Songs re women mixed up with criminals?

Subject: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: GUEST,vielleuse
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 09:55 AM

Salisbury Plain springs to mind, and Whisky in the Jar. What others are there? Thanks.

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: Midchuck
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 09:58 AM

"1952 Vincent Black Lightning," of course.

Is that the only British song to win "Song of the Year" from the IBMA (Bluegrass Music Assoc.) in the US? Probably not if you count really old ballads.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: SharonA
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 10:10 AM

"The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde" (Merle Haggard)
...or do you mean songs where the woman wasn't a criminal too?

How about "Banks of the Ohio" and songs of that ilk, where the crime is the murder of the woman?

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 11:59 AM

Van Diemen's Land mentions one:

There was one girl from England,
Susan Summers was her name,
For fourteen years transported was,
We all well knew the same;
Our planter bought her freedom,
And he married her out of hand,
Good usage then she gave to us,
Upon Van Diemen's Land.

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 12:02 PM

Walk away Joe sung by Trisha Yearwood is a newer song. The version of All Around my hat that Brian Peters sings deals with the reverse: a man in love with a woman convicted of a crime.

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 12:44 PM

Tom Rush recorded a song with the chorus, Ladies love outlaws/Like babies love stray dogs/Ladies touch outlaws like a banker touches gold/Outlaws touch ladies deep inside their souls
(or something like that - going by memories from 40 years back).

Weaverville, written by Mary McCaslin & Jim Ringer, beautifully recorded by Kate Wolf - but if I tell you how the woman is involved, it gives away the punchline.

How about Flora? I killed a man for Flora/The lily of the West.

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: oldhippie
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 03:27 PM

There's another completely different song with the title "Ladies Love Outlaws", written and recorded by "Gypsy" Bob Copp that goes something like: "Ladies love outlaws/They'll pick one just about everytime/They might forget to shave/Sometimes they misbehave/And figuring out where they're at/Ain't worth the time......". The two songs go well together.

I think the Mary McCaslin song is titled "Ballad of Weaverville".

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 03:40 PM

The woman who was stabbed and ripped and cut into three... or, as the above poster said, any murder ballad where the vic is a woman, right? Or even involved - as in Lily of the West, where she isn't the vic but she is involved with a murderer...

Hmmm - are there any good ones about women doing well with a particular bad guy? this is an interesting thread!

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 04:11 PM

Henry Clay Work, author of "Grandfather's Clock", also wrote
The Buckskin Bag of Gold. Click to hear it.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: Sorcha
Date: 27 Jul 07 - 04:45 PM

How about Black Velvet Band?

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 12:06 AM

Woody's Belle Starr

Barry

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: GUEST,vielleuse
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 03:37 PM

Oh and I'll add those last minute gallows reprieve songs like Prickly Bush and it's variants (man about to be hanged sees his lady friend coming to the rescue with ransom money - I assume he was guilty of something). Geordie comes into that category too (deer-stealing), and Derry Gaol.

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 29 Jul 07 - 08:39 AM

Only The Hangman is one that I often sing, but the theme has the woman as the instigator.

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Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 30 Jul 07 - 01:27 PM

"John Hardy had a pretty little woman
She was all dressed in blue
She cried out with a loud, little shout,
'Johnny, I'll be true to you'
Oh lord
'Johnny I'll be true to you.'"

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: BB
Date: 30 Jul 07 - 03:05 PM

On the Veteran CD 'When the May is All in Bloom' can be found a track by Louie Fuller entitled 'Twenty-One Years on Dartmoor', which apparently originates in America and is usually set in Nashville, and was recorded in the early '30s. It became popular amongst English travellers who presumably transferred its location to Dartmoor, one of England's most notorious prisons.

Barbara

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: Susan of DT
Date: 30 Jul 07 - 05:17 PM

MacPherson's Lament
Child #14, Bonnie Banks of Virgio, etc.
Laws L4, Three (or Two) Butchers
Jesse James (had a wife...)

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: GUEST,John Garst
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 11:02 AM

John Hardy was hanged at Welch, West Virginia, on January 19, 1894. His wife, Mary, another "desperate character," according to a news account, was shot and killed from ambush fifty mile south of Huntington, WV, while on her way home, on Saturday, April 14, 1894.

>"John Hardy had a pretty little woman
>She was all dressed in blue
>She cried out with a loud, little shout,
>'Johnny, I'll be true to you'
>Oh lord
>'Johnny I'll be true to you.'"
>
>Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: topical tom
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 11:20 AM

"Pretty Polly" as sung by Ralph Stanley and many others.

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: pdq
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 11:45 AM

The Norman Blake song "Billy Gray" is a classic.

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: open mike
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 12:08 PM

Long Black Veil has a hanging and a woman in the crowd...but she was not exactly innocent!

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 03:29 PM

Gilderoy
Geordie

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: Anne Lister
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 06:20 PM

One on my CD "A Twist in the Story" - called "Locked In"

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: Tootler
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 06:35 PM

And he did like the ladies and rise and the fall
Of their ankles and their dresses down in the dancehall
And a-rolling the dice, and a-spinning the wheel
But he took most delight in the slip jigs and reels

And the start of the second verse

Now there's talk of a pistol and maybe a knife
But all are agreed there was somebody's wife
Some kind of commotion, a terrible fight
And he left one man dead and ran into the night...

Subject: RE: Songs re women mixed up with criminals?
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 06:38 PM

Yeah, Tootler - That's a Good 'Un!