[78-L] Bad news on record

[Taylor Bowie]

Wow...a big THANK YOU to Mr. Biel for all his "disastrous" information.

I have a book about the Beverly Hills Super Club fire which was written some 
time after,  and it doesn't mention any songs.  Neither do any of my books 
about the Cocoanut Grove fire.  Nor do any of the several books about the 
Morro Castle fire mention songs,  but I do have one by some country dude on 
Melotone.

The school bus tragedy seems like a natural,  given that children were 
involved...so maybe there was some local or country song about the Our Lady 
Of The Angels School fire in Chicago in 1958?

Thanks again to everybody who is posting info about this topic!

Taylor


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Biel" <mbiel at mbiel.com>
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 8:19 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Bad news on record


>
> From: "Taylor Bowie" <bowiebks at isomedia.com>
>>> keep 'em coming, folks. If you think it's getting to
>>> boring for everyone else, please write to me off line.
>
> No, a good disaster is never boring.  A car chase is never boring (if
> you consider what the Los Angeles TV stations believe).  A celebrity
> death is never boring, if you consider that Michael Jackson is STILL
> dead, but the story won't lie down. Gracie Fields song.  Even FRANCO is
> still dead!
>
> How about a disaster song written and performed BEFORE the disaster.
> Remember that old Smothers Bros song routine about Tommy falling into a
> vat of chocolate and how he was saved by yelling "FIRE!!" because nobody
> would have helped him if he yelled "CHOCOLATE!!"  It always got big
> laughs.  Well, I just saw a news story about a New Jersey man who was
> killed today when the agitator blade of a big vat of boiling chocolate
> knocked him in and his co-workers couldn't save him in time.  I swear to
> you that MSNBC used the headline "Death By Chocolate".
>
>>> Well, actually I look for songs about any horrible event
>
> The 2000 Presidential Election???  Leah reports that there is a song
> called "Fuzzy Math" about it.
>
>>> This includes more obscure things like Ohio Prison Fire,
>
> BODIES!  BODIES EVERYWHERE!!  Great record!  Charlotte and Bob Miller.
> The prisoners got roasted in their cells.  Sounds like a song cue!
>
>>> Has anyone ever seen a record of a song mourning the death
>>> of President Harding?
>
> Keep Cool With Coolidge????
>
>>> Or about the Hartford Circus Fire or Boston Cocoanut Grove fire?
>>> I'm guessing the latter two might have been covered in some country or
>>> religious song but don't know of any.
>
> In Northern Kentucky/Cincinnati there is the Beverly Hills Supper Club
> fire which killed 164 in the 70s.  Probably have some songs about it
> too.
>
>>> How about the Hindenburg crash?  I have the Herb Morrison radio
>>> account on a Melotone but are there any songs about it on record?
>
> Great question.  I'll ask a friend of mine who was a close friend of
> Morrison if he knows of any.
>
>>> My latest disaster song is The Burning of the Winecoff Hotel
>>> by Leroy Abernathy on the White Church label, c. 1946-47. Taylor
>
> "The Yellow Tomb" by Howard Vokes  It is about a school bus which fell
> into a creek and overturned in 1957 in Floyd County near me in Eastern
> Kentucky, and once again the anniversary of it two years ago brought out
> all the memories of the parents and siblings who lost kin.  Vokes
> recorded it on a whole album of disaster songs on Starday "Tragedy &
> Disaster in Country Songs.", and finding it was one of the first
> assignments I was given by a folk song collector colleague of mine when
> I moved to Kentucky in 78. (I found two, so I have it myself.) Looking
> on the web to remember Vokes name shows that there were a whole slew of
> songs about the accident.   http://wfmu.org/onthedownload.php/album/6776
>
> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>
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