Satan Wears a Satin Gown
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Recorded in 1959, "Balladeer" by Frankie Laine, is a folk-blues album that was (and still remains) years ahead of its time. Laine had helped pioneer the folk music movement a full ten years earlier with his hit folk-pop records penned by Terry Gilkyson and others, and it was only fitting that he release a hard folk album now that the movement was becoming more popular. Orchestrated and arranged by Fred Katz (who'd brought Laine the innovative "Satan Wears a Satin Gown") and Frank DeVol, this album has a truly timeless feel to it. Laine and Katz collaborated on some of the new material, along with Lucy Drucker (who apparently inspired the "Lucy D" in one of the songs). Other songs are by folk, country and blues artists like Brownie McGhee, James A. Bland, Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter, and Hungarian composer Rudolf Friml. The closing track, "And Doesn't She Roll" (co-written by Laine), with its rhythmic counter-chorus in the background foretells Paul Simon's celebrated Graceland album two decades later.
Included are powerful renditions of "Rocks and Gravel", "Careless Love", "Sixteen Tons", "The Jelly Coal Man", "On a Monday", "Lucy D" (a chilling, original melody that sounds like the later Simon and Garfunkel hit, "Scarborough Fair", but depicts the murder of a beautiful young woman by her unrequited lover), "Carry Me Back To Old Virginney", "Stack of Blues", "Old Blue", "Cherry Red", and "New Orleans" (better known as "The House of the Rising Sun", which would become a hit for the British rock group, The Animals a few years later.
