Crime and Punishment - Frankie and Johnny


 “Frankie and Johnny” is one of America’s most famous murder ballads. It’s been covered by hundreds of artists, including Leadbelly, Louis Armstrong, Mae West, Sam Cooke, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and even Elvis.


The song is based on the murder of the African-American ragtime composer Allen Britt, who was killed by his girlfriend Frankie Baker (pictured) in 1899.Frankie was a beautiful, successful prostitute who wore diamond earrings “as big as hen’s eggs.” Britt was her lover and pimp.


The couple quarreled when Frankie discovered him with another woman. She begged him to come home with her, but he went to a party with his new girl, Alice Pryar, instead. Britt came home late that night when Frankie was in bed. According to Frankie, they argued and, when her lover came at her with a knife to “cut her,” she grabbed her pistol from under her pillow and shot him.


At her trial, the jury agreed with Frankie’s need to defend herself. The judge even gave her back her gun. But many in her neighborhood felt that there were other answers to the mystery of what happened that night in her apartment.Within days of the trial, a song called “Frankie Killed Albert” was composed by Bill Dooley. The song—which evolved into the popular ballad “Frankie and Johnny”—was enjoyed by just about everyone except Frankie.


She hated the way people sang it when she went by. She hated the lyrics that proclaimed she’d killed Allen because he’d cheated on her, rather than because she’d had to defend herself. Some say that the song hounded her out of St. Louis.


She eventually wound up in Oregon running a shoeshine parlor.Even then, the popularity of Frankie’s story haunted her. It was the basis for the 1933 blockbuster film She Done Him Wrong, which jump-started the careers of Mae West and Cary Grant. Frankie angrily sued Paramount Studios, but she lost. She sued Hollywood again over the 1936 film Frankie & Johnny, but she lost again. Frankie died in 1952 before she could sue over Elvis Presley’s film Frankie and Johnny in 1966.

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