Who in their right mind would want to get in the middle of a literary dispute between the late King and reigning Queen of folk music-Pete Seeger and Joan Baez? Not me, I can assure you. Frank having given it to them years before Beddoe claimed to have penned it. I just researched Copper Kettle and I am inclined to believe the Wiki link’s section on Seeger’s employee Frank O. Not sure of the context for this note but…Īnd then he appended the note from FolkWorks reader Shae D’lyn:: I haven’t thought much about the song since then-until I got the following note from my editor Steve Shapiro: That same year, 1962, Baez released this album, The New Lost City Ramblers released American Moonshine & Prohibition Songs with 17 songs on it, but no Copper Kettle.īaez’s live performance is delightful, and Bob Dylan’s version on Self Portrait in 1970 is as grainy as 98 Proof wood alcohol. I suspect he used the memory of Prohibition to strike a subversive chord against the oppressive McCarthyism of its own time, by closing with the following verse: It was composed-or so he claimed-by Albert Frank Beddoe in 1953. ![]() Henry punch-line that goes all the way back to the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794-was recorded by Joan Baez on her second album in 1962- Copper Kettle-on Joan Baez in Concert. One of the best songs of this kind-with an O. Henry anti-government twist to the ending. “Well?” said Ness, “Let’s go.” “I want my $10 first.” “Son,” replied Ness, “You’ll get your $10 when we come back.” “Mister,” replied the boy, “You ain’t comin’ back.”įolk songs and folklore grew up around the occupation of moonshining all during this period, and for years afterwards-often with an O. “Sure thing,” said the boy, “for $10 I will.” Ness said that would be all right, but the boy didn’t move. ![]() “No,” said the boy, “he’s out working.” Ness knew what that meant, so he asked his son if he would take him to his father. ![]() A young boy answered and Ness asked him if his pa was home. Sometime during Prohibition-which lasted from the passage of the 18th Amendment in 1920 to its repeal with the passage of the 21st Amendment in1933-Elliot Ness and his revenuers came to a Kentucky moonshiner’s cabin in the Appalachian Mountains and knocked on the door.
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