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about

I first heard this song on The Library of Congress Leadbelly collection when I was an adolescent. My buddy, Adam Ahrens, and I worked up a version. I wrote two of these verses myself and collected the others from Huddie Leadbetter and Mance Lipscomb’s versions.

lyrics

First time I shot Ella,
I shot her in the side,
second time I could not quite tell where

The third time I shot Ella,
I shot her in the head,
that must have been the shot,
that killed poor Ella dead

Ella Speed went out,
just to have some fun,
got shot down with my colt forty-one

I pulled out my piston and I held it in my hand
little girl I'm gonna make you understand,

I saw her dancing with her new man on the floor
Ella Speed don't do me that way no more,

two white horses tied to a rubber tire hack,
seven women going down to the graveyard,
six of 'em coming back

when they heard the news that Ella Speed was dead,
everybody dressed up in red

two white horses riding side by side,
gonna take Ella on her last carriage ride,

last thing she said, just before she died,
little sister don't you do like me,

don't get mixed up with no crazy man,
any old crazy man that you see.

credits

from Down Below, released May 23, 2021
Produced by Ted Hefko & Justin Carlo Davi
Recorded August - September 2020 at Music Shed Studios, and Below Studio by Mike Dorsey and Ben Lorio
Edited by Ted Hefko and Justin Davi
Mixed by Keenan McRae Artisound Production
Mastered by Gene Paul at G&J Audio

Musicians
Ted Hefko (Lead Vocals, Finger Style Guitar, Clarinet)
Matt Galloway (Lead Guitar)
Justin Carlo Davi (Bass)
Chris Davis (Drums & Percussion)
Kevin Louis (Trumpet )
Craig Klein (Trombone)

Huddie Ledbetter PUBLIC DOMAIN - additional verses, and arrangement Ted Hefko Thefko Music ASCAP

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Ted Hefko and The Thousandaires New Orleans, Louisiana

Ted Hefko & The Thousandaires stir up an intoxicating brew of the profound and the profane, of virtue and vice and most importantly the volatile in-between. Ted’s songs explore hope and hustlers, saints and strays, drifters and the down-and-out. The band brings these stories to life with the spontaneity of jazz, and the rough-hewn, bare-bones tone of backwoods rhythm and bllues. ... more

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