Besides these, "The Gangster's Yodel," recorded for ARC by Bill Cox, NY, 4 Sept 1934, mx15853-2, released on Banner 33227, Melotone M13194, Oriole 8386, Perfect 13067, Romeo 5386, and Conqueror 8391, plus a couple of Canadian issues. This is probably a Cox original. Odd numbered verses are set to a Jimmie Rodgers-like blue yodel melody, with yodeling; the even numbered have no yodel and serve as a chorus.

I never was a gangster, but I'm going to sing this song
Don't put your trust in women, for some will do you wrong
Yodel-ay-hee hee, yodel-ay-hee-hee-hee

Johnny was a gangster, left his old home town
He went up in Chicago and shot the police down.

One time the law locked Johnny up, he thought he got a dirty deal
So Johnny swore when he got out, he'd learn to rob and steal
(yodel)

They locked up Johnny's sweetheart, she did not care to die,
She told the judge that Johnny was just a clean-cut guy.

The police tried to round them up and catch them one by one
But when they locked up Johnny, he made a wooden gun
(yodel)

They had him locked in prison, they would not give him bail
With a wooden gun he held them up and walked right out of jail.

Johnny went to the picture show with a woman dressed in red
Little did poor Johnny know that day he'd be shot dead
(yodel)

Johnny had a lot of friends, around Chicago town
They thought it was a dirty shame, the way they shot him down

Don't put your trust in women, for some will do you wrong
That woman told on Johnny, and now he's dead and gone
(yodel)

Johnny was a gangster, he left his old home town
He went up in Chicago and the police shot him down.


This is perhaps the best of the hillbilly Dillinger songs of the mid-30s, cheerfully amoral with a jaunty tune and yodel. Frank Luther's "Outlaw John Dillinger" is pretty dismal, a preachy catalog of crimes and warning against sin. Dwight Butcher's, now that I've heard it again, isn't a lot better, also a rather dreary song, composed by Joe Hoover and recorded very soon after Dillinger was shot.

The other recording I mentioned in a previous post was Buck Nation's "End of Public Enemy Number One," on Decca 5075 (1935), c/w "Bruno Hauptmann." Apparently I had that 78 at one time, though most of my shellac collection did not survive a move about 25 years ago, and I don't think I have it now.