Link to recording

amplified SSSMs vocal quartet (13‘)

Additional materials: looper pedals, harmonicas (3), megaphones (4)

“The murder ballads witness that Appalachia, specifically in the 19th-century period of industrial change, was defined by essential tensions between cultural traditions of the past and emerging notions of American modernism. This tension is met in the songs with responses of violence against women whose life situations—marked by sexual freedom—are the very depiction of a new cultural modernism that threatens the hegemony of the past.”

- Christina Ruth Hastie

The femicide murder ballad repertoire is still a widely performed part of the folk music canon, a subgenre that spans across many traditions and languages. This piece references three traditional murder ballads (“Knoxville Girl,” “Banks of the Ohio,” and “Omie Wise”) as well as Woody Guthrie’s “Bad Lee Brown” and Tanya Tucker’s “No Man’s Land.” Why do we still sing these songs? Why do we continue to perpetuate the tale of woman as victim—woman who needs protecting?