The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #32737 Message #1993224
Posted By: 12-stringer
11-Mar-07 - 03:41 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Jesse James I
Subject: RE: Origins: Jesse James I
Somebody commented upthread that black music took little notice of JJ. One exception of course is Leadbelly's "When I was a Cowboy." Another in Blind Lemon's "One Dime Blues":
Do you want your friend to be bad like Jesse James? (x3)
Get two big pistols, highway some passenger train.
On their mother's side, Jesse and Frank were descendants of Colonel Nicholas Greenberry (c1627-1698) of Anne Arundel Co, MD. It was said of Greenberry by a political adversary that he had been "a highwayman in England" before emigrating to MD in the early 1670s. Possibly it's genetic, though relatively few of the Greenberry descendants have been known to get two big pistols and highway any passenger trains. At least, I never felt the urge, but the passenger trains stopped running here quite a few years ago.