Hear My Sad Story: The True Tales That Inspired "Stagolee," "John Henry," and Other Traditional American Folk Songs

by Richard D. Polenberg

In 2015, Bob Dylan said, "I learned lyrics and how to write them from listening to folk songs. And I played them, and I met other people that played them, back when nobody was doing it. Sang nothing but these folk songs, and they gave me the code for everything that's fair game, that everything belongs to everyone." In Hear My Sad Story , Richard Polenberg describes the historical events that led to the writing of many famous American folk songs that served as touchstones for generations of American musicians, lyricists, and folklorists. Those events, which took place from the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, often involved tragic occurrences: murders, sometimes resulting from love affairs gone wrong; desperate acts borne out of poverty and unbearable working conditions; and calamities such as railroad crashes, shipwrecks, and natural disasters. All of Polenberg's account of the songs in the book are grounded in historical fact and illuminate the social history of the times. Reading these tales of sorrow, misfortune, and regret puts us in touch with the dark but terribly familiar side of American history. On Christmas 1895 in St. Louis, an African American man named Lee Shelton, whose nickname was "Stack Lee," shot and killed William Lyons in a dispute over seventy-five cents and a hat. Shelton was sent to prison until 1911, committed another murder upon his release, and died in a prison hospital in 1912. Even during his lifetime, songs were being written about Shelton, and eventually 450 versions of his story would be recorded. As the song—you may know Shelton as Stagolee or Stagger Lee—was shared and adapted, the emotions of the time were preserved, but the fact that the songs described real people, real lives, often fell by the wayside. Polenberg returns us to the men and women who, in song, became legends. The lyrics serve as valuable historical sources, providing important information about what had happened, why, and what it all meant. More important, they reflect the character of American life and the pathos elicited by the musical memory of these common and troubled lives.

Genres: Music, History, Nonfiction, Cultural, Folklore, Americana

280 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2015

About the author

Richard Polenberg is professor of history at Cornell University, where he has received the Clark Distinguished Teaching Award and was appointed Goldwin Smith Professor of American History in 1986. He has been a Fulbright Visiting Professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and has published widely on twentieth-century American history, including The World of Benjamin Cardozo: Personal Values and the Judicial Process (1997); Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, the Supreme Court, and Free Speech (1989), for which he won the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award and the Gustavus Myers Foundation's Outstanding Book Award; and One Nation Divisible: Class, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States since 1938 (1980).

~ from http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/Catal...

Reviews

[PattyMacDotComma · Rating 4 out of 5]

4★
“Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story, I’m shot in the breast an’ I know I must die.”

“The Streets of Laredo” must be one of the first cowboy tunes I ever learned. This book is full of some great old tunes and research into their history and the true stories that inspired them. Some of the poetic licence means songs sometimes bear little resemblance to the tales they came from, but some are still representations of the past.

There are cowboy songs, railroad songs, mining songs, and ballads of outlaws and barroom brawls. And the Titanic... “it was sad when that great ship went down...”

There are far too many to mention, and most are known to me, an old “folkie”, and anyone familiar with the extensive collecting and recording done by Alan Lomax and his father John Lomax

This book draws on their work but then follows up on the background of the stories and attempts to trace where and how they changed over the years.

One example is “Frankie and Johnny”.

Back in 1899, Allen/Albert Britt argued with his 23-year-old girlfriend, Frankie Baker, who was in bed. He threw a lamp at her, got his knife out and started to cut her, so she pulled out the pistol she kept handy and shot him.

“He was her man, but he done her wrong.”

Somebody wrote a song about it.

Frankie was put on trial and was acquitted of murder, but the song was so popular that she moved across the country to escape the publicity. Then Mae West made it her trademark when she sang it in the 1933 movie “She Done Him Wrong”.

The 1936 film “Frankie and Johnny” had an all-white cast although Frankie and Albert were both black. The movie painted her as a harlot, people stared at Frankie in the streets, and she was fed up.

Finally, in 1942 she took the motion picture company to court but lost the case. The argument was that the movie was about whites in the 1870s, not blacks in the 1890s. Move along - nothing to see here. What they really meant was, this is a can of worms you do NOT want to open!

“‘If you give her a verdict, she will have a claim against everybody who ever sang the song. Send her back to Portland, Oregon, and her shoeshine business; for an honest shine, let her have an honest dime. Don’t make her a rich woman because forty years ago she shot a little colored boy here in St. Louis.’

The ballad, he concluded, had become ‘the common possession of the people of America.’”

So Frankie lost the case and had to pay court costs of $250. She faded away and died in 1952. What I grew up thinking of as ancient history didn’t actually conclude until after WW2. She said “I’m the one they wrote that song about . . . they are all making plenty of money out of that song and nobody ever gave me a nickel.”

It’s that kind of a book. Fascinating background for lovers of folk music and history. Many thanks to NetGalley and Cornell University Press for the chance to read it for review.

[Darcia Helle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a combination of history, sociology, true crime, and, of course, music. I was fascinated by it all.

The author clearly did extensive research, not just regarding the history of the songs, but also the circumstances surrounding the events. With each song discussed, Polenberg places us right in the midst of these people's lives. We're part of the society in which they live. We feel the struggle to survive, the racism, the sorrow, and the pride. We see the truth behind the people immortalized in song, and how those songs evolved over time.

I wish this book had an accompanying soundtrack. While I knew many of the songs, there were some I'd never heard of, and it would be ideal to have them all available to listen to as we read. Polenberg does share snippets of each song's lyrics as we go along. None of the song lyrics are shared in their entirety, which is a bit of a disappointment but also understandable. Many of these songs went through dozens, if not hundreds, of changes over time.

A foreknowledge of these folk songs is absolutely not required in order to enjoy this book. The stories stand on their own, with or without having heard the songs.

This book is a profound look at early American culture, and should appeal to readers looking to experience a piece of that history.

*I received an ebook copy from the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.*

[Patty · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so excited for the premise of this book, and so disappointed by the actual execution. Although I don't think it's the author's fault; I'm not sure anyone could make an interesting book from the stated goal. See, the fun thing about murder ballads (which are the majority of the songs covered in the book) is how over the top they are. The evil guy is the MOST EVIL, sometimes literally the devil. The innocent girl is the MOST INNOCENT and also always beautiful. The crime committed is the MOST HORRIBLE thing you have ever heard. Ghosts and hell and omens and other supernatural elements may also appear. To take that and instead tell a story about what case the lawyers made at the trail and how many appeals it went through and how many people signed a petition and the guy served this many years but then got released for good behavior... it's just boring. How could it not be? The truth is if you strip out all the melodrama, there's not a lot left, and what there is is pretty repetitive from one song to the next.

I'm also a bit biased against the author who, in the prologue, makes the claim, "I have deliberately omitted songs that are fictitious or even lack a credible basis in reality" but then proceeds to include songs like 'House of the Rising Sun' and 'John Henry', which seem quite likely to have no specific 'true story' origin. Even in his own chapter on John Henry, Polenberg gives multiple possible origins covering wildly varying time periods and people, and taking place in four different states and two countries. Which, you know, I would consider such a multiplicity of stories itself good evidence that it's just a folk tale.

I was also annoyed that Polenberg didn't include lyrics for any of the songs he covered. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt that he might have done so because of copyright law, but come on, they're folk songs. There's got to be at least one version out of copyright. This forced me to stop reading at the beginning of each chapter so I could go do a google search on the song, just to know what he was talking about.

There were a few interesting tidbits of history in here, but overall the book was too tedious for me to recommend.

I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Telling a story in song is one of our oldest human traditions. For hundreds of years people have sung ballads that told stories about murders, outlaws, romances, wars, tragedies, and hardships. During four visits between 1916 and 1918 British musicologist Cecil Sharp collected over 1500 American songs in the southern Appalachians.

At the same time Sharp collected old ballads new ones were being created as a response to events of the time. These new songs included responses to modern calamities involving railroad accidents, shipwrecks, and the treatment of workers and prisoners.

Hear My Sad Story: The True Tales that Inspired "Stagolee," "John Henry," and Other Traditional American Folk Songs by Richard Polenberg explores American ballads based on historical people and events, explaining the events and persons who inspired them, and covering their first known performances, recordings, and publication.

The songs in their categories include:
St Louis (St. Louis Blues, Stagolee, Frankie and Johnny, Duncan and Brady)
Lying Cold on the Ground (Omi Wise, Ballad of Frankie Silver, Tom Dooley, Poor Ellen Smith, Pearl Bryan, Delia's Gone)
Bold Highwaymen and Outlaws (Cole younger, Jesse James, John Hardy, Railroad Bill, Betty and Dupree)
Railroads (John Henry, Engine 143, Casey Jones, Wreck of the Old 97)
Workers (Cotton Mill Blues, Chain Gang Blues, Only a Miner, House of the Rising Sun)
Disasters (The Titanic, The Boll Weevil)
Martyrs (Joe Hill, Sacco and Vanzetti)
Persons interested in folk music and its performers, American history, or music recordings will find this book informative and interesting.

Here is a summary of the history of one song included in the book.

Tom Dooley as recorded by the Kingston Trio was all over the radio when I was a girl, selling over a million copies in a few months. It won the Grammy for Best Country and Western Recording. Everyone knew the words.

Tom Dooley was first recorded in 1929 with these words:

"Tom Dooley"
As recorded by Grayson & Whitter (1929)
(CHORUS)
Hang your head, Tom Dooley,
Hang your head and cry;
Killed poor Laura Foster,
You know you're bound to die.

You took her on the hillside,
As God almighty knows;
You took her on the hillside,
And there you hid her clothes.

You took her by the roadside,
Where you begged to be excused;
You took her by the roadside,
Where there you hid her shoes.

Took her on the hillside,
To make her your wife;
Took her on the hillside Where there you took her life. (CHO.)

Take down my old violin,
Play it all you please;
This time tomorrow,
It'll be no use to me. (CHO.)

I dug a grave four feet long,
I dug it three feet deep;
Throwed the cold clay over her,
And tromped it with my feet. (CHO.)

This world and one more,
Then where you reckon I'll be?
Hadn't a-been for Grayson,
I'd a-been in Tennessee. (CHO.)

How many of us know that Tom Dooley was a real person, Thomas Caleb Dula, a handsome lady killer and Confederate soldier? After bedding two cousins, Ann (an old flame, now married) and Laura Foster, Tom discovered he had syphilis. So did Ann. But Tom blamed the disease on Laura. Ann blamed Tom. Tom paid Laura several visits. Then Laura was found missing. Laura's father believed she was murdered and a warrant for Tom's arrest was issued. Tom had taken off. He turned up at a farm owned by Union veteran Lt. Colonel Grayson who hired him as a field hand. The posse tracked Tom down, but he'd high tailed it again...wearing new boots that hurt his feet.

Tom was cooling his blistered feet when Grayson found him and brought him in. When Laura's body was found, Tom was indicted for murder, found guilty, and sentenced to death by hanging. An appeal was made, improper handling of evidence was proved, and Tom faced a second trial. He was again found guilty and his execution set for May 1, 1868.

Tom spent his jail time trying to cut his chain with a piece of glass--and getting baptized. Neither delayed his execution. On the fatal day a cheerful Tom insisted he was innocent and quipped, "I would have washed my neck if I had known you were using such a nice clean rope." He spoke for an hour to the crowd, maintaining his innocence and accusing witnesses of false testimony. The crowd wasn't buying it. The day before he'd written a note declaring "I am the only person that had any hand to the murder of Laura Foster."

By 1867 a song was being sung about the murder. An early folklore scholar noted the song was sung all over Watauga County. The first recording of Tom Dooley was made in 1929 by Grayson's nephew, Gilliam Banmon Grayson. Folklorists Anne and Frank Warner sang the song and recorded it in 1940. They sang Tom Dooley in every lecture and program. In 1948 Alan Lomax included the song in Folk Song:USA. Then in 1958 the Kingston Trio made the song a national sensation. NPR choose Tom Dooley as one of the most important songs of the twentieth century.

Hear My Sad Story was an enjoyable and informative read.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review title : A Folk music encyclopedia

So many folk songs tell stories, and many of them are real stories. Polenberg has assembled the stories of many of the most famous of these songs. Even a passing knowledge of American folk music means you will have heard one or more versions of many of these songs. While the songs may bend or romanticize the facts for the sake of the song, the real stories are fascinating in their own right.

Polenberg has grouped his account by broad topics: St. Louis (yes, many of these stories originated there), relationships that ended in death, outlaws, railroads, non-railroad workers, disasters, and martyrs. Interestingly, this topical arrangement is also roughly chronological, with most of these events occurring in the period between the American Civil War and the First World War. It was a period of intense change, population mobility, and economic booms and busts, all of which come to play in these stories and songs. It was also a period when "folk art" was being "discovered" and made into "popular culture." Sorry for the burst of air quotes, but all three of those concepts are both well understood and much misused. The interplay between current events, providing the headlines that could become stories, amateur poets and musicians who scanned those headlines and turned them into songs, music publishers and studios who captured those songs on sheet music and primitive recordings, and academic folk art collectors who took a sudden interest in this folk phenomenon is far too complex for simple concepts to define.

Polenberg does a good job documenting the facts (as best as they are known) of the real event, the transition of the stories into songs, and the history of the song as it made its way into culture, commerce, and academic study. The intersection of the real people and events with the song is sometimes surprising. For example "Frankie and Johnny", the sad true story of a woman who shot and killed her boyfriend who was threatening and cutting her face with a knife. While she was acquitted of the charges based on a strong self-defense argument, some versions of the song turned her into a woman of low morals, and when the song became popular the real Frankie Baker moved to Portland Oregon and became a near recluse to get away from the public eye (including people who looked her up to ask for an autograph!). And while the song made some money for artists and music publishers, she never saw a cent and died in poverty. I have listened to the great Bob Dylan version of the song dozens of times and never once gave a thought to the fact that a real woman lived behind those words and that she heard them song in her lifetime. Indeed, folk art became popular culture at the expense of a very real person's life, not unlike the "reality TV" of today.

Polenberg includes source references for each account, and I realized that I had previously read and reviewed three of them:

Steel Drivin' Man, a detailed account of the John Henry story, which located the reality behind the legend,

Chasing the Rising Sun, about the New Orleans whorehouse that proved the ruin of many a poor boy, and

Bob Dylan in America, which included a chapter on Dylan's version of "Delia's Gone". While Polenberg includes a chapter on that song, he doesn't include one for "Lone Pilgrim, the haunting true story of which is covered in that book.

But while readers might point to other omissions of their favorite and more obscure folk song story, Polenberg has done a good job of bringing the best and best-known ones here.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn’t just a book about music; it’s a book about history, slavery, racial conflict, murder and love, all presented in the lyrics of songs. Pretty much any part of living life has at one point or another been turned into a ballad or song of some type. Music has been the teller of news and history since before books and newspapers; it’s a long standing tradition.

As with the type of books people read or movies they enjoy music is a personal thing. Not everyone enjoys the same kind. When people ask me what kind of music I like my response is “pretty much anything as long as I can understand the lyrics”. Like a good book I enjoy songs that tell a story.

When I was growing up there was no such thing as shouting “shotgun” to get the front seat and having control over the radio (or the comfy chair and the television). Whatever my dad was listening to on the radio – that’s what everyone listened to – so I grew up listening to Stompin’ Tom Connors sing “Bud the Spud”, Gordon Lightfoot singing about “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and Red Sovine with his tearjerker “The Teddy Bear Song”. I guess some of it took because I still like listening to ballads.

When I saw the tag line for this book “The true tales that inspired “Stagolee”, John Henry” and other traditional American folk songs” it pique my interest. To read the story behind the story sounded interesting. Although there were only a few songs I could claim familiarity with (Tom Dooley, Casey Jones) it did not diminish my enjoyment about hearing the “back story” of the others. Sometimes it was murder, sometimes it was news, a lost love or life’s hardships and sometimes the subject was just an interesting person the balladeer knew. Inspiration can strike from the strangest places.

Mr. Polenberg has obviously done his research to give his readers a well-written book about the history of folk songs. I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys folk music and the story behind the iconic songs. It would be a nice addition to any music library.

* I received this book at no charge via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review *

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an excellent contribution to an important aspect of American folklore – the real stories behind well known folk songs, told with a completeness that is the mark of a scholarly historian.

On the other hand, for those of us who have known these American folk songs for decades, listened to a variety of versions and sung these as well for those decades, while the history behind each of these songs
is complete, I suppose, each screams, TOO MUCH INFORMATION!

Yes, this is a boring book, and probably best for the serious folklorist, rather than the songster curious to know something of each songs’ origins, unless you just want to pick out the kernels of each and toss the floss.

A+ for completeness.

D- for interest.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair review by netgalley.

I've been a fan of folk music since I was a young child. Since I first read the biography of Woody Guthrie when I was about 13, I've been fascinated with the true stories that inspire music. This book is thorough and extensively researched. I wish I knew more of the songs that are actually covered in this book since the backstories of heartache, true crime and the gritty living that old-tymey people had to go through is fascinating. What a bunch of wimps we are today!

I love history and music and the sort of stories contained in this book. I want to buy the physical book and put it on the table so I can relive a little piece of time whenever I get the chance.

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection well-researched, nicely detailed stories explaining the origins of popular and lesser known American folk songs. Polenberg explains how the song lyrics reveal interpretations of history, such as class conflict, racism, labor struggles, natural disasters, and more. Good recommendations for listening and further reading.

[Mick Chorba · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading the true details behind America’s greatest folk songs. Some of these details I’ve borrowed for my own songwriting purposes. Murder ballads, train wrecks, martyrs, miners, and more. Reminds me that we get a more accurate record of the past from our art and our music than any history book!

[Willsy Waites · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too many facts in this history book! I reckon im crosseyed now

[Rick Taglieri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little bit”academically “ dry, but interesting. As an old “folkie “I really liked how he gave the recording history of each song, and going on to YouTube hearing how they developed.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review first appeared at Addicted to Media

May 2015, Hammersmith Apollo, London. Nick Cave finally responds to the crowd's baying requests and plays "Staggerlee" from his 1995 album with the Bad Seeds, Murder Ballads. Transfixed, I stand watching the performance, hanging onto every word and think to myself, there's a great story behind this song.

And there is. In Christmas Eve 1895, "Stack Lee" Shelton entered the Bill Curtis Saloon in St Louis and got into an argument with Billy Lyons. Stack Lee mashed Lyons's hat and Lyons responded by grabbing his white Stetson. Stack Lee drew out his Smith & Wesson .44, Billy drew out his knife and bang! Stack Lee shot Lyons in the belly and left.

This is just one tale in a fantastic new collection of stories by Richard Polenberg. Hear My Sad Story: The True Tales That Inspired "Stagolee," "John Henry," and Other Traditional American Folk Songs.

Painstakingly researched and thoroughly entertaining, in this book Polenberg describes the historical events and true stories behind America's most famous folk songs.

While some of these songs have been quite colourful (I'm thinking specifically of Nick Cave's "Staggerlee") that's nothing compared to the truth behind the lore and in many cases truth really is stranger than fiction.

There is the incredible story of Omie Wise, who was drowned in the Deep River, North Carolina in 1807. The murder of this pregnant woman over 200 years ago had quite the impact on the area and now there is a Naomi Falls, a Naomi Bridge and even a large cotton mill named Naomi Falls Manufacturing Company.

What is most notable about the collection is that beneath the entertainment value there is a real indictment of an inequitable and unfair legal system in which African Americans were very often guilty until proven innocent and in many cases they were convicted with the flimsiest of evidence.

In “Duncan and Brady”, we learn about Harry Duncan who was convicted for the murder of policeman James Brady. Testimony that would have exonerated him was dismissed as hearsay and the weapon used in the murder was not considered relevant for evidence.
Of course, the sad stories that form the basis of our beloved folk songs aren’t always about wrongful convictions. There was no doubt that Frankie Silver killed her abusive husband Charles but no amount of public pressure and understanding of her predicament could prevent her from going to the gallows.

Not all of the stories behind our most famous songs are known. For example, nobody knows who first wrote ”House of the Rising Sun”, the most famous version of which was recorded by The Animals. There was once a Rising Sun Hotel in New Orleans but it burned down in 1822.

Given the subject matter, it is more likely that the song stems back to the colourful period where prostitution was legalised in New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century. In the chapter “House of the Rising Sun”, Polenberg tells us about this period which included racial segregation of brothels and even a white pages of sorts to prevent patrons from being swindled.

Of course, some stories are so famous that they permeates ever corner of popular culture. No bandit has had more songs written about him than the outlaw Jesse James and he was of course the subject of the famous Brad Pitt film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. (Incidentally, if you’ve never heard the superb score for the film by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, you should rush out and do so immediately).

Not only does Polenberg discuss the famous story of Frank and Jesse James, he also tells the less well known story of Cole Younger who so captured the imagination of people that songs about him were released during his own lifetime.

Fascinating and well-researched, Hear My Sad Story provides a backdrop to some of the world’s most famous folk songs. Listening to the old folk tracks on YouTube as I went along, I was fascinated by how many of the songs I recognised and was certainly familiar with some of the names like Frankie and Johnny and of course, Stagolee.

I give Hear My Sad Story: The True Tales That Inspired "Stagolee," "John Henry," and Other Traditional American Folk Songs by Richard Polenberg a superb five out of five stars and would highly recommend to lovers of blues, jazz and folk music and anyone whose imagination has been stimulated by a murder ballad.

[Jud Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

"When John Henry was a little baby/sittin' on his daddy's knee/his daddy held him up and looked him in the eye/and said 'Son, you're gonna be some poetry, Lord, Lord!/Son, you're gonna be some poetry.'"

Like all mythical characters, John Henry's daddy knew what he was talking about. But he might not have known that it would be necessary to remain in that mythical realm for the poetry to happen, because once you wander into the realm of fact, the poetry vanishes like a rainbow at a bad angle.

Which is simply to say that to get behind the curtain, we need fact and prose. Fact and prose: by examining the circumstances that inspired lyrical mythologizing, this book does the same kind of job for American folk songs as science does for rainbows. For the murders--Stagolee, Frankie Silver, Tom Dooley--there are documented crime scenes, district attorneys, and executions. For the railroad catastrophes--Casey Jones, the wreck of the Old 97--there is a mundane need to meet a schedule that goads engineering recklessness. For the workers--the miners, the cotton mill workers, and the convicts on the chain gang--there is the insensate, bloody maw of capitalism.

It is by supplying the socio-economic big picture that Polenberg performs the signal service of linking the otherwise pointillistic dots of individual events to larger realities. Thus for example he reports the economic and cultural importance of the railroad and the dangers posed to both workers and travelers, appreciated by people at the time but since lost to change. A contemporary parallel might be air travel, but we have upsized to movies instead of songs.

There is fertile ground both for expanding this book and for arguing about it.

Expanding it: something along the lines of the large, one-volume "encyclopedia of ...," or perhaps a wiki, because there are many more cowboy, political martyr, and seafaring disaster songs out there (to give just three of the genres).

Arguing about it: the most recent material cited in the book has perhaps wandered away from the country of folk song into the country of commercial product. In fact, the first full chapter of the book is about the St. Louis Blues by W.C. Handy, surely a commercial venture. Similarly, A.P. Carter of the Carter Family was producing for a market with some of his songs. Does this matter? Was Woody Guthrie a folk singer? Is Bob Dylan's "John Wesley Harding" a folk song? Why or why not?

See what I mean about poetry and rainbows?

[Eustacia Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about the history of various country songs, but it just made me feel very uneducated (song-wise), when I read it. Out of all the 27 songs, I only recognised one of them - Pearl Bryan, and that's because I heard about it on the podcast Criminal.

According to the prologue, Hear My Sad Story "traces the roots of many of these [folk songs] and describes the circumstances under which each was written and first recorded." So it's like a snapshot of history for each chapter.

The way each chaptered is structured is that each 'song' is told with the lyrics intermingled among the history lesson. It works for a few songs, but since a lot of songs undergo changes, I became confused as to whether the verses shown are the current ones, the original ones, or a mix. Plus, as someone who had no knowledge of most of the songs (which admittedly does not make me the book's ideal reader), I would have preferred to be able to read the lyrics first, at the front, than read the story. But I suspect that for someone with more knowledge than I, or for someone listening to a good audiobook version, this lyrics intermingling with the text would have a pretty good effect.

Most of the stories behind the songs were fascinating, and I managed to read about another side of America that I didn't know. Personally, I would have preferred each section to be much more detailed (it felt a bit rushed at times), but again, it's a personal preference of mine.

I'm digressing here, but I just thought of something. I'd love to read a similar book for Chinese/Japanese/ASEAN songs. Any scholars in that field working on that?

Overall, this was an interesting book. Even though I'm not a folk-music fan, I enjoyed reading about the tragic songs, and how they influenced American culture. I just wish the author had the space to go into more detail for some of the more complicated songs.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for a free and honest review.

This review was first posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile

[Bryce · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book as an ARC from Net Galley.

I found the concept for this book to be really interesting, it takes classic folk songs and details the true stories behind them. While many of them seem far too convoluted and over-the-top to be true, after reading this book I was reminded that truth is usually stranger than fiction.

As a whole, I was entertained and I learned quite a bit. I think some of the songs could have been cut out, some just aren't that interesting, or feel too similar to others in the book. A lot of the criticism laid out in this review mirrors what I felt reading this, some of these songs don't have backstories that are all that interesting to read about.

If you're interested in the stories behind American folk songs, or just think the concept is interesting, you won't be disappointed.

[Rowan MacBean · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received HEAR MY SAD STORY as an ARC from NetGalley.com.



I like to think of myself as a fan of traditional folk music, but the absolute truth of the matter is that I'm more a fan of the idea of traditional folk music than I am of the thing itself. This book is exactly the sort of thing someone like me needs. When I listen to folk songs, I often think about where the idea for the song came from--whether it's something someone imagined entirely, or whether they were inspired by things that actually happened, or something in between--and how it's changed over the years. HEAR MY SAD STORY answers these questions about some of the country's most famous ([movie trailer voice:] and infamous) folk tale subjects.

If you're not a folk song connoisseur, I do recommend having YouTube open and handy; hearing a couple of versions of the songs before you read their chapters really makes it a fun experience.

[Gary McCallister · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have often said, somewhat jokingly, that I learned more history singing folk songs in my youth than i learned in school. It's not a joke anymore. The history in this book, which tells the stories behind the songs, is fascinating and from a unique perspective. Even if you don't sing you will be enlightened by the tales of yesteryear America. i was especially fascinated by the cavalier attitude about cruelty and life. Some of my ancestors were coal miners. I never really knew what that meant. Since serving on a local school board I have detested unions. But I see now how they came to be. Did you know that Johnny, of "Frankie and Johnny" fame was actually an Allan? Yeah, he did her wrong. He beat her to a pulp and she shot him in self-defense. You'' enjoy this book.

[Elizabeth Desole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really wish this book had come with an audio file. It tells the real stories behind some classic folk songs. Of course, many of the true stories involve murder. I seems very well-researched, maybe sometimes a bit too much. The narrative suffers sometimes because of it. It's very interesting to read how some of the song lyrics have strayed so far form the original inspiration.
Although I am a fan of the murder story, I found some of the most engaging parts to be relating to worker's woes (like strikes)
A real find for anyone interested in old time folk music

[Stven · Rating 2 out of 5]

This ought to be a fascinating subject, but the way it's written fails to sustain interest. If you're compiling a research paper on the lyrics of American folk songs, lots of research has been done for you here. If you'd enjoy "tales" that would constitute an engaging read, you'll need to look elsewhere.

[Eileen Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book on the origins of American folk songs and ballads of the early 20th. Century and their influence on the singers of today.
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.

[Angie Boyter]

This is not a bad book in the sense that it tells the REAL story of what happened instead of the story given in the song , but the detailed stories behind these songs just often turn out not to be very interesting.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informational, but a little too workmanlike in the delivery.

[CHARLES SCOTT JOHNSON · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting material but lacks sufficient lyrics. Having a copy of Lomax's works is helpful.

More of a 3.5 star book.