Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Story to Tell (The Preface) - White Mansions
2. Dixie, Hold On
3. Join Around the Flag
4. White Trash
5. Last Dance & The Kentucky Racehorse
6. Southern Boys
7. Union Mare and the Confederate Grey
8. No One Would Believe a Summer Could Be So Cold
9. Southland's Bleeding
10. Bring Up the Twelve Pounders - White Mansions
11. They Laid Waste to Our Land - Waylon Jennings, White Mansions
12. Praise the Lord - White Mansions
13. King Has Called Me Home - Eric Clapton, Tim Hinkley, White Mansions
14. Bad Man - Eric Clapton, White Mansions
15. Dixie, Now You're Done - White Mansions

Disc 2:

1. Ride of the Redlegs
2. Quantrill's Guerillas - Bernie Leadon
3. Six Gun Shooting - Eric Clapton, White Mansions
4. Have You Heard the News? - Nick DeCaro
5. Heaven Ain't Ready for You Yet - Bernie Leadon
6. Help Him, Jesus
7. Old Clay Country - White Mansions
8. Riding With Jessie James
9. Hunt Them Down - Eric Clapton, Tim Hinkley, White Mansions
10. Wish We Were Back in Missouri - Eric Clapton, White Mansions
11. Northfield: The Plan - Eric Clapton, White Mansions
12. Northfield: The Disaster - Jessi Colter, White Mansions
13. High Walls - Eric Clapton, Tim Hinkley, White Mansions
14. Death of Me - Eric Clapton, White Mansions
15. Plot
16. One More Shot
17. Train Robbery [*]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47974 in Music
• Released on: 1999-07-27
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Extra tracks

Amazon.com
This double-disc reissue documents one of the more curious careers in country music. Both 1978's White Mansions and 1980's The Legend of Jesse James are Southern song cycles that were conceived by Britain's Paul Kennerley, then an unknown songwriter who somehow recruited a high-profile cast for each. A Civil War saga from the Southern perspective, White Mansions suffers from caricature and cliché but benefits from signature contributions by Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Eric Clapton. Jesse James has more focus and narrative momentum, with Levon Helm, Johnny Cash, and Emmylou Harris in lead roles. Though the albums are more noteworthy for artistic ambition than memorable material, Kennerley subsequently became a successful Nashville songwriter and Harris's husband from 1985 to 1993. --Don McLeese

Customer Reviews

The CD to save if your house was on fire!
White Mansions and especially The Legend of Jesse James gives me chills when I listen to it. I grew up in Clay County,Missouri right up the road from the James Farm. This music is so authentic in the style and the way the voices sound as if they are truly Missouri locals. Anybody who knows the true outlaw story of the James Boys knows this cd is so dead on it will make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. Jesse James is not just a train robber but a true southern farmer turned guerilla who just wanted his money back from the Yankee Feds. This CD has the best I believe of Waylon & Jessi, Johnny Cash and Levon Helm singing in a southern rock style that will have you swilling sweetea out of a mason jar. If you like hog callers and mules, tobacco and whiskey culture and realize the Civil War really started on the southern Frontier in Missouri, buy this you will play it for years!!!

high water mark of country music, brought to you by a Brit
Very often, the best music of any genre is produced by outsiders who are impressed with the purity of sound and seek to replicate and pay homage to that genre. Such is the case with Confederate Tales. Both original ablums, White Mansions and Jesse James, were written and produced by Paul Kennerly, a Briton a long way from Nashville. His compositions however are more country than what Nashville has produced since these ablums came out. His songs weave tales from history, amplifying the anguish and destruction of the War Between the States from the Southern perspective, and reminiscing the romance of the outlaw James Gang.

Guesting on these recordings were Nashville heavyweights, like Cash, Waylon Jennings, Emmylou Harris, and some non-Nashville rockers like Clapton and Levon Helm of the Band. Each puts in an absolutely astounding performance. Listening to Jesse James, in particular, is far more enjoyable than watching the movie Frank and Jesse.

Highly recommended to history buffs, country music fans, and fans of the individual performers.

Civil War and American West concept albums by a British Guy.
Paul Kennerly wrote two country music "concept albums" that were released in the late seventies on A & M records. "White Mansions" was a song cycle about the Civil War "narrated" in song by Waylon Jennings with a cast of characters that included Jesse Colter and Bernie Leadon of the Eagles and some guy called Eric Clapton on guitar. A fine pedigree indeed, but I like "The Legend of Jesse James" much better. Released around '79 or '80, this took the White Mansions modus operendi to the Jesse James legend, with Levon Helm of the Band as Jesse James, Emmylou Harris as Jesse's wife Zerelda, Johnny Cash as Frank James and Charlie Daniels as the James boys associate Cole Younger. The songs are all excellent and the slide guitar work of Charlie Daniels and Jesse Ed Davis is exceptional. I have to say that I've been waiting for this particular album since the CD format was introduced years ago. Too bad you can't buy them seperately.