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Booth Killed Lincoln/Booth Shot Lincoln
Traditional Old-Time, Breakdown. Western N.C., Eastern Tenn.
ARTIST: Bascom Lamar Lunsford, learned circa 1890 from his father.
Listen: Bascom Lamar Lunsford- Booth Killed Lincoln
Listen: Uncle Earl- Booth Shot Lincoln
Listen: Charlie Stamper (Fiddle Solo)- When Booth Shot Lincoln
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes DATE: 1800s
RECORDING INFO: AFS L29, "Folk Music of the United States: Songs and Ballads of American History and of the Assassination of Presidents from the Archive of American Folk Song" (contains two 1949 recordings of Bascom Lamar Lunsford playing "Booth Killed Lincoln," collected by Duncan Emrich). Flying Fish FF 266, Malcolm Daglish & Grey Larsen - "Thunderhead" (1982). Marimac 9000, Dan Gellert and Shoofly - "Forked Deer" (1986. Learned from Marc Gunther). Rounder 1509, Bascom Lamar Lumsford - "Songs and Ballads of American History and of the Assassination of Presidents" (originally issued in the early 1950's by the Library of Congress from the Archive of American Folksong). Boiled Buzzards- Fine Dining, Marimac 9043, Cas (1991), cut#A.06; Falderal String Band. Step Right Up... Free Show Tonight!, Hen House, Cas (1996), cut#A.08; Gellert, Dan; and Shoofly. Forked Deer, Marimac 9000, Cas (1986), cut#A.04a; Skirtlifters. Somewhere in Dixie, Skirtlifters, Cas (1987), cut#B.04
OTHER NAMES: Booth Killed Lincoln; Booth; When Booth Shot Lincoln;
SOURCES: "AAB (Phillips): AABB (Johnson). Marcus Martin (North Carolina) [Phillips/1994]. Kuntz, Private Collection. Johnson (The Kitchen Musician: Occasional Collection of Old-Timey Fiddle Tunes for Hammer Dulcimer, Fiddle, etc.), No. 2, 1988; pg. 11. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes, Vol. 1), 1994; pg. 34." (Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc).
NOTES: Charlie Stamper (listen above) learned the tune from his father Hiram, but Hiram never recorded it. Marcus Martin has a version at Digital Appalachia.
Bascom Lamar Lunsford (March 21, 1882 - September 4, 1973) a friend of my grandfather Maurice Matteson, was a lawyer, folklorist, and performer of traditional music from western North Carolina. Lunsford learned the song from his father when he was "6 or 10 years old"- making the date around 1890.
Kuntz notes: "Fiddler Bruce Greene learned this tune from the fiddle playing of Marcus Martin and Bascom Lamar Lunsford, both of Buncombe County, North Carolina. Field recordings were made of these two musicians in 1949 by the Library of Congress. On the recording made by Lunsford, he first sings a ballad called Booth, or Booth Shot Lincoln, which he says he learned as a boy from his father. He then plays the fiddle tune by the same name. Musically, the ballad and the fiddle tune are similar, with the fiddle version being more ornate and complex. A Major. AEAE or Standard. The tune was in the repertoires of western North Carolina fiddlers Osey Helton and Marcus Martin (from the Black Mountain region). Bascom Lamar Lumsford learned his version ("Booth Killed Lincoln") from Martin, and both sang the song and played the same tune on the fiddle on his recording. On his Library of Congress recording, however, Lunsford introduces the seven-verse song: "The title of this ballad is 'Booth,' or 'Booth Killed Lincoln.' It's an old fiddle tune, and there are a few variants of the song. I heard my father hum it and sing a few of the stanzas when I was just a boy about six or ten years old." After he sings the song he plays the fiddle tune, similar to Martin's version. Most modern versions are based on Martin's recordings of the tune (he was recorded several times in the 1940's by Library of Congress field personnel, including Alan Lomax in 1942), and Martin gave the title variously as "Booth" or "John Wilkes Booth." Scott DeLancey maintains that the "Booth" melody is a breakdown setting of the Irish jig "The Market Town." The ballad and the fiddle tune both commemorate the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by the actor John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865. The incident took place at Ford's Theater in Washington, DC while Lincoln, along with family and friends, watched a British comedy from their special box seats above the stage. During a loud and sustained outburst of laughter, Booth crept into the box through the rear entrance and shot the president in the head. Booth then jumped to the stage shouting, "Sic semper tyrannis" ("thus always to tyrants"), and made good his escape. Lincoln died the following morning. Booth was hunted and killed by the authorities twelve days later." (Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc).
BOOTH KILLED LINCOLN- Lunsford
Listen: Bascom Lamar Lunsford- Booth Killed Lincoln
1. Wilkes Booth came to Washington,
An actor great was he,
He played at Ford's Theater,
And Lincoln went to see.
2. It was early in April,
Not many weeks ago,
The people of this fair city
All gathered at the show.
3. The war it is all over,
The people happy now,
And Abraham Lincoln
Arose to make his bow;
4. The people cheer him wildly,
Arising to their feet,
And Lincoln waving of his hand,
He calmly takes his seat.
5. And while he sees the play go on,
His thoughts are running deep,
His darling wife, close by his side,
Has fallen fast asleep.
6. From the box there hangs a flag,
It is not the Stars and Bars,
The flag that holds within its folds
Bright gleaming Stripes and Stars.
7. J. Wilkes Booth, he moves down the aisle,
He had measured once before,
He passes Lincoln's bodyguard
A-nodding at the door.
8. He holds a dagger in his right hand,
A pistol in his left,
He shoots poor Lincoln in the temple,
And sends his soul to rest.
9. The wife awakes from slumber,
And screams in her rage,
Booth jumps over the railing
And lands him on the stage.
10. He'll rue the day, he'll rue the hour,
As God him life shall give,
When Booth stood in the center stage,
Crying, "Tyrants shall not live!"
11. The people all excited then,
Cried everyone, "A hand!"
Cried all the people near,
"For God's sake, save that man!"
12. Then Booth ran back with boot and spur
Across the backstage floor,
He mounts that trusty claybank mare,
All saddled at the door.
13. J. Wilkes Booth, in his last play,
All dressed in broadcloth deep,
He gallops down the alleyway,
I hear those horses feet.
14. Poor Lincoln then was heard to say,
And all has gone to rest,
"Of all the actors in this town,
I loved Wilkes Booth the best."
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