Barking Dog: November 21, 2024
Ella Jenkins - Who’s Gonna Be Your Man?
She died on November 9 at the age of 100
An American folk singer and actress dubbed the “First Lady of the Children’s Folk Song”
The current form of the song is attributed to Woody Guthrie, though he adapted it from several old Appalachian and African American ballads and reels which use many of the same lyrics, as well as the song “I Never Will Marry”, which is similar in theme and melody
This is from her 1960 album African American Folk Rhythms
Björk - Baenin
It’s her birthday today!
This is from her 1977 self-titled debut album, which she recorded when she was 11
The song is by American singer Melanie Safka, also known simply as Melanie, who included it on her 1968 debut album Born to Be under the title "Christopher Robin is Saying His Prayers"
Christine Fellows - Un canadien errant
She’s a well-known Manitoban musician who’s been performing since 1993, both with groups like Helen, the Mountain Goats, and Old Man Luedecke, and on her own
This is from her 2011 album Femmes de chez nous
Song written in 1842 by Antoine Gérin-Lajoie after the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837–38
Henry Thomas - Lovin’ Babe
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
This one was released by Vocalion Records in 1930
Derroll Adams - Freight Train Blues
He was a musician from Portland, Oregon who got his start busking on the West Coast of the US during the 1950s, where he met Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and the two began travelling and recording together
This comes from the compilation album Les Cousins: The Soundtrack of Soho’s Legendary Folk & Blues Club, released in January
Les Cousins was a club in London, England that was prominent during the folk revival of the 1960s
Pharis & Jason Romero - Rolling Mills
From Horsefly, BC
Off their 2022 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 gourd banjo they call Gourdo on this one, which he built in 2019
Seems to be by George Landers, a banjo player from Marshall, NC
Sampson Pittman - Joe Louis
More songs have been written about Joe Louis than about any other sports figure in history, so we’re going to hear just a few of them right now
Joe Louis was an American boxer known as the “Brown Bomber” who still holds the record of the longest reign as world heavyweight champion, and he’s often considered the first African American to become a national hero
His nickname is coincidentally the origin of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ name—the sports writer for the Winnipeg Tribune in 1936, Vince Leah, used the name to refer to what was then the Winnipeg Football Club, and it stuck
Pittman was a Delta blues musician and construction worker from Arkansas who folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax recorded during three sessions in 1938
This song is from one of those sessions
Jack Kelly & His Memphis Jug Band - Joe Louis Special
A Tennessee jug band that was very popular during the 1930s and continued to play through the 1950s when jug bands had declined in popularity
They recorded this one in Memphis in July in 1939 for Vocalion Records, though it was never officially released by the company
Rev. JM Gates - Joe Louis’ Wrist and His Fist
He was an American preacher from Georgia who made over 200 gospel and sermon recordings from the 20s to the 1940s, which made him one of the most popular preachers of the pre-war era
He was, in fact, responsible for the popularity of sermon recordings during that time
This one was recorded in 1940 in Atlanta for Bluebird Records
The Dixiaires - Joe Louis Is a Fightin’ Man
They were a jubilee quartet from New York that recorded in the 1940s and 50s
This one is from 1949
Oidupaa Vladimir Oiun oglu - While There Is Still Taiga There
He was one of the most influential contemporary Tuvan musicians—the Tuvans are an ethnic group indigenous to Siberia and now living in Russia, China, and Mongolia
This is from the 1999 album Divine Music from a Jail, which was recorded in a Russian prison
Oiun oglu spent 33 years in work camps after being charged with 3 counts of murder and corruption of a minor, though he maintained his innocence for his entire life and his incarceration is a heavily debated subject
Lead Belly - Gallis Pole
Born in Louisiana in late 1880s
Went to prison in Texas in 1918, but was released early by singing a song for the governor of Texas
He was incarcerated again in 1930, and the ethnomusicologists and folklorists John and Alan Lomax met him in prison while they were making field recordings of inmates
Once he was released, he became widely known for both his blues and folk recordings
The writer and record producer Frederic Ramsey, Jr. made this recording of Lead Belly in 1948
The song was first collected by Francis James Child in the 19th century
It’s one of many ballads with the theme of a woman pleading for someone to buy her freedom from the hangman
It may have originated in continental Europe, as there are many versions from Finland, Sweden, and even Lithuania
This version changes the ending of the song, having a false friend come to watch the narrator hang instead of the narrator’s true love freeing them, as is the case in other versions
Ian & Sylvia - Marlborough Street Blues
This song is by Ian
Off their 1965 album Early Morning Rain
Dyad - Goin’ ‘Cross the Mountain
From Victoria, BC
Off their 2006 album No Pedlars or Preachers
They got this Civil War song from North Carolina banjo player and singer Frank Proffitt, whose version is sung from a Northerner’s perspective
Though North Carolina joined the Confederacy, it was a border state, and many rural citizens were reluctant to accept the decision
The liner notes for the album by Proffitt that includes this song state that his grandfather was an admirer of Lincoln, and chose to “go across the mountain” himself to join the Union army instead of taking the easy way out and going along with his neighbours, friends, and even his own brother
Scott Seskind - You Are the Reason
He’s a California-born, Colorado-based musician
This is from his self-produced, self-released, self-titled 1985 album, which was reissued last year by Ebalunga!!!
Stan Rogers - Dark Eyed Molly
From his 1978 album Turnaround
The Scottish musician Archie Fisher wrote this song, and included it on his 1976 album The Man With a Rhyme
Gary Óg - Rocky Road to Dublin
Óg is a musician from Glasgow who’s been playing Irish rebel folk music for over 30 years
It’s an Irish song written by the poet DK Gavan in the 19th century for the music hall performer Harry Clifton
Daniel Koulack - Sally Anne
From Manitoba
Off a compilation album of banjo music from 2007 called Old Time Banjo Festival
Leon Rosselson - Tim McGuire
Rosselson is a musician and children’s book writer from England who first became widely known in the 1960s by performing his satirical songs on the BBC show That Was the Week That Was
This is off his 1966 album Songs For Sceptical Circles, and it’s one of his best-known songs
Dolly Parton - Silver Dagger
This is from her 1999 album The Grass Is Blue
American folk ballad, likely with origins in Britain
Variants of the song include “Katie Dear” and “Molly Dear”
Henry Griffin - George Collins
This is from Volume 2 of the album series Hand-Me-Down Music: Old Songs, Old Friends, released in 1980, which is a collection of traditional music from Union County, North Carolina recorded by Karen G Helms
This is a version of the ballad “Lady Alice”, and the text for this specific version was found most frequently in the mountains of western North Carolina
David Riordan - Before I’m Gone
He’s an interactive media executive, producer, songwriter, and musician, and this comes from the 1975 album Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land, which was organised by environmentalist Emily DeSpain Polk as a concept album to raise awareness about climate change in the very same year that geochemist Wallace Smith Broecker published a paper that popularised the term “global warming”
Goebel Reeves - Pictures from Life’s Other Side
He was a folk and country musician from Texas who played in the style of Jimmie Rodgers
He’s known particularly for writing the song “Hobo’s Lullaby”
This is a traditional song that was possibly written by music teacher John B Vaughan in Athens, Georgia in the late 19th century
Reeves recorded it in 1938
Roy Bailey - If They Come in the Morning
Bailey was an English sociologist and musician, known as a member of the group Three City Four
This is from his 1982 album Hard Times
Jack Warshaw composed the song in 1974
He’s an American musician who moved to England in the 1960s to work as an architect, and stayed there because of the folk scene and his resistance to the Vietnam War
Chaim Tannenbaum - My Old Man
He’s a folk musician and philosophy professor from Montreal who’s been performing since the 1960s and has collaborated with artists like Kate & Anna McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III, though he only began recording his own music at the age of 68 after retiring and moving to New York
This song is by Ewan MacColl, and Tannenbaum’s version is from a 2015 tribute to MacColl called Joy of Living
Elliott Smith - All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down
He was an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist
This is his version of Hank Williams, Jr’s song “All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down,” recorded in Los Angeles in 1998
Bonnie Dobson - JB’s Song
Canadian folksinger who joined the folk revival scene in Toronto in the 1960s, and later moved to the US and performed at coffee houses there before moving back to Canada and finally to the UK, where she’s been living since
This is from 2014 album Take Me for a Walk in the Morning Dew, which was her first recording in almost 40 years
Verdell Primeaux, Johnny Mike - Blood, Sweat and Tears
They’re a Grammy-award-winning duo of Indigenous musicians based in Arizona
This is from their 2002 album Hours Before Dawn
Per & Birthe - Kipilerfigaakkit
They were a brother/sister duo from Greenland that recorded 2 albums in the 1980s
This is off the 1986 compilation album Kattunneq, which was commissioned by Greenland’s Labour Union in commemoration of their 30th anniversary
The title translates to “I Long for You”
The Southern Melody Boys - Tribulation Days
They were Odus Maggard and Woodrow Roberts from Kentucky who recorded several tracks for Bluebird and Decca Records in the 1930s
This one is from 1937
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
John Lee Hooker - Strike Blues
He was a Mississippi blues musician known for adapting the Delta blues for electric guitar
This track was recorded in the early 1950s
Homer Walker - Sugar Hill
He was an Appalachian banjo player who was popular during the folk revival of the 1960s, and was one of the last banjo players to play in the old-time Appalachian style
“Sugar Hill” is an old-time American breakdown popular in the Appalachian region
Alan Mills - The Jones Boys
Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec
Known for popularising Canadian folk music, and for writing the music for “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
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Crowe River
From Toronto, ON
They released this single last month
Bob Dylan - Sally Gal
