I just discovered this box set at the library where I work and took it home and put it on my iPod. I am listening to it right now as I type, in fact. LOVE these old songs. They were the way that news got reported because a lot of them are about things that actually happened and of course, this is the pre-TV and internet age when news was often conveyed via song and story. I suspect that for many of these songs, there's a grain of truth to an actual event contained in them.

GREAT stuff. I highly recommend it if you haven't had a chance to take a listen yet. I grew up singing murder ballads so this is right up my alley!