The Storied Song is a podcast from Appalachia Book Company that adapts traditional Appalachian ballads into original audio dramas, paired with live performances of the ballads themselves. Each episode takes a song you may already know and asks what lives inside it — the full story, the complicated people, the history the chorus leaves out.

In this introductory episode, narrator and ballad singer William Ritter tells you how this project works and what to listen for.

Narrator — William Ritter

Production Team
Director — Michael McNulty | Sound Effects Design — Rosa Bott | Audio Engineer — Samuel O'Sullivan | Poster Art — Jess Shadrick

Written by Natalie Axton.

"Lord Bateman" is among the oldest ballads in this collection, first documented on a nineteenth-century broadside published in Glasgow, Scotland, and rooted in a folk tale that had already spawned related ballads in Norway, Italy, and Spain. Jean Ritchie recorded it for her classic Folkways album British Traditional Ballads in the Southern Mountains in 1960. Unlike most traditional ballads, it ends happily — which makes the stakes of this episode all the more present. The happiness is not guaranteed. It has to be chosen.

Ida Esmaeili sets this episode at Lord Bateman's wedding to someone else, flashing back through the years in Bateman and the Turkish Lady's own voices. This version is spare and sharp — a story about what it costs to wait, and what it costs when the person you waited for has already moved on.

A love story, a reckoning, and a song that refuses to let either of them off the hook.

Cast
Lord Bateman — Holden Howard
Turkish Lady — Tayler Bolling
Narrator — Ashlyn Mullins

Production Team
Director — Michael McNulty | Musical Guest/Narrator — William Ritter | Sound Effects Design — Rosa Bott | Audio Engineer — Samuel O'Sullivan | Poster Art — Jess Shadrick

"Lord Bateman" radio play is written by Ida Esmaeili. Commentary written by Natalie Axton.

That's the story within the ballad. It's been sung across the British Isles and through Appalachia for more than a century, and most versions play it for laughs: a woman so mean, even Hell won't have her.

Cecil Sharp documented the ballad's popularity in World War I-era Appalachia, and a 1929 recording by the husband-wife duo Bill and Belle Reed from Johnson City, Tennessee — one of relatively few 78 RPM releases from that era to be included on the influential Anthology of American Folk Music — helped carry it forward into the urban folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. The song has been in these mountains a long time. It has earned its place.

Playwright Diana Jean Skeen isn't interested in leaving it as a punchline. In her version, the wife is addicted to opioids, the farmer is barely holding on, and their daughter — Baby Girl — has grown up holding everything together. When the Devil finally shows up at the door, nobody is all that surprised. But Hell has a way of clarifying things. This episode asks what it takes to actually face yourself — and whether the people we write off as impossible might just be people who've been hurt too long.

Cast
Farmer — Holden Howard
Farmer's Wife — Tayler Bolling
Baby Girl — Ashlyn Mullins
Devil/Construction Worker — Jess Mullins Fullen
TV News Anchor/Rob — Holden Howard
TV News Reporter/Sheila — Celeste Holmes
Demons — Celeste Holmes, Holden Howard

Production Team
Director — Michael McNulty | Musical Guest/Narrator — William Ritter | Sound Effects Design — Rosa Bott | Audio Engineer — Samuel O'Sullivan | Poster Art — Jess Shadrick

"The Farmer's Curst Wife" radio play is written by Diana Jean Skeen. Commentary written by Natalie Axton.

This episode brings the story behind the ballad into close focus. Playwright Jess Wells writes these characters as fully human — reckless, lovesick, furious, and sorry too late. Tom wasn't simply a killer, and Laura wasn't simply a victim. Ann wasn't simply a villain. They were people caught in something none of them could see clearly enough to stop.

The syphilis at the center of the story likely originated with Pauline Foster, who brought the disease into the household. Tom contracted it from Pauline and spread it to Ann and Laura — meaning Ann's accusation against Laura was almost certainly wrong. Ann ultimately directed authorities to Laura's grave, which is what sealed Tom's fate. He had already fled across the Tennessee border and was working under an assumed name when he was recognized and turned in. The ballad traveled far from those facts. Frank Proffitt performed it for folklorist Frank Warner in 1938; Alan Lomax heard Warner's version and published his own arrangement, which became the source for the Kingston Trio's recording — a number one hit in 1958. The true story stayed in Wilkes County. This episode brings it back.

Cast
Tom — Jess Mullins Fullen
Laura — Celeste Holmes
Ann — Tayler Bolling
Pauline — Ashlyn Mullins
Random Woman — Jess Mullins Fullen
Random Man — Holden Howard

Production Team
Director — Michael McNulty | Musical Guest/Narrator — William Ritter | Sound Effects Design — Rosa Bott | Audio Engineer — Samuel O'Sullivan | Poster Art — Jess Shadrick

"Tom Dula" radio play written by Jess Wells. Commentary written by Natalie Axton.

The ballad that followed made him famous in death in ways he never was in life. It also got his name wrong, his marital status wrong, and a few other things besides.

Broady may have been ordered by the railroad company to make up for lost time — and the company docked engineers' pay for every thirty minutes they ran behind, which tells you something about what they expected. The song that memorialized him became its own kind of wreck. Henry Whitter recorded the first version in 1923; Vernon Dalhart's recording the following year became the first million-selling record in country music history. Then came the lawsuits. Multiple parties claimed authorship, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Court ultimately awarded ownership to RCA Victor. A man died doing his job. His story became a hit record. The hit record became a legal battle. In this episode, Ann Gillespie puts Broady in conversation with a Singer who has carried his story for generations — and who knows it better, in some ways, than he does. What does it mean to be remembered? What do we owe the people our songs preserve?

A meditation on memory, speed, and the strange afterlife of a man who just wanted to do his job.

Cast
Engineer — Holden Howard
Singer — Celeste Holmes

Production Team
Director — Michael McNulty | Musical Guest/Narrator — William Ritter | Sound Effects Design — Rosa Bott | Audio Engineer — Samuel O'Sullivan | Poster Art — Jess Shadrick

"The Nightmare of the Old 97" radio play is written by Ann Gillespie. Commentary written by Natalie Axton.