Barking Dog: January 2, 2025
Thai Hill Tribe Musicians - HmongNew Year Drinking Song
From the 2012 album Songs of Courtship and Celebration (Sung by Men of the Golden Temple), recorded by John Moore for his Indigenius label
The Hmong are an ethnic group indigenous to China, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar
Moore recorded this track in Thailand
Johnny Cash - Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes
This is from the first volume of his bootleg series, recorded between 1973 and 1982 released in 2006
The lyrics of the song are the poem “To Celia,” written by the English playwright Ben Jonson in 1616
John Angaiak - You Make My Life Sweet / Ak’a Tamaani
A Yup’ik singer-songwriter born in Nightmute, Alaska in 1941
After serving in Vietnam in the US Armed Forces, he enrolled in the University of Alaska and became active in the school’s indigenous language workshop
This is from a 1983 album recorded live in Nuuk, Greenland as part of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference’s third General Assembly
Mad River - Love’s Not the Way to Treat a Friend
They were an American psychedelic rock band that were active in the 1960s and were briefly popular after author Richard Brautigan learned of them and introduced them to the hippie subculture
We hear Brautigan on this track from 1969, reading his poem of the same name
Lead Belly - Backwater Blues
Born in Louisiana in late 1880s
Went to prison in Texas in 1918, but was released early by singing a song for the governor of Texas
He was incarcerated again in 1930, and the ethnomusicologists and folklorists John and Alan Lomax met him in prison while they were making field recordings of inmates
Once he was released, he became widely known for both his blues and folk recordings
He recorded this one in 1944, with Paul Mason Howard accompanying him on the zither
It was written by blues singer Bessie Smith in the late 1920s about a flood that occurred in Nashville, Tennessee on Christmas Day, 1926
Bob Dylan - Backwater Blues
This is a recording from his first concert, given at the Carnegie Chapter Hall on the fifth floor of Carnegie Hall on November 4, 1961, just 11 months after he arrived in New York
Cara Luft - Black Water Side
From Winnipeg
Traditional folk song that likely originated near River Blackwater in Ulster, Ireland
This is from her 2011 album Black Water Side and Other Favourites
The Deep Dark Woods - Rosin the Beau
Band from Saskatoon
This is from the album Broadside Ballads Vol. II, from 2020
The tune is regularly referred to as “Rosin the Beau” on this side of the Atlantic, but it was written by the Irish poet Riocard Bairéad (anglicised as Richard Barrett) in the 18th century with the title “Eoghan Coir” (Owen Core)
“Rosin the Beau” was first published in Philadelphia in the early 19th century, though it’s likely older than that, and it’s been found throughout North America, Ireland, and England
Gordon Bok - All My Friends
Bok is a folklorist and musician from Maine who’s released almost 40 albums since the mid-1960s
This is from his 1981 album Jeremy Brown and Jeannie Teal
It’s a traditional song first collected by the English folklorist Cecil Sharp on a trip to the Appalachian region of the United States, where he recorded songs and ballads that likely originated in the UK
Art Bouman - Poor Boy Long Way from Home
He’s a Halifax-based banjo player who’s interested in reclaiming the banjo as a traditional instrument of the African diaspora and highlighting the Black banjo players whose work has historically been overlooked
This is a single released by Big Turnip Records in 2024
Traditional blues song of unknown origin also known as “Poor Boy Blues”
The Travelers 3 - Gotta Travel On
They were an American folk trio active during the 1960s, and were later recruited into the original lineup of the New Christy Minstrels
They included this on their 1962 self-titled debut album
The song was written by Paul Clayton, The Weavers, Larry Ehrlich, and Dave Lazer around 1958
Lionel Long - The Black Velvet Band
He was an Australian country and folk musician, actor, and artist who was one of the most popular Australian artists during the 1960s
This is from his first album, Waltzing Matilda, from 1961
This is a traditional folk song collected in Ireland, England, Australia, and North America
It relates the story of a young man who is used as a patsy by the girl he’s infatuated with, and is sentenced to transportation to Australia, which was a common form of punishment in the British Empire in the 19th century when Australia was used as a prison colony
Bukka White - High Fever Blues
After serving in the US Navy in the early 1940s, he settled in Tennessee and put his music career on hold, but the musician John Fahey and producer Ed Denson searched for White and found him in 1963, which revived his career
He recorded a new album for Denson and Fahey’s record label, Takoma Records, and Denson became his manager
He continued to play and record until his death in 1977
He recorded this one for Vocalion Records around 1940
Buddy Wasisname and The Other Fellers - Peggy Gordon
They’re a comedic musical trio from Newfoundland that’s been performing since the early 1980s
This is from their 1992 album The Miracle Cure
“Peggy Gordon” is a folk song that’s been widely collected on the east coast of Canada
Stompin’ Tom Connors - Don’t Fence Me In
He was a musician from New Brunswick known for a number of classic Canadian songs like “Bud the Spud” and “The Hockey Song”
Connors grew up poor in Saint John, and first began hitchhiking at the age of 13
He was still hitchhiking around the country in his 20s, and found himself at a bar in Timmins, Ontario, where the bartender offered him a second beer if he played a few songs
From those songs, he got a 14-month run as an entertainer at the bar, a radio show, and a recording career
"Don't Fence Me In" is a popular song written in 1934 by Cole Porter and Robert Fletcher for the unproduced film Adios, Argentina
It was later repurposed for the 1944 film Hollywood Canteen, in which it's sung by Roy Rogers
This is from the 4th volume of unreleased songs by Connors, titled Let’s Smile Again, from 2021
Jerry Garcia, David Grisman - A Horse Named Bill
Garcia was a musician from California, best known as a main member of the Grateful Dead
David Grisman is a mandolinist who combines folk, jazz, and bluegrass in a genre he calls “Dawg music”
This is off the recently released compilation album Bare Bones, Vol. 1: The Duo Recordings
Well-known nonsense folk song likely popularized through Carl Sandburg’s American Songbag, an anthology of American folk songs published in 1927
Nimrod Workman - Forty-Two Years
American singer, coal miner, and union organiser who spent much of his life in West Virginia
Workman worked as a coal miner for 42 years until he had to retire because he contracted black lung
After his retirement, he advocated for miners with black lung and also became known as a folk singer
He performed all around the Appalachian region and at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival
He also received a National Heritage Fellowship from the United States National Endowment for the Arts, the highest honour in folk art in the US
Died in November, 1994 at the age of 99
This comes from the 1974 album Passing Thru the Garden, which was the first release on the June Appal Recordings label
This is his own song, and it was included in the opening scenes of the 1976 documentary Harlan County USA
Josh White - Defense Factory Blues
American musician who started playing music in the late 20s and gained fame as a blues, jazz, and folk musician, as well as a film and Broadway actor
This is his own song, from 1941
The McMillan’s Camp Boys - So Long to the Kicking Horse Canyon
They’re a band originally from British Columbia, now based in Nova Scotia
This is from their EP So Long to the Kicking Horse Canyon & Other Folk Songs, which they released in August
The Kicking Horse Canyon lies between Golden and Lake Louise in BC, and the musician Stanley Triggs adapted the song himself from an old cowboy tune after a rough time pouring concrete with a construction gang in minus-42-degree weather
Martha Schlamme - Yodel Song
She was an Austrian-American singer and actress
This is from her 1954 album German Folk-Songs, which features Pete Seeger accompanying her on the banjo
This is a song from the Bodensee region of Germany, which borders Austria and Switzerland
Judy Dyble - Satisfied Mind
She was an English musician best known as a founding member of the band Fairport Convention
This is off the 2015 album Anthology: Pt. One
It’s a country song written by Jack Rhodes and Red Hayes in 1947
Blind Arvella Gray - Take Your Burden to the Lord
He was a blues, gospel, and folk musician from Texas who spent the latter half of his life busking in Chicago
Bob Dylan stated that he learned many of his early songs from Gray
This is from his only album, The Singing Drifter, from 1973
The song is a spiritual composed by African American minister Charles A Tindley in 1916
Nina Bartley Finn - Cruel Mother
A field recording made by the folklorist Helen Creighton in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia in 1943
This is a popular English murder ballad that dates back at least to the early 1600s
Reverend Pearly Brown - Another Child of God Gone Home
He was a blues musician from Georgia who was known mainly as a street performer
He was blind from birth, but received an education at a school for blind people and completed eight grades in six years
He was later ordained a minister and began singing on the streets in 1939
This one is off his 1975 album It's A Mean Old World To Try To Live In
Molly Scott - Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies
She’s a folksinger, poet, psychologist, and educator who began her career in New York City and even had her own children’s TV show on CBS called “Around the Corner”
This is from her 1961 album Waitin’ On You and Other Folksongs
It’s a traditional Appalachian ballad
Bob Zentz - Bob
Virginia musician who specializes in historical maritime music, and has a repertoire of over 2000 songs
This is from the 2017 album Together Again for the First Time, which Zentz recorded live with his friend Gordon Bok (who we heard earlier) at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago in 1979
The song was written by Jack Clement and Vincent Matthews for the Willis Brothers, who recorded it in 1967
Valerie Lopez - Don’t Let the Rain Come Down
I can’t find any information at all about the artist, but the song is based on the nursery rhyme “There Was a Crooked Man,” and it was first recorded by Jimmie Rodgers in 1960, though it gained popularity through the Serendipity Singers’ 1964 version
Old Man Luedecke - Old High Way of Love
From Chester, NS
Off his 2015 album Domestic Eccentric, which he recorded inside a cabin he built in his backyard
Mississippi Fred McDowell - Red Cross Store Blues
He was a hill country blues musician originally from Tennessee, though he moved to Mississippi in 1928 and continued to farm there full-time while playing music on the weekends
His music caught the attention of producers and blues fans in the early 1960s due to the recordings Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins made of him while travelling across the southern states to collect field recordings
Within a couple of years of this attention, he became a professional musician and recording artist who played at folk festivals and toured clubs around the world
He recorded this one at his home in Como, Mississippi in April of 1962
Winnie Winston - John Henry
He was an award-winning pedal steel and banjo player from New York City who played with artists like Bill Monroe, Steve Goodman, and the Greenbriar Boys
This is from the 1964 compilation album Old Time Banjo Project, released by Elektra Records
Robert Pete Williams - I Want to Die Easy
Louisiana blues musician born in 1914
He played at small community events after buying a guitar, and played in the lumber yards where he worked between the 30s and 50s
In 1956 he was discovered in Louisiana State Penitentiary by two ethnomusicologists, who recorded him playing songs about prison life
The ethnomusicologists, Harry Oster and Richard Allen, pressured the parole board into issuing a pardon for Williams, and in December, 1958, he was released into “servitude parole”, where he had to work 80 hours of labour a week with only room and board for compensation
His music was becoming popular by this time, and in 1964 he played at the Newport Folk Festival
He toured the US in 1965, and Europe in 1966
This is a traditional African-American spiritual
Blind Willie McTell - Goodbye Blues
He was a piedmont blues and ragtime artist who made many recordings with different companies under different names, but who never had a major hit
Despite his lack of commercial success, he actively played and recorded during the 40s and 50s, unlike many of his peers
He did not live to see the folk revival of the 1960s through which many other bluesmen were rediscovered, but he influenced many artists, including Taj Mahal and The White Stripes
This is from his last recording session, recorded in Atlanta in September of 1956
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Skating on the Harbourfront
Auntie Alice Nāmakelua - Olohena
