Barking Dog: November 10, 2022
Mike Seeger - Oh My Little Darling
Mike was a folklorist and musician who co-founded the New Lost City Ramblers in the 1950s
From his 1962 album Old Time Country Music
He got it from a field recording made by the folklorist Herbert Halpert of the singer and banjo player Thaddeus C Willingham in Gulfport, Mississippi in 1939
Cousin Emmy - Chilly Scenes of Winter
Banjo player and country singer who was one of the pioneering female stars of the country music industry
Gained a new audience during the folk revival of the 1960s
A rare song recorded as “If One Won’t Another One Will” by the Carter Family and “Dark Scenes of Winter” by Texas Gladden
Emmy recorded it in the 1940s
Chumbawamba - By & By
A British band active between 1982 and 2012 and best known for their 1997 hit “Tubthumping”
This is from their 2006 album Get On with It, recorded at shows they played throughout England during that year
It’s originally from their 2005 album A Singsong and a Scrap, which is one of their folkier albums
It’s a tribute to Swedish-American labour activist Joe Hill
Faith Petric, Mark Ross - Ain’t Done Nothing If You Ain’t Been Called a Red
She was a folksinger and activist originally from Idaho who was the head of the San Francisco Folk Music Club for 50 years
Petric was involved in activism for her entire life, participating in the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches of 1965, sitting on anti-fascism committees, and assisting Spanish Civil War refugees
She died in 2013 at the age of 98
Ross is a folksinger and historian from Oregon who’s been playing since the 1960s
This one is from the 1988 album Rebel Voices: Songs of the Industrial Workers of the World
It’s by the folksinger Eliot Kenin, who’s been performing and teaching music since the 1950s
Pete Seeger, Gaudeamus - Garbage
From his 1996 album Pete
Accompanied by Gaudeamus, a choir from Connecticut that was directed by Paul Halley at the time of recording
The song is by California songwriter Bill Steele
A Critical Mass Choir - Frank Talk About Policing
It’s not often we play topical songs from Winnipeg on the show, but Patrick Krawec sent this one in
It’s a recording from reflecting on police violence that occurred at a Critical Mass rally in May of 2006
Critical Mass is a celebration of human-powered transportation that began in San Francisco in 1992, and has since spread to other cities worldwide
On May 3, 2006, about 50 Winnipeggers biked out to the Pioneer Arena to protest urban warfare training exercises that were taking place there
Seven people were arrested that night, one for simply photographing an arrest
23 days later, the police violently arrested 9 more people during the monthly Critical Mass ride, tackling them, holding them down with their knees, and even punching one person in the face
One of the people arrested was also beaten while in custody
Patrick Krawec, Ian La Rue, and Tara Norberg recorded this one in their kitchen in June of 2006
Willie Dunn - Wounded Lake
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
Off his 1984 album The Vanity of Human Wishes
JB Lenoir - Good Advice
He was a Chicago blues musician active in the 50s and 60s who was known for his showmanship, which included flashy patterned outfits and his high-pitched singing voice
He played at clubs throughout the city with artists like Muddy Waters and Big Bill Broonzy, and became influential throughout the region
Interestingly, his name was simply “JB”, the letters weren’t initials
Off his first full length album, Alabama Blues, from 1966
He died just a year after it was released, at the age of 38, from injuries he suffered in a car crash
Josh White, Beverley White - I Know Moonlight
Extremely successful 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
It’s a Black spiritual that may have originally been a plantation song
White recorded it in 1958, and his daughter, Beverley, sings with him on it
Alistair Hulett - Quite Early Morning
He was a folksinger from Glasgow, Scotland, known as a member of the folk punk band Roaring Jack
This one is from the 2012 album Live in Concert, recorded at the Melbourne Folk Club in Australia in November of 2009, just a few months before his death in January of 2010
As he says, this song is by Pete Seeger, who said in 2012, “I still think the human race has a 50/50 chance to be here in a century from now, and I still stick with the song I wrote about 40 years ago, ‘Quite Early Morning’”
Uncle Sinner - Bruised Orange / Chain of Sorrow
From Winnipeg
Recorded in April of 2020, shortly after John Prine died
Prine wrote this song and released it on his 1978 album of the same name
Mississippi John Hurt - Poor Boy, Long Ways from Home
American country blues singer and guitarist who taught himself guitar around the age of nine
Traditional blues song of unknown origin also known as “Poor Boy Blues”
From his last sessions, recorded in New York City in 1966
Old Man Luedecke - Hinterland
From Chester, NS
Off his 2006 album of the same name
Alice Stuart - Once I Had a Sweetheart
She’s a musician from Washington who got her start in folk music at the Berkeley Folk Festival in 1964, when she was 22
She returned to the festival twice in the following years, and formed a friendship with Mississippi John Hurt, and the two toured together throughout the US
She also toured with musicians like Phil Ochs and Joan Baez, as well as Van Morrison and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott
Stuart was briefly a member of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention as well, though she didn’t end up making any recordings with the band
This is off her 1964 debut album All the Good Times
Stuart rewrote the ballad into a completely new song, though some parts of the original remain
Rachel Newton - Once I Had a True Love
She’s a contemporary Scottish singer and harpist who’s played in bands like The Shee, the Furrow Collective, and Boreas, though that song is from her solo album West, from 2018
This is an English folk song also known as “As Sylvie Was Walking”
Taj Mahal, Keb’ Mo’ - Diving Duck Blues
Taj Mahal is a Grammy-award-winning blues musician from New York City whose career has spanned over 50 years
Keb’ Mo’ is also a Grammy-award-winning musician
He’s based in Nashville, and has been playing professionally since the 70s
This is from their 2017 album TajMo
It’s by Taj Mahal, though he takes some lyrics from traditional songs like “Rye Whiskey”
Bruce Cockburn - Avalon, My Hometown
Canadian singer-songwriter and skilled guitarist who’s been playing professionally for over 40 years
This is from his forthcoming album, Rarities, which comes out on November 25
It presents 12 rarely heard recordings by Cockburn
Originally from the 2001 compilation album Avalon Blues: A Tribute to the Music of Mississippi John Hurt
Hurt was from Avalon, Mississippi, and recorded the song multiple times in the 1960s
Henry Thomas - Railroadin’ Some
American country-blues musician born 1874
His style was an early example of Texas blues guitar and he influenced artists like Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, and Canned Heat
The flute-like instrument you hear on this recording (and really any other Thomas song) is quills, a folk instrument made from cane reeds
Recorded in October of 1929 in Chicago
Larry Penn - The Spike
Penn was Wisconsin’s Labour Poet Laureate, a songwriter, toymaker, activist, and union man
From his 1987 album Still Feels Like Rollin': Songs About Trucks and Trains
His own song
Elizabeth Cotten - Oh Babe, It Ain’t No Lie
She was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last week in the Early Influence category
Known primarily for her guitar picking style, though she also learned banjo at an early age
Self-taught and was left-handed but learned to play on a right-handed banjo
From 1983
Received the 1985 Grammy for best traditional folk recording
Woody Guthrie - Do You Ever Think Of Me
Dust Bowl balladeer and important figure in folk music history who’s known particularly for his songs about the Okie migrants who travelled west during the Great Depression in search of work, though he composed and recorded songs on an enormous number of topics
His own song, though it’s heavily adapted from the song “Don’t Forget Me Little Darling”, a song written by RS Crandall in 1874 and made popular by the Carter Family
Silvertone Jubilee Quartet - All Over This World
A gospel quartet presumably from South Carolina
From 1938
Traditional American gospel song
Sister Rosetta Tharpe - All Over This World
She was a musician from Arkansas who was extremely important in the creation of rock and roll music
From 1942
Eric Bibb, Rory Block, Maria Muldaur - Rock Daniel
Bibb is an American musician who grew up around well-known musicians like Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson, and Bob Dylan, because his father, Leon Bibb, was part of the 1960s New York folk scene
Block is a guitarist and singer from New Jersey who began playing guitar at the age of 14 after meeting the guitarist Stefan Grossman, who introduced her to the Mississippi Delta blues
Muldaur is one of the musicians who first influenced Block to learn to play the guitar
She’s known as a member of the American folk revival of the 1960s, and often performed with her husband Geoff Muldaur, as well as with musicians like David Grisman, Jim Kweskin, and later the Grateful Dead, who she opened for and played with throughout the 1970s
From their 2004 album Sisters & Brothers
Related to “Move Daniel”, a traditional slave shout song
Phil Ochs - Hazard, Kentucky
He was an American protest singer from the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene
He wrote this song during the Hazard, Kentucky coal miner’s strike of 1964
David Rovics - New Orleans
He’s a musician and writer based in Oregon who’s been touring internationally since the 1990s
Off his 2007 album The Commons
On his website page for the song, he writes: “Hurricane Katrina was the initial cause of the disaster, but what really killed all those thousands of people was the inept, racist government response, or lack of effective response, depending on how you look at it. Also the government’s decision not to adequately maintain the infrastructure of New Orleans (and most of the rest of the country), in favour of spending tax dollars on nuclear bombs and imperial wars instead.”
Joan Baez - Pal of Mine
She’s one of the best known musicians to come out of the 1960s folk revival
She performed for over 60 years before retiring in 2019, and has released over 30 albums
A traditional song first recorded by the Carter Family in 1928
Baez recorded it for her 1962 album Joan Baez, Vol. 2
Erik Darling - With a Fie Fie (Old Ben Johnson)
He was an American folk musician who was an important figure in the folk music revival of the 1950s and 60s
From his 2006 album Child Child
Alan Mills - The Jones Boys
Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec
Known for popularising Canadian folk music, and for writing “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly”
Made a member of the Order of Canada in 1974 for his contributions to Canadian folklore
From his 1959 album Songs of the Maritimes
It is said that this song was written by Millet Salter, a clerk for one of the Miramichi lumber firms
Tiriltunga - I Don’t Respect Those Guys
A Norwegian folk trio that formed in 1983
This is off David Lindley and Henry Kaiser’s 1994 album The Sweet Sunny North
It’s a traditional Norwegian song
Gillian Welch - White Freightliner Blues
She’s one of the best-known contemporary American roots musicians, and has collaborated with artists like Allison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, and The Decemberists, though she’s known particularly for her musical partnership with Dave Rawlings
A Townes Van Zandt song from 1978
Karen James - My Love Is Like a Dewdrop
A folksinger who grew up in England, Spain, and France, and moved to Canada as a teenager
From her 1962 album Through Streets Broad and Narrow
Seems to be a traditional American song from the mid-19th century, though the tune has been used for many different traditional songs from the UK and eastern Canada
She got it from Norman Cazden’s Abelard Song Book
Karrnnel & Daniel Koulack - The Fall of Shannon Doah
From Winnipeg
Off the 2010 album Fiddle and Banjo
