Dark/sad vintage popular music

[Metatron]

I'll give it to you straight: I love metal, and prog rock, and have a taste for sinister/dramatic/brooding music.
Upbeat stuff often does not agree with me.
These aforementioned qualities are readily found in orchestral music from the era this forum reveres, but what about popular music?

There are a couple that I like:
Cab Calloway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBk3jwNSteo

Screamin Jay Hawkins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kGPhpvqtOc

''The thrill is gone'' with Ella Mae Morse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-CqEY0ShTA

But otherwise I can't seem to find much that interests me.
Can you recommend any other artists from this era that vent the inner ghoul/sorcerer/manic depressive? 1920s-1950s.

 

[Atticus Finch]

Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit. About as dark and sad as you can get.

AF

 

[Nobert]

The blues?

Or more in the popular vein?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doDuyw-IfRw

Or somewhere between:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vDm1lomVHU

One of my perennial favorites, albeit a familiar one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F4yT0KAMyo

There's plenty of melancholy expressed in all kinds of old songs, I'm sure there's an ample list.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Artie Shaw and his Orchestra -- Gloomy Sunday (1940)

[video=youtube;EkojinjvlpM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkojinjvlpM[/video]

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Carlos Gardel -- Sus Ojos Se Cerraron (1935)
(She Closed Her Eyes)
-- Tango by its nature is sad and tragic but this one by the great Carlos Gardel has an especially powerful poignancy.

Lyrics (translation)

She closed her eyes and the world kept going
Her lips that were mine no longer kiss me
The echoes of her rich laughter have faded
And this cruel silence hurts me so

Mine was the gentle mercy of her hands
That soothed my sorrows with kind caresses
And now buried in my grief when I remember her
The entwined tears refuse to flow
And I don't have the consolation of being able to cry

Why did its cruel wings snuff out her life
Why this sinister grimace of fate?
I wanted to protect her but death was stronger
How much I hurt and how deep is my wound

I know that now strange faces will come
With their charity of comfort for my torment
Everything is a lie, a lie their lament
Today my heart is alone

Like dogs of prey the traitorous troubles
Hanging over her galloped at her heels
And hidden in the liquid of her sweet glance
Crouching death marked her life's end

In vain I nourished a feverish hope
Suffering dug its claws into my living flesh
While in the streets the carnival of life
Flourished and laughed in crazy riot
Mocking the fate that stole her love from me

 

[Stanley Doble]

Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, Man of Constant Sorrow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLKltv26-00

Ralph Stanley O Death

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q-QH1XiCQw

Bill Monroe, Wayfaring Stranger (unplugged)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI92oDdXazg

The Saddest Music In The World

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyAlgfHgrk0

Bessie Smith, St. Louis Blues (My man's got a heart like a rock in the sea)

1929 music video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Who6fTHJ34

Bessie Smith - Louis Armstrong, Sobbin' Hearted Blues

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9SQdSLW27Q

 

[LizzieMaine]

Look up Al Jolson's version of "Brother Can You Spare A Dime?" You'll never forget it.

 

[Nobert]

Another Armstrong, in a similar mode as St. James Infirmary:

[video=youtube;V5tRFk540mk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5tRFk540mk[/video]

 

[Shangas]

Not exactly 'sad' or 'creepy', but here's a bit of dark humor from Henry Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra:

[video=youtube;Bh0QZvHdSKo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh0QZvHdSKo[/video]

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Harold "Scrappy" Lambert -- Ready For The River (1928)

[video=youtube;AiKHSTpiDGs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiKHSTpiDGs[/video]

Tell the world that I'm all through with it
No more will I moan, burn my home
What can I do with it? Can't live all alone
No use wasting time I just know that I'm

Ready for the river, the shivery river
That river that goes down to the sea
I just want to drown my trouble
And leave just a bubble
To indicate what used to be me
I made my will, wrote some notes
Gonna keep a walkin' till my straw hat floats
I said I'm ready for the river, the shivery river
So get the river ready for me

Swanee River, Mississippi
Old Missouri, Wabash too
If I had you all around me
I'd jump into all of you
Bring on your water, cold and deep
On your bosom let me sleep
Nile or Danube and the The Somme
All you rivers, bring em' on
Bring em' on. Bring em' on
Bring on your river, bring em' on

Ready for the river, the shivery river
That river that goes down to the sea
I just want to drown my trouble
And leave just a bubble
To indicate what used to be me
I made my will, wrote some notes
Gonna keep a walkin' till my straw hat floats
I said I'm ready for the river, the shivery river
So get the river ready for me and bathe me
Get the river ready for me

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Al Jolson -- Four Walls (1928)

[video=youtube;jFVQ7TBQZlc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFVQ7TBQZlc[/video]

 

[Two Types]

Metatron: Strange Fruit was the first song that came to mind. Although it was from the 1960s, loads of stuff by Jacques Brel might suit your tastes. There's lots of dark humour in amidst the gloom.

PM me with your address and I'll send you something that will fulfil your taste for "sinister/dramatic/brooding music": It's a truly odd and sinister piece of Romanian folk music.

 

[Denton]

Interesting question. My first thought was the Busby Berkeley staging of "Lullaby of Broadway":

[video=youtube;sAY3N9f2s00]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAY3N9f2s00[/video]

An extraordinary scene in which the "Broadway baby" is danced to death by a crowd of energetic dancers. I am not of the school that automatically interprets repetition of any kind as emblematic of fascism, but I feel that Berkeley is having some kind of conversation about fascism in this scene. Also something dark and fascinating in Berkeley's vision of the human body. I especially like the effect where Winnie Shaw's face slowly rotates 180 degrees and turns into lower Manhattan.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Also in the finale of 42nd Street there's a vignette of a woman who is murdered by her abusive husband or boyfriend.

 

[Nobert]

How could I have forgotten this one?

[video=youtube;fZWdn9CNwbk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZWdn9CNwbk[/video]

 

[Metatron]

Thanks for the suggestions so far.
You weren't kidding about Strange Fruit.
That is dark.

 

[Mahagonny Bill]

I find a lot of the early Duke Ellington work dark and brooding. Case in point:

[video=youtube;GN3_c1OnA3s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN3_c1OnA3s[/video]

 

[Shangas]

How about "Nobody's Sweetheart", from 1927?

[video=youtube;tdAc3m-t2YY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdAc3m-t2YY[/video]

 

[hatophile]

Stanley Doble points out some good tunes, also your Appalachian murder ballads, many of which have been recorded by modern artists, some listed here:
http://xobba.com/09/the-great-murder-ballads-of-appalachian-folk-music/

 

[vitanola]

[video=youtube_share;UhZVAMvSaqE]http://youtu.be/UhZVAMvSaqE[/video]