Favorite Badman Ballads

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: DougR
Date: 30 Aug 00 - 01:13 AM

"Tom Dooley." DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Stewie
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 10:16 PM

I'll vote for 'Claude Dallas' too, but I think my all-time favourite is 'Poor Lazarus', particularly Van Ronk's version. An excellent recent addition to the genre is Kevin Welch's 'Wilson's Tracks'.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Mbo
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 10:03 PM

YES! Tweeter & The Monkey Man! Traveling Wilburys RULE! BTW I just sang "Congratulations" on Hearme a few minutes ago!

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: richlmo
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 09:57 PM

I go along with " Pancho and Lefty " and I also like " Carrie Brown " by Steve Earl

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 09:54 PM

Hooray for "Claude Dallas"! I'd have nominated that one if I'd remembered it. What a superb song.

"Tweeter And The Monkey Man"

"John Wesley Harding"

"Billy - # 1, 2, 3 and whatever..."

"Knockin' on Heaven's Door" (Dylan version)

All four by you know who...

Anybody know where I can find the words to "Jesse With The Long Hair Hangin' Down"?

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Giac
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 09:43 PM

Willie Seaton (isn't that a Tom Paxton song?)

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Les B
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 09:12 PM

Should be:

Belle Starr -- Otto Wood -- Butch Cassidy (sometimes called The Wild Bunch)

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Les B
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 09:10 PM

Lots of good ones already named, but howabout:

Belle Starr Otto Wood Butch Cassidy

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: GUEST,guinnesschik
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 07:38 PM

You go, Lonesome EJ! I also LOVE "Jesse James." My fave record growing up was "Gunfighter Ballads" by Marty Robbins. My very favorite, however, is Johnny Cash singing, "Don't Take Your Guns To Town," and (I believe it's called) "Twenty Five Minutes To Go," where the singer recounts his last moments on earth before facing ther gallows. Johnny Cash rocks!

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: RWilhelm
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 06:59 PM

I've never heard a version of "Staggerlee" I didn't like.

"Frankie and Johnny" were both pretty bad.

So were "Bill Martin and Ella Speed."

"Duncan and Brady" were bad.

And Bill the gun-totin cowboy of Woody Guthrie's "Philadelphia Lawyer"

Ry Cooder's version of "Billy the Kid" was written by Andrew Jenkins and recorded in the 20's by Vernon Dalhart.

"Jesse With the Long Hair Hanging Down" was written by Robert Earl Keen.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 06:56 PM

Oh, someone said Railroad Bill!!! I'll vote for that.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Mbo
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 06:42 PM

Brennan on The Moor!

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 06:35 PM

More votes for "Pretty Boy Floyd" and "East Texas Red". Also a vote for a Robin and Linda Williams song, which I think was called "Six O'Clock News. Someone will surely know the correct title. Also "Brownsville Girl" by you all know who.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Benjamin
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 05:14 PM

John Henery- performed well by so many people! Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, John Cephas and Phil Wiggins, John Jackson, etc.

Railroad Bill- also tradition, sung by John Jackson.

Billy the Kid

I was planning on writing a song about D.B.Cooper when I find a bit more on him.

Benjamin

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 04:28 PM

"She undid my belt
she unsnapped my jeans
she untied my tubes I had tied in my teens
I got my Colt 45 right by my side
I'm the California Kid,I hope you're
Quite prepared to die"

-The California Kid Country Dick Montana and the Beat Farmers

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Kim C
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 04:19 PM

Bert, you know, I've always thought of Big Iron as a good-guy song since the bad guy gets it in the end. But I suppose it qualifies!

I'm glad someone mentioned Claude Dallas. I like that one too.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Midchuck
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 04:08 PM

Claude Dallas, by Ian Tyson and Tom Russell. Nothing else even comes close. And it's pretty much all true.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: GUEST,John Bauman
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 03:48 PM

na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na BADMAN!!!!!!

OhgodI'mSOsorry

John

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: dwditty
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 03:42 PM

Billy the Kid. I like Ry Cooder's version although I doubt that he wrote it. I'll have to look it up, as Casey Stengel would say...then learn it for a hearme session. In fact, a whole night (or at least a good string) of badman ballads might be a cool idea for hearme.

dw

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: bigchuck
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 03:38 PM

Good choices. I like Poncho and Lefty (Townes Van Zandt) a lot, as well as a real neat song called Frank James' Farewell by one of the country songwriters. (Kevin Welch maybe?)

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 03:38 PM

I'd say John Hardy, but I hasten to add that I'm not talking about Burl Ives' rather trivialized version. I mean the full version that talks about the crap game at the Darksey Bar and his shooting the other player; how he's urged to hurry to get away, but he says "when I leave it'll be at a walk; nobody ever said I ran"; how he hid out but was apprehended when he tried to catch a train; how he was converted and was executed after having been saved. A very satisfying song, and I get the impression it's fairly accurate to the actual events.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 03:32 PM

Liberty Valance.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Mbo
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 03:31 PM

"Notorious" by Confederate Railroad.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 03:27 PM

John Hardy, Four Rode By (Tyson), Pretty Boy Floyd (Guthrie)

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 02:20 PM

A bit of a twist, but how about Woody's "Pretty Boy Floyd"?

Little Hawk, Lily, Rosemary and The Jack of Hearts is perhaps my favourite Dylan song ever. What a rogue.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 01:54 PM

Lotsa good choices already!!

And geez, I must really love this song because it fits in so many different categories (like its a great "don't get mad get even" song), but I'll go for "East Texas Red."

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Bert
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 01:43 PM

If you're mentioning Marty Robbins then you have to include 'Big Iron'

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 01:42 PM

"Nebraska," by Bruce Springsteen

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 01:34 PM

Oh yeah, and "Johhny Get Your Gun", written by me.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 01:33 PM

"Jesse With The Long Hair Hangin' Down" - sung by Rick Kane of Orillia, Ontario, Canada...written by I forget who.

"Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts" - Bob Dylan

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Kim C
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 01:32 PM

Well, Sam Hall, of course.

I don't know if El Paso counts, but that's certainly one of my favorites. Another Marty Robbins tune I really like is They'll Bury Me Tonight, about a man who shoots his sweetie because she done took up with another.

There's a song I've got on a Greentrax (I think) compilation called Burke & Hare - about a real-life pair of hooligans who used to murder street urchins and sell their bodies to an evil doctor for research.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: GUEST,Ina
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 01:28 PM

There's a really chilly badwoman-song by R. Thompson called "Pavanne"

Subject: Favorite Badman Ballads
From: Jim Krause
Date: 29 Aug 00 - 01:20 PM

Shambles asked a question about the ballad Wild Bill Jones. This is one of my favorite badman ballads. And since there have been several of these favorite, or worst of threads lately, I thought I'd start this one. What are your favorite badman/badwoman ballads? Here are some of mine.

• Wild Bill Jones
• Jesse James
• Staggolee (Dr. John's version)
• Little Maggie
• Darlin' Corey