This is fascinating, especially for a lyrics freak like me:
At Woodstock, Joan Baez sang a famous folk ballad celebrating Joe Hill, the itinerant miner, songwriter and union activist who was executed by a Utah firing squad in 1915. “I never died, said he” is the song’s refrain.
Hill’s status as a labor icon and the debate about his conviction certainly never died. And now a new biography makes the strongest case yet that Hill was wrongfully convicted of murdering a local grocer, the charge that led to his execution at age 36.
The book’s author, William M. Adler, argues that Hill was a victim of authorities and a jury eager to deal a blow to his radical labor union, as well as his own desire to protect the identity of his sweetheart.
Also too, I didn’t know until this day that “they tell me there’s a pie up in the sky, waiting for me when I die” (from “The Harder They Come”) dates back to Joe Hill.
I spoke not a word, though it meant my lifePost + Comments (41)