{"id":5144,"date":"2024-04-20T10:00:06","date_gmt":"2024-04-20T14:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=5144"},"modified":"2024-04-22T15:41:54","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T19:41:54","slug":"duncan-and-brady","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/duncan-and-brady\/","title":{"rendered":"Duncan and Brady"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Duncan and Brady\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/T2rQQ84iMtc?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>I don&#8217;t know why it&#8217;s taken me so long to post &#8220;Duncan and Brady,&#8221; which I&#8217;ve known for at least forty years and recorded on my <a href=\"https:\/\/elijahwald.bandcamp.com\/album\/street-corner-cowboys\"><em>Street Corner Cowboys <\/em>CD<\/a> (which is now available on <a href=\"https:\/\/elijahwald.bandcamp.com\/album\/street-corner-cowboys\">Bandcamp<\/a>). I learned my version off Tom Rush and Dave Van Ronk, both of whom seem to have got it from Paul Clayton&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and that was all I knew until I started working on the &#8220;Murder Ballad&#8221; chapter of my book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/jellyrollbook.html\"><em>Jelly Roll Blues<\/em><\/a>, at which point things got interesting. Like &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/frankie-and-johnny\/\">Frankie and Johnny<\/a>&#8221; (a.k.a. &#8220;Frankie and Albert&#8221;) and &#8220;Stackolee&#8221; (about which I&#8217;ve already posted versions learned from<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/stagolee\/\"> John Hurt<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/stackolee-furry-lewis\/\">Furry Lewis<\/a>), &#8220;Duncan and Brady&#8221; was inspired by a real murder in the Black sporting world of St. Louis in the 1890s.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-5163\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Harry-Duncan-drawing.jpg?resize=182%2C280&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"182\" height=\"280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Harry-Duncan-drawing.jpg?w=200&amp;ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Harry-Duncan-drawing.jpg?resize=195%2C300&amp;ssl=1 195w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 182px) 100vw, 182px\" \/>The earliest of the three, it told about the shooting of an Irish immigrant policeman named James Brady by a Black man named William Henry Harrison Duncan in 1890, which made news from coast to coast and led to several years of high-profile trials, retrials, and appeals. The first surviving mention of the ballad&#8211;which is also the first printed mention of the Stack Lee ballad&#8211;appeared in the <em>Kansas City Star <\/em>in 1897 and described the key event succinctly:<\/p>\n<p><em>Brady walked up to the bar,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Showed Duncan his shinin\u2019 star,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Says to Duncan, \u201cYou\u2019re under arrest;\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Duncan put a hole in Brady\u2019s breast.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It was actually somewhat more complicated than that: Brady apparently joined another officer named Gaffney in harassing a group of Black men outside a popular saloon, Duncan went into the bar, <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-5164 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Brady-drawing.jpg?resize=182%2C292&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"182\" height=\"292\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Brady-drawing.jpg?w=200&amp;ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Brady-drawing.jpg?resize=187%2C300&amp;ssl=1 187w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 182px) 100vw, 182px\" \/>Brady followed him, and at some point Duncan was hiding behind the bar, Brady was shot, perhaps by Duncan, and Duncan was arrested for Brady&#8217;s murder. There followed multiple trials, in which Duncan&#8217;s lawyer, Walter M. Farmer, the first Black graduate of Washington University Law School, argued his case in front of the state supreme court and brought an appeal to a justice of the US supreme court.<\/p>\n<p>In the end Duncan was executed, despite an appeal to the governor signed by many prominent citizens. The St. Louis papers covered the story in surprising detail and with surprising sympathy&#8211;a final, long article following Duncan&#8217;s death described him as &#8220;one of the most popular colored men in St. Louis,&#8221; and continued:\u00a0 &#8220;He was a sport, a jolly fellow, a swell dresser, a ladies\u2019 favorite, but, above all, he was a magnificent singer. . . . They all say there never was a colored basso like him in town and few in the country who could outclass him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-5067\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Jellycover-e1710359243890.jpg?resize=200%2C302&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"302\" \/>I go into the case in more detail in <em>Jelly Roll Blues<\/em>, and one of my back-burner projects is to do a full article on Duncan, Brady, and the later life of the ballad. For now, suffice it to say that there seem to have been several songs about the incident, one of them apparently penned by Duncan himself, another popular as a street chant against the police, and the third the one I sing here, which survived in multiple variants. W.C. Handy mentioned hearing a version when he first visited St. Louis in the 1890s, Lead Belly had a version,\u00a0 and there were many others. I sing it roughly as I remember it from Tom Rush, with a couple of added lines I picked up while researching the book.<\/p>\n<p>All of which said, my favorite version might be the one John Koerner performed at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 &#8212; which has nothing to do with the original story, but is a great example of Koerner koernerizing, with Tony Glover on harp, and I don&#8217;t understand why no one so far has digitized it and posted it&#8230; so I just did, and <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/yciKWS6vxN4\">here it is<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t know why it&#8217;s taken me so long to post &#8220;Duncan and Brady,&#8221; which I&#8217;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 seem to have got it &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/duncan-and-brady\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Duncan and Brady<\/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_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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Duncan and Brady - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A classic Black murder ballad from 1890s St. Louis, with background on the original killing and its sequelae, both historical and musical.\" \/>\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\/duncan-and-brady\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Duncan and Brady - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A classic Black murder ballad from 1890s St. Louis, with background on the original killing and its sequelae, both historical and musical.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/duncan-and-brady\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-04-20T14:00:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-04-22T19:41:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Harry-Duncan-drawing.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/duncan-and-brady\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/duncan-and-brady\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"headline\":\"Duncan and Brady\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-04-20T14:00:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-04-22T19:41:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/duncan-and-brady\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":645,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/duncan-and-brady\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/03\\\/Harry-Duncan-drawing.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/duncan-and-brady\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/duncan-and-brady\\\/\",\"name\":\"Duncan and Brady - 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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":2028,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/frankie-and-johnny\/","url_meta":{"origin":5144,"position":1},"title":"Frankie and Johnny (John Held, Moe Asch)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"September 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A common delusion among young artists is that if you get within range of some potential discoverers, you'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\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"held frankie and johnny","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/held-frankie-and-johnny.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5777,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/ace-in-the-hole\/","url_meta":{"origin":5144,"position":2},"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":3170,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/lone-star-bob-wills\/","url_meta":{"origin":5144,"position":3},"title":"Lone Star Beer And Bob Wills Music (Red Steagall)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"October 13, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I forget who loaned me the Red Steagall album with this as its title song, but I know it was in Vancouver, BC, and I taped all the songs I liked--which was most of them--and learned this one and \"Someday (You'll Want Me to Want You),\" which remains a staple\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\/2018\/09\/Red-Steagall-LP.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2779,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/lovesick-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":5144,"position":4},"title":"Lovesick Blues (Hank Williams\/Emmett Miller)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"April 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Like virtually everybody, I first heard this as a Hank Willams song, though I'm not sure when or how. As I've mentioned, my Cambridge folk scene upbringing initially made me resistant to mainstream Nashville country music, Williams included, but by\u00a0 the early 1980s I was gradually coming to my senses\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\/2017\/04\/HankWilliams1952-286x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1075,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/silhouettes\/","url_meta":{"origin":5144,"position":5},"title":"Silhouettes","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"May 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This is another I learned thanks to my sister Debbie and Sha Na Na. When she was 12 and I was 14, or maybe a year before, we got together with a couple of grad students in Woods Hole, Bill and Paul, who were enough older that they knew the\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\/05\/golden-goodies.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144","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=5144"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5173,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144\/revisions\/5173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}