Sam Bass [Laws E4]

DESCRIPTION: Sam Bass, a cowpuncher and at first a kind-hearted fellow, turns to train robbery. Betrayed by an acquaintance named Jim Murphy, he is killed by a Texas Ranger
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1888 (Thorp)
KEYWORDS: cowboy death betrayal
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1878 - Death of Sam Bass near Round Rock, Texas
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MW,Ro,So,SW)
REFERENCES (27 citations):
Laws E4, "Sam Bass"
Belden-BalladsSongsCollectedByMissourFolkloreSociety, pp. 399-400, "Sam Bass" (1 text plus mention of 2 more)
Randolph 142, "Young Sam Bass" (1 text plus a long excerpt, 1 tune)
HIgh, pp. 17-18, "Sam Bass" (1 text)
Moore/Moore-BalladsAndFolkSongsOfTheSouthwest 165, "Sam Bass" (1 text, 1 tune)
Owens-TexasFolkSongs-1ed, pp. 123-124, "Sam Bass" (1 text, 1 tune)
Abernethy-SinginTexas, pp. 168-169, "Sam Bass" (1 text, 1 tune)
Friedman-Viking/PenguinBookOfFolkBallads, p. 375, "Sam Bass" (1 text)
Sandburg-TheAmericanSongbag, pp. 422-424, "Sam Bass" (1 text, 1 tune)
Thorp/Fife-SongsOfTheCowboys X, pp. 112-120 (24-26), "Sam Bass" (3 texts, 1 tune); Thorp/Logsdon-SongsOfTheCowboys, pp. 135-138, "Sam Bass" (1 text)
Fife/Fife-CowboyAndWesternSongs 95, "Sam Bass" (1 text, 1 tune)
Larkin-SingingCowboy, pp. 158-161, "Sam Bass" (1 text, 1 tune)
Tinsley-HeWasSinginThisSong, pp. 174-179, "Sam Bass" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax/Lomax-FolkSongUSA 81, "Sam Bass" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax/Lomax-AmericanBalladsAndFolkSongs, pp. 126-128, "Sam Bass" (1 text, 1 tune)
Pound-AmericanBalladsAndSongs, 66, pp. 149-152, "Sam Bass" (1 text)
Welsch-NebraskaPioneerLore, pp. 35-37, "Sam Bass" (1 text)
Finger-FrontierBallads, pp. 66-71, "Sam Bass" (1 text with inserts of recitation)
Burt-AmericanMurderBallads, pp. 199-200, "Sam Bass" (1 short text)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia2, pp. 421-422, "Sam Bass" (1 text)
Johnson-BawdyBalladsAndLustyLyrics, pp. 96-98, "Sam Bass" (1 text)
Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest, pp. 316-317, "Sam Bass" (1 text, 1 tune)
Shay-BarroomBallads/PiousFriendsDrunkenCompanions, pp. 9-10, "Sam Bass" (1 text)
Darling-NewAmericanSongster, pp. 190-191, "Sam Bass" (1 text)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 196, "Sam Bass" (1 text)
Saffel-CowboyPoetry, p. 204-205, "Sam Bass" (1 text)
DT 621, SAMBASS*
Roud #2244
RECORDINGS:
Harry "Mac" McClintock, "Sam Bass" (Victor 21420, 1928; on AuthCowboys, WhenIWas1)
Marc Williams, "Sam Bass" (Brunswick 304, 1929; rec. 1928)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Way Out in Idaho (I)" (tune)
NOTES [412 words]: This song has been attributed (e.g. by Thorpe) to a John Denton of Gainesville, Texas, and supposedly written in 1879, but most scholars think that multiple hands have been involved.
According to Bill O'Neal, Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters, University of Oklahoma Press, 1979, entry on "Samuel Bass," Sam Bass was born July 21, 1851 in Mitchell, Indiana. He was a "Farmer, teamster, gambler, cowboy, saloon owner, miner, bank and train robber, laborer." His parents died when he was young, leaving him in the care of an uncle. He left Indiana in 1869, went to Saint Louis, then Rosedale, Mississippi, where he worked in a sawmill. After about a year there, he went to Denton, Texas. One of his first bosses was Sheriff W. F. Eagan, who later took part in the manhunt for him. Until 1874, he was apparently a good employee, but in that year, he acquired a racehorse and took off on his own. Still, he seems to have stayed mostly on the right side of the law until 1876, when he went to Deadwood in Dakota Territory with his future gang mate Joel Collins; they ran a casino and saloon, then bought a mine that drove them to bankruptcy. That was when they turned outlaw, recruiting several others in the coming
Their first big heist was on September 18, 1877, at Big Spring, Nebraska; they took some $60,000 off a train. Most of the gang was killed and the money recovered in several incidents over the next few weeks; Collins was one of those who died. But Bass made it back to Texas and founded another gang. One of his gang members, Jim Murphy, betrayed him to the Texas Rangers. The gang was caught at Round Rock, Texas; although they tried to flee, Bass was hit first in the hand and then in the side; after riding a few hundred yards, he fell from the saddle and was taken. A fellow gang member, Frank Jackson, managed to rescue him, but Bass could not move and had to be left behind. He was found by a posse and taken to Round Rock, where he died on July 21, 1878, two days after the fight.
Other sources say that he died July 22 rather than July 21, but they all agree that he died on his twenty-seventh birthday.
There are several books about Bass and his life, but many of them appear to be "Western Thriller" books with no value whatsoever. The two that are best appear to be Rick Miller, Sam Bass & Gang, State House Press, 1999, a proper academic edition with a full set of endnotes, and Wayne Gard, Sam Bass, University of Nebraska Press, 1999. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: LE04

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