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Subject: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Vixen Date: 26 Jun 00 - 01:48 PM D'Cats, o experts on all folk-musical: Is "Long Black Veil" a traditional song? The DT says it was written by Danny Dill and Marijon Wilkin. However, two times in the last two weeks I have heard from two different sources that it was written by....Johnny Cash!??! I have always thought it was an old song (read "author unknown") made popular during the 60s folk revival by Joan Baez and PPM. Will someone enlighten me with the truth please? Thanks, V |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: MMario Date: 26 Jun 00 - 01:53 PM some very interesting information here url=http://theband.hiof.no/articles/long_black_veil_viney.html
It seems it was designed to sound like a traditional song. Robbie Robertson It’s also the song with the most obviously ‘country’ melody and lyric, and has a classic Americana sound and storyline. It is not an old country song at all, and maybe that was part of its appeal to The Band. The song - like much of their work - is a contemporary deliberate creation of a mythologically American piece. It was written by Nashville songwriters Danny Dill (composer of The Streets of Laredo) and Marijohn Wilkin (the writer of Jimmy Dean’s two hits, the JFK-mythologising P.T. Boat 109 and Big Bad John) in March 1959. The Long Black Veil (its full original title) was inspired by the real life murder of a New Jersey priest combined with newspaper accounts of a woman in a black veil who regularly visited Rudolph Valentino’s grave. Dill and Wilkin set out to make it sound like an old Appalachian ballad so as to hang onto the coat tails of the then burgeoning folk music revival. Within days of writing it, they got the then fast-fading country star Lefty Frizell to record the song in March 1959 (with a line-up that included Grady Martin and Harold Bradley on guitars and Marijohn Wilkin on piano). The result was released in May 1959 and the hit record revived Frizell’s career. Other artists have recorded the song, including Johnny Cash, Joan Baez and The Country Gentlemen, but The Band learned the song from Frizell’s original version. The song fits the mood of the album perfectly (it would have fit the next album too).
It’s instructive to compare their version with the Frizell version. Frizell sounds pure country. The accents are in completely different places, the beat is lilting, the drums are played with brushes, and a faint pedal steel plays around in the background. Every hick and hokey technique is on display, from hissing through the teeth on sibillants to a sincere gulp or two when the emotion of the words gets too much.
Then turn to The Band. The sound and words may be country, but on closer examination none of the instrumentation is. Levon slaps the drums with his classic hiccuping sound, this time with a tambourine fixed to the kit. Rick Danko takes the lead vocal with Levon echoing in behind then Richard adding a third layer on the chorus. The acoustic guitar is loud, the organ is prominent and high up, Richard Manuel holds the whole thing together with persistent Wurlitzer electric piano, then the whole thing is underpinned low down both by Danko’s melodic bass line and by John Simon on baritone horn. The instrumental track sounds like nothing except classic Band, but through it all the mood is still the country murder ballad. Danko takes the vocal with as much intensity as Frizell, but Danko is the more subtle actor, though maybe ‘kilt’ for ‘killed’ is over-playing it. He also likes to change voices for the judge’s immortal line, The judge said, "son what is your alibi, if you were someomewhere else then you won’t have to die." One of Rick Danko’s personal specialities was country music send-ups, and there was always that edge of send-up in it:
Levon Helm
The air of send-up (as in Big Bad John) is almost certainly intrinsic and intentional. By the 1990s Long Black Veil had become a regular solo Danko number, and usually he hammed it up for all he was worth. By Rick Danko in Concert (1997) it had stretched to 6 minutes 42 seconds. The last verse is spoken in the mode of Elvis Presley’s It’s Now or Never. Then there’s another new addition, a semi-spoken bit about a train at the station, and everybody getting the urge to roam (which is a quote from Twilight).
VERSIONS:
The hit revived Frizell’s career. Co-writer Marijohn Wilkin then recorded an answer disc herself in 1961 with barely changed lyrics as My Long Black Veil (The few at the scene were wrong as could be, cos the man they had killed that night was with me … The scaffold was high, I knew his death was near, I stood in the crowd and shed unseen tears … so there). It has a much less country and more elaborate arrangement, a lot of elaborate strings and thudding bass.
Colin Escott (Sleeve notes to: And the Answer Is … ) Both versions are available side-by-side on And The Answer Is … Great Country Answer Discs From The 50s (Bear Family BCD15793). The And the Answer Is … The 60s compilation is even more fun if you’re into so-bad-that-it’s-good.
Band versions:
Live on video:The Band: Japan Tour and The Reunion Concert in 1984.
Live on Woodstock 25th Anniversary Collection 4 CD set.
Rick Danko in Concert, 1997
They started doing it again live in 1996 / 97, following Rick Danko’s frequent airings on 90s solo shows. Covered by Mick Jagger with The Chieftains in 1994 with the obvious source as The Band rather than Lefty Frizell. |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: AllisonA(Animaterra) Date: 26 Jun 00 - 02:12 PM You mean the Streets of Laredo isn't trad either????? |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: MMario Date: 26 Jun 00 - 02:17 PM that's what they say |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 26 Jun 00 - 02:55 PM Danny Dill certainly recorded The Streets of Laredo (in 1960) but, as the song has been known since at least 1886 (see The Traditional Ballad Index ), I think that we're fairly safe sticking with "trad" for that one!! Malcolm |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: AllisonA(Animaterra) Date: 26 Jun 00 - 02:57 PM *phew* I was dizzy there for a moment. Thanks, Malcolm! |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: balladeer Date: 26 Jun 00 - 10:22 PM Long Black veil: composed in this century. Streets of Laredo: almost as old as the streets of Laredo. Or so tradition has it, i.e. that's what I've believed for the past forty years. |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: dick greenhaus Date: 26 Jun 00 - 10:25 PM As far as I know, Long Black Veil was composed in the 1940s, and first recorded by Lefty Frizell. Pure commercial country. Good, though. |
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Subject: Origins: Long Black Veil From: Joe Offer Date: 27 Jun 00 - 03:36 AM Here's a quote from Danny Dill "I got on a kick with Burl Ives songs—those old songs—but I –didn't know any, and I had no way to find any at the time, or was too lazy I said, 'I'll write me a folksong' - an instant folksong, if you will So I worked on it for months, and then it all came to me. There's three incidents I've read about in my life that really please me. There was a Catholic priest killed in New Jersey many years ago under a town hall light, and there was no less than 50 witnesses. They never found a motive. They never found the man. Until this day, it's an unsolved murder. That always intrigued me, so that's "under the town hall light." Then the Rudolph Valentino story's always impressed me—about the woman that always used to visit his grave. She always wore a long black veil—now there's the title for the song. And the third component was Red Foley's "God Walks These Hills With Me." I always thought that was a great song, so I got that in there, too. I just scrambled it all up, and that's what came out.(from Sing Your Heart Out, Country Boy, by Dorothy Horstman, ©1975, 1986, 1996 by Country Music Foundation Press). The song was published in 1959. -Joe Offer- |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Vixen Date: 27 Jun 00 - 08:29 AM Wow! As usual, D'Cats come through with the goods! Thanks a million, folks! While I'm disappointed to learn that it's not an "ancient tune," I am fascinated to learn its origins. Thanks again, V |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Midchuck Date: 27 Jun 00 - 12:38 PM When we do it for audiences, we like to introduce it by saying that it's not a bluegrass song, no matter how many bluegrass groups may have done it, because the chick survives. Peter. |
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Subject: Lyr Add: THE LONG BLACK VEIL (Jagger/Chieftains) From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 08 Jul 02 - 05:58 PM Mick Jagger and the Chieftains recorded a fine version of the "Long Black Veil." It is closer to the original lyrics than the one in the DT. THE LONG BLACK VEIL Ten years ago, on a dark cold night Someone was killed 'neath the town hall light. There were a few at the scene, and they all did agree, That the man who ran looked a lot like me. The judge said, "Son, what is your alibi? If you were somewhere else, you won't have to die." I spoke not a word, though it meant my life, For I had been in the arms of my best friend's wife. She walks these hills in a long black veil She visits my grave when the night winds wail. Nobody knows. Nobody sees. Nobody knows but me. The scaffold is high and eternity's near She stood in the crowd and shed not a tear. Sometimes at night when the dark wind moans, In a long black veil, she cries over my bones. She walks these hills in a long black veil. She visits my grave when the night winds wail. Nobody knows. Nobody sees. Nobody knows but me. Revised from M. J. Wilkin and D. Dill Slightly different chords from those offered in the DT (Baez?) may be found at: Long Black Veil |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Francy Date: 08 Jul 02 - 06:53 PM I enjoyed this thread up to the Mick Jagger doing this song well.....Sorry but you've got to hear Burl Ives...Lefty Frizzell.....Bobby Bare...Joan Baez.....Johnny Cash and many others...Please don't include Mick Jagger in that company.......Leave him where he belongs....in rock n roll Frank of Toledo |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Noreen Date: 08 Jul 02 - 07:07 PM Isn't it Van Morrison singing it on that CD, Dicho? Haven't got it to hand but that's my memory. |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Francy Date: 08 Jul 02 - 07:11 PM No Noreen....Van does "Have I Told You Lately" with the Chieiftains and it is wonderful.....It is Mick Jagger trying to do "Long Black Veil"....Frank of Toledo |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: michaelr Date: 08 Jul 02 - 07:17 PM No, Van's contribution to that album is his less than brilliant "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You". And Sting does "Mo Ghile Mear", badly... The Chieftains could have benefited from a producer on a lot of their collaborations with rock and pop stars, to tell them "no, no, no... this sucks!" Cheers, Michael |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 08 Jul 02 - 07:23 PM I've been given to understand that the tune and central idea for Streets of Laredo is an older traditional song called The Boston Burglar. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Herga Kitty Date: 08 Jul 02 - 07:23 PM I thought I'd heard the Band do it, or is that just false memory? |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 08 Jul 02 - 07:31 PM Well that must be a very strange version of either the Streets of Laredo or the Boston Burglar, or both. |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 08 Jul 02 - 08:50 PM Gee jumping jelly beans, I guess not everybody likes Mick Jagger's rendition. I used to like Burl Ives when I was in school, but I find his singing shallow now. (Ducking again!) |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: GUEST,Glen Reid Date: 09 Jul 02 - 12:27 AM I had heard, that the Streets of Larado was borrowed from the trad. Irish tune called, The Bard of Armagh. Any takers? |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: GUEST,KeithA o Hertford at work Date: 09 Jul 02 - 03:27 AM They all come from Ireland don't they, but some think it derives from the English " The Soldier/Sailor Cut Down In His Prime" |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: GUEST,K Date: 09 Jul 02 - 04:14 AM Marijohn Wilkin, co-author of the song, recorded a version herself in 1961. With slight different lytrics, like: The few at the scene were wrong as can be, cause the man they accused that night was with me. Etc |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar Date: 09 Jul 02 - 06:29 AM The Streets of Laredo is certainly sung to the same tune as the Bard of Armagh, but chances are that the tune had already been recycled. The Bard of Armagh was someone called "Bold Phelim Brady", but I think his only claim to fame (if he even existed) is the song about him. BTW, we owe a lot to the Chieftains, but much of that album just sucks. In keeping with Paddy Moloney's less attractive character trait (and the "authorised biography" of the Chieftains), it's just one long exercise in name-dropping. |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: catspaw49 Date: 09 Jul 02 - 04:25 PM I think the whole thing in all it's permutations was a prequel to OJ Simpson. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: George Seto - af221@chebucto.ns.ca Date: 09 Jul 02 - 06:09 PM Guest K., from the link posted by MMario way up near the top:
The hit revived Frizells career. Co-writer Marijohn Wilkin then
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: George Seto - af221@chebucto.ns.ca Date: 09 Jul 02 - 06:19 PM Keith and Glen, According to Bruce Olson, he ties Streets of Laredo to the Unfortunate Rake and the Buck's Elegy. ... all wrapped in white linen
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Date: 09 Jul 02 - 08:56 PM Just last night on a hot summer's night, Disdaining the disguise of a long black veil, I killed a man 'neath the town hall light- The Irish bard and unfortunate rake I helped to kick the pail Had begun another thread on the Streets of Laredo. Nobody knows, Nobody sees, Only the Shadow knows. |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: boglion Date: 10 Jul 02 - 04:22 PM Apparantly, Mick Jagger was first lined up to sing The Foggy Dew but baulked at its Republican connotations - he might not have got his knighthood!! He settled for Long Black Veil and I've had the governor of my local pub in Kerry taking the p*ss every time I sing it - claiming it's a Stones song. I learned it from Ms Baez many many years ago. |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Noreen Date: 10 Jul 02 - 09:39 PM Yes, Pluiméir Ceolmhar, that can be the only reason for including Marianne Faithful on the album... (cringe) |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: GUEST,K Date: 20 Jul 02 - 10:17 AM MY LONG BLACK VEIL Alternative lyrics as recorded by Marijohn Wilkin herself on a 45 rpm in 1961 Ten years ago on a cold dark night There was someone killed 'neath the town hall light The few at the scene were wrong as could be Cause the man they accused that night was with me But what could he do and what could he say For that one stolen night he just had to pay He couldn't tell a soul that I was out with him Cause the whole town knew I belonged to his best friend Now I walk these hills in my long black veil I visit his grave when the night winds wail Nobody knows, nobody sees Nobody knows but me The scaffold was high I knew his dead was near I stood in the crowd and shed unseen tears But sometimes at night when the cold wind moans In my long black veil I weep for his bones I walk these hills in my long black veil I visit his grave when the night winds wail Nobody knows, nobody sees Nobody knows but me |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Coyote Breath Date: 21 Jul 02 - 03:24 AM I've always liked and often sang Long Black Veil but I think the guy was a jerk since the gal chose to stay with her husband rather than save her lover's life, sheesh! As for Streets of Laredo, I understood it to be a very close relative of the Saint James Hospital-Saint James Infirmary, also to be Irish in origin and further also to be of a young man dying of "the pox" The version I sing is a bit more graphic than the usual version in that the young cowboy asks that roses be strewn over his coffin to mask the smell and in the last verse he asks the singer for a glass of cold water and "...but when I returned the spirit had left him and gone to his maker, the poor boy had died." I cannot remember where I learned the song in the first place or where I had heard of its ties to Dublin's St. James Hospital (if there ever was such a place) Life is full of mysteries. CB |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Leadfingers Date: 30 Sep 02 - 05:44 PM Streets of Laredo/St James Infirmary and a whole lot of others have their roots in The Rakes Lament,which was adapted by both the Army and the Navy and transported round the world in the eighteenth century.Or very early nineteenth.I think. |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Art Thieme Date: 30 Sep 02 - 07:48 PM Friends, I do feel that this is about as close to a song about ghosts and other supernatural / occult topics that you will ever see in a commercially produced and distributed song in these still terribly puritanical United States. In the world of folk lyrics, hovering in the mists of the oral tradition for all to see, are the ghosts conversing with family etc. in songs like "The Lady Gay", "Lost Jimmy Whalen", "Tamlyn" and a few others derived from the English and Scottish (Irish too) Popular Ballads. But only this and, maybe, the Country Gentlemen's "Bringing Mary Home" are all that vome to mind at present. Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Thomas the Rhymer Date: 30 Sep 02 - 08:20 PM The fidelity that transcends life itself... Well now, I've been doing this song for years, all enthusiasticly like Ms.Baez, and I heard other versions much like it... Then I started hearing a creepy rendition done in song circles and open mics where the beat seemed all heavy and the singer miserable and twitching... And yes, sure enough, the awesome chieftons CD that I heard at a party had this miserable rendition on it by none other than Mick Jagger. I was so sad hearing good local musicians doing Mick's version... just seemed wrong... |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: GUEST,Martin Ryan Date: 01 Oct 02 - 04:56 AM CB Sounds like you're thinking of the "Lock Hospital" versions - Christy Moore recorded one many years ago, for example. There was indeed a "Lock Hospital" for the treatment of VD in Townsend St. in Dublin - but there were lots of others wherever the British Army went! There is a St. James Hospital in Dublin, alright, but no relation. Regards |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Dave Bryant Date: 01 Oct 02 - 10:25 AM The "Streets of Laredo" has virtually the same tune and plot to the much older british "Rake's Lament", "Young Sailor/Soldier cut down in his prime" group of songs. Just as the song was modified for the central character to be a soldier, Sailor, Highwayman etc. someone, presumably across the Atlantic changed it to a Cowboy - perhaps that was done by Dill. I always understood that "Saint James Imfirmary" was a later adaption of "Laredo". |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: GUEST Date: 01 Oct 02 - 12:43 PM Streets of Laredo-Bard of Armagh-Rake's Lament have all been discussed and lamented over in several threads here. St. James Infirmary usually has a different tune. There are also threads diagnosing that one as well. 47312 has more Long Black Veil. Long Black Veil |
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Subject: Chords Add: LONG BLACK VEIL (Wilkin/Dill) From: Joe Offer Date: 11 Dec 02 - 02:23 AM I found this version of the chords here (click) -Joe Offer- Long Black Veil by M.J.Wilkin and D.Dill. Album: Music from Big Pink
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: GUEST Date: 11 Dec 02 - 02:48 AM You gotta admit, Joan Baez'Nashville version is really quite good. |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: GUEST,THE REAL POOP Date: 11 Dec 02 - 12:57 PM A friend of mine's mother-in-law said her daughter heard that a neighbor had read an article in a newspaper that a guy from out of town told the New York Times editor that his uncle DEFINITELY knew that DANNY DILL was the AUTHOR of the lyrics to LONG BLACK VEIL and had pitched it to MARIJOHN WILKIN, who wrote the MUSIC for the DIRGE... |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 26 Mar 04 - 12:34 PM Lefty Frizzell's hit, "The Long Black Veil," is at the Record Lady, Real Country page 2: Record Lady |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Coyote Breath Date: 26 Mar 04 - 03:45 PM I just remembered: I heard it on a Country Gentlemen album also "Good Woman's Love". My memory seems to be returning, does that mean I'm well again? CB |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Stewie Date: 26 Mar 04 - 04:54 PM Put 'Long Black Veil' into the Google newsgroups archives search box and you will get a vast number of hits. Select 'Search all groups': Click Here. --Stewie. |
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Subject: RE: Info Please: Long Black Veil From: Dave Hanson Date: 27 Mar 04 - 12:33 AM Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys, my favourite version of Long Black Veil, as for the Chieftains, well in the book by John Glatt, Paddy would play with anyone just for the publicity. eric |
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Subject: RE: Origin: Long Black Veil From: Desert Dancer Date: 31 Oct 13 - 01:30 PM The Long Black Veil is the Perfect Country Song And the Perfect Halloween Song by Betsy Phillips guest at the Culture blog at ThinkProgress.org October 31, 2013 It's Halloween, which means it's a fine time to talk about the greatest country and western song, hands down, ever. Now, I'm sure you've been mislead into believing that it's something like "He Stopped Loving Her Today" or something by Hank Williams or, hell, "Red Solo Cup." But no. The greatest country song, ever, is "The Long Black Veil." It is literally the perfect country song. It contains all the elements a country song should have — infidelity, murder, and people needlessly suffering because of outdated senses of honor. It sounds like it could be an ancient Appalachian ballad, even though Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin wrote it just over sixty years ago. Almost everyone who sings it manages not to butcher it. And, best of all (and appropriate for today), it's sung from the perspective of a skeleton. In Heartaches by the Number: Country Music's 500 Greatest Singles (in which the song comes in at an inexplicable 222), David Cantwell writes, " 'The Long Black Veil,' in which a man can't clear his name because to do so would require admitting that he's been 'in the arms of [his] best friend's wife," is a gothic cheating song — where love and guilt stretch beyond the grave and mourning never ceases." Yes, this is it exactly. The song conjures up the most tender sore spot imaginable and then lets you wallow in the painful pleasure of poking at it for three whole minutes. Lefty Frizzell did the first and best version. His voice is as beautiful as it ever was, though you can hear a kind of hiss on some of his s-es, at the end of "hills" and "knows" that sound like he might have been nursing a hurt jaw. The accompaniment is sparse — just a simple guitar and an occasional crying fiddle. Unlike most other versions, producer Don Law resisted the temptation to use the music to hit you over the head with the spookiness of the song. But over the years, there have been some really interesting takes on it. Johnny Cash and Joni Mitchell did a great version, where Mitchell sings like she's haunted herself. Dave Matthews does a very "Dave Matthews" take on the song that is worth it to hear Emmylou Harris's voice cutting through all the ridiculousness. And probably my favorite cover is, weirdly enough, Mick Jagger and the Chieftains, who make the song sound like it's a thousand years old. I envy those of you who've never heard it before, because the chills you're about to get come only the first time you hear the song: Lefty Frizzell sings Long Black Veil. ---- ~ Becky in Long Beach |
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Subject: RE: Origin: Long Black Veil From: Larry The Radio Guy Date: 31 Oct 13 - 10:45 PM I have the lp (or had it) of Danny Dill called "Folk Songs of the Wild West", which I think was released in 1960. He recorded Long Black Veil on it, and it sounds absolutely nothing like any of the other versions. I'm not sure if that's how he originally intended it to sound......but his version is pretty awful. |
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Subject: RE: Origin: Long Black Veil From: GUEST,Hootenanny Date: 01 Nov 13 - 08:25 AM This is a song that I really like but I don't think that any of the above versions do it justice, in fact I couldn't listen to any of them all through. Mitchell most unsuited to do it with Cash and as for the Dave Matthews sung with absolutely no feeling and masses of over produced sound behind him. I can say in all honesty that I have heard it sung with more sincerity and feeling by an ex-pat American dobro player who plays in sessions in London. Are there any commercially recorded versions out there that really are worth hearing? Hoot |
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Subject: RE: Origin: Long Black Veil From: meself Date: 01 Nov 13 - 10:54 AM The first version I heard was by The Band, on their first or second album. It made quite an impression on me - course I was about 15; lots of things made quite an impression on me .... ----------------------------------------------- Now, on the subject of writers who don't know basic grammar: "Unlike most other versions, producer Don Law ...... " |
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Subject: RE: Origin: Long Black Veil From: GUEST,Jaze Date: 01 Nov 13 - 04:57 PM I love a song written by a ghost. |
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