3:29
Folksongs And Ballads, 1971
Attributed to Blind Andrew Jenkins, 1925
This song's album was originally released only in France and sold very little, but was reissued in 2011 and rediscovered by a new generation. The events in the song, a crime ballad, are based on a century-old true story. On December 15, 1921, Frank DuPre robbed a jewelry store in Atlanta of an impressive diamond ring, which he gifted to his new girlfriend Betty Andrews. After evading the police for a few weeks, he got caught and was hanged the next year. The press made a big deal of Betty's involvement, painting her as a gold digger who urged Frank on to larceny. Blake's version presents a few barebones facts (including having Betty tell Frank to get her a ring) in her sweet ethereal voice, with the last verse a failed reunion of the lovers in the "death house" reunion of the lovers, when Betty writes to the doomed man that "no one's gonna take your place." Additional "fun" fact via Wikipedia: In 1960, during a custody dispute, Blake and her siblings were kidnapped by her CIA-employed father, who was later arrested and fled the country. She should have written a song about that! (I think she did write about it, in Granta.)
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