Music from the Margins: Murder Ballads, Outlaws, and Jail Cell Lamentations – An Interview with David Burnett
On April 26, the International Institute presents David Burnett and friends in an American folk music concert inspired by the figure of the outlaw: a figure with strong character in the face of hardship. “Music from the Margins: Murder Ballads, Outlaws, and Jail Cell Lamentations” brings together David Burnett with Isabel Juárez, Tom Jackson and Javi Peña.
Historian Benjamin Filene has written that “the outcast, the folk, the impoverished, and the dispossessed” have long been a source of fascination for Americans because “they reminded Americans of themselves – or of how they wanted to see themselves: independent, proud in the face of hardship, straightforward, beholden to no special interests.” If we look to the canon of American folk and early roots music, with its abundance of songs recounting stories of murder, drunken brawls, gambling, and infidelities, it becomes clear that this fascination was shared by many. The homegrown murder ballad Frankie and Johnny, was taken up by African American blues musicians and white “hillbilly” singers alike, thus laying a common foundation for otherwise divergent music styles.
Eleven years ago David Burnett left his native Phoenix, Arizona to visit Spain. That initial visit turned into a decision to relocate, and Burnett now calls Madrid home. His own music is inspired by the work of Nick Drake, Martin Simpson and Laurel Canyon artists. In this concert, Burnett and his band offer a program that ranges from folk ballads to blues, including early country and bluegrass. Stories of outlaws appealed to blues greats like Ma Rainey and Blind Lemon Jefferson, as well as bluegrass and country luminaries like the Delmore Brothers and Hank Williams. Burnett will introduce concertgoers to the historical origins of some of the songs that defined bygone musical eras and the legacies of the vivid, dangerous characters who populate American outlaw myths.
An Interview with David Burnett
Why were songs about criminal outlaws so common and so popular among early folk, blues and country musicians?
(DB) There might be a musicologist out there with a more technical answer, but my guess is that it has a lot to do with the fact that, for most of us, our lives are largely banal and uneventful. If you think about what it must have been like in the old days, before the era of Netflix, the multiplex and the television, living out in the middle of nowhere, I think you can start to understand the appeal of the outlaw myth, which, incidentally, goes back a long way! Look at Robin Hood, and then compare his story with that of Jesse James, another guy who supposedly “stole from the rich and gave to the poor.” I just think there is a whole lot of excitement in the stories of outlaws and murder ballads in general, because in the end we all love a good drama.
Do these themes still resonate with people in 2024?
(DB) We definitely don’t have the same attention span as people in the past did, and there are so many more options out there for entertainment. It used to be that there might be one guy in town (or the county!) who was THE fiddler, and any time people wanted to break open some moonshine and start dancing they’d go and bang on his door and wake him up. The old folk songs were in the fabric of people’s daily lives, because they were sung while people were working, or while they were out on the porch drinking whiskey on Friday night. Nowadays we might see the songs as quaint relics, but they still have life to them in the same way that Homer’s epics still resonate with us today… And the truth is that all of these songs are in our musical DNA. American music is shot through and through with the blues, fiddle music, swing, cowboy songs, gospel. You can’t extricate any one element without the whole thing falling apart.
Criminal outlaws and social outcasts exist in every society, but do you see these types of nonconformists occupying a special place in American popular culture?
(DB) That probably had a lot to do with “the frontier,” and what living there meant for settlers. I think it took a special breed of person to go out and make a life for yourself out there in those vast, unfamiliar territories. Since there was so much open space and not much government in place, it seems logical to me that a lot of undesirable types would be drawn to those places: people running from the law, or people looking to make a quick buck. American culture really seems to love mavericks and vigilantes from around that time: Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Buffalo Bill, Wyatt Earp… Even today in the United States everybody knows those names.
You have worked on this program of traditional songs for the Institute, but you are normally engaged in writing and performing your own original compositions. What has the experience been like, to immerse yourself in this body of traditional roots music about marginalized characters?
(DB) I’ve really enjoyed the process of learning and arranging the songs. Many of them are really important, bedrock material for American popular song. The most exciting part of taking an old tune is the process of breathing new life into it, making it come alive from off of some scratchy old record and putting your own stamp on it.
David Burnett’s Recommended Readings:
Romancing the Folk: Public Memory & American Roots Music, Benjamin Filene, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill & London, 2000.
Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pop Music in the Age of Jim Crow, Karl Hagstrom Miller, Duke University Press, Durham & London, 2010.
Video
The musicians shared some rehearsal videos to give us a taste of what they’re working on.
Tickets
“Music from the Margins: Murder Ballads, Outlaws, and Jail Cell Lamentations” click here.
