Heroes, Outlaws and Other Folk Part IV

this song was made by Billy Cashade
as soon as the news did arrive

from folk song “Jesse James”

I’ve always been taken by what might be called a signature line in this song. Back in the days when folk music was something we all thought we had discovered and before public television replaced Educational television we had a channel in Minneapolis devoted to education and had some courses from the University of Minnesota. One of the courses that I liked was a series of lectures on folk music by a young teacher named Gene Bluestein. Mr. Bluestein explained that singers, minstrels and songwriters would add a line like the above to take credit for the song since the songs were passed on from singer to singer through the oral tradition. Sometimes the songs were printed in “Broadsides.” It’s much the same as a painter putting a signature on a painting

Bluestein died in 2002. There is still a website maintained by his family for anyone interested . . .

<http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~geneb/>

The following verse shows a Robin Hood image of Jesse.

Jesse was a man, a friend to the poor
he never would see a man suffer pain,

In addition to songs Jesse James was often made to be a hero in TV and movies. Back in the 1950's or 1960's I remember seeing a TV movie about Jesse James and dramatized Robert Ford’s killing of Mr. Howard, which was the alias used by the Jesse James at that time. A minstrel, who was probably Billy Cashade, sang the song.

In reality, Jesse seemed to be more blood thirsty than than Turpin ever was. There seems to be very little real life evidence that Turpin helped anyone but himself and friends. According to Wikepedia Frank and Jesse James followed Quantrill (different sources spell it Quantrell) to Kentucky and Jesse went to Texas under the command of Archie Clement. Other sources indicate both brothers were with Quantrill. In his book OUTLAWS, Kenneth Wyatt places both brothers with the confederate guerrillas in a raid in Centrallia, thirty miles North of the Missouri river. Jesse killed eight men there. The James-Younger gang “had all the hallmarks of getaways made by Quantrill’s raiders.”

Jesse and his friends robbed trains and banks and murdered people. So why was he made a hero? One explanation is that the banks and railroads were viewed as organizations that people thought oppressed them. and which people felt helpless in defying. With Jesse, it seems that he had an ally in John Newman Edwards, the editor and founder of the Kansas City Times who published letters from Jesse James. according to Wikepedia historians and biographers debate the extent that Jesse James had in enhancing his own public profile.

The gang met a major defeat in Northfield, Minnesota where the townspeople turned the tables on the gang, stopped the robbery, killed two members of the gang and drove the rest out of town.

The Pinkerton Detective agency made a bungled attempt to capture Jesse but only managed to kill Jesse’s young half-brother and seriously wounding his mother. This added further public sympathy for Jesse.

Jesse’s gang was reduced to himself and the Ford brothers. Robert Ford was a new member On April 3, 1882 after breakfast they were getting ready to depart for another robbery. Jesse took off his coat and guns. He noticed a picture on the wall and on impulse stood on a chair to clean it. Robert Ford took advantage of the situation and shot Jesse in the head.

It was on Saturday night, Jesse was at home
Talking to his family brave
Robert Ford came along like a thief in the night
And laid poor Jesse in his grave.

The song does not quite reflect the facts but we get the general idea, allow poetic license. Whatever the case it made a martyr out of Jess.

Fair Mexican maidens play guitars and sing
a song about Billy, the boy bandit king
Ere his young manhood reached 22
for 20 men dead, he’d a notch on his gun

Billy the Kid, version sung by Oscar Brand

Billy the Kid, born as William H. Bonney II was born in New York City in 1859 and was shot by Pat Garrett in 1880. He was said to have shot his first man when he was 12 years old and had one man killed for every one of his twenty-one years.

In the book Outlaws by Kenneth Ulyatt Billy, more than 500 books were written about him and present an amazing picture of a boy who was adept at cards at the age of eight, killed a man when he was twelve . . . was a bold, handsome fellow who dressed neatly, and who laughed a lot. None of which was true, according to the author, except the part about laughing a lot. According to Pat Garrett, Billy laughed when he ate, when he drank, rode, talked and killed.

Anyone who has seen a picture of Billy, knows he was anything but attractive, yet he seemed to attract women, especially the Mexican maidens mentioned in the song. He was also noted as a good dancer.

He was involved in range war known as the “Lincoln county war” and like most such things, it is hard to tell who was right and who wasn’t. He generally stole, rustled cattle and lived an outlaw life.

What facts there are seemed to point to Billy as not only a badman, but a very bad man. However, biographies and movies have so romanticized him, it is hard to separate fact from fiction.

The verdict of the folk seems to be that of hero and sang tolerantly of his misdeeds.