Uploaded December 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Sands Hall with Kit Bailey on percussion performing Long Black Veil at the Nevada Theater, Nevada City, CA October 13, 2022
Written in 1959 by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin, “Long Black Veil” has been with me for as long as I’ve played guitar. When I was about nine or ten, playing it for my parents’ long suffering dinner guests, I remember my dad, who was a writer, saying, “Just listen at that point of view: he’s telling this story from beyond the grave!” At that point I wasn’t entirely clear what a point of view was, but I loved that phrase, and what thrilled me was that the love (never mind the point of view) came from beyond the grave.
When my mother was getting to the end of her life and a lot of memories had faded away, the chorus of this song hadn’t; she’d put her head back and open her mouth and hang on those wonderful vowels as she sang: long black veil, cold winds wail
Sands Hall with Kit Bailey on percussion performing Long Black Veil at the Nevada Theater, Nevada City, CA October 13, 2022
Written in 1959 by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin, “Long Black Veil” has been with me for as long as I’ve played guitar. When I was about nine or ten, playing it for my parents’ long suffering dinner guests, I remember my dad, who was a writer, saying, “Just listen at that point of view: he’s telling this story from beyond the grave!” At that point I wasn’t entirely clear what a point of view was, but I loved that phrase, and what thrilled me was that the love (never mind the point of view) came from beyond the grave.
When my mother was getting to the end of her life and a lot of memories had faded away, the chorus of this song hadn’t; she’d put her head back and open her mouth and hang on those wonderful vowels as she sang: long black veil, cold winds wail
