Music Archives - Page 192 of 236

Woody Guthrie’s “Pretty Boy Floyd” Was About More Than an Outlaw

Woody Guthrie’s song about the outlaw Pretty Boy Floyd begins with a story of Floyd getting into a fight. Floyd gets upset that a deputy used vulgar language in front of Floyd’s wife. After Floyd “laid that deputy down,” he fled to the country where every crime was blamed on him. But Guthrie did not write the song to sing about an unfortunate event. He wrote it as a critique of society, not of a man.

The Underlying Subject of “Pretty Boy Floyd”

The key part of the song regarding Guthrie’s message is near the end. Guthrie tells how Floyd helped strangers and gave money to struggling farmers.

The final verses are the most cutting and still relevant today in light of the worldwide financial problems and concerns raised by people such as within Occupy Wall Street. And the song’s final verse sums up much of Guthrie’s philosophy and his work.

But as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won’t never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.

As Woody’s son Arlo Guthrie sings in this performance of his father’s song, “Some will rob you with a six gun / And some with a fountain pen.”

At another time, Woody Guthrie explained, “[Y]ou know — a policeman will jest stand there an let a banker rob a farmer, or a finance man rob a workin’ man. But if a farmer robs a banker — you would have a hole dern army of cops out a shooting at him. Robbery is a chapter in etiquette.” (Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: A Life, p. 128)

Guthrie wrote “Pretty Boy Floyd” in March 1939, and many consider it among his finest songs. While it is not covered as often as some of Guthrie’s other songs, “Pretty Boy Floyd” has been played by Roger McGuinn, Kinky Friedman, Melanie (Safka), and others.

The Real Pretty Boy Floyd

When Guthrie wrote “Pretty Boy Floyd,” only five years had passed since Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd had died. The real Floyd was born on February 3, 1904. And he was first arrested at the age of 18 for stealing money from a post office.

FLoyd later graduated to bigger crimes in several states. He earned his nickname from the way a bank robbery witness described him. Although Floyd committed a number of crimes, Guthrie’s song correctly notes that Floyd probably was blamed for more than he did, including killings during a 1933 gunfight that became known as the “Kansas City Massacre.”

On October 22, 1934, as law enforcement officers pursued Floyd, he was killed in an apple orchard near East Liverpool, Ohio. Approximately 20,000 to 40,000 people attended Floyd’s funeral in Oklahoma.

Like all great folk songs, “Pretty Boy Floyd” has lived on as more than just a story about one person. And that is why we are celebrating Woody Guthrie.

{Woody at 100 is our continuing series celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Woody Guthrie in 1912. Check out our other posts on Guthrie too. }

What do you think of “Pretty Boy Floyd”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

This Land Is Your Land: The Angry Protest Song That Became an American Standard

No Longer Just “Deportees”

Tell Me, What Were Their Names?

The Killing of “Two Good Men”

Woody Guthrie’s “Peace Call”

Tom Joad’s Inspiration

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Robin Gibb RIP: I Started a Joke

Another giant of the disco era has passed away. Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees died today of colorectal cancer at the age of 62. Barry is the only surviving Bee Gee, as their brother Maurice died in 2003.

A standout Bee Gees track is “I Started a Joke,” which was mainly written by Robin, who also sings lead on the song. The song was released in September 1968 on the album Idea. According to Wikipedia, some think the song is about the devil, but the more common interpretation is that the song is sung by someone who did something wrong and regrets it. In the video below of a performance at Festival Hall, a young Robin sings the song. RIP.

What is your favorite Bee Gees song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)

Ned Miller: The Shy Man Behind “From a Jack to a King”

Arthur Alexander: “Every Day I Have to Cry”

Merle Haggard: “Kern River”

Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog

B.B. King: “Why I Sing the Blues”

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Howlin’ Wolf on Shindig! on May 20, 1965

In the thirteenth Oxford American Annual Southern Music issue, author Peter Guralnick wrote an excellent essay about Howlin’ Wolf, “What is the Soul of Man?” In the essay, Gualnick, who has written definitive biographies of great artists such as Elvis Presley and Sam Cooke, recounts how the greatest moment on television for him was Howlin’ Wolf’s appearance on Shindig! taped on May 20, 1965.

On that Thursday night, The Rolling Stones were the headliners on the show, and Wolf for some reason was listed on the show under the name “Chester Burnett,” as his given name was Chester Arthur Burnett. But when he took the stage and began his first hit, “How Many More Years,” the 6’3″ Wolf made it so “[e]very moment was larger than life.”

In this clip from the show, the Stones talk of their admiration for Howlin’ Wolf. Then Wolf took the stage and wiggled and leapt, as Guralink described, “with The Stones sitting at his feet, as if not just the stage but the entire world would shake.”

According to the website The 60s at 50, the May 20th taped show appeared on ABC on May 26, 1965.

What do you think of Howlin’ Wolf’s performance? Leave your two cents in the comments.

Buy from Amazon

Charlie Rich’s Journey Through Many Record Companies: Where to Begin with His Music?

The Man Behind the Organ in “Like a Rolling Stone”

“All You Need Is Love” Worldwide Broadcast

Charlie Rich’s “Mohair Sam” on “Shindig!”

Rolling Stones Sing About Rice Krispies

Colvin & Earle: “Ruby Tuesday”

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On the Radio: Donna Summer RIP

I just heard on the radio that Donna Summer passed away today at the age of 63 from cancer. Summer, who was born LaDonna Adrian Gaines, begin performing at the age of 10, although her first U.S. break came in 1975 with her song, “Love to Love You Baby.” Other songs such as “Last Dance,” “Hot Stuff,” and “Bad Girls” were some of the biggest hits during the disco era. Her 1983 song “She Works Hard For The Money” is often used as an anthem for women’s rights. Although that song was her last major hit, she released an album of original songs as recently as 2008 with Crayons. Throughout her career, Summer distinguished herself from many other artists because she was both an excellent songwriter and powerful singer.

Although disco was never my favorite genre, regular readers will know that I am not snobby about great pop songs. So, I will admit that in the early 1980s I had a cassette tape of Donna Summer’s greatest hits album that is pictured above. At college, one of my roommates with a powerful stereo liked to borrow the tape to blast “Love to Love You Baby” and its moaning sounds out his window at the other dorms.

I always recognized “Last Dance” as her best song, but the slightly lesser-known “On the Radio” also was one of her best. “On the Radio” was released as a single in 1979, and it was used in the soundtrack for the film Foxes (1980), starring Jodie Foster and Scott Baio. The song has been covered by non-disco artists such as Emmylou Harris. The sad sound of the minor chords give it an unusual twist for a disco song, and the lyrics are mysterious. The singer tells about a break-up but ends with a reconciliation while it is all twisted up with that letter that someone read on the radio.

You have to respect a singer who can sing a disco song while sitting down. Sorry to hear the bad news today on the radio, but rest in peace LaDonna.

What is your favorite Donna Summer song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

“Satan’s Jeweled Crown” & Bruce Springsteen (Cover of the Day)

Mary Chapin Carpenter and Emmylou Harris Pay Tribute to Joan Baez

Gospel Medley With Dolly Parton, Donna Summer, Tom Jones, and Mac Davis

Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)

Why “GUY”? (Steve Earle album review)

Song of the Day: “Boulder to Birmingham”

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Love & Marriage: The Loving Story (Review)

In light of the recent news about President Obama and Vice-President Biden stating their support for gay marriage, the recent HBO documentary The Loving Story (2011) about a marriage law in the 1950s takes on an added significance.

In 1958, Richard Loving, who was white, and Mildred Jeter, who was black, traveled from their home in Virginia to Washington, D.C. to get married. After their wedding, they returned home to Virginia where after five weeks police roused them from their bed in their home at 2 a.m. and arrested them for violating a law that banned interracial marriages. At the time, twenty-four states had laws banning interracial marriages. In January 1969, a judge accepted their guilty plea for the crime and sentenced them to one year in jail but suspended the sentence if the two left Virginia for 25 years. The Lovings, who wanted to go home, challenged the case all the way to the Supreme Court, which heard the case in Loving v. Virginia.

Although a unanimous Supreme Court eventually ruled for the Lovings in 1967 by finding that the Virginia law violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, the Lovings spent roughly nine years as criminals between the time they were arrested and the time they won the case in the Supreme Court. The documentary tells their story during this time.

One of the great things about the documentary is the amount of video footage that was taken of the Lovings and others at the time the events were happening. Among the many images, the film includes never-before-seen footage taken by filmmaker Hope Ryden while the case was pending before the Supreme Court. It is interesting to see the couple meeting with lawyers and hear Mildred Loving explain why they decided not to attend the Supreme Court argument. The documentary is a fascinating portrait about another time period that was not that long ago, and it brings to life the two human beings at the center of one of the great Civil Rights cases of the 1960s.

Nancy Buirski, who made the film, first had the idea to make the documentary after reading Mildred Loving’s obituary in the New York Times in May 2008. In the February 2012 ABA Journal, she explained, “Not only was this an overlooked story but also. . . you read about them . . but you don’t know very much about the people involved.”

Singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith had a similar reaction when she read Mildred Loving’s obituary in the newspaper. Her response was to sit down and write a song, “The Loving Kind,” which became the title track of an album she released in 2009.

They changed the heart of a nation,
With their wedding vows;
From the highest court in the land,
Their union would lawfully stand;
Simply Mildred and Richard,
That’s how they’d be remembered;
They proved that love is truly blind;
They were the loving kind.

Richard and Mildred Loving stayed together until Richard was killed in a car crash in 1975. They had three children and they will forever be linked together. On the fortieth anniversary of the Loving v. Viginia decision in 2007, Mildred released a statement saying that all people, including gay men and lesbians, should be allowed to marry because, “That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.” Decades earlier, Richard summed up the Loving case too. When lawyers explained the various legal theories to the Lovings, Richard simplified the point, “[T]ell the court I love my wife, and it is just unfair that I can’t live with her in Virginia.”

Conclusion? Check out the film, which is on DVD and on HBO and online for subscribers. While the movie goes at a leisurely pace to let the story unfold in the participants’ own words and you know how the story comes out, it is still an interesting time capsule that reveals the human side of two regular people who quietly stood up to an injustice.