In these songs, the murderer posing as the narrator asked a girl to walk with him to talk about marriage; he then attacked and killed her, throwing her body into the river, a crime for which he would be hanged.
[3][5][6][7] "Banks of the Ohio" also has some superficial similarity to "Omie Wise" and "Pretty Polly", songs which are also generally narrated in the first person by a killer called Willie, but differing significantly in the narrative; the killer explains why he killed his love, and spends much of the song expressing his sorrow and regret.
[4] The Blue Sky Boys partly rearranged the song and their version appears on the soundtrack of the 1973 film Paper Moon.
It was released as the second single from the album after its title track "If Not for You", and it became her first number one hit in Australia, reaching the top of the Go-Set Chart in November 1971.
[24] Lomax made a further field recording, in 1961, at his New York City apartment, featuring veteran singer Clarence Ashley, accompanied by Fred Price (fiddle), and Clint Howard and Doc Watson (guitars).
Artists who returned the song to country music audiences included Johnny Cash with The Carter Family and Porter Wagoner.
Other recordings were made by The Wolfe Tones, Arlo Guthrie (as "Arloff Boguslavaki", on the 1972 Earl Scruggs album I Saw the Light), Dave Guard and the Whiskeyhill Singers, Mike Ireland and Holler, Gangstagrass featuring Alexa Dirks also giving a faithful rendition on their 2014 album Broken Hearts and Stolen Money.
[citation needed] The song appears in, and gives the title for, the 2013 album Oh, Willie, Please... a collection of folk murder ballads, by alt-folk musical project Vandaveer.
[30] A German version, titled "Das Haus am Rhein" was released in Michael Holm's 1981 album "Im Jahr der Liebe".