Barking Dog: January 20, 2022
Dave Van Ronk - Tell Old Bill
A member of the Greenwich Village folk scene in New York City, known as the “Mayor of MacDougal Street”, MacDougal Street being where practically every coffeehouse was located in the 60s
Ronk got this from Bob Gibson, who likely got it from Carl Sandburg’s American Songbag
Soon became a standard for Van Ronk
One of my favourite recordings, ever
Pharis & Jason Romero - Ballad of Old Bill
From Horsefly, BC
This is from their album A Wanderer I’ll Stay from 2015
Robert Russell - Froggie Went A-Courtin’
From a 1978 album of British ballads recorded in Virginia
This recording was made in November of 1936, and Robert Russell was a member of a musical family–his father was a well-known fiddler in the region, and he played with his father and grandfather in a stringband
Folk song of Scottish origin, the most early musical version of which was published in 1611
It has been popular in the southern United States since settlers brought it from Britain, with over 40 different versions of it collected by the mid-20th century
Willie Dunn - School Days
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
This is from his 1999 album Metallic
It’s based on an American popular song of the same name which was written in 1907 by Will D. Cobb and Gus Edwards
Two Gospel Keys - This Heart of Mine
1940s gospel duo, with Emma Daniels singing and playing guitar and Mother Sally Jones singing and playing tambourine
Next to nothing to find about this song, other than the fact that it’s a traditional spiritual
The Stanley County Cutups - Lonesome River
A bluegrass group from Winnipeg that’s been playing together in some form or another for nearly 20 years
This is a Stanley Brothers song from 1951
Artus Moser - I Went Up On the Mountain
He was a folklorist and musician from North Carolina who is known for the folksongs he collected in the Appalachian mountains
This is an Appalachian tall-tale song, the lyrics to which vary widely between versions
The only real lyrical throughline between versions seems to be that the singer is a successful hunter
Annie Watson - The FFV
There are a number of American train wreck songs from the early days of the steam locomotive
This one is based on the true story of the wreck of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway’s Fast Flying Virginian on October 23, 1890
Mother of Doc Watson, whom I often play on the show
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Long Hot Summer Day
From Toronto
This recording is from their new live album, Lively Times, recorded in Vancouver in 2019
It’s a John Hartford song
Fraser Union - Kettle Valley Line
They’re a BC folk group that formed in 1983
This song is from their 2009 album BC Songbook
About a train line that ran across southern BC
Fisk Jubilee Singers - Swing Low Sweet Chariot
They are an a cappella ensemble consisting of students from the historically Black Fisk University of Nashville, Tennessee, which formed in 1871 as a fundraising effort for the university
They are named after the biblical year of jubilee, during which enslaved people began to be emancipated
They decided the name was apt, as most of the students at the university and their families were only recently emancipated from slavery
Their recording of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” is from 1909, and it was the first recording made of the song
The Taylor Sisters - Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
From the second in a set of albums of field recordings from Union County, North Carolina from 1980
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is one of the best-known African American spirituals, and it was written around 1865 by an unknown composer
It was popularised by the Hampton Singers and the Fisk Jubilee Singers, who we heard right before the Taylor Sisters recording
Margaret MacArthur - The Fair Maid by the Shore
She was an American singer and dulcimer player
This song is from her 1975 album The Old Songs
Likely originated in Scotland, and has been found in Ireland and England as well, but it is much more widely spread in the US and particularly in Canada
Eric Bibb, Habib Koité - Send Us Brighter Days
Bibb is an American musician who grew up around well-known musicians like Peter Seeger, Paul Robeson, and Bob Dylan, because his father, Leon Bibb, was a musical theatre singer who was part of the 1960s New York folk scene
He’s been playing guitar since he was seven, when he was given his first steel-string guitar
He’s lived in Sweden for many years, and has continued collaborating with artists like Taj Mahal, Odetta, and Habib Koité, who appeared on that song with him
Habib Koité is a Malian musician who comes from a line of traditional troubadours who provide entertainment and wisdom at gatherings and events
He’s been performing since 1988, and met Bibb in 1997 while recording an album called Mali to Memphis
They stayed in touch and decided to record together again, which resulted in the 2012 album Brothers in Bamako
This song is from that album
John Greenway, Aunt Molly Jackson - Dreadful Memories
Greenway was an American folklorist who specialised in social protest songs
Jackson was a folksinger and union activist from Kentucky who was first arrested at the age of ten due to her family’s involvement in union organization
Her first husband was killed in a mine accident in 1917, and her brother and father were blinded in another mining accident later on
After these events, she became a member of the United Mine Workers and began writing protest songs
She was arrested again because of her involvement in protests, and her second husband, a miner, was forced to divorce her to keep his job
She became known as a singer through her performances at protests, and began recording in 1931
Jackson travelled to New York and got involved in the Greenwich Village folk scene during the 1930s, and spent the rest of her life in New York City, dying in 1960
This song is sung to the same tune as “Precious Memories,” though its theme is much different
Flora Molton, The Truth Band - What’s the Matter Now
She was a partially blind American gospel street musician known for singing and playing slide guitar on the streets of Washington, DC
She was born in 1908, but her first scheduled performance was at a coffee shop in 1963
She proceeded to give concerts, perform at folk festivals, and record her music after that first coffee shop performance
The Truth Band were her backing band on this recording, but it’s unclear who the band consisted of
This was recorded on October 7, 1980 in Washington, DC by Siegfried Christmann
Ian & Sylvia - Nancy Whiskey
Ian & Sylvia performed together from 1959 until their divorce in 1975
Song is a Scottish ballad that first appeared in print in the early 1900s
Title does not refer to a woman, but to the drink
This is from the 2019 album The Lost Tapes, a collection of professional live recordings from the early 70s that Sylvia found in her attic early in 2019 while gathering memorabilia for the National Music Centre in Calgary
Stan Rogers - Free in the Harbour
Born and raised in Ontario, but known for his maritime-influenced music that was informed by his time spent visiting family in Nova Scotia during the summers of his childhood
This is from his 1981 album Northwest Passage
John L Handcox - Mean Things
He was a tenant farmer and union activist from Arkansas, known for his songs and poetry
Charles Seeger and Sidney Robertson recorded him for the Library of Congress in 1937, and other political folksingers began performing his songs
He receded back into obscurity after these recordings, but reemerged in the 1980s for the 50th anniversary of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union in Memphis
Some of his popular songs include “Planter and the Sharecropper,” “Roll the Union On,” and this song, “Mean Things”
It’s related to the earlier song "Strange Things Happening In This Land"
The Union Boys - Hold the Fort / We Shall Not Be Moved
They were a folk supergroup that formed in 1944 to record for the album Songs for Victory: Music for Political Action
Its members were Josh White, Pete Seeger, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Burl Ives, and Tom Glazer
The music to Hold the Fort is by Philip Bliss, and the lyrics are based on a song sung by the British Transport Workers Union which was adapted from an American Civil War song
“We Shall Not Be Moved” is a spiritual and protest song that was first sung in the early 19th century American south
It was popular during the Civil Rights Movement as a protest and union song
Pete Seeger - Let Them Wear Their Watches Fine
He was a folk singer and an activist who, though blacklisted during the McCarthy era, remained a prominent public figure who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and international disarmament through his music
This song is from around 1910 and it’s about the misery of working in a textile mill
Kaia Kater - Moonshiner
Grenadian-Canadian folksinger based on Toronto
Origins of this song are disputed—some believe it comes from Ireland and made its way over to the US, some believe it’s the other way around completely
Her version is from her 2015 album Sorrow Bound
Old Man Luedecke - Lass Vicious
From Chester, NS
This is from his 2010 album My Hands Are on Fire and Other Love Songs
The Wakami Wailers - How We Got Back to the Woods Last Year
They’re a band that formed in 1981 when four employees at Wakami Lake Provincial Park, near Chapleau, Ontario, started playing Canadian folk music together
They have continued playing since then, and have released four albums
This is off their 1985 album The Last of the White Pine Loggers
Song is from the northern Ontario woods, though it was brought to American camps by migrant shantyboys
Lord Invader - God Made Us All
He was a prominent calypso musician from Trinidad who began his music career in the 1930s
His tailor gave him his stage name when he commented, "You should call yourself Lord Invader so when you go up to the city you’ll be invading the capital”—so he did, and headed to the capital city Port of Spain in 1937, where he performed in many calypso competitions and recorded for RCA’s Bluebird label
He later travelled to NYC to record with Decca and promote calypso music to wider audiences
After a few years he returned to Trinidad where he continued to write music and opened his own calypso club
This was recorded in May of 1946 at an event called the Union Hootenanny in New York City
We’ll hear Pete Seeger introduce the song, which Lord Invader composed himself
Willy Mitchell - Call of the Moose
Indigenous musician born in New York in the 50s after his Algonquin and Mohawk parents were refused admittance to a hospital in Cornwall, Ontario
In January 1969 a police officer shot him in the head during a situation involving stolen Christmas lights
He used the money from the resulting settlement to buy a guitar, and formed the Desert River Band, with whom he recorded and toured during the 1970s
This song is included on the 2014 compilation album Native North America
Reverend Pearly Brown - I Know the Lord Will Make a Way
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
Off his 1975 album It's A Mean Old World To Try To Live In
Alan Mills - Cod Liver Oil
Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec who was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1974 for his contributions to Canadian folklore
This is from an album of music recorded at the Newport Folk Festival in 1959 and 1960
Mills adapted the song from a 19th century music hall song that was especially popular in Newfoundland and Ontario
Isaac Curry - Casey Jones
This is from a 1978 album of non-blues secular Black music from Virginia
Curry was known as “Uncle Boo” in his region, and while he played guitar and banjo, he was particularly known for his accordion playing
He learned that song from his father, William Curry, who also played it on accordion
Traditional American song about how Casey Jones and his fireman Sim Webb raced their locomotive to make up for lost time on April 30, 1900, not knowing that there was another train ahead of them on the line
Jones’s friend, Wallace Saunders, started singing the song soon after Jones’s death, to the tune of a popular song known as Jimmie Jones
Uncle Sinner - Shady Grove
Winnipeg
2008 album Ballads and Mental Breakdowns
Traditional Appalachian folk song
There are many variations of this song, with at least 300 stanzas recorded by the early 21st century
Babe Stovall - The Ship is at the Landing
Babe an American Delta blues singer and guitarist from Mississippi
He likely recorded this one in 1968 in New Orleans
There isn’t really any information available about this song, and it only seems to have been recorded by one other group, the Silver Leaf Quartette of Norfolk, in 1928
Dan Tate - Cluck Old Hen
This is from an album of field recordings made of the banjo player Dan Tate of Fancy Gap, Virginia, in the 1960s
Traditional Appalachian fiddle and banjo tune
Glenn Smith - Little Love
From a 1962 album of tunes and songs collected in Grayson and Carroll counties, Virginia, between 1958 and 1961
Smith an old-time fiddler from Hillsville, Virginia who was around 75 when this was recorded
Belton Reese - The McKenzie Case
A field recording made by the folklorist Charles Seeger at the Brevard Plantation in South Carolina in 1939
It’s about the shooting death of Henry L. Garland by S.W. McKenzie in 1910
Glen Neaves - Death of the Lawson Family
A member of the Virginia Mountain Boys from Fries, Virginia
The composer of this song is unknown, though it relates the story of Charlie Lawson, who killed his family and then himself on Christmas in 1929
David Francey - Lonely Road
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who worked as a railyard worker and carpenter for 20 years before pursuing folk music at the age of 45
From his 2018 album, The Broken Heart of Everything
Hobart Smith - The Devil’s Dream
An old- time musician who was rediscovered during the 1960s folk revival
Played in bands with many well-known musicians, including Clarence Ashley, who he had met first at a medicine show in the 30s
