foreword
Introduction Chapter One: Ancient History, Origins of the Modern Murder
Ballad Digging for Clues in the Fatal Flower Garden Featuring the songs:
?Fatal Flower Garden? by Nelstone's Hawaiians ?Little Sir Hugh? as
interpreted by Steeleye Span You Can't Win a Race with a Cannonball
Featuring the songs:
?My Son John? as interpreted by Boiled in Lead, Tim Hart & Maddie Pryor
?Mrs. McGraw? as interpreted by Burl Ives, Tommy Makem, Bruce Springsteen,
and The Weavers
The Triplett Tragedy Featuring the songs:
?The Triplett Tragedy? by Sophronie Miller Greer/The Watson Family ?The
Butcher's Boy as interpreted by Buell Kazee ?Masters of War? by Bob Dylan
Pat Hare Murders His Baby
Featuring the songs:
?I'm Gonna Murder My Baby? by Pat Hare ?Cheating and Lying Blues? by Doctor
Clayton ?Goin' Down to Eli? by Robert Nighthawk ?Me and the Devil Blues? by
Robert Johnson ?Papa's 'Bout to Get Mad? by Pink Anderson & Simmie Doole
?Bring Me My Shotgun? by Lightnin' Hopkins ?Little Sadie? by Clarence
Ashley ?Delia's Gone? as interpreted by Johnny Cash Chapter Two: Hardly
Getting Over It: Contemporary Reckonings with Tragedy Suffer Little
Children Featuring the songs:
?Suffer Little Children? by The Smiths ?Love in a Faithless Country? by
Richard Thompson ?No One Is Innocent (A Punk Prayer)? by The Sex Pistols
with Ronnie Biggs
?You Need Hands? by Max Bygrave ?Nebraska? by Bruce Springsteen
Getting Home Alive
Featuring the songs:
?Diane? by Hüsker Dü ?Pretty Polly? as interpreted by Dock Boggs, B. F.
Shelton ?Polly? by Nirvana ?Long Gone Lonesome Blues? by Hank Williams
?I Saw the Light? by Hank Williams Like a God with a Thunderbolt
Featuring the songs:
?Drone Operator? by Jon Langford and the Skull Orchard
?Funeral? by The Mekons ?Plenty Tough and Union Made? by The Waco Brothers
And Everybody Cried
Featuring the songs:
"Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife? by Drive-By Truckers
?Remember Me Well? by House of Freaks
Chapter Three: Hard Work and Hard Times, Songs of Labor and Strife
And Who Killed the Miner?
Featuring the songs:
?The Bells of Rhymney? as interpreted by The Byrds, Pete Seeger ?Trimdon
Grange Explosion? as interpreted by Louis Killen, Martin Carthy,
Battlefield Band, The Mekons ?Down in The Coal Hole? by The Mekons
?Abernant 1983/4? by The Mekons ?Coal Miner's Grave? by Hazel Dickens
Honey Take a Whiff on Me Featuring the songs: ?Tell it to Me? by Grant
Brothers & Their Music
?Cocaine Habit Blues? by The Memphis Jug Band ?Minnie the Moocher? by Cab
Calloway ?Minnie the Moocher's Wedding Day? by Cab Calloway ?Cocaine Lil?
by The Mekons Hard Time Killing Floor
Featuring the songs: ?Killing Floor? by Howlin' Wolf ?Hard Time Killing
Floor Blues? by Skip James
Worse Than the Thing That Possessed Me
Featuring the songs:
?Dora? by The Mekons ?Ellen West? by Throwing Muses ?Annalisa? by Public
Image Ltd. Chapter Four: Game Changers, Outlaws, and Folk Heroes
A Walkin' Chunk a Mean-Mad
Featuring the songs:
?Pretty Boy Floyd? by Woody Guthrie and interpreted by The Byrds, Ramblin'
Jack Elliott, and Wall of Voodoo
?Al Capone? by Prince Buster
?Bankrobber? by The Clash ?The Message? by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious
Five ?Robin Hood? by The Mekons Postcards of the Hanging
Featuring the songs:
?Strange Fruit? by Billie Holiday ?Miss Otis Regrets? as interpreted by
Ella Fitzgerald, Josh White, and The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl ?Beer for
My Horses? by Toby Keith with Willie Nelson ?Supper Time? by Ella
Fitzgerald ?Southern Man? by Neil Young
?Sweet Home Alabama? by Lynyrd Skynyrd
?Alabama? by Neil Young
The Day John Kennedy Died
Featuring the songs:
?The Day John Kennedy Died? by Lou Reed ?He Was a Friend of Mine? as
interpreted by Bob Dylan, The Byrds The Ballad of JFK: A Musical History of
the John F. Kennedy Assassination (1963-1968) (album) by Various Artists
Charles Manson Murders the '60s
Featuring the songs:
?Death Valley '69" by Sonic Youth ?Revolution Blues? by Neil Young ?Eight
Miles High? as interpreted by Hüsker Dü ?Never Learn Not to Love? by The
Beach Boys ?Cease to Exist? by Charles Manson ?Revolution 9? by The Beatles
Chapter Five: Fancies of Love, Fantasies of Death
Whisperer in Darkness
Featuring the songs:
?Der Erlkönig? (Schubert) performed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Gerald
Moore   ?Earl King? by Dom Fleming
Full Moon, Dark Heart
Featuring the songs:
?Psycho? interpreted by Eddie Noack, James Kittel, Elvis Costello ?These
Hands? by Eddie Noack, interpreted by Hank Snow ?Dolores? by Eddie Noack
?The End of the Line? by Eddie Noack ?The Cold, Hard Facts of Life? by
Porter Waggoner ?I've Got Someone to Kill? by Johnny Paycheck ?Folsom
Prison Blues? by Johnny Cash Murder in the Red Barn
Featuring the song:
?Murder in the Red Barn? by Tom Waits
When You Get to the Bottom, We'll Kiss You to Sleep
Featuring the songs:
?Lie Down? by The Handsome Family
?Weightless Again? by The Handsome Family
?Down in the Ground? by The Handsome Family ?The Giant of Illinois? by The
Handsome Family
?In the Air? by The Handsome Family ?My Beautiful Bride? by The Handsome
Family Chapter Six: Lost and Found
Redemption, Loss, and Wrecks on the Highway
Featuring the songs:
?Wreck on the Highway? by Dorsey Dixon and interpreted by Roy Acuff, The
Louvin Brothers, George Jones & Gene Pitney, The Waco Brothers Satan Is
Real (album) by The Louvin Brothers
?Wreck on the Highway? by Bruce Springsteen ?Reason to Believe? by Bruce
Springsteen ?Percy's Song? by Bob Dylan and interpreted by Joan Baez,
Fairport Convention
?The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll? by Bob Dylan
?My Back Pages? by Bob Dylan ?Crazy Man Michael? by Fairport Convention
?Never Again? by Richard & Linda Thompson Alone and Forsaken, We All Die
Featuring the songs:
?T. B. Sheets? by Van Morrison and interpreted by John Lee Hooker ?Brown
Eyed Girl? by Van Morrison ?T. B. Blues? by Victoria Spivey and interpreted
by Sonny Boy Williamson ?T. B. Is Killing Me? by Buddy Moss ?What Sarah
Said? by Death Cab for Cutie ?John Wayne Gacy, Jr.? by Sufjan Stevens
?Casimir Pulaski Day? by Sufijan Stevens
On the Rails, Alive and Dead Featuring the songs:
?On the Evening Train? interpreted by Johnny Cash, Mollie O'Day ?Like the
309? by Johnny Cash
?In the Baggage Coach Ahead? by Gussie Davis and interpreted by Vernon
Dalhart
?He Is Coming to Us Dead? by Grayson & Whitter and interpreted by Gussie
Davis, Steve Ledford, Ron Thomason/Dry Branch Fire Squad
?There's a Little Box of Pine on the 7:29? interpreted by Asa Martin &
James Roberts, Hank Snow Coda: Hurt
Featuring the songs: ?Hurt? by Trent Reznor and interpreted by Johnny Cash
?In My Time of Dying? by Blind Willie Johnson and interpreted by Josh
White, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin Appendix
Playlists
Discography
Acknowledgments
Index