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60's/70's Talking/Singing Story Ballads

The thread with "Jack Johnson" in the title reminded me of growing up in Iowa and listening late-night Fridays to Beaker Street with Clyde Clifford on claer-channel KAAY - Little Rock. He would play stuff like the Jaime Brockett classic "Legend of the Titanic" and Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" and others of this genre when radio stations allowed more than 5 minutes of continuous programming.

I know there were quite a number of other "songs" like this but memory of the titles escape me for various and sundry (mostly sundry) reasons. What were a few others, please?
4yanx
18 responses Add your response
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mmrog
101 posts
 
By the ones I am recalled, it seemed to be more of a 50's and 60s thing.

Ballad of the Green Beret
16 Tons
Tell Laura I Love Her

A few that are probably too fast to be ballads

Hot Rod Lincoln
Smoke, Smoke, Smoke, that Cigarette
twl
3,251 posts
 
Theme from the Beverly Hillbillies.
Battle of New Orleans.
4yanx OP
1,576 posts
 
Yeah, Tom...but the phrase "swimmin' pools, movie stars" doesn't quite have the same cache these days! :-)
analogphil
44 posts
 
Harry Chapin - 30,000 lbs of bananas
Renaissance Live at Carnegie Hall - Scheherazade
David Bromberg - Will Not be Your Fool
Jeff Wayne - War of the Worlds
waltersalas's avatar
waltersalas
952 posts
 

Tom T. Hall--a great American storyteller.
spudco
88 posts
 
Mickey Newberry "Frisco Mabel Joy" is the ultimate.
rockvirgo
587 posts
 
Shirelles?/The Leader of the Pack and The Beatles/Rocky Racoon.
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Rockvirgo: "Leader of the Pack" - The Shangri-Las (they had others like this too, but I don't know that I'd put any of the girl-group melodramas in the thread-head's outlined catagory, much as I love 'em).
rockvirgo
587 posts
 
Thanks Zaikes and apologies to the Shirelles :^)
theduke
372 posts
 
Marty Robbins: "Gunfighter Songs and Trail Ballads". A 1960 Grammy Award winner available in excellent remastered sound from Columbia/Legacy (Sony). "El Paso" was the hit single from this American music masterpiece.

It's absolutely essential!
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
BTW 4yanx, I don't suppose The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron were what you had in mind either...
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onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,229 posts
 
I think Richard Harris' "MacArthur Park" fits in this category, but my particular favorite is Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe".
inscrutable
313 posts
 
Arlo's 'Pause of Mr. Claus' and 'Motorcycle Song', 'Bullfrog Blues' by either Bromberg or Rory Gallagher, and Bromberg's 'Mr. Bojangles' - tho they are more songs with a story interspersed.
brulee
564 posts
 
Got to go with Theduke too, I was just a little kid but my Dad played Marty Robbins all the time. How about Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire? Patti Page's Tennessee Waltz.
Dylan's Ballad of Hollis Brown and Boots of Spanish leather.
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4yanx OP
1,576 posts
 
yep, takin' tips and gettin' stoned...
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