Various Artists – People Take Warning!: Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938
This collection doesn’t moralize as much as one might expect. Still, these tales of imminent disaster, heroic aviators, mine explosions, and the perils of trespassing on railroad rights-of-way make a nice case for the modern traveler who wishes to run up his credit cards before boarding an airplane or a train. One can draw parallels between the fearful 1920s and ’30s and our own post-September 11 era. Disc one contains several songs about the sinking of the Titanic, including William and Versey Smith’s amazing “When That Great Ship Went Down”, accurately described by annotators Christopher King and Henry Sapoznik as “one of the best performances ever recorded.” The second disc features tunes about natural disasters, while disc three takes up man’s inhumanity to mankind. Some of People Take Warning! is mere journalism, but these 70 tracks convincingly illustrate the topicality of art — or is it the other way around?