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Witch Hunt - history told in music, sound, and story - Episode III - Fits

by Brian O'Connell

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Witch Hunt - history told in music, sound, and story

A rock opera podcast by Brian O'Connell

Available on most podcast streaming platforms and at: www.buzzsprout.com/1359307

The history of the 1692 Salem Witch Trials told through music and story-telling in a format recalling an old time radio drama with a modern experimental proggressive-rock twist. Witch Hunt borrows freely from original sources of information from the time of the trials such as letters, books, poems, transcriptions of the trials themselves, as well as melodies from the Puritan hymn books. The music is highly original art-rock ranging from soft ambient soundscapes to heavy power riffs with many other stops along the way. The narrator provides a story teller voice that weaves a historical thread throughout each episode. Witch Hunt is conceived, written, and produced by Brian O'Connell, who records and produces the show, playing a wide variety of instruments and voice parts.

EPISODE III - Fits

During the extremely cold winter of 1692 an intense frustration has been building in Salem Village, a small farming community up the road from the more prosperous and worldly port city of Salem Town. Many factors are coalescing into a perfect storm: the repressive nature of the Calvinistic Puritan church, the limited prospects for girls and young women, the village resistance to the conservative and overbearing minister Samuel Parris, and a terrifying new war that is breaking out with the French in Canada and their Native allies. During the months of January and February several young girls in the households of Minister Parris and his close ally Thomas Putnam begin to exhibit extremely wild and disturbing behavior. They contort their bodies, go mute and stiff, run about the house wildly, and scream obscenities. The girls are not the first to act in this way, just a few years before in nearby Boston the children of the Goodwin household acted in the same manner, resulting in a neighboring Irish servant woman being put to death as an accused witch. The fits of the girls in Salem Village are determined to be the results of witchcraft and three women are accused, including Minister Parris's slave Tituba.

Episode III Parts:

Part I - Village and Town

Part II - Fear of God (Cambridge Short Tune - Psalm 70)

Part III - King William's War

Part IV - The Fits

Part V - (Cambridge Short Tune reprise)

credits

released March 31, 2021
All music written by Brian O'Connell except "Cambridge Short Tune - Psalm 70" adapted from the Bay Psalm Book, 1698.

Brian O'Connell - voice, piano, upright bass, acoustic 12-string guitar, bri-lo, percussion

Rachel Koppelman - accordion

Milo - screaming

Recorded at Studio Vinniechops, 2020 & 2021


Sources

"Diares of Samuel Sewall" by Samuel Sewall, 1672-1729

"More Wonders of the Invisible World: or the Wonders of the Invisible World Displayed in Five Parts" by Robert Calef, 1700

"A brief and true narrative of some remarkable passages relating to sundry persons afflicted by witchcraft, in Salem Village: which happened from the nineteenth of March, to the fifth of April, 1692" by Deodat Lawson, 1692

"A Modest Inquiry Into The Nature Of Witchcraft" by John Hale, 1702

"Memorable Providences, Relating To Witchcrafts And Possessions" by Cotton Mather, 1689

"A Storm of Witchcraft - The Salem Witch Trials and the American Experience“ by Emerson W. Baker, Oxford University Press, 2015

"In the Devil's Snare - The Salem Witchcraft Crisis" by Mary Beth Norton, Vintage Books, 2002


Support the show (venmo.com/Brian-OConnell-74537)

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Brian O'Connell Massachusetts

Widely known for his inventive and kinetic bass and touch guitar playing with Arukah, Uncle Sammy, Gordon Stone, Gary Backstrom, Dave Brunyak, and Dead Man's Waltz. O'Connell also has a strong compositional approach that is featured in his rock opera and original bands. His most recent solo project is a podcast-rock opera about the Salem Witch Trials called Witch Hunt. www.brianvoconnell.com ... more

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