What with the release of the movie “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” we thought we’d get with the program and do a special 1/2 hour Down Home Radio episode featuring different versions and permutations of the song Jesse James. James is an early and pervasive figure in American folk and popular culture and there are many references to him in contemporary pop/popular music, but on todays show we concentrate on some old, great!!, and rather obscure versions. Vilified, sainted and shot in the back, Jesse James lives on.
Tracks played:
1. Intro/Outro music – Ernest Thompson, guitar and harmonica, 1924
2. The Life and Death of Jesse James – Uncle Dave Macon
3. Just Like Jesse James – David Honeyboy Edwards
4. Jesse James – Harry McClintock
5. Jesse James – Sid Hemphill & Group (Fife and Drum)
6. Jesse James (fragment) – Cousin Emmy
7. Jesse James- Woody Guthrie (Taken from a WNYC radio show Down Home’s Henrietta Yurchenco produced in Dec. 1940, listen to the full show here! Woody Guthrie in his prime!)
8. Alternate version of Jesse James – Woody Guthrie
9. Jesus Christ- Woody Guthrie (based on the tune of Jesse James and on the theme of James as an outlaw hero and friend to the poor)