Frankie and Johnny

Elvis recorded a version of Frankie and Johnny - adapted from the traditional ballad for his film of the same name in 1965 (released 1966) by Gottlieb, Karger and Wiseman This story ballad has quite a long history -
My favourite version with it's soulful beat and modernist lyrics is Sam Cook's

Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_and_Johnny_(song)
"Frankie and Johnny" (sometimes "Frankie and Johnnie"; also known as "Frankie and Albert" or just "Frankie") is a traditional American popular song. It tells the story of a woman, Frankie, who finds that her man Johnny was "making love to" another woman and shoots him dead. Frankie is then arrested; in some versions of the song, she is also executed.

It has been suggested that the song was inspired, or its details influenced, by one or more actual murders. One of these took place in St. Louis, Missouri, on October 15, 1899, when Frankie Baker, a 22-year-old dancer, stabbed (or shot) her 17-year-old lover Allen "Al" Britt, who was having a relationship with a woman named Alice Pryor. Britt died of his wounds two days later.On trial, Baker claimed that Britt had attacked her with a knife and that she acted in self-defense; she was acquitted and died in a Portland, Oregon mental institution in 1952.

The song has also been linked to Frances Silver, convicted in 1832 of murdering her husband Charles Silver in Burke County, North Carolina. Unlike Frankie Baker, Silver was executed.
In 1899, popular St Louis balladeer Bill Dooley composed "Frankie Killed Allen" shortly after the Baker murder case.
The first published version of the music to "Frankie and Johnny" appeared in 1904, credited to and copyrighted by Hughie Cannon, the composer of "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey"; the piece, a variant version of whose melody is sung today, was titled "He Done Me Wrong" and subtitled "Death of Bill Bailey".
Another variant of the melody, with words and music credited to Frank and Bert Leighton, appeared in 1908 under the title "Bill You Done Me Wrong"; this song was republished in 1912 as "Frankie and Johnny", this time with the words that appear in modern folk variations:
Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts
They had a quarrel one day,
Johnny he vowed that he would leave her
Said he was going away,
He's never coming home, etc.

Also:
Frankie took aim with her forty-four,
Five times with a rooty-toot-toot.

Above - the Elvis version with a New Orleans Jazz feel.
Robert Matthew Walker - in ELVIS - A Study in Music commented -
".. Presley seems uninterested, although well done, it's not a considered performance, and one can only assume it was an off-day"

The 1912 "Frankie and Johnny" by the Leighton Brothers and Ren Shields also identifies "Nellie Bly" as the new girl to whom Johnny has given his heart. What has come to be the traditional version of the melody was also published in 1912, as the chorus to the song "You're My Baby", with music is attributed to Nat. D. Ayer.
The familiar "Frankie and Johnny were lovers" lyrics first appeared (as "Frankie and Albert") in On the Trail of Negro Folksongs by Dorothy Scarborough, published in 1925; a similar version with the "Frankie and Johnny" names appeared in 1927 in Carl Sandburg's The American Songbag.
Several students of folk music have asserted that the song long predates the earliest published versions; according to Leonard Feather in his Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz it was sung at the Siege of Vicksburg (1863) during the American Civil War and Sandburg said it was widespread before 1888, while John Jacob Niles reported that it emerged before 1830. The fact, however, that the familiar version does not appear in print before 1925 is "strange indeed for such an allegedly old and well-known song," according to music historian James J. Fuld, who suggests that it "is not so ancient as some of the folk-song writers would have one believe."

Since "Frankie and Johnny" is a traditional song there is no single definitive version of the lyrics. Several versions were collected by Robert Winslow Gordon. The refrain common to most versions is: "He was her man, but he was doing her wrong." The name of the song's "other woman" varies, Alice or Nellie Bly being the most usual ones. The gunshot that kills Johnny is often depicted by the onomatopoeia "rooty toot toot." Many versions open with the quatrain: "Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts/Lordy, how they could love/They vowed to love one another/Underneath the stars above." Another common opening is:"Frankie was a good girl/everybody knows/she paid a hundred dollars/for Al's one suit of clothes." A common conclusion is: "This story has no moral/This story has no end/This story only goes to show/That there ain't no good in men."

There are over 250 versions of the song and several films including the Presley version c 1966. More detail here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_and_Johnny_(song)

Frankie and Johnny and Stagger Lee
" Less than 24 hours after Frankie Baker pulled that trigger, a ballad telling her story was already being sold on the city's street corners. Allen wasn't even dead yet - he didn't finally succumb to his wounds until October 19 - but already the balladeers had him six feet under.

The song's been in constant circulation ever since.
The fact that Allen's murder took place just a few blocks from where Stagger Lee had killed Billy Lions four years before means the two ballads have always tended to get tangled up with one another, swapping fragments of their lyrics at will. It's no surprise that many of Frankie's musical biographers - Cash, Dylan, Presley - have tackled Stag's story too, but what is unique about her is the degree of interest that Hollywood's always shown. " Read more here http://www.planetslade.com/frankie-and-johnny1.html