Grateful Dead

Dennis, in the Dead's version he's being accused by someone, "you took her on the hillside and there you took her knife. You took her on the hillside and then you took her life. You dug a grave 4 feet wide, you dug it 3feet deep, you pulled the cold clay over her and you tromped it with your feet." I think he was railroaded!

I am not convinced he killed her. Don't pay too much attention to the lyrics for the facts.. this is a well documented true story and in the end it is not clear that Tom Dula killed Laura Foster although it is quite clear she died (probably murdered) and he was convicted for it, the saga ending when life left his body while dangling from the wrong end of a rope.

"Asked in seriousness if he had any last words to say, Tom held his right hand and replied, "gentlemen, do you see this hand? Do you see it tremble? Do you see it shake? I never hurt a hair on the girl's head". The trap door was dropped."

It was on the first day of May, 1866, that Tom Dooley rode through the streets of Statesville in a wagon. He sat on the top of his coffin on that bright and shiny day with his banjo on his knee, joking with the throng of people walking along. He picked his favorite ballad on the old banjo, laughing as the wagon neared the gallows. When the rope was placed around his neck, he joked with Sheriff W. E. Watson, "I would have washed my neck if I had known you were using such a nice clean new rope".

Two links that shed a little more light on this...

http://ncvisitorcenter.com/Story_of_Tom_Dooley.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Dooley_(song)

Man.. you guys have outlined my work listening this afternoon. I feel the need to listen to many versions of all these great songs... while their narrative piques my curiosity and steers my imagination.

Grayson and Whitter 1929. Peppy, mountain music. The version you are most likely to be drinking local shine from an old stoneware jug.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9NHKINSKFk

Kingston Trio 1958 introduced by a young and dapper Milton Berle.. "when the sun rises tomorrow, Tom Dooley must hang"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3zdE8bliGI

Doc Watson 1964. One the best pickers to ever pluck a string
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkzgNgBk8_E

Tom Dula - Neil Young 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zouila8_-F8

Grateful Dead 1978
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxetLkhani0

Speaking of crimes,,,

I never understood in El Paso, why the guy ran?

So in anger I challenged his right for the love of this maiden
Down went his hand for the gun that he wore
My challenge was answered, in less than a heartbeat
The handsome young stranger lay dead on the floor

The guy did try to draw! His bad luck he wasn't faster!

Steve Earle character, I think maybe he drew without the challenge part. From "The Devil's Right Hand" (Johnny Cash does a great cover)

Got into a card game in a company town
I caught a miner cheating, I shot the dog down
I shot the dog down, I watched the man fall
He never touched his holster, never had a chance to draw

Another "kill her" tune, Delilah, by Tom Jones. I listened to this tune for 30 plus years and NEVER realized he shiv-ed her!

At break of day when that man drove away I was waiting
I crossed the street to her house and she opened the door
She stood there laughing
I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more

I guess he failed to see the humor in the situation!

And yes, I AM the music siphon. OR, so I thought until I saw this the other day. Hope this isn't where I saw it. But a big wow from this guy.

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/02/809977172/the-archive-of-contemporary-mu…

I believe Tom really did Laurie Foster

"I met her on the mountain, there I took her life
Met her on the mountain, stabbed her with my knife"

The Scottish version, kinda, he didn't kill her, but was betrayed by her. From a tune written by Jamie Macpherson while he waited to be hung. Updated by Robert Burns. I have The Corries doing it.

MacPherson's Rant
The Corries

Farewell ye dungeons dark and strong,
Farewell, farewell tae thee,
MacPhersons time will no be lang,
On yonder gallow's tree

It was by a woman's treachorous hands,
That I was condemned to dee,
She stood uben a windae ledge,
And a blanket threw o'er me

Sae rantingly, sae wantonly,
Ans sae dauntingly gaed he,
He played a tune and he danced around
Below the gallow's tree
(Chorus)

Oh what is death, but parting breath
On mony a bloody plain
I've daur'd his face, and in his place
I scorn him yet again

Sae rantingly, sae wantonly,
Ans sae dauntingly gaed he,
He played a tune and he danced around
Below the gallow's tree
(Chorus)

I have lived a life, o' straught and strife
I die by treachery
It burns my heart, that I must depart
An no avenged be

Sae rantingly, sae wantonly,
Ans sae dauntingly gaed he,
He played a tune and he danced around
Below the gallow's tree
(Chorus)

So tak these bands fae aff my hands
Gae to me my sword
There's nae a man in a' Scotland
But I'll brave him at a word

Sae rantingly, sae wantonly,
Ans sae dauntingly gaed he,
He played a tune and he danced around
Below the gallow's tree
(Chorus)

Now farewell light thou sunshine bright
And all beneath the sky
May coward shame distain his name
The wretch that dare not die

Sae rantingly, sae wantonly,
Ans sae dauntingly gaed he,
He played a tune and he danced around
Below the gallow's tree
(Chorus)

I got these two albums years ago by The Tannerhill Weavers. Played the shit out them, thought I knew all the words. Finally got to see the words, found they were mostly Gaelic and had almost all of them wrong! :-)

Some great stuff from them-there Scot people.

JeffSmith - you're The Man for offering of The Volumes - I am glad the effort will not be lost to the ravages of time, but instead shared with All, as it should be. That's really cool.
Dennis - you are a music siphon the likes of which I have rarely seen!

Also enjoying this banter and thoughtfulness about 'the justice vs. injustice' present in some songs. I mean, think about it: those card players in Me and My Uncle got all shot up, over a game!
Poor fellers.

Sixtus

Didn't he get 41 years and 41 days and nights?

An extra 6 weeks to think about what he'd done.

Dylan did a great version of this song on Bootleg Series Vol 10, which is probably my favorite of the whole series.

Somehow, I always assumed it was the name of a penitentiary; However, there was a Viola Lee charged with running a
"disorderly" house(whorehouse) in June 1917, in Arizona. Two women and two men were also arrested...who knows? I'm still searching.

Dennis what about Tom Dooley? He didn't kill poor Lori Foster and look what happened to him. "This time tomorrow morning where do you reckon I'll be, down in a lonesome valley , just swinging from a white oak tree.". Now that's injustice!

Grand Funk Railroad-Grand Funk
Genesis-Bonus Disc from '70-'75 box
Genesis-Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Lenny Bruce-American
Dave Mason/Cass Elliott-S/T

And a-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a wop-bam boom!!

Well.. I see.. Good Point Dennis. If I had to rank the songs, it would go Viola Lee Blues, Little Sadie then Stagger Lee - understanding this is just my personal preference.

The sentences in descending order were:

Viola Lee Blues, the crime isn't mentioned but some got six months, so we can assume it's barely a felony. "Me and my buddies got lifetime here" (Viola Lee got life). A major injustice.

In Little Sadie, the crime was murder in the first degree. Lee Brown got 41 years (not quite life.. we will call it halfway there).

In Stagger Lee, the crime was also first degree murder. Stagger Lee was not charged because he was basically a mob boss.. so he got nothing. Certainly an injustice, a judicial travesty of sorts.

..but there is some foreshadowing mentioned by the authors that alludes to a different ending although no proof is mentioned, the authors leave it up to us to figure it all out (as in many great songs).

_____________________________________

Stagger Lee ultimately got the Death Sentence but only after Mrs. DeLions shot him in the balls with her gun (we are lead to believe this was a 45). Getting shot in the balls with a 45 and then getting dragged off to city hall to face a what is most certainly a death sentence is ultimately the harshest penalty of the three.

In Little Sadie, his sentence was a little light, 42 years, probably out on parole in 20.. but it is probably within the state range in North Carolina. Typical sentences for a first degree murder range from 30 years to life. Although this isn't mentioned in the song, for the crime he committed he can expect to get beat up a lot in jail, so there's that.

In Viola Lee Blues, they get the harshest sentence of them all, the got "lifetime here" meaning life in prison. However, understanding that Noah Lewis was born in in the deep south in 1891and wrote Viola Lee Blues just before the Great Depression (it was recorded in 1928). As for the crime, since it is not mentioned.. it took some research but I do believe I was able to ferret out the facts. You see.. there is a similar event popularized by the movie Oh Brother, Where Art Thou where an overly harsh sentence was carried out in the Deep South and the three (me and my buddies) were not getting out.. and while the protagonist is serving his time and the great depression begins to ravage the country, his wife divorces him and gets engaged, he escapes from prison, finds his wife, gets pardoned by the Governor of Mississippi and we can only assume lives happily ever after.

So it all works out in the end, and we got the hit song Man of Constant Sorrow written by the Soggy Bottom Boys that was later covered by Jerry Garcia at several points in his career so the story becomes very much Grateful Dead Related.

Fear not, Dennis.. justice has a way of finding it's footing even when injustices occasionally rule the day. In fact.. that's how we got some of our favorite songs.