CrimeSong: True Crime Stories From Southern Murder Ballads - Hardcover

Richard H. Underwood

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1945049030 ISBN 13: 9781945049033

Publisher: Shadelandhouse Modern Press, 2016

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Richard H. Underwood, American legal scholar and award-winning legal nonfiction and true crime writer, is currently the Edward T. Breathitt Professor of Law at the University of Kentucky College of Law (formerly the W.L. Matthews Professor of Law), where he has taught for 37 years. His most recent books are CrimeSong: True Crime Stories from Southern Murder Ballads (2016) and Gaslight Lawyers: Criminal Trials & Exploits in Gilded Age New York (September 19, 2017). He is the co-author of several books on evidence, trial technique, and legal ethics, and he has published numerous articles on the law, legal history, perjury, famous trials, and true crime. Professor Underwood has lectured or presented papers on diverse subject at conferences across the United States and in London and Amsterdam.

Underwood was born in Columbus, Ohio, where he spent his early years. He graduated summa cum laude from The Ohio State University in 1969 and then entered the army. He served four years, with tours of duty in Germany and Vietnam, and later served as the security officer at the Presidio of San Francisco. Underwood left the army with the rank of captain, and he received a number of decorations, including the Bronze Star, the Army Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Bronze Star. He then attended the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1976. During his youth and college years, he developed an interest in American folk music.

After law school, Richard Underwood served as a law clerk for the Honorable David S. Porter, a federal judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, in Cincinnati. He practiced several years with the law firm of Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease in Columbus, Ohio, before taking a teaching position at the College of Law, University of Kentucky. He has taught a variety of courses, including Evidence, Scientific and Forensic Evidence, Litigation Skills (Trial Advocacy), Civil Procedure, Federal Courts, Insurance Law, Remedies, Law and Medicine, Bioethics, and Professional Responsibility (Legal Ethics).

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 murder of a family in Missouri is set to the sweet, sentimental tune of Home Sweet Home. Underwood does have an unfortunate tendency to assert that certain topics are interesting a judgment best left to readers but such lapses are rare.

A sometimes-sad, sometimes-humorous look at ballads that have preserved a part of America s crazed, violent history. --Kirkus Reviews

CrimeSong is a very unique and interesting book, to say the least, one that is sure to be appealing to a very diverse group of readers. ... CrimeSong is a well-researched, well-written, and highly interesting portrayal of human tragedies that made their way into ballads that speak of both the best and worst of our human nature (love, betrayal, jealously, anger, and violent responses). ...It should be a most interesting read for anyone who finds pleasure in the reading of murder mysteries. And it should be an even more interesting read for those who have connections to the justice system and interests in observing the law's response to some of its toughest problems. --Robert G. Lawson, Professor Emeritus, University of Kentucky College of Law, "Book Review," Bench & Bar Magazine, Jan./Feb 2017, Kentucky Bar Association

CrimeSong: True Crime Stories from Southern Murder Ballads by Richard H. Underwood is a unique book that goes behind the words of well-known music to tell about the bad acts that inspired the songs. For generations, American ballads have told stories of murder and mayhem. [Underwood's] meticulous research and expertise in trial procedure combine to recount the details of criminal acts that became the basis for songs. --Jayne Moore, Contributing Columnist, The Courier-Journal, Louisville

Edition details

• Publisher: Shadelandhouse Modern Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1945049030
• ISBN 13: 9781945049033
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 328