The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #3817   Message #1272909
Posted By: Joe Offer
15-Sep-04 - 07:46 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Pearl Bryan (murder ballad)
Subject: Lyr Add: PEARL BRYAN (from Paul Brewster)
The Burnett and Rutherford recording is on the second disc of the Yazoo Kentucky Mountain Music box set, not that I can understand the lyrics on the recording. Great kazoo solo, though.
A kazoo on a murder ballad?
There's a recording of "Pearl Bryan" that seems to follow the first DT version, but not closely. It's on a Copper Creek CD by The Crooked Jades called Seven Sisters: A Kentucky Portrait, issued in 2001. The Crooked Jades say they learned the song from the Phipps Family. The Crooked Jades recording is very much like the Brewster "B" text (below), but the Jades get fixated on the missing head at the end.

This is the "B" text from Paul Brewster's Ballads and Songs of Indiana.

Pearl Bryan (Brewster #61B)

Now, ladies, if you’ll listen, a story I’ll relate
What happened near Fort Thomas in the old Kentucky state.
‘T was late in January this awful deed was done
By Jackson and by Walling; how cold their blood did run!

How bold these cruel villains to do this awful deed,
To ride away Pearl Bryan when she to them did plead!
The driver tells the story of how Pearl Bryan did moan
From Cincinnati to the place where the cruel deed was done.

But little did Pearl’s parents think when she left her happy home
That their own dear darling daughter would ne’er return again.
We know her dear old parents their fortune they would give
If Pearl could just return home a happy life to live.

The driver was the only one could tell her awful fate,
Of poor Pearl far away from home in the old Kentucky state;
A farmer passing by next day her lifeless form he found,
A-lying......where her blood had stained the ground.

Pearl Bryan left her parents on a dark and gloomy day;
She went to meet the villain in a spot not far away.
She thought it was the lover’s hand that she could trust each day;
Alas, it was a lover’s hand that took her life away!

Young ladies, now take warning; young men are so unjust
It may be your best lover, but you know not whom to trust
Pearl died away from home and friends, out on that lonely spot;
Take heed! take heed! believe me, girls; don’t let this be your lot!