
The folk song Knoxville Girl was made famous by the Louvin Brothers in their opus "Tragic Songs of Life," but was merely a tradition of several hundred years of folk tales, street songs, and eventually folk songs. Recorded first in the United States by the Carter Family (that I know of), Knoxville Girl is the story of a man that kills his girlfriend/acquaintance in a fit of passion. The song is usually not very explicit, but through the various bluegrass renditions and into the country/alt-country renditions it becomes much darker and detailed. Nick [...]

“Daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County down by the Green River where Paradise lay. I’m sorry my son But you’re too late in asking Mr. Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.” These lyrics and the tune that accompanies them are familiar to nearly everyone. I have met a few younger people who thought that the song was an old traditional song from the Appalachians. As much as it has been adopted by many traditional artists, “Paradise”, of course, was written by John Prine. I suspect that all of [...]