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28 Aug 98 - 04:24 AM (#36214) Subject: The ballad of Soapy Smith From: Peter Stanley (Bojangles) Does anyone know the origin or history of this ballad. I kow most of the words and have been told that Soaby was a nofictional scumbag who fleeced prospectors and miners of their gold and supplies leaving them to die in the frozen wilderness. I was taught much of the song by an Athbascan indian, and it went:
He came up to Alaska from the western USA, |
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29 Aug 98 - 12:01 AM (#36316) Subject: RE: The ballad of Soapy Smith From: Bojangles I fear that noone is going to respond to this question before it goes off the board...yet it is impossible for me to believe that in this illustrous crowd no one knows anthing they can add to what I know. Is it simply that nobody cares? |
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29 Aug 98 - 01:02 AM (#36319) Subject: RE: The ballad of Soapy Smith From: Joe Offer Well, Bojangles, I found this historical note: Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith - Soapy Smith was best-known as king of the Denver underworld before heading to the Klondike in 1898. His plan was to seize control of Skagway, key gateway to the gold fields. He did it. His personal army of three hundred gangsters, prostitutes, pimps, card cheaters and outright thugs...ran the town of Skagway. Soapy Smith's Parlor - built in 1897, this was the saloon of Jefferson "Soapy" Smith, the most infamous man in Skagway's history. He was killed by Frank Reid in a shootout on July 8, 1898. Frank Reid -- Reid attended the University of Michigan, fought Indians in Oregon, then settled there as a school teacher. During the Klondike gold rush, he helped found Skagway, then became immortalized when he shot the gangster Soapy Smith. He died of injuries from the same gun fight -Joe Offer- |
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29 Aug 98 - 01:22 AM (#36322) Subject: RE: The ballad of Soapy Smith From: Bojangles Thank you,Joe,for answering impeccably essentially all of my questions on soapy. Your source is impressive,but what, by the way, is it? Peter Stanley (Bojangles) |
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29 Aug 98 - 01:30 AM (#36324) Subject: RE: The ballad of Soapy Smith From: Joe Offer Hi, Peter - my favorite trick is using the "exact phrase" search at HotBot, http://www.hotbot.com/. You just have to make sure you pick a phrase that's unusual enough that you won't get too much unwanted information. Same technique works for searching the Digital Tradition database here. -Joe Offer- |
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01 Sep 98 - 10:35 PM (#36753) Subject: RE: The ballad of Soapy Smith From: Robalot Soapy Smith was also involved in the unhappy end of Bob Ford, 'the dirty little coward, who shot Mr. Howard' in Creede, Colorado. Reference: "The Assassination of Jessed James by the Coward Robert Ford" by Ron Hansen an excellent read. |
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02 Sep 98 - 08:25 AM (#36792) Subject: RE: The ballad of Soapy Smith From: Bojangles I never dreamed of a tie-in with Robert Ford. I'll check that out! |
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26 Feb 05 - 09:43 AM (#1421436) Subject: RE: Origins: The Ballad of Soapy Smith From: Jim Dixon "The Ballad of Soapy Smith" is also the name of a play by Michael Weller that premiered in Seattle in 1983. (Click here for a review from The Boston Globe.) The review mentions a character in the play, "Paul Anthony MacAleer, a minor poet given to doggerel." The review doesn't exactly say so, but I suspect MacAleer was a real person who wrote the poem which became the song and which inspired the play. |
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26 Feb 05 - 10:32 AM (#1421460) Subject: RE: Origins: The Ballad of Soapy Smith From: Alaska Mike We've all heard of "Soapy" Smith up here. But the gold rush days are mostly shaken out for the tourists. There are quite a few characters in Alaska's history, both heroes and villains. We recently found another huge gold field near Illiamna. Its reportedly the biggest gold find of all time. I expect we will have more characters slipping into Alaskan history fairly soon. Mike |
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26 Feb 05 - 05:43 PM (#1421794) Subject: RE: Origins: The Ballad of Soapy Smith From: dick greenhaus Soapy Smith also appears in an O. Henry short story," The Cop and the Anthem" in which a bum is trying to get arrested for vagrancy to find a warm place to spend Christmas Eve. |
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26 Feb 05 - 07:08 PM (#1421849) Subject: RE: Origins: The Ballad of Soapy Smith From: GUEST,Les B. There was a book written about "Soapy" Smith some years ago, with that name in the title, I believe. He apparently got the name "soapy" from a street-corner scam he would run. As the crowd watched he would fold dollar bills, and larger denominations of paper money, into the paper wrappings of a pile of bar soap. He would then sell the soap for a small sum and people would buy, hoping to get a bar with a big bill attahced. Of course he did some sort of sleight of hand and none of the soap had any money attached. |
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27 Sep 07 - 03:04 PM (#2158712) Subject: RE: Origins: The Ballad of Soapy Smith From: GUEST Hello, I would like to hear The Ballad of Soapy Smith, do you know were may I get it? Thanks. Armando |
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27 Sep 07 - 05:48 PM (#2158842) Subject: RE: Origins: The Ballad of Soapy Smith From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego I was in Skagway, Alaska, last August and had the opportunity to visit the graves of both Jefferson "Soapy" Smith and Frank Reid. Reid was lionized by many for ridding Skagway (and the rest of the planet)of a scourge, while some revisionists say he was not the high-minded savior of popular thought. Smith WAS the consummate con-artist of his day. Silky smooth with the ladies and cultivating a businesslike mien, all the while bilking everyone in sight and, with the help of his well-armed henchmen, holding sway as undisputed ruler of Skagway during the 1898 Klondike gold rush. What a role model! |
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28 Oct 08 - 09:26 PM (#2478682) Subject: RE: Origins: The Ballad of Soapy Smith From: GUEST,Jeff Smith The Ballad of Soapy Smith was written by Al Oster in 1962 and recorded on a collection of music entitled, Northland Ballads under the company name of Frontier Record Company. Mr. Oster is still selling tapes. Google his name and you should be able to find him. I am the great-grandson of Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith and our family has a website devoted to Soapy at Alias Soapy Smith Jeff Smith email Jeff |
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04 Sep 12 - 10:50 PM (#3400296) Subject: RE: Origins: The Ballad of Soapy Smith (Al Oster) From: GUEST,999 Available at Smithsonian Folkways |
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20 Aug 15 - 04:30 PM (#3731892) Subject: RE: Origins: The Ballad of Soapy Smith (Al Oster) From: Joe Offer OK, I see the song is available at Folkways, and somebody else included this on the "unanswered requests" PermaThread. But I don't see any lyrics. It's a wonderful thing to answer a request, but please follow through to the end and post the lyrics in the thread where the lyrics were requested - and tell us clearly where you got the lyrics. Thanks. -Joe- |
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20 Aug 15 - 10:11 PM (#3731949) Subject: ADD: The Ballad of Soapy Smith (Al Oster) From: cnd Thanks Joe, but they were requesting origins/history. I suppose lyrics would be useful, but their request was for the origins. I guess I can also try and fill in both, if you'd like. Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith II (b. November 2nd, 1860 in Cowetta Co., GA, d. July 7th, 1898 in Juneau, AK) was the son of Jefferson Randolph Smith and Emily Dawson Smith. He had a brother named Bascomb Smith and a sister named Eva Katherine Light. He got the nickname "Soapy" in the late '70s or early '80s after a scheme where he sold soap on the street wrapped in paper. A mole in the crowd would "buy" a bar with money hidden in the wrapper, and loudly shout that he'd bought soap from Soapy with money in it, causing many people around to rush over and start buying his soap. Using sleight-of-hand, he would hide the bars with money in them, and after some time, he would claim that "the bar with the $100 bill still remained." At that point, he would often auction off the few remaining bars to the highest paying bidders. He did this stunt for around 20 years in Denver and Creede, CO. Then, in 1897, he moved to the small mining town of Skagway as part of the Klondike Gold Rush. However, he didn't mine; he did the more profitable thing: selling to the miners. He ran parlor where miners could play confidence games and gamble (illegally). A loser of one of Soapy's Three Card Monte games got so upset, he raised a small group of disgruntled men, who killed him. You can hear about the killing of Soapy in another song, titled "Soapy Smith's Wretched and Violent Demise." This is just a brief overview of him, of course. This page was my source, and you can read more about him here THE BALLAD OF SOAPY SMITH (Al Oster) (Uncle Sam was in need of fighting men, and that was the only kind of men Skagway had. In fact, it was a dull night indeed when there was not at least one fight on every street-corner of that town. Fighting men were, in other words, available in droves. All they lacked were guns and organization! Well, organization was soon forthcoming, for had no heeding breast in Skagway did patriotism seethe, bubble, ferment and boil more intensely than in that of Jefferson Randall Smith, more commonly known as Soapy. Skagway, February 15th. Landed here last night. A man named Soapy Smith took me to his office to show me a map of the Klondike. While there, I was introduced to a game played with three little shells. It cost me eighty-five dollars.)* He came up to Alaska from the western USA, Found himself in Skagway one cold December day A deck of cards in his hand; gambling was his game Gambling made him famous, Soapy Smith was his name He walked into and old saloon in the northern part of town Said he had a speech to make and the people gathered 'round He climbed upon an old soapbox and loudly made it known He's gonna run the town and call it all his own Soapy Smith was his name, and gamblin' was his game He had a dream of riches big and bold Soapy had a plan; this worthless gamblin' man He's gonna have the Klondike and its gold Well I recall a miner, John Stewart was his name With a fortune from the Klondike, into Skagway came He took an invitation from Soapy Smith's saloon Went down to do some gambling in Soapy's private room He woke up in the morning just past the break of dawn He searched to find his fortune, but all his gold was gone He joined the vigilantes on the other side of town To put an end to Soapy and drive the bastard down Soapy Smith was his name, and gamblin' was his game He had a dream of riches big and bold Soapy had a plan; this worthless gamblin' man He's gonna have the Klondike and its gold Well that night there was a meeting; Frank Reid was standing guard Soapy came to see him and play his high card He wondered how he'd come back: alive or dead He knew they were awaiting to fill him full of lead There echoed through the darkness; two shots rang out as one And the town-folk came a-running, to find both men were down Soapy died a gambler, Frank Reid a hero brave Side-by-side in Skagway, in a narrow grave Soapy Smith was his name, his dream to run Alaska now is gone A rifle in his hand, he made his final stand The history of his name will linger on (Early the next morning a rumor spread around Skagway that men who had already reached the Klondike were finding six bits of gold dust in the pan on every creek, and before noon, a thousand men were on the march. Not toward Cuba in the Spanish-American War, but toward the summit, on their way to Dawson.)* This was hand-transcribed from the version available at Folkways. It also had spoken-word before and after it, which is in italics and parenthesis, and marked with a star (*), which was not part of the original version, but included anyway. (Performed by Walter Krauss and Roger Johnson) THE BLOODY BALLAD OF NOTORIOUS BAD MAN SOAPY SMITH'S WRETCHED AND VIOLENT DEMISE (Ed Parrish) Alaska in the Gold Rush days, where life was cheap and thin Such desperate times were perfect times for brutal, desperate men In Skagway, Soapy's drifter mob left many miners broke And if you weren't a gambler, they'd just rob you of your poke With a pistol in his pocket and a rifle in his hands Soapy went alone to fight the vigilante band To shoot a few and chase the rest into the icy bay They'd wish they'd never messed with Soapy Smith of old Skagway Where your life ain't worth a sawbuck, and your end is just ahead And the only law comes from your guns in a lightning hail of lead Soapy was the boss man. He ran old Skagway's crime 'Til the outlaws got together and said Soapy's out of time With bad men cheating bad men, they're going to spill bad blood They're outlaws taking trips to hell down through Alaska's mud The Skagway vigilantes couldn't make him run away Soapy came straight at them to chase them into the bay With a pistol in his pocket and a rifle in his hands Soapy went alone to fight the vigilante band To shoot a few and chase the rest into the icy bay They'd wish they'd never messed with Soapy Smith of old Skagway The bullets started flying a'twixt Soapy Smith and Reid Until they both lay on the wharf, and there they both did bleed Then Jesse Murphy turned ol' Soapy's lever gun around And blew out Soapy's heart as he lay helpless on the ground When the shooting stopped and cordite clouds thinned out enough to see Soapy went to boot hill, with the grifters' guard, Frank Reid Nobody mourned old Soapy when they sent him off to hell Skagway wouldn't miss him, not so's anyone could tell Bold as brass and full of fire, there in the midnight sun Soapy went straight at the mob, though he was only one He's waiting in the pits of hell now with his guns in hand He'll hunt them through eternity – that vigilante band I got the lyrics for this song here, and you can listen to it here. |
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21 Aug 15 - 03:56 AM (#3731992) Subject: RE: Origins: The Ballad of Soapy Smith (Al Oster) From: Joe Offer Hi, CND - Whether they're asking for chords, songwriter name, history, or whatever - we always get the lyrics. Our roots are as a lyrics Website. -Joe- |
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21 Aug 15 - 08:51 AM (#3732066) Subject: RE: Origins: The Ballad of Soapy Smith (Al Oster) From: Rapparee Soapy was traveling by train from Denver to Spokane (where his wife lived) and passed through Pocatello. During a stop there, he was shot at by three men and part of his mustache was shot away. He had to go to the cop shop in Blackfoot, but was cleared and was on his way the next day. See more info on this and other incidents here. |