Farewell Possum.

George Jones wasn't a murder ballad type of guy, he was more of "drinking whiskey and crying 'cuz she left me" honky tonk guy.  But looking at his life, it's almost surprising that he didn't become the topic of a murder ballad: violence, drug addiction, divorce, occasionally singing like a duck on stage, more divorce, and a lot of booze.

I'm not kidding about the duck thing either:

In his autobiography "I Lived to Tell It All," country legend George Jones describes a mega-bender of booze and drugs that continued until his brain snapped and he found himself locked in a Donald Duck voice that he couldn’t stop using when he spoke. Let me reiterate: George Jones got so wasted that he was only able to speak in a Donald Duck voice for days on end. He performed several entire concerts in his Duck impression and, at one point, to make matter worse, he locked himself in his dressing room and wouldn’t hit the stage until he was introduced as Hank Williams.  - Holy Taco 

There's also this legendary tale:

Once, when I had been drunk for several days, Shirley decided she would make it physically impossible for me to buy liquor. I lived about eight miles from Beaumont and the nearest liquor store. She knew I wouldn't walk that far to get booze, so she hid the keys to every car we owned and left. 

But she forgot about the lawn mower. I can vaguely remember my anger at not being able to find keys to anything that moved and looking longingly out a window at a light that shone over our property. There, gleaming in the glow, was that ten-horsepower rotary engine under a seat; a key glistening in the ignition.

 I imagine the top speed for that old mower was five miles per hour. It might have taken an hour and a half or more for me to get to the liquor store, but get there I did. -  George Jones, "I Lived to Tell All"1

But that voice:

I've been racking my brain trying to find words to describe it that haven't already been used.  Pure  heartbreak in a voice.  A national treasure. How about, "goddamn, that voice"?

Only a voice like that, could lyrics like this seem poinant:

I pulled the head off Elvis
Filled Fred up to his pelvis
Yabba Dabba Doo, the King is gone
And so are you.2

Eventually, with the help of his 4th wife Nancy, Jones cleaned up.  With the exception of a few stumbles (and one huge car crash) he pretty much stayed out of the news.  

He died April 26th 2012 at the age of 81.  With all the slick, pop driven, sugar coated crap that's being passed off as country music,  I can't help but thing that so much of the real thing has died with him.

---------------

1.  Jones, George with Tom Carter.  I Lived to Tell it All. Dell Publishing, 1996

2.  Ferris, Roger. D. The King is Gone and So Are You 

Another Stagger Lee roundup.

(Other Stagger Lee posts can be found here, and here)

Taj Mahal




Wilson Pickett




Jerry Reed's odd, heavily sanitized version. Billy and Stack have a quarrel over a broad, then make-up. No one gets murdered, no one even gets shot.  Sorry Jerry, but if you're going to cover Stagger Lee, someone needs to end up dead.

 

Happy Halloween from Sing a Song of Murder.

I

A THIN moon faints in the sky o'erhead,
And dumb in the churchyard lie the dead.
Walk we not, Sweet, by garden ways,
Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays,
But forth of the gate and down the road,
Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.

II

Fear not that sound like wind in the trees:
It is only their call that comes on the breeze;
Fear not the shudder that seems to pass:
It is only the tread of their feet on the grass;
Fear not the drip of the bough as you stoop:
It is only the touch of their hands that grope--
For the year's on the turn and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can yearn and the dead can smite.

III

And where should a man bring his sweet to woo
But here, where such hundreds were lovers too?
Where lie the dead lips that thirst to kiss,
The empty hands that their fellows miss,
Where the maid and her lover, from sere to green,
Sleep bed by bed, with the worm between?
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.

IV

And now they rise and walk in the cold,
Let us warm their blood and give youth to the old.
Let them see us and hear us, and say: "Ah, thus
In the prime of the year it went with us!"
Till their lips drawn close, and so long unkist,
Forget they are mist that mingles with mist!
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can burn and the dead can smite.

V

Till they say, as they hear us--poor dead, poor dead!--
"Just an hour of this, and our age-long bed--
Just a thrill of the old remembered pains
To kindle a flame in our frozen veins,
A touch, and a sight, and a floating apart,
As the chill of dawn strikes each phantom heart--
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight."

VI

And where should the living feel alive
But here in this wan white humming hive,
As the moon wastes down, and the dawn turns cold,
And one by one they creep back to the fold?
And where should a man hold his mate and say:
"One more, one more, ere we go their way"?
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the living can learn by the churchyard light.

VII

And how should we break faith who have seen
Those dead lips plight with the mist between,
And how forget, who have seen how soon
They lie thus chambered and cold to the moon?
How scorn, how hate, how strive, wee too,
Who must do so soon as those others do?
For it's All Souls' night, and break of the day,
And behold, with the light the dead are away. . .

Edith Wharton, All Souls

                                         

Have a lovely day. Stay away from strange houses and old graveyards. Or don't.

Sing a Song of . . . Steamrollers?: The Big Tragedy AKA Slide Her Under The Door

"The Big Tragedy" contains no murders.  Yet the fate of "little Rosemarie" and the reaction of her beloved upon hearing the news of her demise makes it worthy of inclusion here.
When I first became aware of this song, it was titled "Slide Her Under the Door" sung by one Moses Longpiece. Turns out that when DJ Pete "Mad Daddy"Myers (of WHUS in Cleveland)  received the single, the record bore no mention of the title of the song or the name of the singer.  So the "Big Tragedy" became "Slide Her Under the Door" and Johnny Lance became Moses Longpiece.
I almost hate to call this a novelty song.  I love the guitar sound, and Moses' . . . er, Johnny's smooth, deep vocals.  The punchline and the "CLANG" of the instruments brings it together perfectly. A lovely, near forgotten cut from a time when rock n' roll was truly strange.

Psycho

 A brilliant piece written by legendary songwriter Leon Payne, and performed by Jack Kittel.  I managed to dig up some info on it here and here.

What I can unravel is as follows: 'Psycho' was written in 1966 by a prolific blind songwriter Leon Payne, who's music career stretched back to the 1930s and who's writing credits include such classics as 'Lost Highway' (Hank Williams) and 'I Love You Because' (Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash). Depending on who you believe, Payne wrote 'Psycho' in response to a notorious mass shooting spree at the University Of Texas and the strangely affecting letter the shooter left next to the bodies of his mother and wife, or to the story of murderer and grave robber Ed Gein (who also inspired Bloch's book/Hitchcock's movie of the same name), or possibly both.   - Record Hunting in Australia  

Speaking of Australia, Beasts of Bourbon also recorded a great version:

NCBS Murder Ballads Project. 2. Stagger Lee pt 1

Stagolee was a bully man, an' ev'y body knowed,
When dey seed Stagolee comin', to give Stagolee de road,
O dat man, bad man, Stagolee done come.


- Stagolee, 1911, Journal of American Folklore



Stagger Lee. AKA Stackolee. Stack O'Lee.  Armed and extremely dangerous.  Shot a man over a Stetson hat.  A bad, bad, man.

Stagger Lee, like many of the songs on Murder Ballads has a wealth of lore and history that predates Nick Cave's gritty, often vulgar version.  There's even an (excellent) website dedicated to it.  For a more detailed history of the song, I recommend you go there.

 Mississippi John Hurt's version, which for some is the definitive Stagger Lee.

Another version recorded by Hurt in 1964

 

Lloyd Price's version, which was the first version of Stagger Lee that I ever heard.  It's a really upbeat version.  Nothing like a dancing the night away to a tune about cold blooded murder.



Even Woody Guthrie gave the tune a go.

 


The website www.staggerlee.com lists 428 versions of Stagger Lee.  428.  To hell with "Take Me Out To The Ballgame."  This is the quintessential American song.  "So, if this is an American song," you might be thinking, "who does that fucking Australian think he is?"
Guess you'll have to wait for pt 2.

Day of Rest: Gentleman Jim Reeves

"If I, a lowly singer, dry one tear, or soothe one humble human heart in pain, then my homely verse to God is dear, and not one stanza has been sung in vain."


- The inscription on Jim Reeves memorial in Carthage, Texas.






It's always a good day for Jim Reeves, but something about fall really puts me in the mood for him.  A warm, comforting voice to listen to as the nights get colder. 






I have about 30 hours worth of overtime coming in on my next paycheck.  Great money, but I've had little time for anything else.  My schedule for October is looking a little less hectic, work-wise, and I'm looking forward to reading, crafting, baking and writing.
So relax and enjoy Gentleman Jim Reeves, one of the nicer fellows on this blog.  Tomorrow, it's back to the grind(house).


 

Off-Topic: Desperately Seeking Squeaky Fromme.

  Westchester Lariat. Classmate of Phil Hartman. Child of the 60's. Charles Manson's #1 cheerleader.  Lynnette "Squeaky" Fromme.

Not involved in the 1969 Tate/LaBianca murders she was later sentenced to life in prison for attempting to assassinate then president Gerald Ford in 1975.

In 2009 Squeaky was paroled.  She settled in Marcy, New York, and with the exception of a few stories via the tabloids that's pretty much the last anyone has heard from her.

No, have no intentions of tracking her down.  I'm sure she wants to be left alone.  But sometimes I wonder what's she's doing.  Still pinning for Charlie?  Still waiting for the revolution?  I remember reading an article in 2004 that claimed she was still "devoted" to him.  A lot can change in five years though.

I think of Squeaky bagging groceries.  Buying grapes, possibly guns.  Trying to work a cell phone.  Standing in her room alone trying to send a message to man in California.







She was 18 years old, she met him on Venice Beach.