Barking Dog: November 27, 2025
Ellen Stekert - Puttin’ on the Style
Stekert is a folklorist, musician, and scholar from New York (now based in Minnesota) who began her career in Greenwich Village in the 1950s
In the last couple of years, she’s been working with the producer Ross Wylde on cleaned up archival recordings, and with writer Christopher Bahn on a website where they share music, writing, and photography from her archives
In her writeup for this song, Ellen states: “Folksongs, even those as light-hearted as ‘Puttin' On The Style,’ are not what some believe; they’re not simply rhymes with tunes for undeveloped minds. They are glimpses into the values and feelings of the people who perpetuate them. They are windows into other worlds — or mirrors with which to see ourselves. When a song ceases to mean anything, it fades away and disappears. When a song is malleable, it changes. Folksongs live and change, and in those changes are the histories of the peoples who have chosen to perpetuate them, change them, or let them die[…] ‘Puttin’ on the Style’ speaks of minor ‘outrages’ of people attempting to be accepted within the society of both the narrator and what s/he sees. It doesn’t tell us about aberrant behavior at the level of a murdered girl ballad, but it does tell us something of the limits of various kinds of behavior at the times and places it was sung.”
It’s an American folk song first recorded in 1925, and it later became a hit for English skiffle artist Lonnie Donegan
Bob Dylan, Danny Kalb - KC Moan
This is from Dylan’s latest bootleg series release, which includes some of his earliest recordings
Kalb was a blues guitarist and early protege of Dave Van Ronk
They made this recording in Madison, Wisconsin in 1960
This is a song by the Memphis Jug Band, a pre-war style jug band active from the 20s to the late 50s
The “KC” refers to the Kansas City Railroad Company
Christy Moore - Black & Amber
He’s an Irish folk musician who’s known as a founding member of the band Planxty as well as a solo artist
He’s been performing since 1969, and this one is off his latest album, A Terrible Beauty, which came out last year
This is a song by Irish post-punk band A Lazarus Soul
Old Man Luedecke - She Told Me Where to Go
From Chester, NS
This is a banjo version of the title track for his most recent album, which came out in 2024
It was just released on the deluxe version of the album on November 14th
Haley Heynderickx, Max Garcia Conover - Red River Dry
Heynderickx is a musician from Portland, Oregon who began performing in 2015
Conover is a musician originally from New York, now based in Portland, Maine
This is from their new collaborative album, What of Our Nature, a collection of songs inspired by the life and music of Woody Guthrie
Fleet Foxes - Angel in the Snow
Contemporary band from Seattle, Washington
This is a cover of Elliott Smith’s song, which they recorded for the soundtrack to the new Christmas movie Oh. What. Fun.
Maggie’s Wake - Song for a Winter’s Night
They’re a roots band from southwestern Ontario that formed in 2022, and this is a single from their upcoming holiday EP, Close to Home, which comes out on December 1st
It’s a song by Gordon Lightfoot from his 1967 album The Way I Feel, and it was written on a hot summer night in Cleveland, Ohio
Dick Gaughan - Pancho and Lefty
Gaughan is a Scottish musician who began playing professionally in 1970, though he stopped playing publicly in 2016 due to a stroke that affected his ability to perform
This is from his 1998 album Redwood Cathedral, and it’s a cover of Townes Van Zandt’s 1972 song
Sara Carter, Mother Maybelle Carter - I’m Leaving You
Two members of the Carter Family, a highly influential country group that formed in Virginia in 1927
This is off the 1997 album Close to Home: Old Time Music from Mike Seeger's Collection 1952-1967
It was recorded at Sara’s home in California in 1963, and it’s a song by the Delmore Brothers, who wrote it in the 1930s
Ian Robb, Hang the Piper - Jim Jones
He’s a musician originally from the UK, though he’s lived in Canada since 1970 and has been a mainstay of the Canadian folk scene for over 50 years
This is off a 1979 album he recorded with Hang the Piper, made up of luthier and musician Grit Laskin, guitarist Terry Rudden, fiddle player Seamus McGuire, and Irish piper Jon Goodman
Traditional Australian folk ballad from the early 19th century
It’s narrated by Jim Jones, who is found guilty of poaching and is sentenced to live in the penal colony of New South Wales
Alice Stuart - Seven Daffodils
She was a musician from Washington who got her start in folk music at the Berkeley Folk Festival in 1964, when she was 22
She also toured with musicians like Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, Van Morrison, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott
This is from her 1964 debut album All the Good Times
The song was written by Lee Hays and Fran Moseley, and first recorded by The Tarriers in 1960
John Angaiak - Angayuqaagema
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 is from his 1971 album I’m Lost in the City
The title translates to “Thank You” and it’s a tribute to his parents, thanking them for raising him and passing down their way of life
Robb Johnson - The Bombing Never Stopped
He’s a British musician known for his political satire, and he’s been playing since the 1970s, when he began performing in folk clubs
This one is off his 2004 compilation album Tony Blair: My Part in His Downfall, which features demos and other unreleased songs recorded between 1997 and 2004
Janet Russell - Song of the Olive Tree
Russell is a Scottish musicians who has been playing professionally since the 1980s
This is from the 2005 compilation album And They All Sang RosselSongs, a tribute to English singer and songwriter Leon Rosselson
Rosselson recorded it for his 2004 album Turning Silence Into Song
Ian Saville - The Vision
He’s primarily a magician and comedian, though he performs what he calls “socialist magic,” influenced by Bertolt Brecht and known for tricks with names like “The vanish of the military-industrial complex”
This comes from the 2012 album Celebrating Subversion: The Anti-Capitalist Roadshow, a collection of recordings by 11 musicians including Peggy Seeger and Leon Rosselson who oppose the “ideologically driven austerity programme imposed by [the British] government”
Rosa Lee Hill - Come Here Fairer
She was a Mississippi Hill Country blues musician and her father was Sid Hemphill, a renowned fife and drum bandleader, who taught her to play guitar when she was six, and by the time she was ten, she was playing local dances with him
This is a recording that the folklorist George Mitchell made in Senatobia, Mississippi in 1967
Hurray for the Riff Raff - Goin’ Away
They’re a band from New Orleans, formed in 2007 and fronted by Alynda Segarra
This is from their 2013 album My Dearest Darkest Neighbor, and it’s a cover of a song made popular through Elizabeth Cotten, who recalled it from her childhood
JB Lenoir - Mississippi Road
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
The McMillan’s Camp Boys - Nothing I Could Do
They’re a band originally from British Columbia, now based in Nova Scotia
This is off their 2023 self-titled debut album
Group of male prisoners - I Miss You So
This is from a compilation of recordings made of prisoners at Louisiana State Penitentiary by English professor Harry Oster in the 1950s
The names of the performers who recorded this song are not given
The Be Good Tanyas - Reuben
They’re a group from Vancouver that’s been performing since 1999
This is from their 2003 album Chinatown
It’s a traditional song with floating lyrics shared with other songs including “Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet” and “The Longest Train"
Goebel Reeves - The Hobo’s Convention
He was a folk and country musician who was also known as the Texas Drifter and played in the style of Jimmie Rodgers
He’s known particularly for writing the song “Hobo’s Lullaby”
Reeves recorded this one in 1938, and it refers to a real convention that took place in Portland, Oregon in 1921
Noah Lewis - Chickasaw Special
He was a country blues and jug band musician from Tennessee, known mainly for playing the harmonica in both his own band and in Cannon’s Jug Stompers
He could even play two harmonicas at once, one with his mouth and the other with his nose
He made this recording in Memphis in 1929
Carl Martin - Railroad Blues
He was a Piedmont blues and old-time musician from Virginia who recorded in the 1930s, and later reunited with his old-time stringband in the 1970s, with whom he played at festivals around the United States
This track was recorded in Chicago in May of 1966
Art Bouman - John Hardy (Freedom Rider)
He’s a Halifax-based banjo player who’s interested in reclaiming the banjo as a traditional instrument of the African diaspora and highlighting the Black banjo players whose work has historically been overlooked
This is from his album Simple Songs For Trying Times, which came out in January
He wrote the song and set it to the tune of the traditional “John Hardy,” from which he also borrows some lyrics
The audio clip at the beginning comes from activist Ella Baker’s 1974 “Making the Struggle Every Day” speech
Abor Song No. 5
This comes from a 1960 album of songs from the northeastern Indian states of Assam and Uttar Pradesh, and the Andaman islands, recorded by the Government of India’s Department of Anthropology
The song we heard was recorded in the town of Balek in the Abor Hills, and it describes a marshy place and a river where birds flock to drink water and eat fruit from the trees
The Wailin’ Jennys - Old Man
Tim O’Brien - Father of Night
O’Brien is a Grammy-winning musician from West Virginia who’s been playing professionally for almost 50 years, and has performed both as a solo act and with his band Hot Rize
This is from his 1996 album Red on Blonde, a collection of Bob Dylan covers
Dylan included the song on his 1970 album New Morning
David West - Love Sick
He’s a musician and producer from California who’s been playing bluegrass since the early 1970s
This is from the 1999 album Pickin’ On Dylan, from the Pickin’ On series that turns music from popular artists including The Beatles and Bob Marley into bluegrass tunes
Dylan included the song on his 1997 album Time Out of Mind
Old Crow Medicine Show - Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
They’re a well-known contemporary string band based in Nashville, Tennessee that’s been recording since the late 1990s
This is off their 2017 live album 50 Years of Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan’s 7th studio album, which came out in 1966
David Pryor and group - Roll ‘Im on Down
This is a recording made by folklorist Alan Lomax on Andros Island in The Bahamas in 1935
Pryor came from a family of singers and likely learned this song while working as a sponge fisherman
It’s a shanty commonly known as “Blow the Man Down,” the title of which likely refers to the common situation where a strong, sudden wind caught a ship with its topsails up, causing the ship to blow over and be partially capsized
The song is from at least the 1860s
D.Rangers - Frenchie’s Western Roll
From Winnipeg
This is from their new album Sketch, which came out on October 25th and is their first full-length album in almost 20 years
Leo Shannon, Sarah Kate Morgan - Down the Road
Morgan is a musician and music teacher from Tennessee, now based in Kentucky, who began learning mountain dulcimer when she was 7 on a dulcimer her grandfather had built
Shannon is a musician, archivist, and educator from Seattle, now based in Kentucky
They began playing together in 2021, and this one is from their debut album, which came out in October
It’s a version of “Ida Red” that they got from the Dykes Magic City Trio, who made several recordings in the 1920s
