Barking Dog: December 1, 2022
Bruce Cockburn - Bird Without Wings
Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who’s been playing professionally for over 40 years
This is from his new album, Rarities, which came out last Friday
It presents 12 rarely heard recordings by Cockburn
He wrote this song in the 60s, and recorded it in Ottawa in 1966
This recording was first released on his Rumours of Glory box set in 2014
Arthur Russell - Sharper Eyes
He was a cellist, singer, composer, and producer from Iowa who was part of the New York avant garde scene in the 1970s
He died from AIDS in 1992 at the age of 40 when his work was still somewhat obscure, but rereleases, books, and a documentary about him brought more attention to his work throughout the 2000s, and more of his recordings have been released over time
This is off the 2019 compilation album Iowa Dream
Larry Estridge - Let It Roar Like a Flood
He was a writer, musician, painter, and sculptor from New York who was a protest organiser at Harvard in the 1960s and a political activist for his entire life
From a compilation album of topical songs released by Folkways Records in 1973
Judith Zweiman, Deb Cayman - The Chemical Worker’s Song
This is from a 1985 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 song was written by Ron Angel, who was working for Imperial Chemical Industries when the fact came out that the average life expectancy of a chemical worker was 42 years. Ron was 41, so he handed in his notice and wrote this song
He dedicated it to his father, Billy Angel, who died at 62 after working in a chemical plant’s anhydrite mine for his entire life
Stan Rogers - The Idiot
Born and raised in Ontario, but known for his maritime-influenced music that was informed by his time spent visiting family in Nova Scotia during the summers of his childhood
His 73rd birthday would have been on Tuesday, but he sadly passed away in an airplane fire in 1983
This is from his 1981 album Northwest Passage
It’s about the movement of people away from the Atlantic Provinces to Alberta for work
Pink Anderson - I Will Fly Away
Pink Anderson was an American blues singer and guitarist born in Laurens, SC
Began performing in medicine shows in 1914 and continued to perform in medicine shows 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 a hymn written in 1929 by Albert E Brumley
Recorded in South Carolina in August of 1961
Joan Baez, Donovan - Colours
Baez is one of the best known musicians to come out of the 1960s folk revival
She performed for over 60 years and released over 30 albums before retiring in 2019
Donovan is a Scottish musician who’s released music in many different genres since he began performing in the 1960s, though he began as a folksinger
He wrote this song and released it in 1965
This is a live recording from the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, which was released in 1995 on the compilation album Folk Music at Newport, Part 1
John Angaiak - Ak’a Tamaani
A Yup’ik singer-songwriter from Alaska
After serving in Vietnam in the US Armed Forces, he enrolled in the University of Alaska and became active in the school’s so-called Eskimo Language Workshop
This song comes from his 1971 album, I’m Lost in the City, which is inspired by his work preserving his native language, with the first side entirely in the previously exclusively oral Yup’ik language, and the second in English
The song became a regional hit in Alaska, and Angaiak also performed it in Greenland on a tour
Phil Ochs - Spaceman
He was an American protest singer from the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene
His song about the social cost of the space race between the United States and Russia in the 1960s
Robert Lee Westmoreland - Hello Central, Give Me 209
He was an artist from Georgia, and it seems that he only ever recorded two songs, both in Georgia in 1953
A Lightnin’ Hopkins song from 1952
Townes Van Zandt - Hello Central
He was a musician from Texas, known mainly for his own compositions, though he recorded many traditional songs as well
From the 1994 album Roadsongs
Wade Hemsworth - Aidal O’Boy
Wade Hemsworth was a respected Canadian folksinger known for writing the “Black Fly Song”
The song seems to be a variant of one of the many Irish songs brought over to Canada in the 1800s, such as “Rocking the Cradle” or “The Charlady's Son”
This version was sung in Labrador and the melody has been used for other songs in Canada, but little else is known about this particular variant
Dave Rawlings - I Hear Them All
Rawlings is a well-known contemporary roots musician from Rhode Island, known particularly for his musical partnership with Gillian Welch
This is from his 2009 album A Friend of a Friend
Rawlings co-wrote it with Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show, who first recorded it for their 2006 album Big Iron World with Rawlings on guitar
Happy Traum, Bob Dylan - Let Me Die in My Footsteps
Traum an artist known for his involvement in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s and the Woodstock music scene of the 70s and 80s
This one’s from the Greenwich Village days
It was written by Dylan in 1962 after the constant threat of nuclear attack during the height of the cold war between Russia and the United States
Governments ran civil defence drills during this time, ordering citizens to go into subway tunnels or local bomb shelters when they heard the alarm
Many felt the possibility of surviving a nuclear attack was near zero, and that governments implying otherwise was intentionally misleading
Traum and Dylan were among hundreds who protested at New York City Hall during one of these drills in 1961 and refused to go underground—Traum was arrested and spent 3 months on a work farm for contempt of court
Traum leads on that one, with Dylan providing backing vocals and guitar
The New York Times, Tuesday, May 9, 1961
Fred Small - Everything Is Possible
Another one from an issue of Fast Folk, this one a “political song” issue from 1983
Small started out as an environmental lawyer, but gave up his career to write and perform topical songs
He later became a Unitarian Universalist minister, and again resigned in 2015 to devote his time to climate advocacy, though he currently works as Minister for Climate Justice at a church in Boston
David Rovics - Morning at Minnehaha
He’s a musician and writer based in Oregon who’s been touring internationally since the 1990s
From his album Live at Club Passim, from 2000
Maria Nazzaro provides backing vocals on this one
Carole Rose Livingston, Mark Dann - I Am a Friend of the Foetus
Another one from Fast Folk Musical Magazine
Livingston was a professor of English, a ballad scholar, folksinger, songwriter, and human rights activist from New York
Dann was the recording engineer for Fast Folk, and he’s also a bass player who’s been working with musicians for over 40 years
Enoch Kent - The Murder of Ginger Goodwin
A Scottish-born folksinger now based in Canada, who began playing professionally in the 1950s
That one is from his 2010 album Take a Trip With Me
Ginger Goodwin was a coal miner from England who advocated for unions and worker’s rights in British Columbia in the early 20th century
He was murdered by a police officer in 1918, and his death led to the very first general strike held in Canada, which lasted for one day but was a precursor to the Winnipeg general strike of 1919, as well as several other labour actions in the country
The Osmond Davis Band - I’ve Just Seen the Rock of Ages
Manitoba band
John Brenton Preston of Paris, Kentucky composed both the lyrics and music for this song
He wrote it while he was in prison, scratching the lyrics into the floor of his cell with a pebble
Preston met Ralph Stanley of the Stanley Brothers while on parole sometime in the 1970s, and Stanley learned the song from him and popularised it through his performances
Corbin Hayslett - Hiram Hubbard
Hayslett is a contemporary old-time musician from Virginia
This is an American Civil War-era ballad about a man captured, brought to trial, and convicted by his captors despite being innocent
It’s reported to be a reflection of the guerilla warfare in the Kentucky or Tennessee highlands during the civil war
Lonnie Pitchford - That Train Coming Around the Bend
American blues artist and instrument maker from Mississippi
He played acoustic and electric guitar, one-string guitar, diddley bow, double bass, piano, and harmonica (we hear him play the one-string guitar on this one)
This one was recorded live in October, 1984 at the National Downhome Blues Festival in Atlanta, GA
Mike Seeger, Paul Brown - Let Me Fall
Mike was a folklorist and musician who co-founded the New Lost City Ramblers in the 1950s
Brown is a musician, record producer, and radio host from the Appalachian region of the United States
From their 1996 album Way Down in North Carolina
This is a traditional old-time tune from North Carolina
John Cohen - The Coo-Coo Bird
He was a musician, musicologist, photographer, and filmmaker who was an instrumental member of the 1960s folk music revival
He’s known for documenting Southern musicians and the artists he knew in New York City through his photographs and films
A traditional English folk song that was adapted into a banjo tune as it continued to develop in the US
Also popular in Canada, Scotland, and Ireland
This was recorded live at the fifth annual Brooklyn Folk Festival in 2013
John Showman, Chris Coole - Billy in the Lowground
Two members of the Lonesome Ace Stringband from Wolfe Island, ON
From their recent album Afield: 11 Fiddle and Banjo Duets Recorded in the Great Outdoors
Traditional American reel that likely has origins in the UK
Joe Glazer - Boom Went the Boom
He was a folk musician and labour activist from New York who recorded over 30 albums during his career
From his 1977 album I Will Win: Songs of the Wobblies
It’s a song about the Great Depression, to the tune of the vaudeville song “Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay”
Dyad - Hogeye
From Victoria, BC
Off their 2017 album Revisionist
American old-time reel
Eva Cassidy - Early Morning Rain
She was an American musician known for her interpretations of traditional music within Washington, DC, yet largely unknown outside of her hometown
Widely recorded song written by Gordon Lightfoot in 1964
Old Man Luedecke - Wrong Side of the Country
From Chester, NS
Off his 2006 album Hinterland
Peggy Seeger - When I Was Single
Peggy Seeger is a member of the Seeger family—Mike and Pete Seeger were her brothers, her father was Charles Seeger, a folklorist and musicologist, and her mother Ruth Crawford Seeger, a composer and the first woman to receive the Guggenheim Fellowship
She’s been living in the UK for over 60 years, where she is a very well-known musician
This is a song popularised by the Carter Family
Seeger recorded it when she was 19, and she based the guitar accompaniment on a piano accompaniment her mother made for the song
Ginni Clemmens - I Care
She was a folk musician known for working in the genres of women’s music and children’s music
This is off her 1977 children’s album We All Have a Song, which she recorded in her living room with children from her neighbourhood providing accompanying vocals
Emmett Brand - My Old Mother
From a 1956 album of field recordings made by Frederic Ramsey Jr. in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi of older musicians he met during his travels through the southern states
Brand reckoned he was around 82 when he was recorded near Morgan Springs, Alabama in 1954
A harvest song which was likely originally sung by enslaved people
Pete Seeger - Sailing Down My Golden River
Pete Seeger was a very influential folk singer and activist who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and other important social issues through his music
This is one of his songs about the environment, from a compilation album of live performances from the Bread and Roses Festival of Acoustic Music in Berkeley, California
In 1966, Seeger and his wife Toshi founded the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater Inc., a nonprofit organisation that aims to protect the Hudson River in New York from pollution
Its main goal at the beginning was to force a clean-up of the Polychlorinated biphenyl contamination that plagued the river beginning in the 1940s, as a result of nearby manufacturing activities by General Electric and other companies
Their protests led to the passage of the federal Clean Water Act in 1972 and the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, and operations still continue to reduce pollution in the river
He wrote the song in the 1960s, around the time he got the idea to build a replica Hudson River sloop to educate people about river pollution
Daniel Koulack & Karrnnel - Dream 12
From Winnipeg
Off the 2010 album Fiddle and Banjo
