Frontier Partisans

The Adventurers, Rangers and Scouts Who Fought the Battles of Empire

The Ballad of Dood & Juanita

August 23, 2021, by JimC

He was a mighty mountain man

She was his one true love

— Prologue, The Ballad of Dood & Juanita

*

The things he could do with that rifle…

Shoot the balls off a bat

Reload and shoot it one more time

— Ol’ Dood, Sturgill Simpson

 

This might well be as “Frontier Partisan” a set of songs as has ever been released. Sturgill Simpson’s newly-released The Ballad of Dood & Juanita is the tale of Kentucky mountain man and his Shawnee bride. It’s so old-fashioned in its sensibilities that it feels timeless.

I’m going to let Trigger from Saving Country Music whitewash the fence here:

… The Ballad of Dood & Juanita is a conceptualized song cycle as opposed to just a collection of random tracks, with the hope that these expressions lend to something greater than the sum of their individual parts, and result in a more immersive experience for the listener. Though the album is titled after Simpson’s grandparents, it’s not really about them at all. It’s set in Appalachia 100 years before their birth, and unfolds as a story of love and revenge involving fictional characters—basically a Western, but with the wrinkle of being set in the eastern United States instead.

Dood is a half breed whose father was a mountain man and mother was Shawnee. Juanita is the apple of Dood’s eye. Two other characters that appear are Dood’s trusty steed Shamrock, and loyal dog Sam. Sham and Sam, as they’re affectionately referred to.

I don’t know many places you’ll hear a turn of phrase like:

“The ball had passed through, clean as a church floor.”

There will be inevitable comparisons to Willie Nelson’s epoch-making Red Headed Stranger, and maybe to Ben Nichol’s masterful take on Blood Meridian, The Last Pale Light in the West. Old-timers will get a little hit of Johnny Horton. I’m not inclined to make comparisons or to rank works of art. I’m glad to have ’em all.

This is not just Americana, it’s frontier Americana, and I expect I’ll be listening to this many a time. But — tempting as it may be — I will not attempt to shoot the balls off a bat.

Filed Under: Chapters

Previous Post: « A Salute To The Humble Hunting Wagon
Next Post: Working The Trapline — In The Pays d’en Haut »

Comments

  1. Quixotic Mainer says

    August 27, 2021 at 9:34 am

    And I thought cleaning Dot Torture was a good sign of marksmanship! Ballistic bat castration has to take the cake…

    A truly excellent adventure, it would have been perfect except I got this horrible dust in my eye during Sam’s song. Weird.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Frontier Partisans

  • Introduction
  • Jim Cornelius
  • Trading Post
  • The Muster (Links)
  • Search this Site

Podcast Campfire Sparked

Introduction to the Podcast,
or head on over to listen:
Frontier Partisans Podcast

The Trading Post is OPEN

Frontier Partisan t-shirt: Balen-Powell's illustration of Frederick Burnham on front; "The only partisanship we tolerate in these parts is Frontier Partisanship" on back.

Trading Post Cart

Cart is empty $0

Support Frontier Partisans

What I’m Aiming For

Go Fund Me

go fund me frontier partisans

Receive Frontier Partisans Posts Via Email

Categories

  • Chapters
  • Frontier Partisan Bookshelf
  • On Your Own Hook
  • The War Chest

Recent Posts

  • Born Of Lakes And Plains
  • Trouble At Plimoth Plantation
  • The Treasure Of Indiana Jones
  • A Pegleg Podcast
  • Let Us ‘Prey’
  • Stuff That Works — Hunter Rigby
  • Working The Trapline — Taking A Tomahawk To The Critics
  • Running With The Devil

fp@frontierpartisans.com

© 2022 FRONTIER PARTISANS, Jim Cornelius