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CrimeSong: True Crime Stories From Southern Murder Ballads
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About CrimeSong: True Crime Stories From Southern Murder
Product description A 2016 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Winner and a 2017 IPPY Book of the Year Awards Silver medalist in Southeast Best Regional Non-Fiction and a Bronze medalist in National Cover Design Nonfiction! CrimeSong plunges readers into a world of violence against women, murders, familicide, suicides, brutal mob action, and many examples of a failed justice system. This compelling investigation of the gripping true crimes behind American ballads dispels myths and legends and brings to life a cast of characters both loathsome and innocent shadowy history, courtroom dramas, murders, mayhem and music. Although these ballads and stories are set in specific times, cultures, and places, they present timeless, universal themes of love, betrayal, jealousy, and madness through true-life tales that are both terrifying and familiar stories that could be ripped from today s headlines. In CrimeSong, law professor and authentic storyteller Richard H. Underwood recreates in engaging and folksy prose the true facts behind twenty-four Southern murder ballads. Underwood has resurrected these stories and shares them with the reader through his old lawyer trifocals. He presents his case studies, documented through contemporary news accounts and court records, as a series of dramas filled with jump-off-the-page real and memorable characters. Some of the murder ballads more familiar to readers, musicians, and fans of traditional, Appalachian, Bluegrass, and folk music include "Omie Wise," "Ellen Smith," "Frankie Silver," "Frankie and Albert" (or "Frankie and Johnny)," "Delia," "Tom Dula," "The Lawson Family Murders," and "Freda Bolt." Among the more obscure is the story of "General Denhardt" and the death of the widow Verna Garr Taylor, "who was known as the most beautiful woman in Oldham County, [Kentucky]." Also included, among others, is "Henry Clay Beattie," the 1911 murder in Richmond, Virginia, that "brought New York-style newspaper sensationalism to the South, like the coverage of the 1836 case of Helen Jewett and the 1841 case of Mary Rogers. Review CrimeSong: A revealing look at the quirky history of U.S. criminal law. A law professor explores the real-life events behind old American murder ballads. Underwood (co-author: Kentucky Evidence Courtroom Manual, 2016, etc.) delves into court records, newspaper accounts, and other primary sources to find the facts underlying popular songs about grisly murders and crimes in the South in the 1800s and early 1900s. Most readers will be unfamiliar with many of these ballads, although a few, such as Frankie and Johnnie and Tom Dula (aka Tom Dooley ), are still well-known due to having inspired later musicians such as Bob Dylan and the Kingston Trio. Underwood explores several genres, including the murdered girl ballad often about a man drowning his female lover as well as songs in which women kill men for revenge, whole families are slaughtered, or bystanders lose their lives. In addition to tracing the history behind each song, Underwood comments on the actual cases legal aspects, such as hearsay, circumstantial evidence, or the SODI defense short for some other dude did it. In all, he draws a macabre historical portrait of America, its sensationalist press, and its frequent miscarriages of justice, suggesting that things haven t changed all that much in the modern era. The book includes each of the songs original lyrics along with a rich lode of grainy images and references to further readings and recordings. Overall, Underwood has written a delightful book about a gruesome subject. Even when he delves into the cases and their legal issues, he employs a light touch, sprinkling his accounts with humor: Oh hell, don t bother with him; he ain t nothing but a lawyer, one defendant advises. Besides providing a revealing look at the quirky history of U.S. criminal law, the book also serves as a testament to the sheer weirdness of American culture; in one ballad, for instance, the murd
