Barking Dog: March 14, 2024
The lineup for the Winnipeg Folk Festival was released on Friday and we thought we’d suggest some of our favourite acts for you to catch at this year’s festival to kick off the show.
Lucinda Williams - Ramblin’ On My Mind
She’s a musician from Louisiana who’s been performing for over 40 years
This will be the second time Williams performs at Folk Fest—the first time was in 2011
This one’s from her 1979 debut album of the same name
It’s a Robert Johnson song, first recorded in 1936
Tom Paxton - Is This Any Way to Run an Airline?
An American folksinger and songwriter who first emerged as a member of the Greenwich Village folk scene in the early 1960s
He’s now semi-retired, though he occasionally performs with friends in both the US and the UK
This will be the 10th time he plays at Folk Fest, the last was in 2003
From his 1966 album Outward Bound
Jerron Paxton - Citico
Contemporary Los Angeles musician whose style draws from recordings made before World War II
The first time Paxton played Folk Fest was in 2019
The Stanley County Cut-ups - Lonesome River
A bluegrass group from Winnipeg that’s been playing together in some form or another for nearly 20 years
This’ll be their first time playing Folk Fest
This is a Stanley Brothers song from 1951
Kaia Kater - Nine Pin
She’s an Artist based in Toronto
2024 will be her first time playing Folk Fest
This is the title track from her 2016 album
Mance Lipscomb - Casey Jones
Texan blues artist born Beau De Glen Lipscomb
Took the nickname “Mance” at a young age, which is short for “emancipation”
He worked as a tenant farmer in Texas most of his life, but was discovered in 1960 during the resurgence of country blues
This led to him recording an album in 1961, called Trouble in Mind, and appearing at the first Monterey Folk Festival in 1963
This one is off Trouble in Mind
It’s a traditional American song about how Casey Jones and his fireman Sim Webb raced their locomotive to make up for lost time on April 30, 1900, not knowing that there was another train ahead of them on the line
Jones’s friend, Wallace Saunders, started singing the song soon after Jones’s death, to the tune of a popular song known as “Jimmie Jones”
Today is Jones’s 161st birthday
Mimi and Richard Fariña - Pack Up Your Sorrows
Mimi was the younger sister of Joan Baez and a talented folksinger in her own right, who founded Bread and Roses, an organisation that presents free music and entertainment to those in institutional environments
Richard Fariña was her husband, a musician and writer known for his novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me, and for writing this song, “Pack Up Your Sorrows,” which they recorded together in 1965 for their album Celebrations for a Grey Day
EC & Orna Ball - Jennie Jenkins
Estil C Ball and his wife Orna, with whom he often performed
They owned and ran a general store and service station in Virginia
Estil met Alan Lomax in the early 1940s at a fiddler’s convention, who recorded him and Orna several times in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, and opened the door for them to record their own albums for County and Rounder Records in the 60s and 70s
This is off musician, musicologist, photographer, and filmmaker John Cohen’s 1975 compilation album High Atmosphere, which is composed of recordings he made in 1965 of Appalachian folk music in North Carolina and Virginia
“Jennie Jenkins” has been found in the United States as far back as 1823, and was a popular song for community events like quilting bees and church socials
Sometimes, the song was used as a play song where participants were challenged to come up with an improvised verse on the spot in response to a colour
The Monroe Brothers - He Will Set Your Fields On Fire
The Monroe Brothers were Bill Monroe, the founder of bluegrass, and his brothers Birch and Charlie, along with childhood friend William “Old Hickory” Hardin and their friend Larry Moore
This was recorded in 1937 in Charlotte, North Carolina
It’s a gospel song, likely written in the 1920s
The Men of No Property - Ballymurphy
From the 1971 album This is Free Belfast! Irish Rebel Songs of the Six Counties, which Smithsonian Folkways calls “a document of dissent during the period of Northern Ireland’s political and sectarian violence known as The Troubles”
The lyrics were written by Barney McIlvogue and put to the tune of “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain”
It’s sung by someone known simply as “Lavery”
Utah Phillips - Learning
He was an anarchist folksinger, storyteller, and labour organiser from Ohio who also rode the rails throughout the United States and worked as an archivist, a dishwasher, and a warehouse-man at various points in his life
This is from his 1991 album I’ve Got to Know
Mississippi Sheiks - Sales Tax
They were an American guitar and fiddle group popular in the 1930s
Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon were the core members
They’re known for a number of songs, but particularly for their 1930 recording of “Sittin’ on Top of the World”
This one was recorded and released in 1934
They’re joined here by blues musician Bo Carter, who was born Armenter Chatmon and was Lonnie Chatmon’s brother
Conor Ryan Hennessy - I’ve Got to Know
He’s a contemporary musician based in Salem, Massachusetts
This is his adaptation of Woody Guthrie’s song, who wrote it later in life, and it’s been widely recorded since
It uses the tune of the hymn “Farther Along”
Hennessy included it on his 2017 album I’d Rather Make My Living in a Song
Old Crow Medicine Show - 4th Time Around
They’re a well-known contemporary string band based in Nashville, Tennessee that’s been recording since the late 1990s
This is off their 2017 live album 50 Years of Blonde on Blonde, a tribute to what happens to be my favourite Bob Dylan album, which came out in 1966
Willie P Bennett - Diamond Joe
He was a folk artist from Toronto, known both as a solo artist in the 1970s folk scene and as a member of bands like Blackie and the Rodeo Kings and Fred Eaglesmith’s band
This is not a traditional song, as I used to believe, but was written by Butch Hawes of the Almanac Singers for a radio play by the ethnomusicologist and folklorist Alan Lomax called The Chisholm Trail
It was written about a character in the script named Diamond Joe, and was set to the tune of the old song “The State of Arkansas” because the folksinger Lee Hays was scripted to sing it, and the tune was one of his regular numbers
Cisco Houston was another member of the cast, and he took a liking to the song, and spread it around enough that many now think of it as traditional
Burl Ives - One Morning In May
Was an American singer and actor from Illinois who began as a travelling singer and banjo player
He may be best-known by non-folk fans as the voice of Sam the Snowman in the 1964 film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
This is from a six-album box set from 1963 called Burl Ives Presents America's Musical Heritage
The song is from the first album in the set, Tales for Singing: Our English Inheritance
It’s a traditional English folk song that’s been collected throughout the UK and North America
We’ll hear two other songs that use the same melody after this
Liam Clancy - The Patriot Game
He was an Irish singer best known as a member of the Clancy Brothers, which he formed with his older brothers and Tommy Makem, with whom he later performed as a duo
Dominic Behan wrote the lyrics, and the song was first released in 1958
It’s about an Irish Republican Army volunteer named Fergal O’Hanlon who was killed in January of 1957 at the age of 20 during an attack on Brookeborough Royal Ulster Constabulary barracks
Behan was annoyed that Bob Dylan used the melody of “One Morning in May” for “With God On Our Side,” and there’s a story that’s gone around about Behan calling Dylan’s hotel room up and ranting at him during one of Dylan’s first UK tours
When Dylan told him “My lawyers can speak with your lawyers,” Behan answered him by saying “I’ve got two lawyers, and they’re on the end of my wrists”
Bob Dylan - With God on Our Side
Dylan originally released the song on his 1964 album The Times They Are A-Changin’
This version is from his 1995 MTV Unplugged performance
Pete Seeger, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger - We’ll All Be A-Doubling
Seeger was a folk singer and activist from New York who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and other important issues through his music
This is from the 1998 compilation album If I Had a Hammer: Songs of Hope and Struggle
He’s joined by his grandson Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, founding member of The Mammals, on this one
Seeger wrote the song in the 1960s after reading The Population Bomb, a book by Paul Ehrlich
Old Man Luedecke - Roustabout
From Chester, NS
Off his 2006 album Hinterland
Lori Holland - I Know My Love
She’s an American folk singer who was part of the urban folk revival of the 50s and 60s, and she recorded two albums of Scottish and Irish folk songs for Folkways Records during this time
This is from the 1960 album Irish Folk Songs for Women
It’s a traditional Irish folk song first published in 1909, though it’s significantly older than that
Leon Redbone - In the Jailhouse Now
Redbone moved to Canada from Cyprus with his family when he was a teenager in the 1960s, and first appeared onstage in Toronto in the 1970s
This song was originally performed in Vaudeville halls in the early 20th century
Mike Seeger, Hank Bradley, Sue Thompson - The Mayor Is a Good Old Boy
Seeger was a folklorist and musician who co-founded the New Lost City Ramblers in the 1950s
Bradley is an old-time fiddle player, and Thompson is a singer and guitarist
This is from Seeger’s 1994 album Third Annual Farewell Reunion
Hank Bradley wrote the song
Damien Dempsey, Barney McKenna, John Sheahan - Hot Asphalt
Dempsey is an Irish musician who’s been playing since the mid 1990s
McKenna and Sheahan were both members of The Dubliners, an Irish folk group that formed during the folk revival of the 1960s
This is off Dempsey’s 2008 album The Rocky Road
David Rovics - Return
He’s a topical singer-songwriter based in Oregon who’s been playing since the 1990s
This is a track from his 2003 album The Return
Réalta, Myles McCormack, Cathy Jordan - The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Réalta are a Belfast-based group that play traditional Irish music
McCormack and Jordan are both Irish musicians who appear as guests on Réalta’s 2023 album Thing of the Earth, which is where this song comes from
The song was written by Irish poet Robert Dwyer Joyce about a rebel who sacrifices his romantic relationship to take part in the Irish Rebellion of 1798
The barley referred to in the song is a symbol of Irish resistance, as rebels would carry barley in their pockets to eat while marching
When they were killed and thrown in unmarked mass graves, the barley would grow and mark these spots where the rebels lay
Lou Reed - Pale Blue Eyes
A demo from May of 1965
Southern Fife and Drum Corps - Sittin’ on Top of the World
A Mississippi fife and drum band formed by Ed Young on fife, his brother Lonnie Young Sr. on bass drum, and his nephew, Lonnie Jr., on snare drum
It’s a country blues song written by Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon, the core members of the Mississippi Sheiks, who we heard earlier
Moses Williams - Sitting on Top of the World
He was a blues musician born in Mississippi who moved to Florida to work in the citrus groves after travelling with several acts in the 30s and 40s
He played the diddly bow, essentially a plank of wood with a single string nailed on
This is from an album of field recordings made in Florida between 1977 and 1980, called Drop On Down in Florida
Doc Watson - Sitting on Top of the World
He was a Grammy-winning musician from North Carolina known for his fingerstyle and flatpicking skill
Had a 60 year career, and often played with other skilled musicians like Jean Ritchie and Clarence Ashley
Recorded in 1962 in California
Uncle Sinner - Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning
From Winnipeg
It’s a traditional gospel blues song
Mitchell’s Christian Singers - Traveling Shoes
They were a gospel group from North Carolina that recorded over 80 songs between 1934 and 1940
The group were all former farmers who were good friends and began singing together after work in the evening
A talent scout for the American Record Company discovered them, and put them under the management of the singer Willie Mitchell, hence their name
After their recording career, they still performed at community events in their region
Pharis & Jason Romero - Lady on the Green
From Horsefly, BC
Off their 2022 album Tell 'Em You Were Gold, which was recorded live over six days in a 60-year-old barn beside the Little Horsefly River
It’s a banjo-centric album, created to highlight the sound of the banjos that Jason makes
He plays a gourd banjo they call Gourdo on this one, which he built in 2019
They first heard it from Rafe Stefanini
