Today’s post was written by Paul.

I learned the song “Blackjack County Chain” from the Charlie Louvin album “Bluegrass Style,” which came out in 1993. If you can find that album, I highly recommend it. Every track on the CD is very good.

A few years after Charlie released the song, the Del McCoury Band also put it out, though I haven’t heard their version. I assumed that Charlie was the first to sing it until around 10 years ago when I heard Henson Gargill sing it on a classic country station. He had a great, deep voice that suited the song perfectly.

For a long time after that (up until uploading this video), I assumed that Cargill’s recording was the original and that Charlie had learned it from him. However, by searching online, I discovered that Willie Nelson recorded and released the song one year before Cargill, in 1967. Willie’s recording found chart success (reaching #24) until it was banned from the radio for its violent content.

A singer/songwriter named Red Lane wrote the song. He originally pitched it to Charlie Pride. Even though Pride had released another double-murder/revenge ballad called “The Snakes Crawl at Night” a year earlier, he passed on “Blackjack County Chain” because he feared the song would be too controversial. I wonder if he based his prediction on flack that he received for the Snakes-at-Night song or if the difference was that the violence in “Blackjack County Chain” isn’t gun violence (like it is in Snakes-at-Night). Both are bad ways to die, but the death/violence in Blackjack County would definitely be slower and more horribly personal.

Despite the graphic violence, “Blackjack County Chain” is a very well written story song. It turns out that many singers have covered this song, including: Waylon Jennings, Billy Strings, Charlie Crockett, and even Russel Crowe (who played the lead in the original Gladiator movie).

After learning all this, I knew I had to find out where Blackjack County is; it turns out that there is no Blackjack County in the U.S. There is, however, a Blackjack community in Pitt County, NC. Red Lane likely made up the county name in order to minimize controversy and to avoid giving any particular county a bad name. Folks can be sensitive about an area’s reputation, especially politicians.

There’s a stretch of highway in our county where everyone drives (on average) 30 mph over the posted speed limit. All the speeding creates unsafe conditions. Virtually no one is ever ticketed there, though motorists are pulled over and ticketed in much safer areas for speeds that don’t exceed the limit as much. I was told that a former mayor of the town requested for police officers to never pull anyone over for speeding in that particular area because it’s an “entrance” to town and could make the town look like a speed trap.

Anyway, “Blackjack County” has a catchy ring to it and also conjures the idea of a policeman’s night stick or baton, so it was great diction on Lane’s part. The idea of corrupt law enforcement using forced labor for financial gain appears in Cool Hand Luke, The Shawshank Redemption, and other prison stories. I have no doubt that it has happened in real life too. In “Blackjack County Chain,” the only “crime” needed to be inscripted is that of being broke! As the song itself states, if there’s any good point or outcome in the story, it’s that the practice was permanently ended by way of the inmates’ revolt.   

I hope you enjoyed this week’s Story Series song!

Paul

Original singles released on Spotify.

Original singles on YouTube.

Shepherd of My Soul (Album released in 2016).

Find our cds here.