Gillian Welch, David Rawlings - Tear My Stillhouse Down
Welch and Rawlings are one of the best-known contemporary American roots duos
This is a new single from their upcoming live album Boots 3: The Hickory Show, recorded on the Acoustic Stage at the Arts and Science Center Auditorium in Hickory, North Carolina in September of 1997
The song is originally off Welch’s 1996 album Revival
Jeff Tweedy - Hesitating Beauty
He’s a musician, author, and producer from Illinois who’s best-known as a member of the bands Uncle Tupelo and Wilco
This is a new single from the upcoming album Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions
The track was recorded during the sessions for the 1998 album Mermaid Avenue, a collection of songs with previously unheard lyrics by Woody Guthrie and music by Wilco and Billy Bragg
The upcoming release features a recently discovered 1951 home recording of Guthrie performing the song, which he wrote in the late 40s
Bob Dylan - Railroad Boy
This is a new release, from a concert performed during Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue in Fort Collins, Colorado in May of 1976
It’s a traditional folk song also known as “The Butcher Boy” and “Go Dig My Grave,” and it’s been found in many English-speaking countries, though it’s especially popular in the Appalachian region of the United States
Joan Baez joins him on vocals
Richard Thompson - Among the Gorse, Among the Grey
He’s an English musician and songwriter who began his career in the 1960s as a member of Fairport Convention, and has since become known as a solo artist performing primarily in the folk and folk rock genres
This is off his 2010 album Dream Attic
Si Kahn - A Time for Us All
Kahn is a community organiser and musician from Pennsylvania who moved to the south as an activist during the Civil Rights Movement
This comes from his 2004 album We’re Still Here
Sandy Denny - Let No Man Steal Your Thyme
She was an English musician and the lead singer of the folk rock band Fairport Convention
This is a traditional British and Irish folk song that was first documented in the late 17th century
It’s a home recording made in the mid-1960s, before Denny joined Fairport Convention
Michael Cooney - Creole Belle
He’s a folk singer from California who got his start during the 1960s folk revival and later organised and played at folk festivals across the continent, including Winnipeg Folk Fest
This is from his 1968 album The Cheese Stands Alone
This song was originally written by George Sidney and J Bodewalt Lampe and published in 1901, though as Cooney notes, this is a “mish-mash version of the original song,” much of which comes from Mississippi John Hurt
Mississippi John Hurt - Avalon, My Home Town
American country blues singer and guitarist from Avalon, Mississippi
He made a couple of recordings for OkEh Records in the late 1920s but they were commercial failures, and when OkEh Records closed shop during the Great Depression, Hurt returned to his work as a sharecropper, continuing to play music at local events
His early recordings were included on the incredibly influential 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, and in 1963 his song “Avalon Blues” was rediscovered, which led the musicologist Dick Spottswood to locate Hurt in Avalon
Hurt performed at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, which brought further attention to his music, and he toured extensively throughout the US and recorded 3 albums
This is a live recording from a concert he gave at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1965
Dave Van Ronk - John Hurt
This is a live recording from a concert Van Ronk gave in Bremen, Germany in 1993
The song is by Van Ronk’s friend Tom Paxton
Both of them were friends with Mississippi John Hurt, and Van Ronk often described the evening that a 70-year-old Hurt beat him, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and Sam Hood twice each at arm wrestling
Mama’s Broke - The Nameless
They’re a duo from Nova Scotia who have been playing together for a decade
This is from their album Reunion, which came out in August
Bruce Cockburn - Four Strong Winds
Singer-songwriter and guitarist from Ottawa who’s been playing professionally for over 40 years
This one is from his new album The Blood of Others, which came out on October 16th
It’s a collection of songs written by other people that he “found sticking to the edges of [his] musical landscape”
The song is by Ian Tyson of the Canadian folk duo Ian & Sylvia
Alice Stuart - Sugar Babe
She was a musician from Washington who got her start in folk music at the Berkeley Folk Festival in 1964, and later toured with musicians like Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, Van Morrison, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott
This is off her 2002 album Can’t Find No Heaven
This song was popular at dances in the early 20th century but went largely unrecorded
Stuart likely got it from Mance Lipscomb, who recorded it in 1960
The Wailin’ Jennys - Bring ‘Em All In
Folk group formed in Winnipeg in 2002
This is from their self-titled debut EP from 2002
Kenny Feinstein, Richard Buckner - Sometimes
Buckner is an American songwriter and musician who’s been playing professionally since the 1990s
Feinstein is a musician from Los Angeles known as a member of the punk bluegrass band Water Tower
This is a 2013 cover of My Bloody Valentine’s song from their 1991 album Loveless
Damien Dempsey - Go Move Shift
Dempsey is an Irish musician who’s been playing since the mid 1990s
This is from his latest album Holywell, which came out in June
The song is by Ewan MacColl, who wrote it in 1964
Mike Glick, Aleksi Glick, Lindsey Wilson - If You’re Not Outraged (You Are Not Listening)
Mike Glick is a musician from New York City, and this is from his 2020 album Alternative Facts & Other White Lies, recorded with his son Aleksi and the vocalist Lindsey Wilson
Louise Foreacre - The War Is A-Raging
Off the 1957 Folkways album Old-Time Tunes of the South
Foreacre was originally from North Carolina, but later lived in Maryland, where she performed at the New River Ranch country music park
This is a traditional English folk song found in several English counties, as well as Nova Scotia and parts of the eastern United States
Tillman Cadle - I Don’t Want Your Millions Mister
He was a coal miner, union activist, folk singer, and folk song collector from Kentucky who began working in mines as a young child
He met the folklorist Mary Elizabeth Barnicle in New York City in the 1930s, and the two married in 1936 and often went on folk song collecting trips together
He recorded this one for Alan and Elizabeth Lomax in September of 1937
The lyrics are by his friend Jim Garland, who wrote it in 1932 during the Great Depression after a miners’ strike in Harlan County, Kentucky resulted in him being blacklisted from working
It uses the same tune as “Green Back Dollar” and “East Virginia”
Joan Sprung - Pictures to My Mind
A musician who was based in Connecticut when she recorded this song for her 1980 album of the same name
David Campbell - Thanksgiving Song
He’s a Guyanese-Canadian musician based in Vancouver who began playing professionally in the 1960s
This is off his 2005 album My Kind of Song
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Saul’s Tune
Contemporary stringband based in Toronto
This is their latest release, and banjo player Chris Coole wrote it for one of his favourite banjo students
Jesse Fuller - Railroad Worksong
He was an American one-man band born in Georgia in 1896
Though he had already learned two styles of guitar by the age of 10, he only decided to try making a living from music in the early 1950s
He started by working locally in clubs and bars in San Francisco and other nearby cities, but became better known by performing on TV
In 1958, when he was 62, Fuller recorded his first album
He could play multiple instruments simultaneously, using a harmonica holder to hold a harmonica, a kazoo, or a microphone, playing guitar, and tap-dancing or soft-shoeing as he played
This is his version of “Take This Hammer”, from his 1965 album Move On Down the Line
It’s an American work song that was popular on the railroad, as well as in prisons and logging camps
Wildernauts - Picking Dandelions
They’re a band formed by Peter Stampfel, Eli Smith, John Cohen, and Walker Shepard in the early 2000s
Stampfel is a fiddle player, singer, and songwriter from Wisconsin, best known as a founding member of the Holy Modal Rounders, a group that formed in Greenwich Village, New York City, in 1963
Smith is a folk singer, banjo player, and guitarist from NYC
Shepard is a musician based in New York, and he’s the son of playwright, actor, screenwriter, and director Sam Shepard and actress Jessica Lange
This is off their 2024 self-titled album
The song was originally recorded by the Down Hill Strugglers, of which Smith and Shepard are members
Muscle and Bone - Queen Jane Approximately
They’re a duo formed by American musicians Susan Weber and Walt Campbell
This is from their 2012 EP Songs of Bob Dylan
Dylan included the song on his 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited
Art Napoleon - Kitaskino
He’s a musician, actor, author, activist, bush cook, and former chief of the Saulteau First Nation
This is off his 2006 album Miyôskamin, which means “it is springtime”
The title translates to “Our Land”
Harrison Kennedy - Mountain Stomp
Harrison Kennedy is a Hamilton, Ontario artist with a career in blues and roots music spanning over 50 years
This is off his latest album Old Fashion Plain, which he released in September
It’s a new version of the song, which he originally included on his 2017 album Who U Tellin’?
Scrüj MacDuhk - Cidermill
They were a folk band from Winnipeg who were active in the 1990s
This is from their 1999 album The Road to Canso
The Smothers Brothers - Mediocre Fred
The Smothers Brothers were an American comedy duo consisting of brothers Tom and Dick Smothers, who started performing professionally in the late 1950s
In 1967, they began hosting their own variety show on CBS called The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, which was as controversial as it was influential
The show was cancelled in 1969, but the brothers continued to work together
When they first began, they considered themselves folk singers rather than comedians, and they often incorporated folk music into their act
This is from their 1964 album Tour De Farce: American History and Other Unrelated Subjects
The McMillan’s Camp Boys - Cindy
They’re a band originally from British Columbia, now based in Nova Scotia
This is from their new album Runty in the Tallgrass, which came out on September 4th
Popular American folk song that likely originated in North Carolina
Ken Whiteley, Ben Whiteley - Frosty Weather
Ken Whiteley is a musician from Toronto who’s been playing folk music since the early 1970s
This off his 1993 album All of the Seasons
His son Ben sings with him on this track, and he’s now a professional musician in his own right
Maggie’s Wake - Years Gone By
They’re a roots band from southwestern Ontario that formed in 2022
This song is from their new album Lifelines, which came out on October 25th
Barking Dog: November 5, 2026
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