Banks Of The Ohio

A 19th-century American murder ballad in which a narrator named Willie kills his sweetheart on a riverbank after she refuses his proposal. The song is part of the riverside-murder family that includes “Pretty Polly” and “Knoxville Girl,” though unlike those, no single real-life murder has been credibly identified as its source. The earliest commercial recording was Red Patterson’s Piedmont Log Rollers on August 12, 1927, released by Gennett in 1928; G.B. Grayson and Henry Whitter also cut a related version that year titled “I’ll Never Be Yours.” The Blue Sky Boys, Bill Monroe, Johnny Cash with the Carter Family, Joan Baez, and Doc Watson all recorded versions, and Olivia Newton-John’s 1971 version reached #1 in Australia.