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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
GUEST,Brady Layman Origins: Duncan and Brady (97* d) RE: Origins: Duncan and Brady 04 Jul 04


I've been trying for over a year without success to find Tom Aksten's rendition.
Likewise, John of Elsie's Band, the Lomax recording.
In the last year I've managed to collect nearly 20 more versions of the song as well as the David dissertation. David's work is very well documented and suggests that within weeks of Brady's demise there were several songs about the incident being sung in the bars of East Saint Louis. Harry Duncan hung for the death of officer James Brady, but maintained to the end he did not shoot Brady, that it was the bar owner, Charles Starkes. Starkes, on his deathbed, confessed that it was he, not Duncan, that shot Brady.
The New Roanoke version and entire CD are a delight. I just got Eddie Pennington's "Walks the Strings" (Smithsonian Folkways SFW CD40146)with another version patterned after the Watts rendition but with some unique verses. In Eddie's version the dispute is over a woman:
"Brady was a fixer of the telephone wire,
Duncan was a gambler with a shiney car,
Just one pretty woman, two hard men,
Lord, Lord, Lord, here we go again.
Cause they've been on the job too long.
Brady had a little 25,weapon of choice for a midget's suicide,
Now Duncan was packin' a big 44,
and he laid poor Brady on the barroom floor,
Cause he'd been on the job too long."
Some that I have located that were not on my earlier list:
Tongue and Groove, a 60s SF rock band.
The Brother's Four from their 1963 live LP.
Hilary James, a blues/jazz/big band sounding version from "Bluesy" on the UK Acoustics label.
Jim Page, Seattle folkie, aa solo acoustic version recorded around 1970 in Stockholm.
Tom Rush has a new version he credits to "Spider" John Koerner that is very funny and runs over nine minutes long. It is on his newest CD and available only from his web site.


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