The Balladeer
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The Balladeer
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Narrated by:
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Fred Calvert
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Written by:
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Fred Calvert
About this listen
Back when country singer Bobby Wayner was 12, he’d told a lie that was partly to blame for the death of his older brother Eldon, who was shot by a neighboring farmer. Bobby couldn’t bear his grief and the guilt he felt for his lie, so he ran away. And for 38 years, he stayed away and never reached back. This happened in Kentucky, 1944, during the Second World War.
He spent many of his years away in California’s Folsom Prison. He’d killed a man in a barroom fight. At release, he determined to finally go home, wanting to uncover the truth behind why Eldon was murdered. As he travels the roads and the rails, his ballads and memories take us back to that tragic summer.
Bobby and Eldon had been budding balladeers. They became intrigued with a recluse farmer, a German immigrant. Rumors claimed he was a Nazi and that he'd murdered his own family. The boys were warned to stay away from him, that he was insane. But they couldn’t resist spying on him, and they discovered that every night, he played a beautiful and haunting piano tune. Eldon became obsessed with the "crazy old German" and wanted to know his secrets to write a ballad.
One night, he took a risk; he stepped up on the farmer’s porch and knocked on his door.
©2015 Fred Calvert (P)2021 Fred Calvert