Music Review: Various Artists, People Take Warning!: Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs 1913-1938 - Page 2

The styles range from early country music to rural proto-blues to some more indefinable, eccentric sounds, but the majority of the troubadours are white singers from the rural south. As the liner notes explain, black artists were generally classified as "blues" even if they were doing music that resembled that of their white counterparts, so that relatively few ballads and disaster songs were released for the black audience - ironic considering the magnified hardships faced by rural black folks in those days. (But note the significant exceptions, like Son House, Furry Lewis, the aforementioned Charlie Patton, and singers in the early gospel "sanctified" tradition.)

The songs on Disc 3, "Man V Man (And Woman, Too)," recount violent deaths at the hands of cops, angry lovers, crazed fathers, outlaws, lynch mobs, and the State. Most were real events of the 19th and early 20th centuries, but the stories are exactly like those of today. Plus ça change is the clearest message these musical tales send to us in the 21st.

The handsome packaging and liner notes include background on the songs, the recordings, and the artists, many period photos, and selections from the lyrics. Famous disasters and familiar characters like Tom Dooley, Stack O'Lee, Bruno Hauptmann, Casey Jones, and even Pretty Polly mingle with obscure local tales and the nameless (but, through these songs, not forgotten) dead of disasters past. The music isn't consistently great, and some of it is readily available elsewhere, but it's all interesting; taken together, it's a fascinating treasure trove of doom, and an enjoyable lesson in how American history played an intimate part in defining the popular music of the period - music that gave birth to the forms and songs we listen to today.

Article Author: Jon Sobel

Jon Sobel is Blogcritics' Culture and Theater Editor. In addition to reviewing NYC theater, he writes a semi-regular round-up of independent music releases. By day he is a computer professional and a freelance writer and editor, and at night he's a …

Visit Jon Sobel's author page — Jon Sobel's Blog