Barking Dog: January 22, 2026
Lillie Steele - The Cuckoo
This is from a 1958 album of banjo tunes recorded by Steele’s husband, Pete
The couple lived in Hamilton, Ohio, though they were both originally from Kentucky and often performed music they learned as children
This is a traditional English folk song also popular in the US, Canada, Scotland, and Ireland
This is a fragment of the song, which was the first song Steele remembered learning
Her father sang it to her as a lullaby
Judy Mayhan - The Cuckoo
She’s a musician from the midwest who studied music at the University of Kansas and later hitchhiked to New York City to take part in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s
There, musician Dave Van Ronk introduced her to the Appalachian mountain dulcimer, with which she accompanied herself on her recordings
This is from her 1968 album Folk Songs of Old Eire
Martin Simpson, Wu Man - The Coo Coo Bird
Simpson is an English folk musician who began playing professionally in 1970 and has collaborated with artists including June Tabor and Dom Flemons
Wu Man is a Chinese musician who plays the pipa, a stringed instrument sometimes called the Chinese lute
She’s a member of the Kronos Quartet and has premiered works by composers including Philip Glass and Terry Riley
This is off their 1996 album Music for the Motherless Child
The album was recorded in a single session, and the two artists only met for the first time on that day
David Campbell - Skies of Scotland
He’s a Guyanese-Canadian musician based in Vancouver who began playing professionally in the 1960s
This is from his 1972 album Sun Wheel
The liner notes for the song state, “To me the mountains and lochs of Scotland can help you to renew yourself after the battering of big city life.”
Iron & Wine, Ben Bridwell - I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
Iron & Wine is the stage name of Sam Beam, a singer-songwriter from South Carolina
Bridwell is an American musician best known as the lead singer of Band of Horses
This is off their EP of covers called Making Good Time, which they released in September
It’s a song by U2, first released on their 1987 album The Joshua Tree
José González - Pajarito
He’s an Argentinian-Swedish musician who’s been playing professionally since the early 2000s
This is a single from his forthcoming album Against the Dying of the Light, which comes out in March
He states that the song is about growing up, learning things, and eventually becoming independent
Floyd Red Crow Westerman - Wounded Knee
He was a Sisseton Dakota musician, actor, and activist who collaborated with artists including Jackson Browne, Harry Belafonte, and Joni Mitchell
This is from his 1993 album The Land is Your Mother
Westerman was involved in the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, which members of the Oglala Lakota and the American Indian Movement undertook as a protest against tribal president Richard Wilson and against the US government, which had failed to respect its treaties with Native American people
Christy Moore - Quiet Desperation
He’s an Irish folk musician who’s known as a founding member of the band Planxty as well as a solo artist
He’s been performing since 1969, and this one is off his album Live in Dublin 2006
The song is by Floyd Red Crow Westerman
Damien Dempsey - Ghosts of Overdoses
Dempsey is an Irish musician who’s been playing since the mid 1990s
This comes from his 2003 album Seize the Day
Imarhan - Ahitmanin
They’re a Tuareg desert rock band from Algeria that formed in 2006
This is from their new album Essam, which came out on January 16th
The last stanza of the song translates to “Today, the whole world bears witness to your every action, And it’ll be lying in wait for you sometime in the future, Whether you’re in this world or the next.”
Bessie Jones - Go to Sleepy Little Baby
Bessie Jones was one of the most popular performers of folk music in the 60s and 70s, and is known for spreading African American folk music to a wider audience in the 20th century
Among other things, Jones worked as a midwife and had a lot of experience caring for babies
She knew this song specifically as a lullaby sung when rocking babies to sleep
The song likely comes from enslaved people in the southern states, and was passed down through the oral tradition
The folklorist Alan Lomax made this recording of Jones in Georgia in October of 1959
Uncle Sinner - Didn’t Leave Nobody But the Baby
Winnipeg
Off his new album Everybody Wants to Know How I Die, which came out on December 11th
Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk - Fixin’ to Die
This song is by Delta blues musician Booker White, who stopped playing music full-time after getting out of the navy in the 1940s, but was located by musician John Fahey and producer Ed Denson in 1963 after Dylan included this song on his first album, which led to White resuming a full-time music career and recording several albums
This was recorded at the Folklore Center in Greenwich Village, New York City in January of 1961
Ian & Sylvia - Pride of Petrovar
Ian & Sylvia were a married duo who performed together from 1959 until their divorce in 1975, and each continued their music careers after their divorce
This is from their 1962 self-titled album
It’s a piece written by Irish songwriters William Percy French and Houston Collisson
Rosa Lee Hill - Rolled and Tumbled
She was a Mississippi Hill Country blues musician and her father was Sid Hemphill, a renowned fife and drum bandleader, who taught her to play guitar when she was six, and by the time she was ten, she was playing local dances with him
This recording was made by Alan Lomax at the home of blues musician Mississippi Fred McDowell in Como, Mississippi in September of 1959
It’s a version of “Roll and Tumble Blues,” first recorded by Hambone Willie Newbern in 1929
Pete Seeger - Los Cuatro Generales
Seeger was a folk singer and activist from New York who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and peace through his music for over 70 years
This was recorded live at Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in February of 1965
This song refers to the four generals who planned to capture Madrid, Spain in the first months of the Spanish Civil War, but never did
Jim Hinde - Smells Like the Bill of Rights is Burning
He was an American musician originally from Ohio who became homeless and rode the rails after returning home as a veteran of the Vietnam War in the 1970s
He later settled in Seattle and began his career as a musician, where he regularly busked at the Pike Place Market and was frequently seen at anti-war rallies
This comes from his 2001 album Hindesight
Aunt Molly Jackson - Hunger
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 organisation
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 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 account is from the 1961 album The Songs and Stories of Aunt Molly Jackson
Malvina Reynolds - Bitter Rain
She was a folksinger from California known particularly for writing the song “Little Boxes,” though she wrote and recorded a large catalogue of music during her career
This is from the 1967 album Malvina Reynolds Sings the Truth
Jan Hammarlund - A Policeman Needs a Riot
He’s a Swedish musician who began his career in the early 1970s
This is off his 2014 album Uncovered: Malvina Reynolds Sung by Jan Hammarlund, a collection of previously unreleased songs by Reynolds, covered by Hammarlund
Margret RoadKnight - If You Love Me
She’s an Australian musician who’s been performing for over 50 years in a variety of genres
This is from her 1988 album An Audience with Margret RoadKnight
As RoadKnight states, the song is by Malvina Reynolds, who included it on her 1975 album Held Over
Lamont Tilden - The Murder of FC Benwell
From the 1958 album Folk Songs of Ontario
Tilden was a radio announcer from Toronto
It’s a ballad about a famous Ontario murder case that happened in 1890
The tune comes from the American ballad “Charles Guiteau,” which is about President Garfield’s assassin
CA & Sonny - Seamus O’Brien
They’re an Ottawa-based duo, and this is from their 2023 album The CA & Sonny Show: Vol. 2
The song is by 19th century Kentucky-born songwriter William Shakespeare Hays, who published it in 1867
The tune became popular as an instrumental piece in the midwest and on the northeast coast of North America
Cara Luft - Portland Town
From Winnipeg
The song is by Derroll Adams, a folk musician from Portland, Oregon
Luft originally recorded the song for her 2012 album Darlingford, though this version came out in November as part of the celebration of Adams’ 100th birthday
Jack Owens & Bud Spires - Hard Times
Owens was a blues musician from Mississippi
He never really aimed to become a professional recording artist, and instead farmed and ran a juke joint for much of his life before being recorded during the folk and blues revival of the 1960s when the musicologist David Evans learned about him from other blues musicians from his region
He toured throughout the US and Europe during the last decades of his life, often with his harmonica-playing friend Bud Spires, who we hear on this recording
It’s their version of Skip James’s “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues”
This recording was made by Hannes and Andrea Folterbauer in Bentonia, Mississippi in September of 1991
Barbecue Bob - We Sure Got Hard Times
Barbecue Bob was a piedmont blues musician from Georgia, who got his name from the job he worked as a cook at a barbecue restaurant
He made this recording in April of 1930
Booker White - Booker T’s Doctor Blues
He was a Delta blues musician originally from Mississippi who began his career playing fiddle at local dances as a teenager and later moved to Memphis, Tennessee in the early 1940s, where he worked a factory job while performing music part-time, before returning to a full-time music career in the 1960s
This recording was made by Gianni Marcucci at White’s home in Memphis in December of 1972
Randy Burns - Any Tuesday in the Rain
He’s a folk musician from Connecticut who moved to New York City in the 1960s and began playing at coffeehouses in Greenwich Village
This is from a collection of recordings made in the late 1960s and released in 2010
Penny Lang - Spanish Moss
She was a folk musician from Montreal who was part of the folk revival of the 1960s
She first began playing professionally in 1963, and later began touring North America, playing folk festivals and coffeehouses throughout Canada and the US
This is from her 1993 album Ain’t Life Sweet
Broom Bezzums - Crooked Jack
They’re a Germany-based British duo that formed in 2005 and recently released Rouse & Raise Your Voice, an album celebrating 20 years of the band
This is the very first song that they sang together
The lyrics were written by Irish writer and singer Dominic Behan and put to the tune of “The Star of the County Down”
It’s about the men who came to Scotland to build hydro-electric dams in the highlands in dangerous and poor conditions, lured in by the promise of good money and a nice work environment
