Barking Dog: November 9, 2023
Morley Loon - Caminconoch
He was a Cree musician and actor from Mistissini, Quebec
This is from his debut album, Northland, My Land, from 1981
The title translates to “Spirits”
Si Kahn - Dump the Bosses Off Your Back
Kahn is a community organiser and musician from Pennsylvania who moved to the south as an activist during the Civil Rights Movement
This is off an album in tribute to Utah Phillips, who often performed the song
The lyrics are by John Brill, and it’s to the tune of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” which was composed by Charles Crozat Converse in 1868
Rosalie Sorrels - I Think of You
She started out as a folksinger and collector of folk songs, and left her husband in the 1960s to travel across America with her five children, establishing herself as a performer and making connections with other folk musicians, writers, and artists
From her 1967 album If I Could Be the Rain
The song is by Utah Phillips, who Sorrels was friends with
Wataru Takada, Hilltop Stringband - Zabuton
He was a Japanese folk musician who came from a family of artists and activists, and who was active in the Kansai folk movement which began in the late 1960s
In 1966, music critic Kazuo Mitsuhashi introduced him to American folk music, and he sent a letter to Pete Seeger while considering studying folk music in the US
He learned banjo and worked towards becoming a folksinger while still attending high school
He also maintained contact with Pete Seeger, who he met after Seeger gave him a concert ticket for one of his shows in Japan
He remained active in the folk scene in Japan and performed with well-known artists like Haruomi Hosono
This is from the 1977 album Bourbon Street Blues, recorded with The Hilltop Stringband, which he formed with Junpei Sakuma
Adam Hurt - Stillhouse
He’s a contemporary American banjo player who moved to the southern US 20 years ago and has placed in or won most of the major old-time banjo competitions since moving there
He also has an interest in gourd banjos, and this one is off his 2010 album Earth Tones
This is a traditional tune recorded by many musicians, including Kyle Creed, Matokie Slaughter, and Brad Leftwich
Uncle Sinner - Payday in Calgary
Contemporary artist from Winnipeg
The song was originally about labour issues at the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company in Coal Creek, Tennessee, though Uncle Sinner changed it to Calgary since that’s where he was living at the time
Alan Mills and the Four Shipmates - Rio Grande
Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec
Made a member of the Order of Canada in 1974 for his contributions to Canadian folklore
From the 1957 album Songs of the Sea
This is a popular sea shanty that was often sung as the sailors left their homeport, regardless of whether they were headed to the Rio Grande or not
Pharis & Jason Romero - Sweet Old Religion
Married duo from Horsefly, BC
Off their 2018 album of the same name
Precious Bryant - You Don’t Want Me No More
She was an American musician described as one of Georgia’s great blueswomen
She was first recorded by George Mitchell in 1967, and by the mid 1980s her fanbase had grown enough for her to perform internationally
This is off her 2005 album My Name is Precious
It’s a traditional blues song
Pete Seeger - Come All You Fair and Tender Maids
Pete Seeger was a very influential folk singer and activist from New York who advocated for important social causes through his music
This is an Appalachian folk ballad that was often known as “Little Sparrow” prior to the 1960s
Johnny Richardson - Railroad Man
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
Richardson wrote this children’s song about the railroad in the tradition of John Henry
It’s from a 1964 album of children’s songs
Walter Ferguson - Farewell to the USA
He was a Costa Rican calypso singer born in 1919 who spent almost his whole life in Cahuita, a small fishing village
He started recording his music on tapes in the 1970s after one of his sons gave him a tape recorder, and he sold his music to travellers from around the world
Ferguson did this until the 1990s, when he retired from music
In 2018, to recover some of his lost music—since each tape was unique and he never wrote down his lyrics—one of his sons put out a call for help to find more of his tapes in preparation for his 100th birthday, which resulted in a worldwide effort and several volumes of newly discovered music
He did in February at the age of 103
From his 1982 Folkways album Calypso of Costa Rica
Primeaux & Mike - Dreamz
They’re a Grammy-award-winning duo of Indigenous musicians based in Arizona
Kenneth Peacock - Who is at My Window Weeping?
He was an ethnomusicologist from Toronto who was on the staff for what is now the Canadian Museum of Civilization
His projects for the museum covered practically every part of Canada, and he’s remembered for the impact his research had on the folk music revival in Canada in the mid 20th century
He collected this song while working on Newfoundland folklore
It’s a short ballad with English roots
Jack Owens - Jack Ain’t Had No Water
Owens was a blues musician from Mississippi
He learned several instruments as a child but his chosen instrument was the guitar
He never really aimed to become a professional recording artist, and instead farmed and ran a juke joint for much of his life before being recorded during the folk and blues revival of the 1960s when the musicologist David Evans learned about him from other blues musicians from his region
He toured throughout the US and Europe during the last decades of his life, often with his harmonica-playing friend Bud Spires
This is from their album It Must Have Been the Devil from 1971
Five Soul Stirrers of Houston - Precious Lord
A vocal group formed in 1926, which sang in the pre-war jubilee style
The words to this gospel song were written by Reverend Thomas A Dorsey in 1932 after the loss of his wife and infant son during childbirth
They recorded their version in 1939
Blind Boy Fuller - Precious Lord
He was a popular North Carolina Piedmont blues artist
He recorded his version in 1940 with Sonny Terry on harmonica and Oh Red on washboard
Amelia Curran - Hands on a Grain of Sand
She’s a musician from St. John’s, NL
This song is from her 2009 Juno Award-winning album Hunter, Hunter, which she recorded in St. John’s
David Nzomo - Alusi
He’s a musician from Kenya who recorded six albums of traditional Kenyan songs for Folkways records while he was studying at Columbia University in the 1960s and 70s
His early musical gigs were at local events like dances and wedding parties
This is a wedding song he wrote, dedicated to the bride and groom
Isabel Parra - Porque los Pobres no Tienen
That is from a 1970 album of protest songs from Latin America
Isabel Parra is a Chilean folksinger who began her recording career at the age of thirteen with her mother, the folklorist Violeta Parra
This is her mother’s song, and the title translates to “Because the Poor Have Nothing”
Ian & Sylvia - Marlborough Street Blues
Well-known folk duo who started performing together in Toronto in 1959
This song is by Ian
Off their 1965 album Early Morning Rain
Mississippi John Hurt - Coffee Blues
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 OkEh recordings were included on the incredibly influential 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, and in 1963 a copy of his song “Avalon Blues” was discovered, which led the musicologist Dick Spottswood to find 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 Hurt’s own version of Charley Jordan’s song “Just a Spoonful,” recorded July 1964 in New York City
Bob Dylan - Mary and the Soldier
He recorded this in 1993 for the album World Gone Wrong, but didn’t include it on the album
A traditional ballad found in both Ireland and Scotland
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, from 1940
The McIntosh County Shouters - Blow, Gabriel
This is from the 1984 album Slave Shout Songs from the Coast of Georgia
Many elements of the slave shout tradition come from West Africa, though the tradition is also related to other African diasporic traditions from Brazil and Cuba
The word “shout” in this case comes from an Afro-Islamic term for a sacred dance, and doesn’t refer to the vocalisation present in the songs
The McIntosh County Shouters have been performing since 1980, though the slave shout tradition has been passed down since the time of slavery
In this song, the singer urges the angel Gabriel to blow his trumpet on the Day of Judgement
It’s the antecedent of later spirituals on the same theme
Preston Fulp - Going Down the Road Feeling Bad
He was a North Carolina artist who worked in sawmills for much of his life, playing music on weekends and at special events in the community
Traditional song that seems to be from Black pre-blues tradition, though it’s been widely recorded by many well-known artists like Woody Guthrie, Elizabeth Cotten, and Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley
Also known as “Lonesome Road Blues”
Off the 2001 album Sawmill Worker
Guitar Frank - Railroad Bill
His name was Frank Hovington, and he was a Delaware guitarist spotted playing on a roadside porch by John Fahey, who was on a record-collecting trip
He became known by a few east-coast collectors, and was brought to the Smithsonian Folk Festival in 1971 but seemed reluctant to perform in public, and faded back into obscurity until Bruce Bastin and Dick Spotswood sought him out in 1975 to record a few of his songs
This comes from those recordings
Idrissa Soumaoro - Yorodian taga
He is a Malian musician who’s relatively unknown internationally, though he’s been part of a number of important musical developments in the country
He began as a member of Les Ambassadeurs, then left to study in Cambridge, Hereford, and Birmingham, earning degrees in English, Braille music, and special education
He’s used his education to teach music to blind students, and was even Inspector General of Music at the National Ministry of Education, overseeing the Malian government’s musical education curriculum
This song is off his 1998 album Kote, named after the style of music he developed, which is influenced by traditional Malian music and African blues music
Old Man Luedecke - Year of the Dragon
From Chester, NS
Off his 2015 album Domestic Eccentric
Pink Anderson - Meet Me in the Bottom
Pink Anderson was an American blues singer and guitarist born in Laurens, SC
He began performing in medicine shows in 1914 and continued to perform in them for about four decades
Folklorist Paul Clayton recorded him at the Virginia State Fair in May 1950, and Anderson also recorded an album in the 60s and played a few shows, though he reduced his activity after a stroke in the late 1960s
This song is derived from the Piedmont blues song “Oh Lordy Mama,” first recorded by Buddy Moss in 1934
Bumble Bee Slim is credited with adding the lyrics to the original song that turned it into “Meet Me in the Bottom”
Recorded in the early 1960s in Spartanburg, SC
Othar Turner, The Rising Star Fife & Drum Band - My Babe
One of the last well-known fife players in the American fife and drums blues tradition
Born in Mississippi in 1907 and lived his life in the Mississippi hill country as a farmer
Scholars from nearby colleges recorded him and his friends in the 60s and 70s, and his band played at many local farm parties
Performed as the “Mississippi Fife and Drum Corps” with his bandmates Jessie Mae Hemphill and Abe Young on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood in 1982, and the group began to receive wider attention in the 1990s
This one’s from the 2001 album Everybody Hollerin’ Goat
This is a blues standard written by Willie Dixon and first recorded by Little Walter in 1955
The song is based on the traditional gospel song “This Train”
We’ll hear another fife & drum tune after this
Sid Hemphill, Lucius Smith - Devil’s Dream
Karrnnel Sawitsky, Daniel Koulack - The Fall of Shannon Doah
