“The Story of the Lawson Family,” also known as “The Murder of the Lawson Family,” is a murder ballad about a real crime. On Christmas Day 1929, a North Carolina farmer named Charlie Lawson killed his wife and most of his children before taking his own life. Within months, the singer Walter “Kid” Smith shaped the newspaper accounts into a ballad and recorded it with the Carolina Buddies in 1930.
The song tells the story plainly and grimly, in the manner of the old event ballads: it names the family, recounts the killings, and dwells on the horror of a father destroying his own household. It offers no real explanation, only the facts and the grief.
The Carolina Buddies’ record sold well, and the Stanley Brothers later revived the ballad, keeping it alive in the bluegrass and old-time tradition.
