{"id":2028,"date":"2016-09-17T07:38:58","date_gmt":"2016-09-17T11:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=2028"},"modified":"2017-05-14T12:11:16","modified_gmt":"2017-05-14T16:11:16","slug":"frankie-and-johnny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/frankie-and-johnny\/","title":{"rendered":"Frankie and Johnny (John Held, Moe Asch)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Frankie and Johnny\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mb0R43sVPAc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A common delusion among young artists is that if you get within range of some potential discoverers, you&#8217;ll get discovered. I spent much of my late teens and early twenties subscribing to this delusion, and shortly after returning from Europe in 1979 I attempted to give fate a nudge by dropping off an audition cassette at the Folkways Records office in New York. I figured if I went there myself I might run into the legendary Moe Asch and charm him into recording me&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2029 size-full alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/held-frankie-and-johnny.jpg?resize=300%2C425\" alt=\"held frankie and johnny\" width=\"300\" height=\"425\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/held-frankie-and-johnny.jpg?w=300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/held-frankie-and-johnny.jpg?resize=212%2C300&amp;ssl=1 212w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>&#8230;and as a perfect example of just how delusional I was, one of the items on that audition tape was my version of one of the most over-recorded songs in the American folk pantheon: &#8220;Frankie and Johnny.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Of course, I wasn&#8217;t just singing any old version of &#8220;Frankie and Johnny&#8221; &#8212; I had found a racy version in a book illustrated by the <em>New Yorker<\/em> cartoonist John Held, Jr., that included explicit lines about Frankie working in a crib house and Johnny spending her money on parlor house whores. I figured the gritty realism of this lyric would catch Asch&#8217;s attention &#8212; that is, I figured Asch, who had recorded Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie, would be impressed by the gritty realism of a lyric learned from a <em>New Yorker<\/em> cartoonist. Or to put the issue more plainly, I was a pretentious young idiot.<\/p>\n<p>So I went by the Folkways offices, and of course Moe Asch was in a back office to which I never penetrated, but I dropped off the tape and the nice woman in the front office promised he&#8217;d listen to it. I noticed a lot of African art around, so I went home and studied up on that, figuring if I managed to meet him the next time I could make an impression by having an intelligent conversation about Dogon masks and Senufo birds. <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-2054 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Held-woodcut-265x300.jpg?resize=285%2C323\" alt=\"held-woodcut\" width=\"285\" height=\"323\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Held-woodcut.jpg?resize=265%2C300&amp;ssl=1 265w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Held-woodcut.jpg?w=300&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 285px) 100vw, 285px\" \/>And a month or so later I went back, and the nice woman gave back my cassette &#8212; I don&#8217;t know if Asch had listened, but if not he&#8217;d at least had the decency to fast-forward it to the end of side one, as if he&#8217;d listened. And that was that. I never got to meet him, and had to start my own record label a few years later to inflict my music on the world.<\/p>\n<p>So that&#8217;s my story, and now I&#8217;m a considerably older idiot and suitably embarrassed by my youthful naivete, but I still like this lyric and love Held&#8217;s woodcuts. I recently checked the book and find that I cut the lyric down quite a bit and forgot some of the goofier verses, but I still do it pretty much the way I did then.<\/p>\n<p>If I were to try to do an authentic version today I <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2030\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Frankie-Baker-of-Frankie-and-Albert-237x300.jpg?resize=237%2C300\" alt=\"Frankie Baker, of Frankie and Albert\" width=\"237\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Frankie-Baker-of-Frankie-and-Albert.jpg?resize=237%2C300&amp;ssl=1 237w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Frankie-Baker-of-Frankie-and-Albert.jpg?w=248&amp;ssl=1 248w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 237px) 100vw, 237px\" \/>would take a different tack, tracing the court records of the historical murder and at least singing the male protagonist&#8217;s name as &#8220;Albert,&#8221; the way John Hurt did, or maybe even &#8220;Allen, which was his real name. He was Allen Britt, shot by Frankie Baker in St Louis in 1899, and there are myriad websites detailing the story in more or less garish detail. But what the hell&#8230; I got it from John Held, and I&#8217;m ready to confess the fact and recommend his book. It&#8217;s been reprinted at least once, and is well worth tracking down, if only for his wonderful illustrations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A common delusion among young artists is that if you get within range of some potential discoverers, you&#8217;ll get discovered. I spent much of my late teens and early twenties subscribing to this delusion, and shortly after returning from Europe in 1979 I attempted to give fate a nudge by dropping off an audition cassette &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/frankie-and-johnny\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Frankie and Johnny (John Held, Moe Asch)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Frankie and Johnny (John Held, Moe Asch) - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/frankie-and-johnny\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Frankie and Johnny (John Held, Moe Asch) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A common delusion among young artists is that if you get within range of some potential discoverers, you&#8217;ll get discovered. 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In previous posts I wrote and talked about the way\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/John-Hurt.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5144,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/duncan-and-brady\/","url_meta":{"origin":2028,"position":1},"title":"Duncan and Brady","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"April 20, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't know why it's taken me so long to post \"Duncan and Brady,\" which I've known for at least forty years and recorded on my Street Corner Cowboys CD (which is now available on Bandcamp). I learned my version off Tom Rush and Dave Van Ronk, both of whom\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Harry-Duncan-drawing.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":712,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/johnny-be-fair\/","url_meta":{"origin":2028,"position":2},"title":"Johnny Be Fair (Buffy Sainte-Marie)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"March 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Another by Buffy Sainte-Marie, though, like a lot of people, I thought it was an old folk song that I just happened to learn from her recording. The story is certainly old, and I also do a Caribbean version called \"Shame and Scandal in the Family,\" but this version doesn't\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"buffy_sainte_marie02","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/buffy_sainte_marie02-300x213.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5777,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/ace-in-the-hole\/","url_meta":{"origin":2028,"position":3},"title":"Ace in the Hole (Dave Van Ronk, among others)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"May 31, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I first heard \"Ace in the Hole\" on Dave Van Ronk's 1963 album with the Red Onion Jazz Band,\u00a0In the Tradition. It was written around 1909 by a couple of obscure songwriters, James Dempsey and George Mitchell, and is a musical evocation of the New York\u00a0borderline underworld limned by Damon\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/In-the-Tradition-LP-e1729819363380.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5104,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/ella-speed\/","url_meta":{"origin":2028,"position":4},"title":"Ella Speed (A New Orleans murder ballad)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"April 6, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 This is a new one in my repertoire, worked up in the course of researching my book, Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs and Hidden Histories. I had heard other versions of the song from Lead Belly, who recorded it several times, and Mance Lipscomb, and the Kweskin Jug Band,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Jellycover-e1710359243890.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":457,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/johnny-half-breed\/","url_meta":{"origin":2028,"position":5},"title":"Johnny Half-Breed (Peter La Farge)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"March 29, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A message ballad by Peter LaFarge, one of the most respected and least remembered topical songwriters on the early 1960s New York scene.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Peter LaFarge LP","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Peter-LaFarge-LP.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2028"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2824,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2028\/revisions\/2824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}