Banks of The Ohio

Good job, Ukelites!

Watching the river roll by from the Banks of The Ohio.

Wooville
 
Wonderful performance, and wonderful voice! Thank you for sharing.
 
The Ukelites said:
Thank you! Impressive that you still can hear this song. It must be played in your area all the time!;)
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yes...it's a regular here in the Ohio Valley. Actually went to an Appalachian Festival last weekend in Cincinnati, Ohio and me and a friend did that song while hangin' out in the crowd, on the banks of the Ohio River. It's good to see that song has crossed international boundaries.

You folks had a good take on that one!

Wooville
 
Great! I really like the unique phrasing.

I learned this song in the sixties from a New Lost City Ramblers' record and my family and I have been singing it ever since. In the late nineties, a group I was in performed it in a show and were criticized by a feminist group for glorifying spousal abuse. I felt guilty and stopped singing this song (and Little Sadie, Down By The Willow Gardens and others) for a few years, but decided that, since the murderer is not shown as a hero, rather as a villain who ends up in prison or hanging from white oak tree at the end of most of these songs, that spousal abuse was not being glorified.

I usually sing this last verse:
The very next morning, 'bout half past four,
The sheriff's men knocked at my door.
They said, "Young man, don't try to run.
You must pay for this awful deed you've done."
 
I also try to include a song where the woman murders her partner. (Monongahela Sal, Frankie And Albert, Leaving Home, Miss Otis Regrets)
I've noticed that the songs where the murderer is a man who murders his partner, he is portrayed as a scumbag and ends up hanging from a white oak tree or spending his life in prison. The song is also usually sung in the first person.
In the songs where the murderer is a woman, she is usually sympathetic and we feel that the murder victim deserved it. These are almost always sung in the third person.
Then there are murder ballads where sex is not involved or at least the murderer and the victim are not involved romantically. "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die."
 
Jim Yates said:
I also try to include a song where the woman murders her partner. (Monongahela Sal, Frankie And Albert, Leaving Home, Miss Otis Regrets)
I've noticed that the songs where the murderer is a man who murders his partner, he is portrayed as a scumbag and ends up hanging from a white oak tree or spending his life in prison. The song is also usually sung in the first person.
In the songs where the murderer is a woman, she is usually sympathetic and we feel that the murder victim deserved it. These are almost always sung in the third person.Then there are murder ballads where sex is not involved or at least the murderer and the victim are not involved romantically. "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die."
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Thank you. Though there are a few exceptions - generally I think you are right. There are tons of songs on this subject.
See: www.songfacts.com/category-murder_ballads.php"
Murder would be a good theme for the Seasons too.
 
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