23 criminal classics about MURDER, THEFT AND DEVILISH DEALS
Crime doesn’t pay…
…or so they say. However, stories of how it was committed, talk of cowardly curmudgeons, bandits, gunfighters, murderers and various social misfits have always been at the heart of music. The devil has all the best tunes and some of his compatriots have tales to unfold. And, through the generations of contemporary music, those parables of poor behaviour have continuously been dusted off.
This collection of songs brings together such anecdotes that have lived through legend and inspired many a performer to wallow in their dodgy dealings. Take for example ‘Bad Lee Brown’ a song that was sung by Woody Guthrie that is a strange tale of wife murdering which has been covered by Bob Dylan, Uncle Tupelo, Johnny Cash and Nick Drake among others, in its guise as ‘Little Sadie’ or ‘Cocaine Blues’ where the perpetrator is more intimately called Willy Lee.
In a swift role reversal, Frank Crumit’s ‘Frankie And Johnny’ has the woman (Frankie) shoot her lover (Johnny) dead after she catches him making love to another woman. It’s Chicago all over again. The song was also recorded as “Frankie And Albert’ and has been covered by Dylan, Jack Johnson and Van Morrison among a huge list of others.
‘Pretty Polly’ is yet another tale of murder, where Polly is lured into the forest, murdered and buried in a shallow grave. The song became notorious in the UK as ‘The Gosport Tragedy’ and inspired versions by Sandy Denny and Pentangle, while it also found many interpreters in the Appalachian mountains of the USA and formed the basis of Bob Dylan’s ‘The Ballad Of Hollis Brown’. Another early influence on Dylan was John Jacob Niles whose distinctive vocal can be heard on ‘Bonnie Farday’, a song also known as ‘Babylon’ which tells the story of a man who proposes to three sisters in turn. As he is denied he kills them until he gets to the last when he realises that he is actually their brother and kills himself. All good wholesome everyday stuff.
And there’s plenty more. West Virginia was the home of the railroad worker John Hardy who killed a man during a card game and was remembered in the song ‘John Hardy Was A Desperate Little Man’ which became another Dylan favourite after being covered by Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger among others, eventually being interpreted by Uncle Tupelo and The Gun Club in more recent times. The game Hardy was playing was craps that also formed the basis for ‘Dying Crapshooter's Blues’ by Blind Willie McTell that was later covered by The White Stripes.
America from the civil war on was a violent place filled with wanted posters and fireside stories and songs. Thomas Coleman Younger was a Confederate guerrilla and bandit who joined the gang of Jesse James and is lamented in ‘The Bandit Cole Younger’, while Charles Guiteau was an American lawyer who assassinated president Garfield in 1881 and ‘Omie Wise’ was an orphan girl who was killed in North Carolina by the Lewis brothers.
Jesse James is the subject of many songs including his descendent Almeda Riddle’s song that was later elaborated on by Ry Cooder, Bruce Springsteen and The Pogues. The Pogues also did a spectacular version of ‘Miss Otis Regrets’ with Kirsty McColl, recounting the Cole Porter song with a storyline about a society girl who murders a man, in which Porter has the irony set to 11.
Murder is a recurrent theme of the songs of the 1800s and ‘Banks Of The Ohio’, which was a pop hit for Grease star Olivia Newton John in the 1960s, tells of a spurned marriage proposal that led to a strange pre-nup disagreement that was covered by Johnny Cash and Joan Baez.
It’s the outlaws and early lawmakers who seem to have the most intriguing songs written about them and Woody Guthrie’s story of ‘Billy The Kid’ and ‘Vigilante Man’, both covered by Ry Cooder on the excellent ‘Into The Purple Valley’ album, are truly exceptional dialogues as is his tale of ‘Pretty Boy Floyd’, covered by The Byrds on ‘Sweetheart Of The Rodeo’, a kind of Robin Hood character who certainly stole but gave to the poor farmers and never killed anyone.
Unlike the young woman from the song ‘Henry Lee’ who, pregnant with Lee’s child and after being spurned by her lover, gets him drunk and stabs him to death in her bedroom. Perfect stuff for Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds’ ‘Murder Ballads’ album, which featured a vocal foil by PJ Harvey. Cave also covered ‘Stack O’Lee’ on that exceptional collection, which is the story of Lee Shelton a pimp and cab driver who murdered William Lyons in 1891 and is known as Stack-a-lee, Stagger Lee or Stagolee, a cool, street wise tough black character whose story became the stuff of legend.
By contrast, John Henry was a good man, a railroad worker who died challenging progress. So the story goes, his boss had invested in a steam hammer and in true luddite fashion, John Henry said he could match anything it could do and subsequently collapsed and died as he took on the new invention proving that muscles alone can’t win the day… although “Peanuts” Wilson’s bragging about his ‘Cast Iron Arm’ proved to be a suitable deterrent as someone tried to steal his lady on a night out bowling, a show of bravura that’s been covered by Roy Orbison and Bow Wow Wow among others.
No one was injured in the tales of John Henry or the man with the cast iron arm. However, being moralistic for a moment, crime and the criminal underbelly are bound to eventually lead to some sort of soul searching as displayed by Leroy Carr in ‘Prison Cell Blues’ or indeed they might lead further afield to the gallows pole as recounted by Led Zeppelin on ‘III” and originally interpreted by Leadbelly.
The devil does indeed have all the best tunes as the soul selling Robert Johnson intoned on ‘Me And The Devil Blues’, a song close to the heart of Eric Clapton that similarly inspired everyone from Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, the Stones, Jack White and thousands more. Whatever went on at the crossroads, it sure gave us some fine music.
1 Cast Iron Arm 2:22 Peanuts Wilson 2 Vigilante Man 3:24 Woody Guthrie 3 Frankie and Johnny 3.18 Frank Crumit 4 Dying Crapshooter's Blues 3:09 Blind Willie McTell 5 Bonnie Farday aka Babylon 6:54 John Jacob Niles 6 Bad Lee Brown aka Cocaine Blues 2:18 Woody Guthrie 7 Henry Lee 3:29 Dick Justice 8 Bandit Cole Younger 2:57 Edward L Crain 9 Pretty Boy Floyd 3:12 Woody Guthrie 10 John Hardy Was A Desperate Little Man 2:58 The Carter Family 11 Banks Of The Ohio 2:49 Bascom Lamar Lunsford 12 Stack O' Lee 2:57 Mississippi John Hurt 13 Pretty Polly 3:02 Dock Boggs 14 John Henry 4:45 Furry Lewis 15 Jesse James 1:00 Almeda Riddle 16 Miss Otis Regrets (She's Unable to Lunch Today) 3:08 Ethel Waters 17 Stealin', Stealin' 2:58 The Memphis Jug Band 18 Me And The Devil Blues #2 2:34 Robert Johnson 19 Omie Wise 3:12 GB Grayson 20 Charles Giteau 3:06 Kelly Harrell And The Virginia String Band 21 Billy the Kid 2:03 Woody Guthrie 22 The Gallis Pole 3:01 Leadbelly 23 Prison Cell Blues 2:52 Leroy Carr
