Barking Dog: December 25, 2025
This Week’s Theme: Holiday and Winter Songs
Uncle Sinner - Antioch
From Winnipeg
Off his new album Everybody Wants to Know How I Die, which came out on December 11th
The hymn is by English minister and hymn-writer Samuel Medley, who wrote it in 1775
Marisa Anderson - No Place to Rest My Head
She’s a musician based in Portland, Oregon, known for her compositions inspired by the American primitive guitar style
This is from the new compilation album Passages: Artists in Solidarity with Immigrants, Refugees, and Asylum Seekers, which came out on the 5th and also features artists like Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Tim Heidecker
Ganavya, Sam Amidon - Would Be Better
She’s an Indian and American musician who released her first album in 2018, and has recorded three more since
Amidon is a contemporary folk artist from Vermont
This is from their new double single, which is described as “a tender dialogue between distance and belonging”
Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer - All I Want
Fink and Marxer 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
This is from the 2024 compilation album Bluegrass Sings Paxton, a tribute to their friend and collaborator Tom Paxton
Mississippi Sheiks - Winter Time Blues
They were an American guitar and fiddle group popular in the 1930s
Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon were the core members
They released this one in 1930 on OKeh Records
Ensemble Hilka - Oi pan khaziain, chy ie ty vdoma? (Winter Song for the Master of the House)
From a 2015 album that presents the sketch of a ritual year in songs that would have been performed in typical Polissian villages for centuries before the Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred in 1986
It was directed by Yevhen Yefremov, an ethnomusicologist and singer who began field expeditions into what is now the Chernobyl Zone in the 1970s
This is a koliada song, a ritual older than Christmas that takes place during the same time
The liner notes state that “some say the winter song singers are the ancestors who descend to earth during the winter solstice and sing magical incantations to each member of the family”
The lyrics translate to “Is the master of this house home? Set the table, for three guests from the heavens are coming to visit”
Shorty Bob Parker - Rain and Snow
He was a blues pianist who recorded several sides for Decca Records in South Carolina in the 1930s
He recorded this one in Charlotte, North Carolina in June of 1938
It’s possible that Kid Prince Moore plays guitar on this track
Willie Dunn, Ron Bankley - The Rising
Dunn was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
Ron Bankley was an Ontario guitarist, poet, and songwriter
This is a studio outtake from 2002
John Reagan - Talkin’ New York
He’s a New Mexico-based musician, and this is a single he released in 2021
It’s a song by Bob Dylan, off his debut album from 1962
Dick Gaughan - The Snows They Melt the Soonest
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 an English folk song that dates to at least the 1820s and was popularized again during the folk revival of the 1960s
Gaughan learned it from Scottish folk singer Archie Fisher, and recorded it for his 1981 album Handful of Earth
Amelia Curran - December
She’s a musician from St. John’s, NL
This is off her 2002 album Lullabies for Barflies
Leon Rosselson, Roy Bailey - Let’s Give Thanks
Rosselson is a musician and children’s book writer from England who first became widely known in the 1960s by performing his satirical songs on the BBC show That Was the Week That Was
Bailey was an English sociologist and musician, and the two were both members of the group Three City Four
This is from Rosselson’s final album Where Are the Barricades?, from 2016
He wrote the song for the 1973 musical They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
Charley Jordan, Mary Harris - No Christmas Blues
Harris was a blues singer who recorded two tracks in 1935, though the name may be a pseudonym for the singer Verdi Lee, who also recorded with Charley Jordan that same year
Jordan was a St. Louis blues musician and talent scout, originally from Arkansas, who walked with crutches due to being shot in the spine in an incident related to his other career as a bootlegger
They made this recording for Decca Records in Chicago, Illinois
Jim Page - Only Heat I Have
He’s a folksinger and activist based in Seattle, and this is off his 2022 album The Time is Now
Alan Mills - Saint Basil
Mills a Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec who was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1974 for his contributions to Canadian folklore
This is off his 1957 album Christmas Songs from Many Lands
It’s a song from Greece, and it’s about the patron saint of orphans, who is considered a counterpart to St. Nicholas
Nicolo Guitierres, Porfirio Rosario, Santo Peña - Navidad sin mi madre (Christmas Without My Mother)
This is from the 1976 album Music from the Dominican Republic, Vol. 3: Cradle of the New World, recorded by ethnomusicologist and record producer Verna Gillis
It’s a cumbia, the national dance of Colombia, and it was recorded in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic
Lead Belly - On a Christmas Day
Lead Belly was a folk and blues musician from Louisiana who was incarcerated in Texas twice in the early 20th century, and met the folksong collectors John and Alan Lomax while they were making field recordings of inmates
Once he was released, he became widely known for both his blues and folk recordings
This recording was made in the 1940s
Christine Lavin - Th 12 Dys F Chrstms
She’s a musician who worked at a cafe in Saratoga Springs, New York, until the folksinger Dave Van Ronk convinced her to move to New York City to pursue a career as a musician
She’s recorded over 25 albums since the early 1980s, and this one’s from the 2003 album The Runaway Christmas Tree
The song was first published in print in 1780, and it likely originated around the area of Newcastle upon Tyne in the North of England
Black Ace - Christmas Time Blues
He was a Texas blues musician who began performing in the late 1920s and continued until the early 1960s
He made this recording for Decca Records in 1937
The Blue Chips - Winter Soon Be Over, Children
They were an American vocal group that recorded for ARC Records in New York City in 1936
This is an African American spiritual that likely originated among enslaved people some time before the mid-19th century
Sons of the Pioneers - Leaning on the Everlasting Arm
One of the earliest western bands in the US
Formed in 1933, originally Roy Rogers, Bob Nolan, and Tim Spencer
The band still exists but there have been countless changes in membership since the beginning
They made this recording for Vocalion in 1940
It’s a hymn with music by Anthony J Showalter and lyrics by Showalter and Elisha Hoffman
Arna Bontemps - After Winter
This comes from the 1990 album An Anthology of African American Poetry for Young People, read by Arna Bontemps, a writer and librarian from Louisiana who was a member of the Harlem Renaissance
It’s a poem by Sterling A Brown, an American folklorist, poet, and literary critic known for being the first poet laureate of the District of Columbia
The poem likens his father, a reverend, professor, and farmer, to an old scarecrow who looks forward to planting food for his children in the spring
Lord Nelson - Merry Christmas One and All
He’s an artist from Tobago who moved to New York City as a young adult, where he went on to serve in Korea and begin to build a career as an entertainer, performing as a singer and comedian in Army shows
He began gaining popularity in the 1960s, and is considered one of pioneers of soca music, an offshoot of calypso
At the age of 94, he still occasionally performs
He recorded this one in the 1960s
The Silver Sardines - Gentleness
They’re an alt-folk band from Montreal
This is from their debut album, The Whole House, which came out in December of last year
Bo Carter - Santa Claus
Bo Carter was a blues musician who was a member of the Mississippi Sheiks, along with his brothers Lonnie and Sam Chatmon
He recorded this in San Antonio, Texas in 1938
Big Dave McLean - Santa Come
A blues musician from Winnipeg who’s been playing for over 50 years
This is from a compilation of Christmas blues songs from Stony Plain Records, released in 2000
Reverend JM Gates - Will the Coffin Be Your Santa Claus?
He was an American preacher from Georgia who made over 200 gospel and sermon recordings from the 20s to the 1940s, which made him one of the most popular preachers of the pre-war era
He was, in fact, responsible for the popularity of sermon recordings during that time
He made this recording with Deacon Leon Davis and Sisters Jordan & Norman for OKeh Records in 1927
Zachary Lucky - Water in the Fuel
He’s a musician from Saskatchewan, and this is from his latest album, The Wind, from 2024
It’s a song by Fred Eaglesmith
Great Lake Swimmers - Somewhere Near Thunder Bay
They’re an Ontario band that have been performing since the early 2000s
This comes from their 2024 album In Pieces: An Acoustic Retrospective, a collection of acoustic re-recordings of songs from their 8-album catalogue
It’s a live recording, made in 2022 at In the Soil Arts Festival
The song was originally released on lead singer and songwriter Tony Dekker’s 2013 album Prayer of the Woods
David Francey - Exit
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who worked as a railyard worker and carpenter for 20 years before pursuing folk music at the age of 45
From his 2003 album Skating Rink
Leena Evic - Illup Qaangani (Up on the House Top)
She’s an educator and singer who founded a centre for Inuit language, culture and wellbeing and a doctoral program for maintaining Inuit knowledge and language
This is from her 2011 EP Nunavut Christmas
It’s a song written by American composer Benjamin Hanby in 1864, and is considered the second-oldest secular Christmas song after “Jingle Bells”
Mike Seeger, Peggy Seeger, Penny Seeger - Heard from Heaven Today
From the 1957 album American Folk Songs for Christmas, a collection of songs from Ruth Crawford Seeger’s 1953 book of the same name
Peggy, Penny, and Mike are her children
It’s an African American spiritual that was first collected on Port Royal Island, South Carolina in 1861
Ch’ol Musicians - Tila, Fiesta De Santa Lucia (Christmas)
This is off a 1977 album of Indigenous music from the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico
This is a Christmas song from the Ch’ol people, recorded in the town of Tila
The Ch’ol language is considered one of the closest modern languages to the Classic Maya language
