Barking Dog: December 12, 2024
Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Chao Tian - High on a Mountain
A married duo that has been performing together for over 35 years
Cathy Fink is from Maryland, but began her career in the early 70s, busking and playing folk music in Canadian coffeehouses
She met Marcy Marxer, originally from Michigan, in Toronto in 1980, and they started writing songs together in 1983
Since then, they have released about 35 albums and received 14 Grammy nominations and 2 Grammy awards
Chao is a Chinese hammered dulcimer player, sound designer, and visual artist who has performed in over 30 countries and has been fostering cultural exchange between the United States and China since 2015
This is off their recent album, From China to Appalachia, which came out in August
It’s a song by Ola Belle Reed
Old Man Luedecke - I’m Fine (I am, I am)
From Chester, NS
Off his 2012 album Tender Is The Night
Dick Gaughan, Andy Irvine - My Back Pages / afterthoughts
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
Irvine is an Irish musician who’s been playing professionally for 60 years, both as a member of bands like Planxty and Sweeney’s Men, and as a solo artist
This is from their 1982 album Parallel Lines
It’s a medley of Bob Dylan’s 1964 song and a composition by Gaughan
Red Foley - I Got the Freight Train Blues
He was a well-known country musician and Grand Ole Opry member from Kentucky who contributed to the popularity of the genre after the Second World War
John Lair wrote this song for Foley, who recorded it in 1934
Bob Dylan - Freight Train Blues
This is a recording from his first concert, given at the Carnegie Chapter Hall on the fifth floor of Carnegie Hall on November 4, 1961, just 11 months after he arrived in New York
He got the song from a Roy Acuff recording
Sandy Denny - It Ain’t Me Babe
She was an English musician and the lead singer of the folk rock band Fairport Convention
This is from the 2018 compilation album A Tree With Roots: Fairport Convention And Friends And The Songs Of Bob Dylan
It’s a home demo she recorded in 1966
Dylan released the song in 1964
Lhamo Dukpa - With God on Our Side
She’s a Bhutanese singer, composer, actor, and accountant who has toured around the world
This is off the 2013 album From Another World: A Tribute to Bob Dylan, which is a collection of interpretations of Dylan’s songs from around the world
Dylan wrote the song in 1963
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
Utah Phillips - The rich will not permit you to vote away their wealth
He was an anarchist folksinger, storyteller, and labour organiser from Ohio
This is from his 1999 album Making Speech Free
Phil Ochs - Love Me, I’m a Liberal
He was an American protest singer who grew up all over the United States, but moved to New York City in 1962 to establish himself as a folksinger in the Greenwich Village folk scene
This is from the 1966 album Phil Ochs in Concert
It’s a satirical composition that became one of his most popular concert songs
Jim Bryson - Flurry of Strikes
He’s a musician from Ottawa who’s been performing since the early 2000s as both a solo artist and in the bands of artists including Kathleen Edwards, Sarah Harmer, and the Weakerthans
This is from his 2018 album Tired of Waiting
Kronos Quartet, Sam Amidon - Oh Where
Amidon is a contemporary folk artist from Vermont, now based in England
Kronos Quartet is a string quartet from San Francisco that formed over 50 years ago
The quartet has performed music from many different genres and with many different artists, including Allen Ginsberg, Paul McCartney, and Björk
This is from their 2017 album Folk Songs
A Paul Ortega - Traveling Song
Ortega was an influential Apache musician who began as a tribal singer at the age of five
He moved to Chicago in the early 1960s and began to adapt blues guitar to Apache social songs
This is a protective song for travellers
It’s from a 1992 compilation album of Native American music from New Mexico, released by Smithsonian Folkways
Lightnin’ Hopkins - Needed Time
Was a country blues musician from Texas who gained a broader audience with the folk revival of the 1960s after recording and performing around Texas in the 40s and 50s
He continued to tour and record throughout the 60s and 70s, and was the poet in residence for Houston, Texas for 35 years
This is from the soundtrack for the 1972 film Sounder, the rest of which was written and performed by Taj Mahal
“Needed Time” is a traditional American song, popularised in the 20th century by Hopkins
Big Dave McLean - Needed Time
A blues musician from Winnipeg who’s been playing for over 50 years
It’s off McLean’s 2008 album Acoustic Blues: Got ‘Em from the Bottom
It uses the same tune as “Daniel in the Lion’s Den”
The Humblebums - Time
They were a Scottish folk rock band formed by Billy Connolly and Tam Harvey in 1965
Gerry Rafferty later joined the band
This is an outtake from their 1970 album Open Up the Door
Ellen Froese - I Wish I Had a Foot-Long Cigarette
Contemporary artist who grew up on a dairy farm in Saskatchewan
This is from her 2017 self-titled album
Clannad - An TÚll
Dyad - Henry Lee
From Victoria, BC
From their album No Pedlars or Preachers from 2006
It’s a version of the American ballad “Henry Lee,” which evolved from a tragic British ballad called “Young Hunting”
Mick Hanly, Mícheál Ó Domhnaill - The Bold Princess Royal
They’re both Irish musicians who formed a duo called Monroe in the early 1970s
This is from their 1974 album Celtic Folkweave, which they recorded with members of the bands Planxty, The Bothy Band, and Moving Hearts
This was a popular broadside ballad in both Britain and North America in the mid-19th century
It seems to be based on the true story of the French privateer ship Aventurier’s attack on the HM Princess Royal in 1789
Despite being outmanned and outgunned by its attacker, the Princess Royal managed to hold the privateer off and make it to its final destination, while the Adventurier had to return to Bordeaux for refitting
Kaia Kater - Over Yonder in the Graveyard
Grenadian-Canadian artist based in Toronto
This is a brand new single, which she released on December 4th
It’s her version of Ola Belle Reed’s song
Dan St. Dan Band - Pacific Blues
This is off a 2019 compilation album of contemporary folk, country, and blues from Atlantic Canada, released by Big Turnip Records
Carl Martin - Let’s Have a New Deal
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 one is from 1935
William Tagoona - Makkuksunga
He’s a musician and journalist from Baker Lake, Nunavut who’s been working for CBC North since the 1980s and was a member of one of the first Inuit rock groups, The Harpoons, in the 1960s
This is from a 1983 album recorded live in Nuuk, Greenland as part of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference’s third General Assembly
Robert Johnson - Malted Milk
Johnson was a Delta blues musician from Mississippi who mainly performed as a traveling musician and participated in two recording sessions in the late 1930s
He was not widely known during his lifetime, but he has come to be recognized as one of the most important musicians of the 20th century
This recording is from 1937
Sonny Boy Williamson I - Jackson Blues
He was a harmonica player and blues singer from Tennessee
In the 40s, Aleck Miller started going by the name Sonny Boy Williamson to take advantage of the original performer’s fame
This is how the first Sonny Boy Williamson came to be known as Sonny Boy Williamson I or The Original Sonny Boy
He recorded this one in Illinois in 1937
Janis Joplin, Jorma Kaukonen - Trouble in Mind
Recorded in 1964 with the sound of Jorma’s wife’s typewriter in the background
“Trouble in Mind” was written by jazz pianist Richard M Jones in the vaudeville blues style, and first recorded by Thelma La Vizzo in 1924
Has since become a standard in multiple roots genres
Per & Birthe - Kinaavit
They were a brother/sister duo from Greenland that recorded 2 albums
This is from their 1979 album Paatit
The title translates to “Who Are You?”
David Francey - Paper Boy
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who worked as a railyard worker and carpenter for 20 years before pursuing folk music at the age of 45
Off his 2001 album Far End of Summer
Mama’s Broke - Weak Winter’s Sun / Margaree / Balea Baya
They’re a duo from Nova Scotia who have been playing together for a decade
This is from their 2017 album Count the Wicked
Chris Coole - Hail Against the Barndoor
A member of the Lonesome Ace Stringband from Wolfe Island, ON
Off a compilation album of banjo music from 2007 called Old Time Banjo Festival
