Barking Dog: December 26, 2024
This Week’s Theme: Holiday and Winter Songs
Fred Penner - In Winnipeg At Christmas
He’s a children’s musician and entertainer from Winnipeg who’s been performing professionally since the early 1970s
This is from his 2004 album Christmastime
It’s a poem by the English writer Rose Fyleman, who was invited to Winnipeg in December of 1929 to speak at a couple of women’s clubs
She was staying at the Fort Garry, and took a walk to the legislature one evening, which inspired her to write this poem
It first appeared in Punch Magazine on New Year’s Day, 1930
The Watersons - Christmas is Now Drawing Near at Hand
English folk group from Yorkshire, England who performed acapella traditional songs beginning in the 1960s
They were three siblings: Norma, Mike, and Lal, and their cousin John Harrison
This is from their first album from 1965 called Frost and Fire: A Calendar of Ritual and Magical Songs
It’s sung by Lal, and it’s an English carol likely from the 16th century
It was sung by beggars and travellers around Christmastime, though it fell out of popularity due to its strong moralizing until the Watersons recorded it
Bob & Ron Copper - The Twelve Days of Christmas
This is off the 1955 album Folk Song Today: Songs and Ballads of England and Scotland
The Coppers are a family of traditional a cappella singers from Sussex, England, who first received widespread attention during the folk revival of the 1960s, though they’ve been passing down their songs through the generations for hundreds of years
Bob and Ron were cousins
The Coppers knew the song as “The Christmas Presents”
It’s a cumulative song, where each verse grows longer than the last
It was first published in print in 1780, and it likely originated around the area of Newcastle upon Tyne in the North of England
Catherine MacLellan - Snowbird
She’s a folk musician from Prince Edward Island whose father was the musician Gene MacLellan
She’s been playing since 2002, and this is off her 2011 album Silhouette
It was written by her father in the late 1960s
María Luisa Buchino - Nieve, Viento Y Sol
This is from a 1961 album of the music of Chile
The title translates to “Snow, Wind and Sun”
Bernie Krause, Phil Aaberg - Amazing Grace
Krause began his career as a recording engineer, and later joined the Weavers for a brief period in the early 60s
He’s both a musician and soundscape ecologist, and he founded Wild Sanctuary in 1968, which records and archives the sounds of natural environments
Aaberg is a classically trained pianist and composer from Montana who has performed in many genres throughout his career
This is off their 1994 album A Wild Christmas, which is composed entirely of animal sounds
This version of “Amazing Grace” uses the sounds of the potoo bird and the ambient sounds of the Amazon rainforest
“Amazing Grace” is a hymn published in 1779 by John Newton that became popular again in the 1960s and has since become a folk standard
Elizabeth Mitchell - Yuki (Snow)
Musician from New York who began her career as part of the duo Liza and Lisa with Lisa Loeb
This is from her 2012 children’s album Blue Clouds, which she recorded with her family and friends
Their friend Mizuyo Aburano taught the song to them when they were looking for a winter song, and they loved it so much that they named their dog Yuki after it
Barenaked Ladies - Deck the Stills
A classic off their album Barenaked for the Holidays
The song uses a Welsh melody that dates back to the 16th century
Sarah Ogan Gunning - Old Jack Frost
She was a folksinger from Kentucky, as were her half-sister Aunt Molly Jackson and brother Jim Garland
She was briefly involved in the New York folk scene in the 1930s and was later rediscovered in Detroit in the 1960s, and played at Newport Folk Festival in 1964
This is from her 1965 album Girl of Constant Sorrow
It’s a children’s song that Gunning learned from her mother, and she taught it to children in New York City when the folklorist Mary Elizabeth Barnicle took her there on a trip in the 1930s
Ella Jenkins - A Winter Plane Ride
She was an American folk singer and actress dubbed the “First Lady of the Children’s Folk Song”
This is off her 1992 album Come Dance by the Ocean
Charlie Panigoniak - Unnuaq Upinnaq
He was an Inuk songwriter and musician who began recording in the 1970s
This is off his 1980 album Inuktitut Christmas & Gospel Songs, released by the CBC Northern Broadcast Service
It’s a version of “Silent Night,” which was composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber, with lyrics by Joseph Mohr
Hawksley Workman - Snowmobile
He’s a singer-songwriter from Ontario, and this is off his 2019 album Median Age Wasteland
Jill Balcon - The Snow Lies Thick on Valley Forge
This is from the first volume of the Anthology of English Verse, released by Folkways Records in 1961
The poem is by Rudyard Kipling, an English writer known for writing the Jungle Book, among other works
It’s read by the English actress Jill Balcon, mother of Daniel Day-Lewis
Dave Van Ronk - River
A member of the Greenwich Village folk scene in New York City, known as the “Mayor of MacDougal Street”, MacDougal Street being where practically every coffeehouse was located in the 60s
This is from his 1973 album Songs for Ageing Children, and it’s by his friend Joni Mitchell
Alan Mills - The Wren Boys Sing
Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec
Known for popularising Canadian folk music, and for writing the music for “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly”
Made a member of the Order of Canada in 1974 for his contributions to Canadian folklore
He included this on his 1957 album Christmas Songs from Many Lands
The liner notes explain that carolers in Ireland were known as “The Wren Boys” because they traditionally carried a green holly bush decorated with ribbons and pictures of wrens
Doc Watson, Clarence White - Footprints in the Snow
Watson a North Carolina musician known for his fingerstyle and flatpicking skill
White was a guitarist and singer known as a member of the bands The Kentucky Colonels and the Byrds
This was recorded live at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964
It’s a well-known bluegrass song, popularized through Bill Monroe’s various recordings of it
Bob Dylan - Candy Man
A recording made at the home of Bonnie Beecher in Minneapolis, Minnesota in December of 1961
Dylan likely learned the song either directly from Reverend Gary Davis, who popularized it, or from Dave Van Ronk, Dylan’s friend and a disciple of Davis
David Francey - Valley’s Edge
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who started to pursue music as a career at the age of 45 after working as a carpenter and in railyards for 20 years
From his 2003 album Skating Rink
John Jacob Niles - Carol of the Birds
American musician, composer, folklorist, and collector of traditional ballads
Influential figure during the folk revival of the 1960s
This comes from the 1959 album An Evening with John Jacob Niles
He wrote the song for his son’s second birthday in 1941
Sufjan Stevens - I Saw Three Ships
He’s a Grammy- and Oscar-nominated musician from Michigan who’s been playing since the 1990s
This is from his 2006 album Songs for Christmas, which is a 5-CD collection of original and popular Christmas songs that he recorded between 2001 and 2006
Traditional English carol from the 17th century
Christine Lavin, The Mistletones - A Christmas/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Chanukah/Ramadan/Boxing Day Song
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
Stevenson Phillips - Snowin’ in the Mountain
He’s an actor, musician, and storyteller who recorded one album in 1975 called Folk Songs & Stories, which is where this song comes from
Johnny Moses - Winter Fire Song (Swinomish)
He’s a Tulalip storyteller, oral historian, and spiritual leader who was raised in the Nuu-chah-nulth village of Huu-ay-aht on Vancouver Island
This is from his 2017 album Pacific Northwest Medicine Songs of the Four Seasons
Willie Clancy - The Gander
Clancy was an uilleann pipe, flute, and whistle player from County Clare, Ireland
From the 1967 album The Minstrel from Clare
He learned the song from an old man in West Cork
Uncle Sinner - Bruised Orange / Chain of Sorrow
From Winnipeg
Recorded in April of 2020, shortly after John Prine died
Prine wrote this song and released it on his 1978 album of the same name
Texas Gladden - Dark Scenes of Winter
American folk singer born in Virginia in 1894
Known for her recordings with her brother, Hobart Smith
Their performance in 1936 at the White Top Folk Festival impressed Eleanor Roosevelt so much that she invited them to play at the White House, which brought them to the attention of Alan Lomax, an ethnomusicologist and folklorist important to the preservation of North American folk music
A rare song recorded as “If One Won’t Another Will” by the Carter Family and “Chilly Scenes of Winter” by Cousin Emmy
Fitzroy Coleman - Christmas Morning Calypso
He was a jazz and calypso guitarist and singer from Trinidad and Tobago who moved to London in 1945 to play with a Caribbean band
While he was there, he regularly performed on the BBC, accompanying artists including Tony Bennett and Eartha Kitt
This is from a BBC radio broadcast from Christmas Day, 1957
The McMillan’s Camp Boys - Rain and Snow
They’re a band originally from British Columbia, now based in Nova Scotia
This is from their EP So Long to the Kicking Horse Canyon & Other Folk Songs, which they released in August
“Rain and Snow” is a folk song and murder ballad from the southern United States, possibly related the story of a murder that occurred in Madison County, NC
Aşık Mevlüt İhsani - Hay Hay Şu Karşıki Karlı Dağlar
He was a Turkish musician who was influenced by the travelling musicians that visited his village during his childhood, and began to sing after a dream
He later learned the bağlama, a type of long-necked lute
This is from a 1993 album of traditional music from Eastern Turkey
The title translates to “Hey hey! Are all the mountains over there full of snow?”
Pete Seeger - Snow Snow
Seeger was a folk singer and an activist from New York who advocated for countless social causes through his music for 75 years
This is from his 1971 album Rainbow Race
Eric Von Schmidt, Richard Fariña - Xmas Island
Von Schmidt was a Grammy-winning musician, songwriter, and visual artist from Connecticut, known for his association with the Cambridge, Massachusetts folk scene of the 1960s
Richard Fariña was a musician and writer from New York, known for his novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me, and for writing the song “Pack Up Your Sorrows”
This is from their 1963 self-titled album
They’re accompanied by Blind Boy Grunt—also known as Bob Dylan—on harmonica
Clifford Gibson - Ice and Snow Blues
He was a blues singer and guitarist from Kentucky who moved to Missouri in the 1920s and lived there for the rest of his life
Gibson is considered one of the earliest urban blues musicians, with no strong rural influences discernable in his style
He recorded this one in New York City in November of 1929
Gordon Lightfoot - 10 Degrees & Getting Colder
This comes from his 1971 album Summer Side of Life
Steve Goodman - Winter Wonderland
Goodman was a folk musician from Chicago
He studied at the Old Town School of Folk Music, where he met his friend John Prine, and they frequently performed together until Goodman’s death in 1984
In 2007, the governor of Illinois named October 5 Steve Goodman Day in the state, and a bill was introduced and signed by President Obama in 2010 to rename a post office after him
This is off his 1983 album Artistic Hair
Blind Willie McTell - Wabash Cannonball
He was a piedmont blues and ragtime artist who made many recordings with different companies under different names, but who never had a major hit
Despite his lack of commercial success, he actively played and recorded during the 40s and 50s, unlike many of his peers
He did not live to see the folk revival of the 1960s through which many other bluesmen were rediscovered, but he influenced many artists, including Taj Mahal and The White Stripes
This is an American railroad song written around 1882 by JA Roff, and later rewritten by William Kindt
Recorded in Atlanta, Georgia in 1956
Dave & Toni Arthur - Cold Blows the Winter’s Wind
They were a married duo who met at a coffee bar in London and recorded an album together in 1969 called The Lark in the Morning
This song is more commonly known as “The Unquiet Grave”
It’s an English folk song which tells the story of a man who mourns his lover’s death so hard that her soul cannot find peace
The song is also found in Scotland, Canada, and the United States
Lesley Frost - Dust of Snow
This is from a 1961 album of readings of Robert Frost’s work, performed by his daughter Lesley, who also shares stories of her childhood and her father throughout the recording
Mike Seeger, Peggy Seeger, Penny Seeger - Breaking Up Christmas
