People Take Warning! pt.3: Man V Man (And Woman, Too)

It´s time to scream some bloody murder... In this third and final post about the amazing People Take Warning! box set (see below for the others) we´re going to take a closer look at disc 3, which is called ´Man V Man (And Woman, Too)´. The best of them all in my not so humble opinion, featuring lots of amazing murder ballads from that golden age 1913-1938. Take warning, y´all!

From the liner notes: "...performers of these songs early on learned that to stimulate sales of broadsides (one page song sheets hawked at the conclusion of a performance), natural calamities did well, murder ballads did better, and murder ballads written in the first person (with their voyeuristic ´you-are-there´ feel) did best of all. And if the murders could be related to the elimination of an unwanted pregnant lover - as so many seemed to be - so much the better". 

"Railroad Bill, ought to be killed, never worked and he never will, now I´m gonna ride, my Railroad Bill..."

Morris ´Railroad Bill´ Slater (that´s him pictured above, on the ´cooling board´) actually used to work in the terpentine plantations of Southern Alabama, but later took to robbing trains. He was gunned down in March 1897 by a railroad detective while eating crackers and cheese on the porch of a general store in Atmore, Alabama. The whites demonized him as a ´notorious negro desperado´, while the blacks saw him as a kind of black Robin Hood.

"Got a thirty-eight special on a forty-four frame, how in the world can I miss him when I´ve got dead aim, now I´m gonna ride, my Railroad Bill..."

That thirty-eight special type of gun Will Bennett´s powerful song (from 1929) mentions was actually introduced years after Railroad Bill got killed, but what the hell.

"Frankie went out a-walkin´, she did not go for fun...

For under her apron she had concealed a forty-four gatling gun...

Gonna murder the man... that done me wrong."

A great version of this oft-performed song by the splendidly named Dykes Magic City Trio. Here the tune´s called Frankie, but over the years it also became known as Frankie And Johnny or Frankie And Albert. It´s not known if this classic story of a jealous shooting was based on a true event, but with a song this good, who cares.

Frank Dupree had a girlfriend named Betty, and she wanted him to show her how much he loved her by giving her a diamond. Since he had no funds, he proceeded to steal one from an Atlanta jewelry store in 1921. Dupree fled to Memphis and later to Chicago, but the windy city brought him no luck whatshowever. Cornered there, he killed a detective named Walker (no relation to the singer of this song I presume) and wounded several other policemen. Caught sometime later while getting his mail, Dupree was sent to Atlanta for trial and executed for murder on September 1, 1922. "See here, mama, what you caused me to do?" Great song, great vocals, great guitar playing, and that second vocal - by an unknown accompanist - really is the cream on the cake.

Will Bennett - Railroad Bill MP3

Dykes Magic City Trio - Frankie MP3

Willie Walker - Dupree Blues MP3

People Take Warning! pt. 2: Man V Nature

The second disc from the labour of love that is the People Take Warning! box set - for the first one, see my post below - is called ´Man V Nature´ and deals with natural disasters. Floods. Fires. Epidemics. Hurricanes and cyclones. Earthquakes. And dude, lets not forget that nasty boll weavil. 

From the foreword by Tom Waits: " These are emotional obits and cautionary tales by brave and sobered survivors. The scratches on the 78´s sound like the ocean in a shell and the songs are riding inside across time..." Here are some highlights. Take warning, people.

"The water´s gonna come and I´ll have no place to stay..." Decades before Led Zep, Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie performed their When The Levee Breaks, a fantastic song about the mighty Mississippi flood of 1927. That great lead guitar is played by Minnie btw, a real blues pioneer. Go gal, go!

"The boll weevil said to the doctor: you can put out your little pills...

But when I get through with the farmer, he can´t pay no doctor bills..."

The boll weevil sure was no joke back in the day. It had migrated into the US from Mexico in the late 19th century and by the 1920s had infested all American cotton-growing areas, devastating the industry. Fiddlin´ John Carson´s song about that ole boll weevil is very funny though. Especially when he replaces the expected rhyme of ´hell´ with ´Griffin, Georgia´ at the end of the song.

"The boll weevil says to the farmer: I certainly wish you well,

the farmer says to the boll weevil: I wish you was in... Griffin, Georgia."

"The wind was like like a demon that tore across the land..." On a ´warm September night´ in 1928, the hurricane San Felipe hit Puerto Rico. Carson Robinson released his song about the disaster - that left more than forty people dead and the whole island in disarray - exactly two weeks after the event. Pretty fast, no? "And we should all remember each one must meet his fate, and get right with our maker before it is too late."

Next up: People Take Warning! pt 3. Murder ballads galore! Watch this space...

Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie - When The Levee Breaks MP3

Fiddlin´ John Carson - Dixie Boll Weevil MP3

Carson Robinson Trio - The Porto Rico Storm MP3

People Take Warning! pt. 1: Man V Machine

The great Nick Tosches, one of my fave writers on music, boxing, the mob and a lot of other subjects, recently said the following about the People Take Warning! box set: "I've been sitting here watching the remains of this short-lived country go down the drain, and there is no better soundtrack to this than People Take Warning!, a grand and beautiful set - in every sense, from the remastered recordings to the notes to the extraordinary design work - that gives perspective both to these days and those of the past. This is white-hot history, a danse macabre, and, above all, a wealth of great old and timeless music."

Can´t agree more, Nick. People Take Warning!, subtitled ´Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938´, is a treasure trove of lovingly compiled old 78´s that sounds absolutely timeless. Released last year on the tiny Tompkins Square label, there´s some overlap with other compilations of the period such as Harry Smith´s Anthology Of American Folk Music, but not nearly so much to give it a miss.

The informative and beautifully designed booklet includes a foreword by none other than Tom Waits. "All are contained here: tragic chronicles of the perils of being human. Songs that are roadside graves dug quickly with crosses made from kindling while the grief was still fresh," he writes, and he´s right on the mark. In the era they were recorded (often mere days after a certain incident took place), these songs more or less served as newspaper articles.

We´re talking about a three disc set here, all with their own theme. Disc 2 is entitled Man V Nature and covers songs about natural disasters such as floods, epidemics and tornadoes. Disc 3 is called Man V Man (And Woman, Too) and deals exclusively with murder. In this post, let´s take a look at the first disc, Man V Machine, which is all about train wrecks, crashing cars and planes, and of course sinking ships, with special attention to the Titanic disaster.

Wreck Of The Old 97 is probably the most famous of all old time disaster songs. Johnny Cash played it a lot. It´s about the crash of mail train #97, which ran off the track and fell into a ravine somewhere in Virginia back in 1903. Nine people were killed. "They were goin' down the grade makin' 90 miles an hour, when his whistle broke into a scream... He was found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle, and scalded to death by the steam."

A great lonesome whistle serves as the intro to Cliff Carlisle´s Wreck Of Number 52, which chronicles the event of a trainfull of cattle getting derailed when it struck a spike left on the track by a small boy at play. "On his deathbed Allen lay from the burns he got that day, his wife and his children by his side... Then he heard the Master call, and he left them one and all, for Allen had taken his last ride." 

Down With The Old Canoe is one of many great songs about that seemingly infallible ship hitting the fateful iceberg, and probably my favorite of them all. "They all went down to never rise no more..." The concept of calling the Titanic an old canoe alone is priceless...

Watch this space for People Take Warning! pts. 2 and 3, containing many more goodies of the Depression era. Soon!

Skillet Lickers - Wreck Of The Old 97 MP3

Cliff Carlisle - Wreck Of Number 52 MP3

Dixon Brothers - Down With The Old Canoe MP3