This is the fifteenth in a series of examinations of music legends and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the previous fourteen.

Let’s begin!

MUSIC LEGEND: William Zanzinger murdered Hattie Carroll by beating her to death with a cane.

STATUS: False Enough for a False

“The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” is a song that appears on Bob Dylan’s 1964 album, The Times They Are A’Changin’…

The tune tells the story of the murder of Hattie Carroll by William Zanzinger, and it is based on the real life death of Hattie Carroll after being struck by a cane by William Zantzinger (Dylan dropped the T for some reason).

The song is a sad re-telling of the events, while noticeably avoiding actually mentioning that Carroll was black and Zan(t)zinger was white, leaving it to the listener to discern that for his/herself, while ending each verse by saying, “But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears/Take the rag away from your face/
Now ain’t the time for your tears.” until the end of the song, when we learn that Zan(t)zinger receives only a six-month sentence, and THEN Dylan tells us, “Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears/
Bury the rag deep in your face/For now’s the time for your tears.”

Let me get something straight off the bat. William Zantzinger (who passed away earlier this year) does not appear to be a very pleasant individual. In fact, he sounds like a rotten scoundrel. Just in the last few decades, Zantzinger sued (and won) awards from tenants in shanties that he owned for back rent - the only thing was, he had not owned the properties for YEARS, as the Maryland government had foreclosed on the properties years earlier for Zantzinger’s constant violations of county health codes. He sure seemed to be an awful man.

However, as awful as he was - Dylan exaggerates what happened in the song so much that I think he basically gives a false recitation of the facts and has caused listeners over the years to have a false idea of what actually happened at the lonesome death of Hattie Carroll.

The song opens with:

William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll
With a cane that he twirled around his diamond ring finger
At a Baltimore hotel society gath’rin’.
And the cops were called in and his weapon took from him
As they rode him in custody down to the station
And booked William Zanzinger for first-degree murder.

And later, Dylan describes Carroll as having…

Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane
That sailed through the air and came down through the room,
Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle.

and ends with:

In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his gavel
To show that all’s equal and that the courts are on the level
And that the strings in the books ain’t pulled and persuaded
And that even the nobles get properly handled
Once that the cops have chased after and caught ‘em
And that the ladder of law has no top and no bottom,
Stared at the person who killed for no reason
Who just happened to be feelin’ that way without warnin’.
And he spoke through his cloak, most deep and distinguished,
And handed out strongly, for penalty and repentance,
William Zanzinger with a six-month sentence.

So here’s what happened - in the early hours of February 9, 1963, after a white tie Spinster’s Ball, a very drunk William Zantzinger (who was with his wife) struck a number of employees at the Emerson Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland with a toy cane he had purchased earlier that day.

When Carroll, a barmaid, did not give him his drink quickly enough, he struck her in the shoulder and on the head with his toy cane.

Zantzinger, the filthy individual that he was, threw out a lot of racial epithets as well. He then turned on his own wife, smacking her around and hitting her with his shoe.

Carroll returned to the kitchen and told her co-workers that she was feeling ill after that man had upset her so. She collapsed and eight hours later, she was dead.

The autopsy reported that she had hardened arteries, an enlarged heart and high blood pressure. They gave brain hemorrhage as the cause of death.

After originally being charged with first degree murder, the charges were reduced to manslaughter when it was determined that it was his berating of Carroll that caused her death of the brain hemorrhage rather than the blows of the cane (the toy cane did not even leave any marks on her).

So when you look at it like that, while you can certainly complain about him receiving only six months, that’s certainly not enough to charge anything BUT manslaughter. You’re not going to prosecute someone for murder when they shock someone into having a stroke. You’re just not.

And Dylan’s version of events ignore all of this, and gives the impression that A. He beat her to death with the cane and B. That he was convicted of murder and received only a six months sentence. Those are two tremendous fallacies right there.

Was William Zantzinger a bad person?

I’d say so.

Was he a terrible racist?

Seems like it.

I just don’t think he was a murderer, and “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” sure doesn’t tell you that (it’s a sad and beautiful song, though - one of Dylan’s best).

MUSIC LEGEND: Both the trees in Joshua Tree AND “One Tree Hill” have since died!

STATUS: True

Yucca brevifolia is the technical term for the species of plant that grows in the American West that is more commonly known as either a Yucca palm or a Joshua Tree.

The term “Joshua Tree” comes from Mormon settlers who thought that the plant reminded them of a Bible story involving Joshua having his hands outstretched in prayer.

In any event, the plant was the title of the highly acclaimed hit 1987 album by U2, The Joshua Tree.

Photographer Anton Corbijn took a series of photos of the group in the Mojave Desert, centered on one “Joshua Tree” in particular, which you can see on the back cover of the original vinyl album…

and on this picture of the band (there are tons of photos of the band around the tree)…

On that same album, the song “One Tree Hill” appears…

This single was released only in New Zealand (in North America, the single was “God’s Country” - the photo on the cover is the same for both singles).

This was because the song was written about a New Zealand native, Greg Carroll, who was Bono’s personal assistant. He died in 1986 in a motorcycle accident (I believe he was retrieving Bono’s bike for him). The whole album was dedicated to Carroll, but specifically, this song was written for him and released as a single in Carroll’s homeland.

The location that the name of the song is taken from was One Tree Hill, a volcanic peak in Auckland, New Zealand. It is called “One Tree Hill” because a lone Monterey pine tree stood on the hill.

Well, amazingly enough, since the 1987 release of the album, BOTH trees have died!!!

The Joshua Tree fell of natural causes, it seems (climate change has been deadly for Joshua Trees).

The pine tree on top of One Tree Hill, however, was actually attacked with a chainsaw by a Maori protester in 1994 - after that point, the tree was basically in ruins - it was officially removed in October 2000.

The week it was removed in October 2000 was the same time that the Joshua Tree was found dead, halfway around the world (that tree was discovered dead then, but since no one was actually there when it fell, no one knows for sure WHEN it fell)!

Kinda spooky, huh?

Thanks to Steve Hall for the pictures of the fallen Joshua Tree!

MUSIC LEGEND: Kris Kristofferson used a highly dramatic method of getting Johnny Cash to pay attention to his demo tapes.

STATUS: True

Kris Kristofferson got into the music industry relatively late in life. He was a trained helicopter pilot and served in the United States Army during the early 1960s. While stationed in Germany during the 1960s, he got together his first band and continued writing songs - something he first started doing while he was attending Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship in the late 1950s. While at Oxford, he received a graduate degree in English Literature (although Oxford calls it a Bachelor of Philosophy). He ended his tenure with the Army in 1965 at the age of 32. He turned down an opportunity to teach English Literature at West Point to pursue a career in music.

So Kristofferson got a job down in Nashville, doing different sorts of odd jobs while trying to make it in the music business. One job was as a janitor at Columbia Record’s recording studio in Nashville. Very early on in his tenure there, he was present when Bob Dylan came down to Nashville to record songs for Blonde on Blonde.

Kristofferson was not so forward as to actually TALK to Dylan, as, after all, that likely would have gotten him fired, especially as he had just started. However, over the next couple of years, as he continued to work at the studios there in Nashville, he got to know Johnny Cash a little bit, as Cash would use those studios frequently. Again, Kristofferson knew he couldn’t give Cash his demo tapes, because that was crossing a line that you just don’t cross - however, he would get around it by handing his demos to Luther Perkins (Johnny’s guitarist) or June Carter. Years later, Cash would say that he got the tapes, but he threw them all away.

Kristofferson continued flying helicopters professionally, and late in the decade, he got a job with the National Guard. As part of his duty, he had access to a helicopter during the weekend.

Well, remarkably enough, Kristofferson actually used his helicopter one day to travel to Johnny Cash’s home and land in his backyard - all to give him a demo tape!!

Astonishingly enough, Cash admired his gusto, enough so that he listened to the tape, and liked what he heard. Over the years, the story has gone that Kristofferson was drunk at the time, as well, but Kristofferson claims that was an exaggeration. In fact, here he is on the topic:

I still think I was lucky he didn’t shoot me that day! I’d briefly joined the National Guard, just trying to make some extra money. So I had a helicopter I was able to fly at the weekend. The story about me getting off the helicopter with a tape in one hand and a beer in the other isn’t true. Y’know, John had a very creative imagination. I’ve never flown with a beer in my life. Believe me, you need two hands to fly those things.

The song Kristofferson played for Cash was “Sunday Morning Coming Down.”

At the 1969 Newport Folk Festival, Cash introduced Kristofferson to the audience, and Kristofferson played that song and another song he had recently written, “Me and Bobby McGee.”

Cash released “Sunday Morning Coming Down” in 1970, and it was one of Cash’s biggest later hits.

The next year, Janis Joplin’s version of “Me and Bobby McGee” became a smash hit, and Kristofferson was well on his way to stardom!

Oh, he eventually lost his helicopter license, by the way.

Thanks to Rob Hughes for the great Kristofferson quotes!

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com