Barking Dog: December 9, 2021
Cara Luft, Tim O’Brien - Portland Town
From Winnipeg
Song by Derroll Adams, a folk musician from Portland, Oregon
Colter Wall, Belle Plaine - Caroline
Wall from Swift Current, SK
Belle Plaine a musician from Fosston, SK
This is off Wall’s 2015 album Imaginary Appalachia
Jake Xerxes Fussell - Breast of Glass
A brand new one from the Durham, NC artist who grew up travelling across the southeast US with his folklorist father
A love song from the “Handsome Molly” song family
It’s an Appalachian folk song, though it’s possible it has its roots in older English ballads
John Greenway - Old Man Atom
American folklorist who specialised in social protest songs
Recorded an album called Talking Blues in 1958 on the Folkways label
Included 15 covers of songs by different artists
This is one of those songs from that album, and it was written in 1946 by Vern Partlow, an American reporter and folksinger
Unlike many protest songs at the time, this one became well-known through the many recordings made of it
Greenway learned his version from Sam Hinton
Steve Camacho - This Train
He was a musician who started singing in New York but travelled the US learning political tunes and seeking recognition for his work
This is from his 1962 album Folk and Other Songs
Traditional American gospel song first recorded in 1922
Sarah Harmer - Oleander
Canadian singer-songwriter from Ontario
Off her 2005 album I’m a Mountain
Paddy Tunney - As I Roved Out
He was a renowned Irish folksinger who was active in the Irish and British folk revival of the 1950s and 60s
This is off his 1962 album The Man of Songs
It’s an Irish song also known as “The Deluded Lover”
He’ll tell you a little more about its background
Alan Mills - As I Roved Out
Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec
Known for popularizing Canadian folk music, and for writing the music to “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
From his 1953 album Folk Songs of Newfoundland
Roosevelt Charles, Otis Webster - Have You Ever Heard the Church Bells Tone
This is from an album of songs that the folklorist Harry Oster recorded at Angola Prison, also known as the Louisiana State Penitentiary, in the 1950s
Charles and Webster were both inmates at the penitentiary
Oster writes that, “Despite his lengthy police record, Charles is sensitive, personable, intelligent, and imaginative - a highly gifted creator, performer, and interpreter of African American music. His rebellion against society appears to be at least in part the explosion which results when a driving, intensely creative man can find no outlet for his energies and talents - a particularly difficult problem for a bright but almost illiterate African American born in the Louisiana farm country”
We don’t really have much information about Webster, though we know he accompanies Charles on guitar on this recording
It’s a version of “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean”, written by Blind Lemon Jefferson and first recorded in 1927
This version does not contain the title line from that version, and instead takes its name from a different line in the song
Aaron Walker - Take Me Away
From an album of Jamaican folk music released in 1981
This is a Jamaican version of a British ballad, with references to local geographical features
Walker, who was 76 when he recorded the song, learned it during WWI, though it’s likely much older than that
Charlie Brown - Down in the Valley
Real name was Charles Artman
Called “Utah’s first hippie”
Never wore shoes, which got him in trouble with the law on multiple occasions
Lived in a teepee, drove an old yellow bus
Hosted the Teton Tea Party, an all-night event for mountaineers and folk musicians
Traditional American country-blues song
Pete Seeger - Turn, Turn, Turn
He was a folk singer and an activist who, though blacklisted during the McCarthy era, remained a prominent public figure who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and international disarmament through his music
Seeger adapted this song from the Book of Ecclesiastes, and the music was written in the late 1950s
He first recorded it in 1959
It was later recorded by the Byrds’, and their version became a hit
Gordon Lightfoot - Song for a Winter’s Night
From his 1967 album The Way I Feel
It was written on a hot summer night in Cleveland
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Laketown Blues
From Toronto
Laketown blues is by the Canadian musician Richard Inman, and they follow it up with a version of Hobart Smith’s banjo tune “Last Chance”
This recording is from their new live album, Lively Times, recorded in Vancouver
Hogman Maxey - Stagolee
He was a blues musician from Louisiana who folklorist Harry Oster recorded while Maxey was incarcerated at Angola State Penitentiary
Well-known American ballad about the murder of Billy Lyons by "Stag" Lee Shelton in St. Louis, Missouri at Christmas, 1895
Song first published in 1911
Rich Amerson, Earthy Anne Coleman - Come On Up to Bright Glory
From an album of Black folk music from Alabama that folklorist Harold Courlander recorded in 1950 as an attempt to counter the stereotypes of Black music that were popular in America during the middle of the 20th century
Amerson was from Livingston, Alabama and worked as a farmer, lumberjack, track-liner, storm pit builder, well taster, and lay preacher during his life
Courlander describes him as “a true story teller and bard, of a kind that has become exceedingly rare in modern society”
He quotes Amerson as saying, “Music is in everything you see and hear. Railroad, now that’s music, isn’t it? And church, that’s music too, isn’t it? And if you come right down to it, music is church too.”
We hear his older sister, Earthy Anne Coleman, on this recording, too
Rich said that the two children born before her died at birth, and that his mother was advised to name the next baby after the earth, and so she named her Earthy, and she survived
Silver Leaf Quartette of Norfolk - I Am a Pilgrim
A gospel quartet from Virginia that recorded for OkEh records between 1928 and 1931
This one was recorded in June of 1928
Johnny Cash - I Am a Pilgrim
It’s a traditional American Christian hymn from at least the mid-19th century
Willie Dunn - Our Native Land
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
This is a demo from 2000
Luz Morales - Ang Gatas At Ang Itlog
This is from an album of folk songs from the Philippines from 1960, sung by the Filipino soprano Luz Morales
This song’s title translates to “The Milk and The Eggs,” and it’s about foods that are good to eat
Wade Hemsworth - Aidal O’Boy
Wade Hemsworth was a respected Canadian folksinger known for “The Black Fly Song”
The song probably a variant of many Irish songs brought over to Canada in the 1800s
Woody Guthrie - Brown Eyes
Dust Bowl balladeer and important figure in folk music history who’s known particularly for his songs about the Okie migrants who travelled west during the Great Depression in search of work, though he composed and recorded songs on an enormous number of topics
Seems this is an Irish folk song
Pharis & Jason Romero - Out on the Western Plains
Married duo from Horsefly, BC
A Lead Belly song first recorded in 1946
David Francey - A Winter Song
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who worked as a railyard worker and carpenter for 20 years before pursuing folk music at the age of 45
This is from his 2003 album Skating Rink
John Jackson - Going Down in Georgia on a Horn
He was a piedmont blues musician from Virginia who had given up playing music in his community by the time folklorist Chuck Perdue found him in 1949
Arhoolie Records released his first recordings in the early 60s, and he toured Europe, played folk festivals, and recorded for a few other record companies during that time
There really isn’t much information to be found about this song, except speculation that the original word may have been “hog” instead of “horn” and that “hog” may have been slang for a railroad engine
Ian & Sylvia - CC Rider
Ian & Sylvia performed together from 1959 until their divorce in 1975
Popular blues song first recorded by Ma Rainey in 1924
Also known as “Easy Rider”
Roscoe Holcomb - East Virginia Blues
Was a construction worker, coal miner, and farmer much of his life
Not recorded until 1958, another older artist who became popular during the folk revival, though wasn’t known at all before then - discovered by John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers playing on his front porch in Daisy, Kentucky
This is from a new album of recordings of Holcomb’s 1972 performance at The Old Church in Portland, Oregon, which is a Carpenter Gothic church built in 1882
Those recordings were rediscovered in the archives of a local community radio station and released on Jalopy Records just a few days ago
There isn’t much information about this song, aside from the fact that it was one of the most popular ballads for early American recording artists to record
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 summers
This is from the posthumous album Home in Halifax, released in 1993
It’s about the movement of people away from the Atlantic Provinces to Alberta for work
Old Man Luedecke - Foreign Tongue
From Chester, NS
This is off his 2010 album My Hands Are on Fire and Other Love Songs
Joan Baez - Banks of the Ohio
She’s one of the best known musicians to come out of the 1960s folk revival
She’s performed for over 60 years and has released over 30 albums
This is a 19th century murder ballad, likely American in origin
Differs from other murder ballads because the murderer spends much of the song expressing his regret and sadness
Geraldine Sullivan - Johnson’s Hotel
From an album of Ontario folk songs, gathered by the folklorist Edith Fowke
This is a song about the Peterborough county jail, which stood on the banks of the Otonabee River across from the Quaker Oats factory
Dalton Johnston was governor from around 1920-1950
The song originated in the 1930s, likely from a prisoner at the jail
Gregory King and Alvina Davis - Ants, Mosquitoes, and Snowball Fricasse
From a Folkways album called Plains Chippewa/Metis Music from Turtle Mountain, released in 1984
It presents music heard on the Turtle Mountain Reservation which lies just across the border from Killarney and Boissevain in North Dakota
This is a French song, sung by elders to the children in the community
Smoky Babe - I’m Broke and I’m Hungry
From an album of Louisiana country blues, recorded by the folklorist Harry Oster in the early 1960s
Smoky Babe was an itinerant musician originally from Mississippi who grew up working on farms in his regions, then travelled around Alabama and Louisiana working on barges and as a mechanic during the day, and playing at clubs at night
Periwinkle - Song for Sarah
This is from a 1981 album called The Promised Land: American Indian Songs of Lament and Protest
There’s not much else to be found about the artist, who goes by the name Periwinkle, though the liner notes for the album are worth checking out because they contain a lot of background on Indigenous issues in the United States
Mozelle Moore - I’m Goin’ to Pack Up My Things and Back Down That Sunny Road I’m Goin’
This is from an album of African American folk music, released in 1965
The recording was made in Alabama in 1954
The liner notes describe it as “close to a field holler in mood”
Wade and Field Ward and Glen Smith - John Hardy
Off an album of country band music from Virginia
We hear Field on guitar and vocals, Wade on banjo, and Glen Smith on fiddle
A traditional American folk song based on the life of railroad worker John Hardy who worked in McDowell County, West Virginia in the Spring of 1893
Likely got into a drunken argument during a craps game and killed a man
Was subsequently found guilty of murder and hanged on January 19, 1894
Unspecified - Field Sparrow
From a 1961 album by Hudson and Sandra Ansley of the many birdsongs collected around a Maryland farmhouse
Iron Mountain String Band - Cluck Old Hen
