Barking Dog: November 17, 2022
We’re kicking off this week’s show with several birthdays.
Gordon Lightfoot - Fast Freight
His 83rd birthday today
In 1962 he and Terry Whelan, a folksinger originally from Ontario, partnered as a duo called the Two Tones
This is from a live album they recorded in Toronto that same year
It’s a Kingston Trio song originally recorded in 1958
Jeff Buckley - Parchman Farm Blues
Today would’ve been his 56th birthday
He was a musician from California who played professionally between 1990 and his death in 1997
This is off his only studio album, Grace, from 1994
It originally sold poorly and received mixed reviews, but its popularity has grown over time and it’s now considered one of the greatest albums of all time
This song was written by Bukka White
Autobiographical, about his experience at Mississippi State Penitentiary, known as Parchman Farm
David Francey - Grateful
68 today
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who started to pursue music as a career at the age of 45 after working as a carpenter and in railyards for 20 years
From his 2011 album Late Edition
Rufus Crisp - Roll On John
Born 142 years ago today
He was a banjo player from the mountains of eastern Kentucky, and that one is from his 1972 self-titled album
This one comes from a cluster of Black railroad and mining work songs that were adapted by white banjo players
The cluster includes “Roll on John”, “Nine Pound Hammer”, and several more
Danny DeVito - Doug the Bug
78 today
He’s a very well-known actor, filmmaker, and comedian who’s been in films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Batman Returns, and Matilda, which he also directed
This is from the 2016 book Stories for Ways and Means, which features children’s stories by well-known musicians and pictures by contemporary painters
This particular story was written by Frank Black of the Pixies
Bruce Cockburn - Going Down the Road
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
This song originally appeared on the soundtrack of the 1970 film Goin' Down The Road
Joel Mabus - Darlin’ Cory
Contemporary folk multi-instrumentalist from southern Illinois
“Darling Corey” is an American folk song, based on verses from the song “The Gambling Man”
Pretty new, earliest version comes from 1918
Off his 1993 album Flatpick & Clawhammer
Old Man Luedecke - Real Wet Wood
Contemporary folk artist from Chester, NS
Off his 2015 album Domestic Eccentric, which he recorded inside a cabin he built in his backyard
Utah Phillips - Dump the Bosses Off Your Back
He was an anarchist folksinger, storyteller, and labour organiser from Ohio who also rode the rails throughout the United States and worked as an archivist, a dishwasher, and a warehouseman at various points in his life
This one was recorded in British Columbia in February of 1981
It’s to the tune of "Take It to the Lord in Prayer"
Marion Wade - Put It On the Ground
She was a folksinger, bookseller, and writer who became a touring musician after she retired from her career
This one was recorded in 1984 and included on the 1987 album Rebel Voices: Songs of the Industrial Workers of the World
It was written by Ray Glaser and Bill Wolff
Si Kahn - Lawrence Jones
Kahn is a community organiser and musician from Pennsylvania who moved to the south as an activist during the Civil Rights Movement
Off his 1974 album New Wood
Lawrence Jones was a 23-year-old striking miner who was shot and killed during the Brookside Mine Strike in Harlan County, Kentucky in 1974 by a company foreman
Kahn wrote the song while driving through eastern Kentucky on the way to his funeral
The strike, and the murder, are covered in the 1976 documentary film Harlan County USA
June Lazare - Michael Roy
She was a musician and ethnomusicologist from California who specialised in 19th century parlour music, and she taught and performed in the clothing of the period
This is from her 1966 album of folk songs of New York City
It’s a song from the 1850s, and seems to be a composite of two earlier songs, “The Charcoal Man,” and “My Boy with the Auburn Hair”
“Michael Roy” maintained its popularity until around the 1880s
Johnny Richardson - Roll Over
He was a folksinger and mechanic from South Carolina who recorded four albums of children’s music for Folkways Records between the 50s and the 80s and performed around the world
He died in 2014 at the age of 105
From his 1964 album Children's Activity Songs
He learned it from a friend’s six-year-old son
Hazel Dickens, Alice Gerrard - Train on the Island
Dickens from West Virginia, Gerrard from Washington
Dickens met Gerrard through the Seegers, as Mike Seeger was Gerrard’s husband
They established a collaborative relationship and were some of the first women to record a bluegrass album at a time when most bluegrass bandleaders were men
Popular fiddle and banjo tune from the Galax region of Virginia
Hazel and Alice learned it from a 1928 recording by the banjo player JP Nestor
From the 1996 Folkways Records album Pioneering Women of Bluegrass: The Definitive Edition
Alice Stuart - Lady Margaret
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, Joan Baez, 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
A traditional English ballad also popular throughout the United States
It seems it remained in the oral tradition in Appalachia and the Ozarks even when it largely died out in England before many traditional recordings could be made of the song
Herta Marshall - I Never Will Marry
An actor who began folk singing while on a tour with Burl Ives, and later sang and acted with Woody Guthrie and Will Geer
Song likely English in origin, though it’s also very popular in the US
It was popularised there by the Carter Family’s 1935 recording
Grace Clergy - On Board of the Victory
From the folklorist Helen Creighton’s album of Maritime folk songs from 1952
Creighton had never heard this song before or seen it in print
Clergy learned it from his father, who was a noted singer in the area
Pharis & Jason Romero - Souvenir
From Horsefly, BC
Off their recent album Tell 'Em You Were Gold, which was recorded live over six days in a 60-year-old barn beside the Little Horsefly River
It’s a banjo-centric album, created to highlight the sound of the banjos that Jason makes
He plays a banjo named “Big Blue” on this one
Pharis wrote the lyrics for it
Ian & Sylvia - Needle of Death
Ian & Sylvia performed together from 1959 until their divorce in 1975
This song was written by Scottish folk musician Bert Jansch
Ian & Sylvia included it on their 1971 self-titled album
The Weather Station - Came So Easy
Toronto
Fronted by Tamara Lindeman
This is from the 2011 album All of It Was Mine
Uncle Sinner - Trouble of This World
From Winnipeg
His version of the traditional gospel song often known as “Soon I Will Be Done” or “No More Weeping and Wailing”
It’s off his 2020 album of the same name
Charles Owen - The Welcome Table
From an album of folk music from Nova Scotia, recorded by folklorist Helen Creighton around 1954
This is a gospel song that was also important during the Civil Rights Movement
It was likely brought to Nova Scotia when thousands of enslaved people in the United States migrated there after the war of 1812
Charles Owen was 99 years old when Creighton recorded him for her album
He was still walking to town every day when weather permitted, and made it to at least the age of 101
Mississippi Fred McDowell - Jim, Steam Killed Lula
He was a hill country blues musician originally from Tennessee, though he moved to Mississippi in 1928 and continued to farm there full-time while playing music on the weekends
His music caught the attention of producers and blues fans in the early 1960s due to recordings that Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins made of him while on a field recording trip through the southern states
Within a couple of years of this attention, he became a professional musician and recording artist who played at folk festivals and toured clubs around the world
Recorded March 1968 in Los Angeles, California
Willie Dunn - Crazy Horse
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
This is from his 1999 album Metallic
Pete Seeger, Tao Rodriguez Seeger - The Ross Perot Guide to Answering Embarrassing Questions
Pete Seeger was a very influential folk singer and activist who advocated for Civil Rights, the environment, and other important social causes through his music
Tao is his grandson
He’s been playing since the mid-80s, mainly with his band The Mammals
Perot was an American businessman, billionaire, and politician
The lyrics are by writer and poet Calvin Trillin, and Pete adapted it into a song in 1993
Recorded live in Vienna, Virginia in August of 1993
A Critical Mass Choir - Will You Step On My Head?
Patrick Krawec sent this one in last week
It’s a recording from reflecting on police violence that occurred at a Winnipeg 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
David Rovics - The Death of David Chain
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
David Chain was an activist who, while trying to stop a logging operation in an old-growth forest in California, was killed when an enraged logger felled a tree that struck him on the head
John Strachan - The Bonny Lass of Fyvie
He was a Scottish farmer and traditional ballad singer who was recorded by several influential folklorists in the 20th century
This one was recorded July of 1951 by the folklorist Alan Lomax
It’s a traditional Scottish folk song set in the small town of Fyvie in Aberdeenshire
The lyrics were originally in Scots, and we can still hear some examples of that in this recording
This is the earliest known recording of the song, and it later became popular during the 1960s folk revival, with many of the Scots words evolving into nonsense words as they travelled across the sea
We’ll hear an example of that after this, where “Fyvie” has become “Fenario”
Angela Page, Jack Hardy, Mark Dann - Pretty Peggy-O
This is from a 1983 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
The three musicians we hear were all involved in the production of Fast Folk
Page was a contributor, Hardy was the founder and editor, and Dann was the recording engineer
That’s their Americanized version of “The Bonny Lass of Fyvie”
Norman Blake - Crossing No. 9
He’s an American musician who’s been playing professionally since the mid 1950s
He toured with Johnny Cash for a decade, played on Bob Dylan’s album Nashville Skyline, and appeared on Joan Baez’s recording of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”
He’s well-known as a duo with his wife, Nancy, as well, and they’ve been playing together for almost 50 years
This is from his 1972 album Back Home in Sulphur Springs
The Golden Gate Quartet - I’m So Glad Trouble Don’t Last Always
They are a vocal quartet formed in Virginia by four high school students in 1934
They are still active today, but have obviously undergone multiple changes in membership
Recorded live at the Library of Congress in 1940
Traditional American gospel song
We’ll hear 2 other versions of it after this
Green Paschal - Trouble Brought Me Down
He was a musician from Georgia who began playing music in the 1950s, when he was in his 30s or 40s
Recorded in Talbottom, Georgia in 1969 by the field researcher and festival curator George Mitchell
John Jacob Niles - I’m So Glad Trouble Don’t Last Always
American musician, composer, and collector of traditional ballads
Influential figure during the folk revival of the 1960s
From his 1964 album John Jacob Niles Sings Folk Songs
A Paul Ortega - The Sunset
Ortega was an influential Apache musician who began as a tribal singer at the age of five
He moved to Chicago in the early 1960s and began to adapt blues guitar to Apache social songs
This is from his 2005 album Two Worlds Three Worlds
Waxahatchee - Talking Dust Bowl Blues
Waxahatchee is the stage name of contemporary Alabama musician Katie Crutchfield, who’s been performing since 2010
This is off the 2021 album Home In This World: Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads
The song was included on Guthrie’s first album, Dust Bowl Ballads, in 1940
Daniel Koulack & Karrnnel - Angus Meets Miss McLeod
From Winnipeg
Off the 2010 album Fiddle and Banjo
