Produced by Christopher King & Henry "Hank" Sapoznik
Long before the web and CNN brought us the latest news, songs spread the word about disasters. Floods, train wrecks, murders, even boll weevils fill this amazing collection of songs from the 1920s and 30s. Hearing all these catastrophes set to twangy guitars makes us wish we got our current headlines this way. Ballad of Bear Stearns anyone? - Michele Siegel

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Titanic Blues Hi Henry Brown & Charlie Jordan
2. Wreck Of the Old 97 Skillet Lickers
3. Bill Wilson Birmingham Jug Band
4. The Crash Of the Akron Bob Miller
5. The Fate of Talmadge Osborne Ernest Stoneman
6. El Mole Rachmim (Für Titanik) Cantor Joseph Rosenblatt
7. The Wreck Of the Virginian Alfred Reed
8. Fate of Will Rogers & Wiley Post Bill Cox
9. Down With The Old Canoe Dixon Brothers
10. Wreck Of Number 52 Cliff Carlisle
11. Kassie Jones Part 1 Furry Lewis
12. Kassie Jones Part 2 Furry Lewis
13. The Brave Engineer Carver Boys
14. The Sinking Of The Titanic Richard "Rabbit" Brown
15. Fate Of Chris Lively And Wife Blind Alfred Reed
16. Wreck On The Mountain Road Red Fox Chasers
17. The Unfortunate Brakeman Kentucky Ramblers
18. Altoona Freight Wreck Riley Puckett
19. The Fatal Wreck Of The Bus Mainer's Mountaineers
20. Last Scene Of the Titanic Frank Hutchison
21. Casey Jones Skillet Lickers
22. The Wreck Of The Westbound Airliner Fred Pendleton
23. The Titanic Ernest Stoneman
24. When That Great Ship Went Down William & Versey Smith

Disc 2:

1. The Story of the Mighty Mississippi Ernest Stoneman
2. Mississippi Heavy Water Blues Robert Hicks
3. Dixie Boll Weevil Fiddlin' John Carson
4. Mississippi Boweavil Charlie Patton
5. Ohio Prison Fire Bob Miller
6. Memphis Flu Elder Curry
7. Explosion in the Fairmount Mine Blind Alfred Reed
8. Storm That Struck Miami Fiddlin' John Carson
9. When the Levee Breaks Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie
10. Alabama Flood Andrew Jenkins
11. Burning of the Cleveland School J. H. Howell's Carolina Hillbillies
12. High Water Everywhere, Part 1 Charlie Patton
13. High Water Everywhere, Part 2 Charlie Patton
14. Ryecove Cyclone Martin & Roberts
15. McBeth Mine Explosion Cap, Andy & Flip
16. Dry Well Blues Charlie Patton
17. Baltimore Fire Charlie Poole
18. Tennessee Tornado Uncle Dave Macon
19. Dry Spell Blues, Part 2 Son House
20. The Santa Barbara Earthquake Green Bailey
21. The Death of Floyd Collins Vernon Dalhart
22. The Porto Rico Storm Carson Robison Trio
23. Boll Weavil W. A. Lindsey & Alvin Condor
24. The Flood of 1927 Elders McIntorsh & Edwards

Disc 3:

1. Peddler And His Wife Hayes Shepherd
2. The Little Grave in Georgia Earl Johnson
3. Kenney Wagner's Surrender Ernest Stoneman
4. Henry Clay Beattie Kelly Harrell
5. The Murder Of the Lawson Family Carolina Buddies
6. Naomi Wise Clarence Ashley
7. Railroad Bill Will Bennett
8. Frankie Dykes Magic City Trio
9. Trial of Richard Bruno Hauptmann, Part 1 Bill Cox
10. Trial of Richard Bruno Hauptmann, Part 2 Bill Cox
11. Lanse Des Belaires Dennis McGee & Ernest Fruge
12. Darling Cora B.F. Shelton
13. Billy Lyons and Stack O' Lee Furry Lewis
14. Tom Dooley Grayson and Whitter
15. The Story of Freda Bolt Floyd County Ramblers
16. Pretty Polly John Hammond
17. Fingerprints Upon the Windowpane Bob Miller
18. The Bluefield Murder Roy Harvey & The North Carolina Ramblers
19. Frankie Silvers Ashley & Foster
20. Fate of Rhoda Sweeten Wilmer Watts
21. Dupree Blues Willie Walker
22. Poor Ellen Smith Dykes Magic City Trio

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2640 in Music
• Released on: 2007-09-25
• Number of discs: 3
• Format: Box set

Album Description
"In the late 1920's and early 1930's, the Depression gripped the Nation. It was a time when songs were tools for living. A whole community would turn out to mourn the loss of a member and to sow their songs like seeds. This collection is a wild garden grown from those seeds."
- Tom Waits, from the Introduction

Songs of death, destruction and disaster, recorded by black and white performers from the dawn of American roots recording are here, assembled together for the first time. Whether they document world-shattering events like the sinking of the Titanic or memorialize long forgotten local murders or catastrophes, these 70 recordings - over 30 never before reissued - are audio messages in a bottle reflecting a lost world where age old ballads rubbed up against songs inspired by the day's headlines.

Produced and annotated by the Grammy winning team of Christopher King and Henry "Hank" Sapoznik with an introduction by Tom Waits, the accompanying 48-page three-CD anthology designed by Grammy award winning Susan Archie brims with many eye-popping historic images never before reproduced.