Barking Dog: October 6, 2022
We kick it off today with music from two people who were born on this day, October 6:
Fannie Lou Hamer - Woke Up This Morning
She was born 105 years ago today
Hamer was a Civil Rights and women’s rights activist who co founded the Freedom Democratic Party and the National Women's Political Caucus
This song is from the 2015 album Songs My Mother Taught Me, which was recorded in 1963
It’s a Civil Rights song adapted from the gospel song “Woke Up This Morning with My Mind Stayed on Jesus"
Flora MacNeil - MacDonald’s First Visit to Glasgow
She was born 94 years ago today
MacNeil was a well-known Scottish Gaelic traditional singer who gained attention when folklorist Alan Lomax recorded her during a trip to Scotland in the early 1950s
This song was written by the Scottish singer William Marshall
It’s what is called a macaronic song, meaning it has lyrics in more than one language
Tia Blake - Jane, Jane
Recorded one album in Paris, spent most of her life as a writer
Also recorded a number of demos in both Paris and Montreal
This song also known as “Children, Go Where I Send Thee”
It’s a traditional African-American spiritual and a cumulative song, like the “Twelve Days of Christmas”, where each verse grows longer than the last
This song is often sung during Christmas
Lorre Wyatt - The Chemical Worker’s Song
An American folksinger from New Jersey known for his collaborations with his friend Pete Seeger
This is off his 1985 debut album Roots and Branches
He learned the song from English folksinger Vin Garbutt, who said about it: “Ron Angel was working for Imperial Chemical Industries when the fact came out that the average life expectancy of a chemical worker was 42 years. Ron was 41, so he handed in notice and wrote this song.”
Fiver - Worship the Sun (Not the Golden Boy)
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 between 1856 and 1881
Oscar Wright - Elkhorn Ridge
He was an old-time musician from West Virginia who played the fiddle and banjo
Unspecified - Ya No Somos Nosotros (We Are No Longer Ourselves)
From a 1975 Folkways Records album of Chilean protest songs, recorded after Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government was overthrown in September of 1973
This song, written by Patricio Manns, expresses frustration with the fact that much of the fertile land in Latin America was (and still is) owned by a small group of people, most of whom were not even from the region
Morley Loon - Agajee Dona Nooch
He was a Cree musician and actor from Mistissini, Quebec
This one’s from his debut album, Northland, My Land, from 1981
The title translates to “To Hunt No More?”
Old Man Luedecke - Tender Is The Night
Folk artist from Chester, NS
This is from his album of the same title, from 2015
Pete Seeger - Tomorrow is a Highway
Pete Seeger was a very influential folk singer and activist who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and other important social causes through his music
This one is from 1961
Seeger wrote it with fellow folksinger Lee Hays
Tony & Irene Salatan - Ala Tipang
Irene Saletan is one of the Kossoy Sisters who we’ve played before on the show
Tony Saletan, her husband, is a folk singer and educator who is credited with the modern rediscovery of the songs “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” and “Kumbaya”
Indonesian folk song that’s about a girl looking for a husband
The words are metaphorical, and describe the girl building a nest for a bird
Stanley Triggs - Lake of Crimson
An anthropologist and photographer from who worked in logging camps, construction camps, in forestry, with survey crews, and on railroad gangs in BC
He also played in coffee houses in the 1960s
Dance tune written by a man in Flatbush, Alberta
Sam Chatmon - I Stand and Wonder
Was a delta blues guitarist and singer
He was part of a well-known Mississippi musical family that started the Mississippi Sheiks, which first consisted of Chatmon, his brothers Lonnie and Bo Carter, and Walter Vinson
This was recorded in 1960 for Arhoolie Records
It’s his own song
Big Dave McLean - Atlanta Moan
A blues musician from Winnipeg who’s been playing for over 50 years
It’s off McLean’s 2008 album Acoustic Blues: Got ‘Em from the Bottom
The song is by Barbecue Bob, and was first recorded in 1931
Hubby Jenkins - Rueben Oh, Rueben
American multi-instrumentalist from New York City
A former member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a contemporary American stringband
This song is a member of the family of railroad songs, including “Reuben’s Train”, “500 Miles”, and “900 Miles”
William Bock - The Civil War
From an album of Saskatchewan songs collected by Barbara Cass-Beggs and released in 1963
Bock was originally from Ontario, but moved west in 1902 to homestead in Stoney Beach County, Saskatchewan
He worked several jobs, including as a lumberjack in the Rockies and a gold prospector in the Yukon
He was later elected to the House of Commons as a Liberal in 1927, and worked for the Prairie Farm Administration
He wrote this one, apparently about the controversial introduction of water mains to rural communities
Tucker Zimmerman - Goodnight
He’s a musician and writer from California who’s been playing professionally since the 1960s
Off his album A Feather Flies Out, which came out last year
Lucius Smith - Goodbye Honey, You Call That Gone
We really don’t know much about him, aside from the fact that he was from Mississippi and played banjo, kazoo, drums, often as part of Sid Hemphill’s band, with whom he played for over 50 years
The recording was made in September of 1959 at Sid Hemphill’s home in Mississippi
Tom Brandon - The Bold Privateer
He was a second-generation Canadian from Peterborough, Ontario whose grandparents emigrated from Ireland in the 19th century
From an album of folk songs of Ontario collected by Edith Fowke and released in 1958
One of several sea songs that were popular in Ontario
It apparently dates at least from the early 19th century during the Napoleonic Wars and the war of 1812, and couldn’t have been from any later war, as that was the last period when privateering was a common practice
Privateers were independent sailors hired by governments to wage maritime war against vessels from enemy nations
Brandon learned the song from his uncle, John Coffey
Jack Wallin, Jerry Adams - Pretty Polly
Wallin a musician from Madison County, NC, who played the traditional songs of his renowned ballad-singing family
The song reminded him of music parties held outdoors near the Wallin family home in the 1930s
The gathering place where they held these parties was called Pretty Polly Gap, and an old fiddler named Asbury McDevitt would play the song at the gatherings
Mid-eighteenth century American murder ballad that comes from the older “Gosport Tragedy” ballad
Andy Cahan, Laura Fishleder - Silly Bill
From a 1978 album of old-time traditional music
Performed by Cahan on banjo and Fishleder on guitar
Cahan learned the tune from an album by the Mountain Ramblers, from Galax, Virginia
In the liner notes, they say, “‘Silly Bill’ is known as a song as well as a dance tune and we wish we knew the words”
Colter Wall - Night Herding Song
From Swift Current, SK
American cowboy Harry Stephens wrote this around 1890 while herding wild horses in Canada
Also recorded by folks like Roy Rogers and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott
Neriah & Kenneth Benfield - Lights in the Valley
Father and son autoharp players from North Carolina
An old mountain gospel song popularised in 1935 by JE Mainer’s Mountaineers
Peter Tork - I Truly Understand
From a 1982 issue of Fast Folk Musical Magazine, a cooperative that was dedicated to reinvigorating the New York folk scene, and released over 100 albums between 1982 and 1997
Tork was perhaps best known as the keyboardist and bassist for the Monkees, though he started out as part of the Greenwich Village folk scene in New York City in the early 1960s
He learned the song from a Peggy Seeger album, and found it intriguing because of its “unusual rhythmic and harmonic cadences and melodic line”
It’s a traditional American folk song that shares some lyrics with “The Storms Are on the Ocean” and “Long Lonesome Road”
Sterling A Brown - Long Gone
From a 1954 album of African American poetry
Brown was an American folklorist, poet, and literary critic known for being the first poet laureate of the District of Columbia
The founder of Folkways Records, Moses Asch, recorded this one in the early 1940s
It was first published in 1922
2 other train-related poems after this
Aaron Kramer - Train Song
He was a poet, social activist, and translator from New York
The poem is from his 1957 album Serenade by Aaron Kramer: Reading His Own and Other Poems by Poets of New York
George Abbe - The Hand Car
An American poet and novelist
From the 1961 Folkways album Poetry in the Round: A Poetry Workshop
The Country Gentlemen - Tom Dooley #2
A Washington, DC bluegrass group that played between the late 1950s and the mid-2000s
From 1973
A North Carolina folk song about the 1866 murder of Laura Foster by the confederate soldier Tom Dula
A local poet named Thomas Land wrote a poem about the events soon after
This is their humorous rendition of the ballad
Chris Coole - May Day #1
He’s a musician from Toronto who’s currently a member of the Lonesome Ace Stringband, though he’s played with the Foggy Hogtown Boys, Sylvia Tyson, and David Francey
This is from his 2017 album The Tumbling River
Uncle Sinner - Gospel Plow
Winnipeg artist
Traditional American folk song based on a biblical passage from Luke
This is off his 2008 album Ballads and Mental Breakdowns
Unspecified - Nzombi
Off a 1973 album of Aka music from the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, compiled and produced by Simha Arom, a leading expert on Central African music
This is music performed while returning from a successful hunt
We’ll hear a recording of American fife and drum blues after this, a genre that is descended from African musical traditions such as this one
Sid Hemphill, Lucius Smith - Emmaline, Take Your Time
He was described as the “musical patriarch of the Mississippi Hill Country” and "the best musician in the world"
Folklorist Alan Lomax recorded him and his band in the late 1950s, along with several other fife and drum bands
He recorded this one in 1959 for the Library of Congress
The roots of Black fife and drum music have been traced back to the American Revolutionary War, when the bands accompanied local militias, though by 1959, they played exclusively for entertainment at local events
Dorothy Sara - Unknown Qualities
We’ll hear one now from a 1962 album called Handwriting Analysis, by the graphologist Dorothy Sara
Sara emphasises the “science” behind graphology—the analysis of handwriting in an attempt to determine personality traits—and refutes arguments that it is “mere guessing”
While her claims are questionable, as graphology is largely considered a pseudoscience, I think this segment can generally be considered factual, and it’s an interesting example of the variety of subjects the Folkways Records catalogue covered
Geraldine Sullivan - The Murder of Maggie Howie
From an album of Ontario folk songs from 1958, gathered by the folklorist Edith Fowke
This was a popular ballad among the Irish population in Ontario, as those referred to in the ballad were of Irish heritage
The murder it refers to took place around 1887 in Napanee
Stanley Bâby - The Dreadnought
From an album called Songs of the Great Lakes, also recorded by Fowke and released in 1964
One of very few songs written in celebration of the qualities of an individual ship
The Dreadnought was an American packet ship built in Massachusetts in 1853, and was considered a very large ship at that time
The Dreadnought was wrecked in 1869, and her crew were rescued after being adrift for 14 days
The ballad was popular aboard the ship, but also in the lumber woods of Canada and the US
Lee Sexton - St. Louis Blues
Born in Kentucky in 1928
Earned the $1 he needed for a banjo working as a field hand when he was 8
Composed by WC Handy in 1914
His version was recorded by musician, photographer, field recorder, and filmmaker John Cohen in 1959
David Rovics - Minimum Wage Strike
He’s a musician and writer based in Oregon who’s been touring internationally since the 1990s
From his 1998 album We Just Want the World
He said of the song more recently: “Since the $15 an hour movement got going, this song is more relevant than it was when I wrote it. It’s a fantasy, obviously—the general strike in question has not happened in the USA quite yet, at least in the modern era…”
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Devil on a Stump
From Toronto, ON
This is a traditional old-time American tune
Daniel Koulack & Karrnnel - The Devil’s Race to Windsor
From Winnipeg
Off the 2010 album Fiddle and Banjo
