MURDER! Week — Dock Boggs/B.F. Shelton — "Pretty Polly"

Another classic, sung in the first selection by the scariest damn banjoist that ever lived. Dock Boggs was a tough old Virginian who, when he wasn't performing music worked in a coal mine or made bootleg booze. If early pictures are any indication, he had a gaze that could hammer nails into a block of wood from 20 paces. Boggs took the supposedly happy-go-lucky banjo and wrung deep, dark melodies from it. His unearthly, keening voice helped too, screeching out bloodchillers like "Sugar Baby" and "Country Blues."

B.F. Shelton is less frightening than Dock, but nonetheless has that otherworldly American sound that's been lost since the highways and Internets pulled us all together. Shelton recorded this during Ralph Peer's Bristol Sessions, the first recording sessions for Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, as well as a slew of lesser-known talents like Shelton.

While Dock Boggs is undoubtedly the superior talent, it seems unfair that while he recorded 21 sides before deciding to retire from music and work full-time in the coal mines, Shelton reportedly recorded only ten, and of these only four have survived. Boggs even enjoyed a comeback during the folk explosion of the 60s, playing out and recording with Mike Seeger and others until he died in 1971. Shelton assumedly had a nice life but died from an asthma-related incident in 1963 without ever recording again. A shame, really.

"Pretty Polly," like "Stagolee," is another frequently covered murder ballad, though its roots reach to the British Isles. Why Polly is killed is never made clear, but it's suspected that she was probably impregnated by the fellow singing the tune, and he now plans to do her in to hide his secret shame, the bastard.