For instance Appalachian folk music–and later, bluegrass–is full of murder ballads. These are songs of love, jealousy, scheming, revenge, and death. Decades later, they’re a major part of ...

Enamored of early roots music recordings of Appalachian ballads and string bands from the 1930s, he soon discovered the music of Hank Williams and George Jones – he describes it as “a bomb going off ...