Barking Dog: October 31, 2024
This Week’s Theme: HALLOWEEN 🎃
We put this week’s show together with Halloween in mind, so you’ll hear more spooky, supernatural songs than usual today.
Jackson C Frank - The Spectre
He was a musician from New York who’s known for writing the song “Blues Run the Game”
He only recorded one album, and had a difficult life, during which he struggled with depression and found it hard to maintain his career
Although he influenced many well-known musicians including Paul Simon and Nick Drake, he was never commercially successful, though interest in his music was revived later in his life and many of his recordings have been re-released in recent years
He recorded this one in 1997 in Woodstock, New York
It’s one of his final recordings, which were going to be part of a new record before he passed away in 1999
Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen - Ghost of Tom Joad
This was included on the 2007 Appleseed Recordings album Sowing the Seeds, which they released in celebration of their 10th anniversary
Appleseed was founded in 1997 to “explore the roots and branches of folk and world music and sow the seeds of social justice through music”
Springsteen wrote the song, and it’s the title track from his 11th album
The title refers to the protagonist of John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath
John Jackson - Graveyard Blues
He was a piedmont blues musician and grave digger from Virginia who had given up playing music in his community by the time folklorist Chuck Perdue found him in 1949
Arhoolie Records released his first recordings in the early 60s, and he toured Europe, played folk festivals, and recorded for a few other record companies during that time
This is from his 1992 album Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down
He got the song from a 78 recording by Jim Jackson
Buddy Moss - Undertaker Blues
He was a piedmont blues musician from Georgia who performed for over 40 years, beginning in 1930
He recorded this one in 1936
Fiver - Hair of the Dead
Stage name of Toronto-based artist Simone Schmidt
This is from a 2017 album of fictional field recordings collected from the files of people who were incarcerated at the Rockwood Asylum for the Criminally Insane in Kingston, Ontario between 1856 and 1881
The album is called Audible Songs from Rockwood
Carl Sandburg - I Could Not Find My Baby-O!
He was a Pulitzer-prize-winning poet, writer, and editor from Illinois who compiled a book called The American Songbag in 1927, which presented folk songs from across the United States
He performed many of those songs at lectures and poetry recitals, accompanying himself on guitar several decades before the folk revival of the 50s and 60s popularised the idea of the urban folk singer
It’s a lullaby that’s likely Gaelic in origin, as there are several lullabies from the Orneys and Hebrides that tell of a child who is carried away by fairies, and whose mother searches for him in vain
He recorded his version in the early 1950s
Lonnie Johnson - Blue Ghost Blues
American blues and jazz singer born into a family of Louisiana musicians in 1899
Pioneer of jazz guitar and jazz violin
Recognized as the first to play an amplified violin and as one of the originators of the single-string guitar solos that are so popular in contemporary rock, blues, and jazz
He recorded this one for Okeh Records in 1927
George Carter - Ghost Woman Blues
He was a blues musician who likely came from Georgia and played a 12-string guitar
Not much is known about him aside from that—he recorded only four songs for Paramount Records in 1929, and some believe “George Carter” could have been a pseudonym for the Atlanta blues musician Charley Lincoln
Michael Hurley - Ghost Woman Blues
Michael Hurley is a member of the 1960s Greenwich Village scene who is still active, also a cartoonist and painter
This is off his long-lost 1984 album Blue Navigator
The record label that first released the album burned down three years after its release, taking with it the master tapes, and the album was mostly available as an obscure import CD for years
It’s his version of George Carter’s song
Jerron Paxton - Tombstone Disposition
Contemporary Los Angeles musician whose style draws from recordings made before World War II
This song is from his new album Things Done Changed, which came out on October 18
Fred Eaglesmith - Killing Me
He’s an Ontario musician who hopped a freight train going west as a teenager and began writing and performing his music
This is from his 2008 album Tinderbox
William Mooney - Tailypo
Mooney is an actor and Grammy-nominated storyteller from Arkansas who moved to New York in the early 1960s to pursue a theatre career
This is from the 1966 recording of his own stage show, Half Horse, Half Alligator, which opened in 1964 and had a successful run at different theatres across the United States
“Tailypo” is a classic Appalachian folktale
Fraser Union - The Ghost Program
They’re a BC folk group that formed in 1983
This song is from their 2000 album From There to Here
The song is by Canadian musician, songwriter, and programmer Zeke Hoskin
Daniela Gesundheit, Old Man Luedecke, Tony Dekker - Welcome to the Dark
From the National Parks Project, a 2011 music and film project to mark the 100th anniversary of the creation of the Canadian national parks system
Sent 3 musicians and a filmmaker to one of the 13 Canadian national parks to create and score a short documentary film about the park
This is the result of the Cape Breton Highlands project
John Angaiak - I’d Walk a Mile for My Girl
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 song comes from an album inspired by his work preserving his native language, with the first side entirely in the Yup’ik language, and the second in English
Ola Belle Reed - Over Yonder in the Graveyard
She was an American musician from Ashe County, North Carolina
She was born to a musical family, and her uncle Dockery Campbell taught her to play the banjo as a child, while her mother and grandmother taught her songs and ballads
Reed formed the band The New River Boys and Girls with her brother Alex, and they went on to open the New River Ranch music park in Maryland, which hosted a number of well-known artists
This is from the 1977 album Ola Belle Reed & Family
The song is also known as “Undone in Sorrow,” and it’s her own song
VC Clinton-Baddeley, Pauline Letts, C Day Lewis - Walter de la Mare: The Ghost
This is off the 1973 album Poems by WB Yeats & Poems for Several Voices, narrated by VC Clinton-Baddeley
This poem is by Walter de la Mare, and Clinton-Baddeley is joined by the actress Pauline Letts and the poet C Day Lewis
De la Mare was an English poet and writer known for his children’s poems and his ghost stories
The John Renbourn Group - Death & the Lady
John Renbourn was an English musician known for founding the folk group Pentangle with Bert Jansch
This is off the 1977 album A Maid in Bedlam
It’s a traditional English ballad, which is possibly related to the American ballad “A Conversation with Death”
Big Joe Williams - Haunted House Blues
A Delta blues musician from Mississippi, best known for the unique sound of his 9 string guitar
He began his recording career in 1934 and remained a prominent artist into the 50s and 60s, when many of his contemporaries were rediscovered during the folk revival
He became popular amongst folk blues fans and even toured Europe and Japan
This comes from his 1971 album Nine String Guitar Blues
It was recorded in Chicago in 1961
David Francey - Empty Train
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who worked manual labour jobs for 20 years before pursuing folk music at the age of 45
This is off his 2016 album of the same name
Aaron Kramer - Halloween
He was a poet, social activist, and translator from New York
That poem is from his 1957 album Serenade by Aaron Kramer: Reading His Own and Other Poems by Poets of New York
Vashti Bunyan - Wishwandrer
She’s an English musician who began playing in the 1960s but quit in 1970 after her debut album sold few copies
The album slowly built a cult following, however, and Bunyan began playing and recording again in the early 2000s
She’s since released 2 more albums, the last in 2014
This song comes from the 2007 compilation album Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind: Singles and Demos 1964-1967
Raffi - Skin and Bones
He’s an Armenian-Canadian children’s musician who’s been active since the 1970s and is known for songs like “Baby Beluga” and “Bananaphone”
He included this song on his 1977 album More Singable Songs
It’s a popular ghost song that’s been collected on both sides of the Atlantic
Wilf Carter - Awaiting the Chair
He was a very well-known country musician from Nova Scotia known as Wilf Carter in Canada and as Montana Slim in the US
He recorded the song in 1935 for Bluebird Records
AA Bondy - How Will You Meet Your End
Musician from Birmingham, Alabama who’s been playing since 1990
The song is from his 2007 album American Hearts, though this is a demo
Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir - Dark Holler
Raucous folk blues band from Calgary that played from 2001 to 2013
This is from their 2008 album Ten Thousand
Shel Silverstein - Dreadful
He was a cartoonist, playwright, and songwriter, though he was best known as the author of popular children’s books like The Giving Tree and Where the Sidewalk Ends, which is where that poem is from
Alan Mills - Little Jean Went Through the Woods
Mills a 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 comes from his 1957 album French Folk Songs for Children in English
It’s described as “One of the favourite songs of French-Canadian children, despite its rather unfortunate circumstances”
Wilmoth Houdini - The Devil Behind Me
He was a calypso musician from Trinidad and Tobago who began his career in 1916 as a member of a large carnival group
He began his recording career in the United States in the late 1920s, and released over 100 78s between 1928 and 1940
This is one of those tracks, recorded in 1935 with his Calvary Bamboo Band
Bill Shute, Lisa Null - The Cruel Mother
Null was a folk musician who performed around the Washington, DC area for more than 40 years
Shute is a former member of The Fifth Estate, a rock band formed in Connecticut in 1963
He and Null met in the 70s and began touring nationally and internationally together, playing traditional music
Null later returned to university to pursue graduate studies in history, folklore, and anthropology
This one is from their 1980 album American Primitive
This is a popular English murder ballad that dates back at least to the early 1600s
Shute and Null found their version in Bertrand Bronson’s 1959 book The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads
Moving Star Hall Singers - Gullah Folk Tale: Barney McCabe
The Moving Star Hall Singers were all lifelong residents of Johns Island, South Carolina, their ages ranging from 25 to 65 years old
Though the island was poor and younger generations weren’t as involved with preserving cultural traditions, the group of islands that Johns Island is part of has been referred to as one of the heartlands of American music
This is from a 1964 album recorded live at the Sea Island Folk Festival, which musician and musicologist Guy Carawan organized after spending five winters living and working with the people of the Sea Islands
This is a version of “Hansel and Gretel”
The liner notes state that “he” and “she” were used interchangeably on Johns Island, and referred to both men and women
Andrew Bird - My Sister’s Tiny Hands
Musician from Illinois known especially for his use of violin and whistling in his music
This is off his 2014 album Things Are Really Great Here, Sort Of…
It’s a song by the Handsome Family, released in 1998
Homesick James - King Dracula
He was a slide guitarist and blues singer from Tennessee who was born into a family of musicians and played with artists including Sonny Boy Williamson II and Big Joe Williams, who we heard earlier
This is the title track from a 2017 album released by the Music Maker Relief Foundation
It was recorded at his family home in Tennessee in 1995
Tracy Schwarz - Graveyard
Schwarz is a fiddle player from New York City who’s a former member of the New Lost City Ramblers
This is off his 1975 album Look Out! Here It Comes
He got the song from Cousin Emmy, and he says of it “To me, this song means Kentucky”
Arnie Naiman - Mystery
