Read an excerpt and listen to the songs featured in the book at
http://folksonghistory.com/In 2015, Bob Dylan said, "I learned
lyrics and how to write them from listening to folk songs. And I
played them, and I met other people that played them, back when
nobody was doing it. Sang nothing but these folk songs, and they
gave me the code for everything that's fair game, that everything
belongs to everyone." In Hear My Sad Story, Richard Polenberg
describes the historical events that led to the writing of many
famous American folk songs that served as touchstones for
generations of American musicians, lyricists, and folklorists.Those
events, which took place from the early nineteenth to the
mid-twentieth centuries, often involved tragic occurrences:
murders, sometimes resulting from love affairs gone wrong;
desperate acts borne out of poverty and unbearable working
conditions; and calamities such as railroad crashes, shipwrecks,
and natural disasters. All of Polenberg's accounts of the songs in
the book are grounded in historical fact and illuminate the social
history of the times. Reading these tales of sorrow, misfortune,
and regret puts us in touch with the dark but terribly familiar
side of American history.On Christmas 1895 in St. Louis, an African
American man named Lee Shelton, whose nickname was "Stack Lee,"
shot and killed William Lyons in a dispute over seventy-five cents
and a hat. Shelton was sent to prison until 1911, committed another
murder upon his release, and died in a prison hospital in 1912.
Even during his lifetime, songs were being written about Shelton,
and eventually 450 versions of his story would be recorded. As the
song-you may know Shelton as Stagolee or Stagger Lee-was shared and
adapted, the emotions of the time were preserved, but the fact that
the songs described real people, real lives, often fell by the
wayside. Polenberg returns us to the men and women who, in song,
became legends. The lyrics serve as valuable historical sources,
providing important information about what had happened, why, and
what it all meant. More important, they reflect the character of
American life and the pathos elicited by the musical memory of
these common and troubled lives.
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