Sleuthing devoted to social-historical context and happenstances that lead to American folk song compositions has come a long way since the likes of Olive Woolley Burt’s American Murder Ballads and Their Stories. Burt’s book found an audience during the early years of the Folk Revival among “folkies” and growing numbers of academic-affiliated folk song scholars (there being some significant overlap). Richard Polenberg’s Hear My Sad Story is a descendant. Quirky and uneven in some aspects, very informing in general, this book will have enduring Americana and American folksong audiences. Likely the greatest appeal is for readers already familiar with the songs covered, all of which were early commercial recording releases. Indeed, instead of including full texts and tunes for them, the author directs one in a concluding Sources for Readers and Listeners to internet websites that include iTunes and YouTube.
Polenberg is an emeritus chaired professor of history at Cornell University. His immersion into American folksongs began as a Revival participant at the time of the appearance of Burt’s work. Polenberg’s choice of songs for examination reflects his personal choices, and gives him an opportunity to delve into songs in one way or another connected with the American legal system (3-5), his professional specialization. Many of the chapters contain extensive details about trials, appeals, litigation, and circumstances of justice and injustice. “These stories and songs tell of tragic, sometimes heartbreaking, events, but reading the stories and hearing the songs may enlarge our capacity for compassion and understanding” (6).
Hear My Sad Song thus is essentially a case-study compilation. It is best read in chunks and consulted as a reference work. The songs, mainly ballads, deal with criminal misdeeds, calamities, occupational hardship, and persons one way or another victimized. Deliberately omitted are songs “that are fictitious or even lack a credible basis in reality” (5). More than half of the songs involve events and persons from the early 1800s through the 1930s situated in three states: North Carolina, West Virginia, and Missouri.
The author groups his treatments within seven thematic subsections, within which he organizes the songs in chronological order based on the date of a subject incident, or in several instances an era. Inevitably, some songs are candidates for several thematic categories. The first subsection is ST. LOUIS, giving a nod to an American locale that has led to well-known folk songs. Curiously, though, the author begins with a chapter on W. C. Handy and “St. Louis Blues” (1914) that is out of chronological order, largely biographical, and for this reviewer atypical of more originally informing coverage of “folk songs” elsewhere. The author follows with “Duncan and Brady” (1890), “Stagolee” (1895), and “Frankie and Johnny” (1899).
The subsection LYING ON COLD GROUND includes “Omie Wise” (1807), “The Ballad of Frankie Silver” (1831), “Tom Dooley” (1866), “Poor Ellen Smith” (1892), “Pearl Bryan” (1896), and “Delia’s Gone” (1900). BOLD HIGHWAYMEN AND OUTLAWS turns to “Cole Younger” (1876), “Jesse James” (1882), “John Hardy” (1894), “Railroad Bill” (1896), and “Betty and Dupree” (1921). RAILROADS deals with four songs among those in a popular canon: “John Henry” (1870s), “Engine 143” (1890), “Casey Jones” (1900), and “Wreck of the Old 97” (1903). Collectively, these chapters include a number of black-and-white photographs depicting scenes and individuals associated with the songs, a nice discovery found throughout the book.
WORKERS is a subsection inclusive of a number of songs that depart from the singular incident and folk ballad emphasis. “Cotton Mill Blues” (1930s), “Chain Gang Blues” (1930s), and “Only a Miner” (1930s) are devoted more to social history informing a genre of songs than attention to one of them in particular. The exception is “House of the Rising Sun” (1930s), among American folksong favorites for sleuthing, speculation, and interpretive commentaries. A surprisingly brief subsection on DISASTERS— “The Titanic” (1912) is much on history but less on songs, while “The Boll Weevil” (1920s) is engaging because of the historical and ecological information—moves to MARTYRS and entries for “Joe Hill” (1915) and “Sacco and Vanzetti” (1927). For concluding choices, these selections are suited to the author’s personal interests but perhaps less so for others, especially devotees of American folk songs more widely encountered in grassroots singing traditions and redactions.
In all, Hear My Sad Story is an on-the-shelf recommendation. It should be consulted along with works such as Norm Cohen’s two-volume encyclopedia, not cited by Polenberg. Some general readers of Polenberg’s compilation may well get bogged down, even turned off, by the density of historic details in many chapters, lack of full folksong texts and tunes, and the very small typeface. But if consulted with a careful and critical eye to various datings, details, and citations, this book will prove very enlightening and useful.
Works Cited
Burt, Olive Woolley. 1958. American Murder Ballads and Their Stories. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cohen, Norm. 2008. American Folk Songs: A Regional Encyclopedia. 2 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
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[Review length: 814 words • Review posted on October 4, 2016]