For Rosalie Sorrels -"The Children Of The Coal"- The Music Of Kathy Mattea

For Rosalie Sorrels -"The Children Of The Coal"- The Music Of Kathy Mattea

If I Could Be The Rain I Would Be Rosalie Sorrels-The Legendary Folksinger-Songwriter Has Her Last Go-Round At 83

By Music Critic Bart Webber

Back the day, back in the emerging folk minute of the 1960s that guys like Sam Lowell, Si Lannon, Josh Breslin, the late Peter Paul Markin and others were deeply immersed in all roads seemed to lead to Harvard Square with the big names, some small too which one time I made the subject of a series, or rather two series entitled respectively Not Bob Dylan and Not Joan Baez about those who for whatever reason did not make the show over the long haul, passing through the Club 47 Mecca and later the Café Nana and Club Blue, the Village down in NYC, North Beach out in San Francisco, and maybe Old Town in Chicago. Those are the places where names like Baez, Dylan, Paxton, Ochs, Collins and a whole crew of younger folksingers, some who made it like Tom Rush and Joni Mitchell and others like Eric Saint Jean and Minnie Murphy who didn’t, like  who all sat at the feet of guys like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger got their first taste of the fresh breeze of the folk minute, that expression courtesy of the late Markin, who was among the first around to sample the breeze.

(I should tell you here in parentheses so you will keep it to yourselves that the former three mentioned above never got over that folk minute since they will still tell a tale or two about the times, about how Dave Van Ronk came in all drunk one night at the Café Nana and still blew everybody away, about catching Paxton changing out of his Army uniform when he was stationed down at Fort Dix  right before a performance at the Gaslight, about walking down the street Cambridge with Tom Rush just after he put out No Regrets/Rockport Sunday, and about affairs with certain up and coming female folkies like the previously mentioned Minnie Murphy at the Club Nana when that was the spot of spots. Strictly aficionado stuff if you dare go anywhere within ten miles of the subject with any of them -I will take my chances here because this notice, this passing of legendary Rosalie Sorrels a decade after her dear friend Utah Phillips is important.)

Those urban locales were certainly the high white note spots but there was another important strand that hovered around Saratoga Springs in upstate New York, up around Skidmore and some of the other upstate colleges. That was Caffe Lena’s, run by the late Lena Spenser, a true folk legend and a folkie character in her own right, where some of those names played previously mentioned but also where some upstarts from the West got a chance to play the small crowds who gathered at that famed (and still existing) coffeehouse. Upstarts like the late Bruce “Utah” Phillips (although he could call several places home Utah was key to what he would sing about and rounded out his personality). And out of Idaho one Rosalie Sorrels who just joined her long-time friend Utah in that last go-round at the age of 83.

Yeah, came barreling like seven demons out there in the West, not the West Coast west that is a different proposition. The West I am talking about is where what the novelist Thomas Wolfe called the place where the states were square and you had better be as well if you didn’t want to starve or be found in some empty arroyo un-mourned and unloved. A tough life when the original pioneers drifted westward from Eastern nowhere looking for that pot of gold or at least some fresh air and a new start away from crowded cities and sweet breathe vices. A tough life worthy of song and homage. Tough going too for guys like Joe Hill who tried to organize the working people against the sweated robber barons of his day (they are still with us as we are all now very painfully and maybe more vicious than their in your face forbear). Struggles, fierce down at the bone struggles also worthy of song and homage. Tough too when your people landed in rugged beautiful two-hearted river Idaho, tried to make a go of it in Boise, maybe stopped short in Helena but you get the drift. A different place and a different type of subject matter for your themes than lost loves and longings.  

Rosalie Sorrels could write those songs as well, as well as anybody but she was as interested in the social struggles of her time (one of the links that united her with Utah) and gave no quarter when she turned the screw on a lyric. The last time I saw Rosalie perform in person was back in 2002 when she performed at the majestic Saunders Theater at Harvard University out in Cambridge America at what was billed as her last go-round, her hanging up her shoes from the dusty travel road. (That theater complex contained within the Memorial Hall dedicated to the memory of the gallants from the college who laid down their heads in that great civil war that sundered the country. The Harvards did themselves proud at collectively laying down their heads at seemingly every key battle that I am aware of when I look up at the names and places. A deep pride runs through me at those moments)

Rosalie Sorrels as one would expect on such an occasion was on fire that night except the then recent death of another folk legend, Dave Von Ronk, who was supposed to be on the bill (and who was replaced by David Bromberg who did a great job banging out the blues unto the heavens) cast a pall over the proceedings. I will always remember the crystal clarity and irony of her cover of her classic Old Devil Time that night -yeah, give me one more chance, one more breathe. But I will always think of If I Could Be The Rain and thoughts of washing herself down to the sea whenever I hear her name. RIP Rosalie Sorrels 

A YouTube's film clip of Kathy Mattea performing the "L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore". Sound familiar?

CD REVIEW

Coal, Kathy Mattea, Captain Potato Records, 2008

Several time over the past year or so I have mentioned in this space, as part of my remembrances of my youth and of my political and familial background, that my father was a coal miner and the son of a coal miner in the hills of Hazard, Kentucky in the heart of Appalachia. I have also mentioned that he was a child of the Great Depression and of World War II. He often joked that in a choice between digging the coal and taking his chances in war he much preferred the latter. Thus, it was no accident that when war came he volunteered for the Marines and, as fate would have it despite a hard, hard life after the war, he never looked back to the mines.

All of this is by way of an introduction to this unusual tribute album. Of all the subjects that one could think of in the year 2008 fit for a full exposition the unsung life, trials and tribulations and grit of those who, for generations, mined the coal (and other minerals) and passed unnoticed in the hollows and hills of Appalachia (and the West) does not readily come to mind. Even for this long time labor militant. But Ms. Mattea, who has her own roots to the coal, has done a great service here. Kudos are in order.

Now politically the coal story is today a very disturbing one. For one, the strip mining of significant portions of places like Kentucky and West Virginia go on unabated and essentially unchecked. For another, the number of miners had dwindled to a very few and are getting fewer. As a labor militant I have feasted on the heroics of the Harlan and Hazard miners, the exploits of Big Big Haywood and the Western Federation of Miners and the class war battles from any number of isolated locales where men (mainly) dug the coal and fought for some sense of dignity. The dignity and sense of social solidarity may still remain but the virtues of the lessons of the class struggle- picket lines mean don’t cross and class solidarity is essential- have clearly been eroded. That is the political part that cannot be separated from the musical part of this story. Why?

The songs selected for inclusion here spell out the condition of live for the miners, in short, as the political theorist Thomas Hobbes put it centuries ago- life is 'short, nasty and brutish' in the mines and the mining communities. The songs like "You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive" and the choice of material by well-known mountain music songwriters Jean Ritchie, Billy Edd Wheeler and Hazel Dickens reflect that. Theses simple mountain tunes, as performed by Ms. Mattea and her fellow musicians, spell out the story with soft guitar, fiddle, mandolin and other instruments that create the proper mood. Probably it is very hard for those not familiar with the coal, the isolated communities and the sorrow of the mountains to listen to this compilation in one sitting. For that it probably takes the children of the coal. For the rest please bear with it and learn about an important part of American history and music.

“You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive”

In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky
That's the place where I trace my bloodline
And it's there I read on a hillside gravestone
You will never leave Harlan alive

Oh, my granddad's dad walked down
Katahrins Mountain
And he asked Tillie Helton to be his bride
Said, won't you walk with me out of the mouth
Of this holler
Or we'll never leave Harlan alive

Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking
And you spend your life just thinkin' of how to get away

No one ever knew there was coal in them mountains
'Til a man from the Northeast arrived
Waving hundred dollar bills he said I'll pay ya for your minerals
But he never left Harlan alive

Granny sold out cheap and they moved out west
Of Pineville
To a farm where big Richland River winds
I bet they danced them a jig, laughed and sang a new song
Who said we'd never leave Harlan alive

But the times got hard and tobacco wasn't selling
And ole granddad knew what he'd do to survive
He went and dug for Harlan coal
And sent the money back to granny
But he never left Harlan alive

Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking
And you spend your life just thinkin' of how to get away

Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking
And you spend your life digging coal from the bottom of your grave

In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky
That's the place where I trace my bloodline
And it's there I read on a hillside gravestone
You will never leave Harlan alive

"The L & N Don't Stop Here Anymore"

When I was a curly headed baby
My daddy sat me down on his knee
He said, "son, go to school and get your letters,
Don't you be a dusty coal miner, boy, like me."

[Chorus:]
I was born and raised at the mouth of hazard hollow
The coal cars rolled and rumbled past my door
But now they stand in a rusty row all empty
Because the l & n don't stop here anymore

I used to think my daddy was a black man
With script enough to buy the company store
But now he goes to town with empty pockets
And his face is white as a February snow

[Chorus]

I never thought I'd learn to love the coal dust
I never thought I'd pray to hear that whistle roar
Oh, god, I wish the grass would turn to money
And those green backs would fill my pockets once more

[Chorus]

Last night I dreamed I went down to the office
To get my pay like a had done before
But them ol' kudzu vines were coverin' the door
And there were leaves and grass growin' right up through the floor

[Chorus]

*Archives-Our Flag Is Still Red-On Marching With The Black And Red Anarchists On Boston May Day 2010

Monday, May 03, 2010
Repost

*Our Flag Is Still Red-On Marching With The Black And Red Anarchists On Boston May Day 2010


Markin comment:

Over the past several years celebrations of our international working class holiday, May Day, not only have we paid tribute to the Chicago Haymarket anarchist martyrs and the struggle for the eight hour day but the hard pressed struggle against the denial of immigrant rights and the attempt by Tea Party-types and other to “close the door” to immigration. This addition reflects the increasingly important role that Hispanics and other militants from the international working class milieu play in the left wing of the American labor movement. Thus, the call for full citizenship rights for those who make it here is an appropriate one on this day.

With this thought in mind I, and a few of the local anti-imperialist activists that I work with marched under that slogan in the 2010 Boston May Day festivities as well as the slogan for the modern equivalent of the eight hour day, especially in these times- “30 For 40”. That slogan, for those not familiar with it, is an algebraic formula, long associated with the Trotskyist movement, although not by any means exclusively raised by us. All we have proposed by the call is the eminently rational solution to unemployment (and underemployment) by spreading the work around so that all have work, and a living wage. Of course the catch is this- it ain’t going to happen under capitalist and so the question of socialism and central planning are starkly posed. And that, after all, is the idea.

What makes all of the above political lead up to my main point interesting, beyond the intrinsic value of such work, is that we found ourselves marching along with a local anarchist collective that had its own set of slogans, and... a marching band. (See linked article.) The whole atmosphere brought back the old days when such musical accompaniment, especially in the old ethnic neighborhoods, were a matter of course on May Day and other left occasions. Now here is the kicker- this group of anarchists marched under the banner of the Haymarket martyrs. That is enough to warm any old militant's heart. And, they were to a man and women, young, very young. Be still my heart, despite our political differences.

Now some may ask why are a confirmed Marxist and his comrades are walking on the same streets as those anarchist partisans. Wrong question, or better, wrong way to pose it. One of the real damaging effects that the variants of historical Stalinism have left on the international working class movement is the hard fact that different political tendencies within the movement are almost literally at war with each other, 24/7/365. To the eternal glee of the capitalists. On the political level those fights are correct. However on our common holidays, like May Day, we should be showing our united face to the international capitalists.

In that sense James P. Cannon, an old Wobblie (IWW), American Communist Party founder and Trotskyist leader had it right. One way he had it right was in his early leadership of the International Labor Defense, an organization dedicated to the struggle to free class war prisoners. All class war prisoners. The other was his long time friendships with those of other working class political tendencies like the great anarchist leader, Carlo Tresca. Hell, he even borrowed money off him. (And eventually paid it back.) I will not go and on about this but let’s leave it at this. After a spring of an anti-war agenda of what looked like a leftist variant of AARP meetings it was such nice to march with the kids. We will get back to the political struggle over differences soon enough.

*Labor's Untold Story In Song- Remember The Heroic Lawrence Textile Strike Of 1912-"Bread And Roses"-Yes, Indeed

Labor's Untold Story In Song- Remember The Heroic Lawrence Textile Strike Of 1912-"Bread And Roses"-Yes, Indeed

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Joan Baez and her late sister Mimi Farina performing "Bread and Roses" about the famous textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912.

Poem and Song lyrics-"Bread And Roses"

Poem

As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses! Song Lyrics

Song

As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!
As we go marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses.
As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient call for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.
As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days,
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses, bread and roses.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses

*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor Early IWW Organizer Vincent St. John

Click on the title to link to the James P. Cannon Internet Archive's copy of his appreciation of early IWW leader, Vincent St. John, from his 1955 "The IWW".

Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.

*****

Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.

Labor's Untold Story In Song- Remember The Heroic Lawrence Textile Strike Of 1912-"Bread And Roses"-Yes, Indeed

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of a performance of "Bread and Roses" about the famous textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912.

Poem and Song lyrics-"Bread And Roses"

Poem

As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses! Song Lyrics

Song

As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!
As we go marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses.
As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient call for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.
As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days,
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses, bread and roses.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses

*Labor's Untold Story In Song- Remember The Heroic Lawrence Textile Strike Of 1912-"Bread And Roses"-Yes, Indeed

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Joan Baez and her late sister Mimi Farina performing "Bread and Roses" about the famous textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912.

Poem and Song lyrics-"Bread And Roses"

Poem

As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses! Song Lyrics

Song

As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!
As we go marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses.
As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient call for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.
As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days,
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses, bread and roses.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses

Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill

From Boston IndyMedia:

The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill
by anonymous(No verified email address) 05 Jul 2011

July 5, 2011

Review, The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon, by William M. Adler

Review by Richard Myers

Big Bill Haywood used to call revolutionary industrial unionism, the organizing philosophy of the Industrial Workers of the World, “socialism with its working clothes on.” Writing for the International Socialist Review from his prison cell, Joe Hill offered an example of such hands-on belief. Hill had recently arrived in Utah from the docks of California where many of the jobs were temporary. Therefore it was “to the interest of the workers ‘to make the job last’ as long as possible,” Hill wrote in his article, “How to Make Work for the Unemployed.”

Joe continued,

"The writer and three others got orders to load up five box cars with shingles. When we commenced the work we found, to our surprise, that every shingle bundle had been cut open. That is, the little strip of sheet iron that holds the shingles tightly together in a bundle, had been cut with a knife or a pair of shears, on every bundle in the pile—about three thousand bundles in all.

"When the boss came around we notified him about the accident and, after exhausting his supply of profanity, he ordered us to get the shingle press and re-bundle the whole batch. It took the four of us ten whole days to put that shingle pile into shape again. And our wages for that time, at the rate of 32c per hour, amounted to $134.00. By adding the loss on account of delay in shipment, the “holding money” for the five box cars, etc., we found that the company’s profit for that day had been reduced about $300.

"So there you are. In less than half an hour time somebody had created ten days’ work for four men who would have been otherwise unemployed, and at the same time cut a big chunk off the boss’s profit. No lives were lost, no property was destroyed, there were no law suits, nothing that would drain the resources of the organized workers. But there WERE results. That’s all."

Joe Hill didn’t mention how the “accident” occurred, nor who the “somebody” was that created all of this extra work. He simply observed that it was a practical means of redistributing capitalist profit among workers, and thereby recommended such circumstances to others. It is little wonder that capitalist interests in Utah saw merit in executing Hill when they had the opportunity.

Joe Hill was a writer, a musician, a song writer, and a cartoonist. His wit was sharp, his intelligence keen, and his working class life, if typical of his time, was also exemplary. Yet in some circles, Joe Hill’s legacy has been shadowed by some level of doubt. The popular union activist – arguably the best known union icon of all time – was, after all, convicted of murder, and was subsequently executed by the state of Utah in 1915.

Biographers researching Joe Hill list numerous ways in which his trial was flawed: the judge short-circuited the jury selection process, assigning hand-picked jurors to the case in spite of defense objections. Jury instructions delivered by the judge mis-characterized Utah’s laws of evidence. Any attempt to introduce evidence that might have exonerated Joe Hill was routinely ruled out of order. Evidence that didn’t fit the facts was made to fit by prosecution attorneys given leeway to lead witnesses.

Angered that his trial had become a farce, Hill fired his first set of attorneys. The judge essentially countermanded Hill’s decision, ordering those same attorneys to remain on the case. The inability to manage his own defense caused Joe Hill a considerable amount of consternation throughout the trial, which ultimately resulted in a guilty verdict.

Hill likewise faced a stacked deck on appeal. The appeals court judges made up the pardons board as well, in essence reviewing their own decisions. Irritated by widespread criticism of the trial (including two inquiries from the president of the United States), the pardons board itself became a source of “malicious and deceitful” falsehoods about the condemned prisoner.

William M. Adler’s excellent new book, The Man Who Never Died, recounts considerable new information about the life and legacy of Joe Hill. Adler spent five years walking the ground, poking into dark places, discovering long-hidden truths. He traveled to Sweden to meet Joe’s family and research his childhood. Adler then followed Joe to America, to California and Canada, through his brief role in the Mexican Revolution, and subsequently, to the bitter end in Utah.

Like much of North America at the time, Utah was experiencing labor discontent. The Industrial Workers of the World had won a strike by railroad construction workers in the summer of 1913, and business leaders vowed that it wouldn’t happen again. Joe Hill arrived a short time later, and within a year, the popular Wobbly troubadour would be condemned to death.

Joe Hill was convicted largely on the basis of a gunshot wound he sustained the same night that a Salt Lake City grocer and his son were murdered in their store. Joe’s off-the-record explanation attributed the gunshot to a dispute over a woman.

In the aftermath of the two murders, Utah authorities arrested a hard-bitten criminal, a consummate con artist and thug known to have been engaged in a notorious and violent crime wave throughout the region. Magnus Olson did time in Folsom State Prison in California, the Nevada State Penitentiary, and at least seven other lockups during his fifty year crime spree. While the Salt Lake City police took Olson into custody on suspicion related to the grocery store shootings, they were thrown off by his artful lying and his routine use of pseudonyms. In spite of some incriminating evidence, they failed to identify Olson as the notorious wanted criminal, and they let him go.

Ironically, when they arrested Joe Hill (who resembled Olson) for the crime, Utah authorities suspected that Olson (under a different name) was the murderer. For a time they even believed Hill and Olson to be the same man. Having failed to sort out the real identities of their detainees, Utah authorities eventually settled on the union agitator as their trophy prisoner. After all, Hill’s gunshot wound seemed persuasive enough for a conviction, and they tailored their case to that one, unalterable fact.

Was the real Olson a more likely perpetrator of the grocery store murders than Joe Hill? Adler notes that during a career of some five decades, Olson “burglarized homes, retail stores, and boxcars; he blew safes, robbed banks, stole cars, committed assault and arson, and in all likelihood, had committed murder.” Adler’s painstaking research places Olson in the Salt Lake City area at the time of the murders, and most probably, in the very neighborhood where the murders occurred. The murdered grocer – a former police officer – had been attacked before, and believed that he was being targeted. Olson had a reputation for violent revenge against his adversaries, a probable motive which nicely dovetailed with the crime for which Joe Hill would die. Joe Hill was newly arrived in Utah, and no motive was established for Hill as perpetrator. In spite of uncertainty whether either of two assailants at the grocery store had been fired upon, let alone wounded, Hill’s gunshot injury was all the evidence necessary to convict him, in the view of prosecutors.

But what of Joe Hill’s alibi that he’d been shot over a woman, a person whose identity was never officially revealed to the court? Adler identifies Hilda Erickson, of Hill’s host family in Utah, as his secret love interest. Joe’s unofficial – yet far from unnoticed – sweetheart, Hilda must have been much on the minds of onlookers throughout Joe Hill’s trial. She visited Joe through the prison bars every Sunday, yet at Joe’s direction, they were careful to prevent anyone from overhearing their conversations. When Hill, facing death, was allowed a private meeting with associates, Hilda was among the few people he saw. Hilda later stood vigil at the prison when Joe was executed, and she was one of the pall bearers at his funeral.

Moving Joe Hill’s secret romantic saga from conjecture to historical record, Adler’s book includes a sensational discovery, a letter penned by Hilda Erickson describing what had happened many years before, and her account confirms Joe Hill’s ostensible alibi. She had been the sweetheart of Joe’s friend and fellow Swedish immigrant, Otto Appelquist (who had arrived in Utah before Joe). Hilda broke off that engagement after Joe arrived, leaving Otto and Joe to become rivals for her attention. One day Erickson returned to her family’s home (where the two men were boarding) to discover that Joe had a bullet wound, while Otto was making excuses for leaving – for good, as it turned out. Otto Appelquist had shot Joe in a fit of jealousy, then regretted the deed, immediately carrying Joe to a doctor. Perhaps fearful of arrest for the shooting and uncertain whether Joe would survive, Otto left at two in the morning (to find work, he had declared), and never returned. The doctor would later turn Joe in after hearing of the grocery store murders – and a sizeable reward.

Why didn’t Hilda voluntarily step forward when her testimony might have saved Joe Hill? She was just twenty years old, and there is some indication that Joe Hill advised her not to. He probably sought to shield her from publicity – an instinctive reaction for the Swede with roots in his family’s experiences in their homeland. Ever the idealist, Joe Hill may also have sought to avoid testimony that might endanger his friend, countryman, and fellow worker, Otto.

At first, Joe was convinced that Utah couldn’t convict him because he was innocent. Utah society had sought to throw off its reputation for frontier justice, and it was almost possible to believe that the rule of law meant something. Somewhat surprisingly, Joe Hill accepted implicitly the legal principle that a defendant would not be considered guilty for not testifying, and he overvalued the judicial aphorism of innocent until proven guilty.

Utah courts routinely disregarded both of these principles in the Joe Hill case. Throughout the trial it became increasingly apparent that the Utah system of justice concerned itself more with expunging a perceived evil than with justice. A prominent union man had been accused of a heinous crime, and evidence to the contrary simply wasn’t to be considered. Joe Hill realized too late the danger he was in.

The circumstances of Joe Hill’s trial in Utah – a union man accused of murder, and fighting for his life – may be put into perspective by briefly examining another murder which occurred during, and as a direct result of the trial. Inveighing against injustice, twenty-five year old Ray Horton – president of Salt Lake City’s IWW branch – publicly cursed the imperative that causes some men to wear a badge. For his vocal audacity, Horton was abruptly shot by an onlooker, and then received two more bullets in the back as he staggered away. The killer, a retired lawman, was initially jailed for first degree murder, but was held for only one day. Upon his release, the killer was hailed as a hero at the Salt Lake City Elks Club, with a luncheon in his honor. Newspapers editorialized that this cold blooded murder was justified because Horton – a union man exercising free speech – was asking for it.

That a union man in Utah may be killed with impunity for his attitude seemed to likewise play a role in Hill’s pardons board hearing. One cannot say that Joe Hill had no chance whatsoever to save his own life. His pride and his contempt for a flawed process played a significant role in his fate. As implacable as Utah justice seemed for a union man, one has the sense from the recorded pardons board discussion that even at that late date, Joe Hill might have derailed his imminent execution if he threw himself upon the mercy of the court, explaining at long last how he had been wounded by a gunshot. The board dangled a pardon or a commutation before him, but Hill insisted that wasn’t good enough, calling such a possibility “humiliating.” In response to entreaties to testify, Hill promised the pardons board that he would offer them the full story, if he was granted a new trial. The pardons board declared it had no authority to order a new trial. Having embraced the slogan “New Trial or Bust” before his many supporters, Hill told the pardons board, “If I can’t have a new trial, I don’t want anything.”

Equally stubborn in its own way, the pardons board determined that Hill would either “eat crow” (as Hill described it) in the manner that they demanded – tell all with contrition before the pardons board, with no guarantees that it would make any difference – or die.

Adler explains why Joe Hill may have seen martyrdom as a noble and worthwhile cause. Joe Hill was too idealistic, too stubborn, too proud to give them the satisfaction of breaking him. Joe Hill told the pardons board, “Gentlemen, the cause I stand for, that of a fair and honest trial, is worth more than human life – much more than mine.” In his estimation they hadn’t proved him guilty; why should he be required to prove himself innocent?

The Joe Hill that shines through this work is idealistic, unselfish, proud, impulsive, principled, protective, stubborn, and at times, a little naïve in the face of implacable authority. That the governments and courts of Salt Lake City and the state of Utah should prove themselves as intransigent and unprincipled as the captains of industry about whom he’d so often sloganeered, may have caught Joe by surprise. Having discovered the truth of the matter, he dedicated his very being to the principle that justice must prevail, that sacrifice for such a cause was a worthwhile endeavor. In spite of incarceration and a capital sentence, Joe Hill managed to the very end to exercise some measure of control over his own life. And, to the extent he was able, over his death.

Adler’s prose is first rate, his analysis of history impeccable. He draws conclusions where appropriate, and presents an honest account, yet allows the reader to put together the final pieces of the puzzle.

At the end, do we know for certain who committed the grocery store murders? No. But we have a narrative which clearly demonstrates: Joe Hill never fit the profile of a cold blooded killer, while another man detained momentarily for the same crime did fit such a profile, in spades. The other man was released to continue his life of crime. Olsen later became a henchman of the notorious Al Capone in Chicago, while Joe Hill, the union man who left a rich legacy in song and wrote articles for socialist publications, was sent to his death. Hill’s funeral in that same city, attended by some thirty thousand, would help to launch the legend that is Joe Hill.

As Joe told his supporters at the last, they weren’t to mourn in his name. They were to organize.

William Adler photo by Randy Nelson

William M. Adler has written for many national and regional magazines, including Esquire, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and the Texas Observer. In addition to The Man Who Never Died, he has authored two other books of narrative nonfiction: Land of Opportunity (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995), an intimate look at the rise and fall of a crack cocaine empire, and Mollie’s Job (Scribner, 2000), which follows the flight of a single factory job from the U.S. to Mexico over the course of fifty years. His work explores the intersection of individual lives and the larger forces of their times, and it describes the gap between American ideals and American realities. Adler lives with his wife and son in Denver, Colorado.

The book The Man Who Never Died by William M. Adler will be available August 30, 2011, for $30. For tour dates, music samples, and a photo gallery, please see http://themanwhoneverdied.com .

Richard Myers is a writer, author, and union activist in Denver, Colorado.

This work is in the public domain

Books To While Away The Class Struggle By-20th Century Labor Leader Big Bill Haywood-Working-Class Warrior

Click on the headline to link to

Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By” and "Films To While Away The Class Struggle By"-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs and films that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some books that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. Markin
*********
Book Review

Big Bill Haywood, Melvyn Dubofsky, Manchester University Press, Manchester England, 1987

If you are sitting around today wondering, as I occasionally do, what a modern day radical labor leader should look like then one need go no further than to observe the career, warts and all, of the legendary Bill Haywood. To previous generations of radicals that name would draw an automatic response. Today’s radicals, and others interested in social solutions to the pressing problems that have been bestowed on us by the continuation of the capitalist mode of production, may not be familiar with the man and his program for working class power. Professor Dubofsky’s little biographical sketch is thus just the cure for those who need a primer on this hero of the working class.

The good professor goes into some detail, despite limited accessibility, about Haywood’s early life out in the Western United States in the late 19th century. Those hard scrabble experiences made a huge imprint on the young Haywood as he tramped from mining camp to mining camp and tried to make ends mean, any way he could. Haywood, moreover, is the perfect example of the fact that working class political consciousness is not innate but gained through the hard experiences of life under the capitalist system. Thus, Haywood moved from itinerant miner to become a leading member of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) and moved leftward along the political spectrum along the way. Not a small part in that was due to his trial on trumped up charges in Idaho for murder as part of a labor crack down against the WFM by the mine owners and their political allies there.

As virtually all working class militants did at the turn of the 20th century, Big Bill became involved with the early American socialist movement and followed the lead of the sainted Eugene V. Debs. As part of the ferment of labor agitation during this period the organization that Haywood is most closely associated with was formed-The Industrial Workers of the World (hereafter IWW, also known as Wobblies). This organization- part union, part political party- was the most radical expression (far more radical than the rather tepid socialist organizations) of the American labor movement in the period before World War I.

The bulk of Professor Dubofsky’s book centers, as it should, on Haywood’s exploits as a leader of the IWW. Big Bill’s ups and downs mirrored the ups and downs of the organization. The professor goes into the various labor fights that Haywood led highlighted by the great 1912 Lawrence strike (of bread and roses fame), the various free speech fights but also the draconian Wilsonian policy toward the IWW after America declared war in 1917. That governmental policy essentially crushed the IWW as a mass working class organization. Moreover, as a leader Haywood personally felt the full wrath of the capitalist government. Facing extended jail time Haywood eventually fled to the young Soviet republic where he died in lonely exile in 1928.

The professor adequately tackles the problem of the political and moral consequences of that escape to Russia for the IWW and to his still imprisoned comrades so I will not address it here. However, there are two points noted by Dubofsky that warrant comment. First, he notes that Big Bill was a first rate organizer in both the WFM and the IWW. Those of us who are Marxists sometimes tend to place more emphasis of the fact that labor leaders need to be “tribunes of the people” that we sometimes neglect the important “trade union secretary” part of the formula. Haywood seems to have had it all. Secondly, Haywood’s and the IWW’s experience with government repression during World War I, repeated in the “Red Scare” experience of the 1950’s against Communists and then later against the Black Panthers in the 1960’s should be etched into the brain of every militant today. When the deal goes down the capitalists and their hangers-on will do anything to keep their system. Anything. That said, read this Haywood primer. It is an important contribution to the study of American labor history.

*Films to While Away The Class Struggle By-"Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without A Pause"

Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for public intellectual, MIT professor and social activist Noam Chomsky.

Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some films that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. In the future I expect to do the same for books under a similar heading.-Markin

DVD Review

Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without A Pause, Noam Chomsky, Carol Chomsky and others, 2003

Let’s face it these days in America it does not take much to gain a left radical reputation. I say that more in anger than in sorrow. Take the case of over-blown director Michael Moore, who is in some right-wing quarters seen as the devil incarnate, while in actuality resting, and resting quite comfortably, in the heartland of the Democratic Party precincts, hardly radical territory these days, if ever. The subject of this documentary review, radical gadfly MIT Professor Noam Chomsky, is also prima facie evidence for that proposition.

Now I have nothing against the good professor- as a linguist. That work I have always found interesting. What is less interesting, and is placed front and center in this 2003 post 9/11 exposition of his views, well, are those views. Or better, not the views, many of them which I actually share, but of his analysis of what to do about it.


Perhaps, as this point in my own long political career, I am a little jaded when someone makes a cogent, if now commonplace, analysis of American imperialism, the industrial-military complex, the over-reaching tentacles of the imperial experience, the cultural/consumer wasteland, the media’s capitulation to the government, and the fear-mongering in place of politics, particularly in the post 9/11 world that form the segments of the professor’s spiel. He presents those position articulately, if as he concedes himself, long-windedly, and that is fair enough. I have already conceded without difficulty that he is an important public intellectual. But hiding behind those views is a long time anarchist position that to take on the “monster” seriously is, in the end, bad form.

Now Professor Chomsky’s anarchy is not that of the old Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers of the World), or of the Haymarket Martyrs. One moreover, in any case, would never mistake him for “Big” Bill Haywood, Alexander Berkman or a host of other action anarchists. Or as a member of the Friends Of Durritti in Spain in the 1930s. Those were heroic figures who demand much respect even from those of us who find ourselves in political opposition to anarchist doctrine. No, the good professor’s brand of anarchism is more philosophical, very philosophical. It is more attuned to that of the moral suasion doctrines of Kropotkin, and the like. Bloodless, and while resting easily in one’s armchair.

Nowhere does that come out better that in the snippets of interviews here where he is asked questions about what to do to fight against the “monster”. There he loses the articulate analysis and fumbles around with searches for self-identity, truthfulness, and intellectual inquiry- all nice things but hardly calculated to make the “beast” tremble. Professor Chomsky gives the game away in one such answer. He is asked about the very legitimate question of organizing, and who and how to do such activity. He mentions, at one point in the answer, that he could not organize, by his life circumstances, steel workers.

Fair enough, life provides each of us with different possibilities. But why in this whole hour presentation did I not see or hear, other than the obligatory mantra about the plight of the working masses, that he wanted to work closely with those who did have such skills. There was nothing in the good-intentioned professor’s presentation that made me break from sometime another old public intellectual, although not an august professor, Karl Marx, said, in effect, in the middle of the 19th century- “It is not enough to merely analysis (or philosophize) about the world- the point is to change it." And we know what that means-if Professor Chomsky doesn’t.

***Those Who Fought For Our Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor Pioneer American Socialist Leader Daniel DeLeon

Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for pioneer American socialist, Daniel DeLeon

Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.

Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.

*Our Flag Is Still Red-On Marching With The Black And Red Anarchists On Boston May Day 2010

Click on the headline to link to a "Boston IndyMedia" posting calling for a Red Black Anarchist contingent at the 2010 Boston May Day March and Rally.

Markin comment:


Over the past several years celebrations of our international working class holiday, May Day, not only have we paid tribute to the Chicago Haymarket anarchist martyrs and the struggle for the eight hour day but the hard pressed struggle against the denial of immigrant rights and the attempt by Tea Party-types and other to “close the door” to immigration. This addition reflects the increasingly important role that Hispanics and other militants from the international working class milieu play in the left wing of the American labor movement. Thus, the call for full citizenship rights for those who make it here is an appropriate one on this day.

With this thought in mind I, and a few of the local anti-imperialist activists that I work with marched under that slogan in the 2010 Boston May Day festivities as well as the slogan for the modern equivalent of the eight hour day, especially in these times- “30 For 40”. That slogan, for those not familiar with it, is an algebraic formula, long associated with the Trotskyist movement, although not by any means exclusively raised by us. All we have proposed by the call is the eminently rational solution to unemployment (and underemployment) by spreading the work around so that all have work, and a living wage. Of course the catch is this- it ain’t going to happen under capitalist and so the question of socialism and central planning are starkly posed. And that, after all, is the idea.

What makes all of the above political lead up to my main point interesting, beyond the intrinsic value of such work, is that we found ourselves marching along with a local anarchist collective that had its own set of slogans, and... a marching band. (See linked article.) The whole atmosphere brought back the old days when such musical accompaniment, especially in the old ethnic neighborhoods, were a matter of course on May Day and other left occasions. Now here is the kicker- this group of anarchists marched under the banner of the Haymarket martyrs. That is enough to warm any old militant's heart. And, they were to a man and women, young, very young. Be still my heart, despite our political differences.

Now some may ask why are a confirmed Marxist and his comrades are walking on the same streets as those anarchist partisans. Wrong question, or better, wrong way to pose it. One of the real damaging effects that the variants of historical Stalinism have left on the international working class movement is the hard fact that different political tendencies within the movement are almost literally at war with each other, 24/7/365. To the eternal glee of the capitalists. On the political level those fights are correct. However on our common holidays, like May Day, we should be showing our united face to the international capitalists.

In that sense James P. Cannon, an old Wobblie (IWW), American Communist Party founder and Trotskyist leader had it right. One way he had it right was in his early leadership of the International Labor Defense, an organization dedicated to the struggle to free class war prisoners. All class war prisoners. The other was his long time friendships with those of other working class political tendencies like the great anarchist leader, Carlo Tresca. Hell, he even borrowed money off him. (And eventually paid it back.) I will not go and on about this but let’s leave it at this. After a spring of an anti-war agenda of what looked like a leftist variant of AARP meetings it was such nice to march with the kids. We will get back to the political struggle over differences soon enough.

*Those Who Fought For Our Communist Future Are Kindred Spirits- Honor IWW Martyr Joe HIll

Click on the title to link to the "Joe Hill Project" Web site.

Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Leibknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices.

*****

Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts
contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.

On The 104th Anniversary- Labor's Untold Story In Song- Remember The Heroic IWW-led Lawrence (Ma) Textile Strike Of 1912-"Bread And Roses"

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of a performance of "Bread and Roses" about the famous textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912.

Poem and Song lyrics-"Bread And Roses"

Poem

As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses! Song Lyrics

Song

As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!
As we go marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses.
As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient call for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.
As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days,
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses, bread and roses.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses

*A Photo History- American Socialist Workers Party Founder James P. Cannon And IWW Founder Big Bill Haywood

Click on title to link to famous photograph of American Communist Party founder (and subsequently American Socialist Workers Party founder)James P. Cannon with old Wobblie Big Bill Haywood, founder of the IWW. Max Eastman, then an important Communist sympathizer, completes the picture.

*From The "HistoMat" Blog- "On Marxism And Anarchism"

Click on the headline to link to a "HistoMat" Blog entry- "On Marxism And Anarchism".

*A Man Of The West- The Old America West Ballads Of Johnny Cash

Click on the title to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Johnny Cash performing "Streets Of Laredo".


CD Review

Johnny Cash Sings The True Ballads Of The Old West, Johnny Cash, Sbme Special Mkts, 2009

I have spent some time, and I believe time well spent, at this site over the pass couple of years talking about things of the American West, old and new. You know the stuff of legends like we grew up with as kids, at least my generation, the generation of ’68, did, for better or worst. Blame it on Larry McMurtry, his books, and his incessant Old West reviews in “The New York Review Of Books”. Some of this stuff is genuine history, things that today’s labor militants should know about like the struggles of the Western Federation Of Miners, Big Bill Haywood and the legendary Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World) who led many a strike against the mine, farm, and lumber bosses.

Other things are, and should be, treated a little more circumspectly, like the legends of Jesse James and John Wesley Harding, especially those who honor the Northern victory in the American Civil War. There has, in short, been no lack of song and storytelling about the Old West. This is a round-about way of introducing Johnny Cash’s valuable little cache of old time Western-oriented material, mainly ballads, including some long needed focus on the struggles of Native Americans, the odd group out in the West, old and new.

The name Johnny Cash, although well thought of in this space, has mainly been mentioned in connection with his connection to the legendary Carter family (he married Maybelle’s daughter, June, for those who are not familiar with that family’s genealogy), a family more noted for their contributions to mountain music, eastern mountain music, than the hard western plains described in this album. Nonetheless, Johnny in that deep, authoritative and plaintive voice of his has brought the Old West alive in these recordings. I should like to note several stick out items of interest here. First off- the rendition, based on Longfellow, of “Hiawatha’s Vision”; an interesting song about the fate of the assassin of President James Garfield in the post-Civil War period, “Mr. Garfield; and, a song of the original old West, Kentucky, in” Road to Kaintuck”. Then to finish this compilation up there are songs that truly reflect the struggles of the Old West, “Stampede,” “Blizzard,” “The Streets Of Laredo,” and “Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie”. Just a nice little slice of Americana, mainly not mentioned in the history books, or by western Chamber of Commerces.


Song: O Bury Me Not On The Lone Praire

"O bury me not on the lone prairie"
These words came low and mournfully
From the pallid lips of the youth who lay
On his dying bed at the close of day.

"O bury me not on the lone prairie
Where the wild coyote will howl o'er me
Where the buffalo roams the prairie sea
O bury me not on the lone prairie"

"It makes no difference, so I've been told
Where the body lies when life grows cold
But grant, I pray, one wish to me
O bury me not on the lone prairie"

"I've often wished to be laid when I die
By the little church on the green hillside
By my father's grave, there let mine be
O bury me not on the lone prairie"

The cowboys gathered all around the bed
To hear the last word that their comrade said
"O partners all, take a warning from me
Never leave your homes for the lone prairie"

"Don't listen to the enticing words
Of the men who own droves and herds
For if you do, you'll rue the day
That you left your homes for the lone prairie"

"O bury me not," but his voice failed there
But we paid no head to his dying prayer
In a narrow grave, just six by three
We buried him there on the lone prairie

We buried him there on the lone prairie
Where the buzzards fly and the wind blows free
Where rattlesnakes rattle, and the tumbleweeds
Blow across his grave on the lone prairie

And the cowboys now as they cross the plains
Have marked the spot where his bones are lain
Fling a handful of roses on his grave
And pray to the Lord that his soul is saved

In a narrow grave, just six by three
We buried him there on the lone prairie

"Streets Of Laredo"

As I walked out on the streets of Laredo.
As I walked out on Laredo one day,
I spied a poor cowboy wrapped in white linen,
Wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay.

"I can see by your outfit that you are a cowboy."
These words he did say as I boldly walked by.
"Come an' sit down beside me an' hear my sad story.
"I'm shot in the breast an' I know I must die."

"It was once in the saddle, I used to go dashing.
"Once in the saddle, I used to go gay.
"First to the card-house and then down to Rose's.
"But I'm shot in the breast and I'm dying today."

"Get six jolly cowboys to carry my coffin.
"Six dance-hall maidens to bear up my pall.
"Throw bunches of roses all over my coffin.
"Roses to deaden the clods as they fall."

"Then beat the drum slowly, play the Fife lowly.
"Play the dead march as you carry me along.
"Take me to the green valley, lay the sod o'er me,
"I'm a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong."

"Then go write a letter to my grey-haired mother,
"An' tell her the cowboy that she loved has gone.
"But please not one word of the man who had killed me.
"Don't mention his name and his name will pass on."

When thus he had spoken, the hot sun was setting.
The streets of Laredo grew cold as the clay.
We took the young cowboy down to the green valley,
And there stands his marker, we made, to this day.

We beat the drum slowly and played the Fife lowly,
Played the dead march as we carried him along.
Down in the green valley, laid the sod o'er him.
He was a young cowboy and he said he'd done wrong.