Barking Dog: March 17, 2022

This Week’s Theme: St. Patrick’s Day

We thought we’d take advantage of St. Patrick’s Day today, so we’ve put together a show full of Irish musicians, traditional Irish tunes, and songs about Ireland. Don’t worry, though: this show is just as varied as ever, and we’ve got something for every kind of roots fan.

• Ewan MacColl - Poor Paddy Works on the Railway

  • He was a well-known British folksinger and labour activist known for his involvement in the 1960s folk revival

  • There were many songs about “Paddy” in the English-speaking seafaring trade after the Irish potato famines of the 1830s and 40s and the political upheaval and poverty in the country led to waves of mass migration to factories and mills in England and North America

  • This was a chantey used when pumping out the bilges and weighing anchor, and it also became popular along the canals and railways in the United States, which were built with Irish labour

  • His version is from 1951

• Noah Cline - Wind That Shakes the Barley

  • He’s a banjo player and a banjo and dulcimer maker from West Virginia who’s been playing since 2008

  • This is from his 2019 album Shamrock Clawhammer

• Norman Solomon - Wind That Shakes the Barley

  • He’s a Texas fiddler who comes from a family of champion fiddlers that includes his father Ervin and brother Vernon

  • Irish reel from at least the mid 19th century

• Bill Meek - I’m a Poor Stranger

  • He’s a singer, songwriter, and writer from Killinchy in Northern Ireland who recorded an album called Traditional and Original Songs of Ireland for Folk Legacy records in 1965

  • They recorded the album while he was working for a short time on a farm in Huntington, Vermont.

  • This is a traditional Irish song from at least the 19th century

• Tommy Makem - As I Roved Out

  • Was an Irish artist who came from a musical family

  • He’s best known for his work with the Clancy brothers, who he performed with throughout the 1960s

  • He left the group in 1969 but continued performing as a solo artist until his death in 2007

  • This song is from his 1961 album Songs of Tommy Makem

• 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”

  • It’s a fragment of a longer ballad called “The Soldier and the Maid”

• Delia Murphy - Moonshiner

  • She was an Irish singer and ballad collector from County Mayo

  • Her father made a fortune in the Klondike Gold Rush, but returned to Ireland in 1901 and purchased a large estate

  • He encouraged his daughter’s musical interests, and because they allowed Irish Travellers to camp on their land, she learned her first ballads around their campfires

  • She and her husband also assisted in hiding Jews and allied soldiers during WWII while they were living in Rome

  • The origins of this song are disputed—some believe it comes from Ireland and made its way over to the US, some believe it’s the other way around completely

  • Delia Murphy was singing it as early as the 1930s in Ireland, while a popular songbook of American folksongs from 1927 credits its collection to the Combs family of Kentucky

  • We’ll hear an American version after this

• Dave Van Ronk - Kentucky Moonshiner

  • 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

  • From 1964

• The Wailin’ Jennys - The Parting Glass

  • Folk group formed in Winnipeg in 2002

  • From their album 40 Days from 2004

  • This is a Scottish traditional song long sung in Ireland that was apparently the most popular parting song in Scotland before Robert Burns wrote “Auld Lang Syne”

  • The song’s popularity in Ireland has influenced how it’s performed today, so while it’s originally Scottish, the crossover means that Ireland has a claim to it as well

• Tommy Makem & Liam Clancy - The Dawning of the Day

  • Another one from Tommy Makem, this time joined by Liam Clancy, who he started performing with again in 1975 after they were persuaded to do a set together at a folk festival in Ohio

  • Originally an Irish-language song first published by Edward Walsh in 1847

  • It was later translated to English and given the name “The Dawning of the Day”

• Davy Graham - She Moved Through the Fair

  • He was an English guitarist who inspired other musicians including Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, and Jimmy Page

  • Traditional Irish folk song

  • Lyrics first published in 1909

• Stanley Triggs - The Blue Velvet Band

  • Born in Nelson, BC in 1928

  • Worked in logging camps, construction camps, in forestry, with survey crews, and on railroad gangs

  • Also worked as a freelance photographer and earned a living playing in coffee houses in the 1960s

  • Learned this version from Archie Greenlaw of Lardeau, BC in 1949

  • Likely from an old Irish song called “The Black Velvet Band”

• John Kirby Sextet, Maxine Sullivan - Molly Malone

  • He was a jazz musician from Virginia known both for his work as a backing musician and as the leader of the chamber jazz sextet we’re about to hear

  • They recorded this one in 1937, with Maxine Sullivan singing

  • She recorded a number of traditional songs in the swing style during this time and became an overnight star with her version of “Loch Lomond”

  • She and John Kirby also were married in 1937

  • This is an old popular music hall song known as Dublin’s unofficial anthem

  • We’ll hear another version after this

• Josh White - Molly Malone

  • Extremely successful musician who started playing music in the late 20s and gained fame as a blues, jazz, and folk musician, as well as a film and Broadway actor

  • From 1947

• Wade Hemsworth - Aidal O’Boy

  • Wade Hemsworth was a respected Canadian folksinger known for “The Black Fly Song”

  • The song seems to be a variant of one of the many Irish songs brought over to Canada in the 1800s, such as “Rocking the Cradle” or “The Charlady's Son”

  • This version was sung in Labrador and the melody has been used for other songs in Canada, but little else is known about this particular variant

• Richard Dyer-Bennet - Down by the Sally Gardens

  • He was an American musician who, at the height of his career, gave fifty concerts per year

  • This is a poem by WB Yeats set to a traditional Irish melody

  • The word “sally” sounds similar to the Irish word for willows

  • The song also shares similarities with the traditional ballad “Down in the Willow Garden,” a song that likely has Irish origins

• Rik Barron - The Foggy Dew / Sally in the Garden

  • He’s a Newfoundland musician who’s been touring North America and Europe for about 40 years

  • This is from his 1996 album Bound for the Ice

  • “The Foggy Dew” is a traditional Irish tune, while “Sally in the Garden” is a widely known old-time American tune that likely gets its name from “Down by the Sally Gardens”

• Nimrod Workman - Willow Garden

  • American singer, coal miner, and union organiser who spent much of his life in West Virginia

  • He was a coal miner for 42 years until he had to retire after contracting black lung

  • After his retirement, he advocated for miners with black lung and also became known as a folk singer

  • He performed all around the Appalachian region and at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival

  • He also received a National Heritage Fellowship from the United States National Endowment for the Arts, the highest honour in folk art in the US

  • Died in November, 1994 at the age of 99

  • Traditional murder ballad

  • Originated in Ireland from a number of sources in the early 19th century but became popular in the Appalachian region of the US in the early 20th century

  • It’s played to the tune of the song “Rosin the Beau”

• Pete Kuykendall - Irish Washerwoman

  • Pete Kuykendall was a bluegrass musician and cofounder of the magazine Bluegrass Unlimited

  • He also helped form the International Bluegrass Music Association and the International Bluegrass Music Museum

  • Traditional jig found throughout Ireland, Britain, and North America

  • Mike Seeger accompanies him on guitar

  • This is from the 1957 compilation album American Banjo: Tunes and Songs in Scruggs Style

• Paul Brady - Arthur McBride

  • He’s an Irish musician who was initially known for playing traditional Irish music in a duo with Andy Irvine, who we just heard

  • His versions of traditional ballads, like “Arthur McBride,” are still considered definitive

  • It’s an Irish anti-recruiting protest song first collected around 1840

  • It’s possible it references the Napoleonic Wars, though it could also date to the Williamite War in Ireland in the 17th century

  • Either way, it remains a popular anti-war song

• Andy Irvine - Lost Train Blues

  • 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 off a 2019 volume of home recordings and live show recordings from throughout his career

  • He recorded this one in 1971

  • It seems to specifically be a cover of Woody Guthrie’s “Lost Train Blues,” though there are a number of harmonica tunes with the same name

• Sam Hinton - The Real Old Mountain Dew

  • Was an American folksinger, marine biologist, and visual artist

  • This recording is from his 1966 album The Wandering Folksong

  • This song celebrates an illegal still hidden in the Irish hills, and it may have been written by Phil O'Neill of Kinsale

• OJ Abbott - The Mountain Dew

  • Abbott was 84 when this song was recorded for the album Irish and British Songs from the Ottawa Valley, recorded by Edith Fowke in 1957

  • He learned this Irish drinking song while working in a lumbercamp at French River in Ontario one winter

• Seamus Ennis - The Farmer’s Cursed Wife

  • He was an Irish musician and song collector known especially for his uilleann pipe playing

  • Learned this song from Thomas Moran from Mohill, County Leitrim

  • It’s possibly medieval, and has been found in Britain, Ireland, and the United States

• Steve Camacho - Devilish Mary

  • 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

  • This is a traditional song that’s likely Irish in origin, but it’s also been found throughout the southern states

  • It dates back to at least the 1880s

• Jake Xerxes Fussell - Michael Was Hearty

  • Durham, NC artist who grew up travelling across the Southeast collecting stories with his folklorist father

  • He sez: I first heard the Irish tragicomedy “Michael Was Hearty” [from] a YouTube video of an Irish Traveller and ballad singer named Thomas McCarthy, whose a cappella delivery of the song is striking and singular. I immediately wanted to commit the words to memory, but I had to come up with another way to perform it that worked for my way of singing, so I worked out a waltz arrangement on my guitar and taught it to my band. Some great imagery in there too: “High was the step in the jig that he sprung / He had good looks and soothering tongue” — don’t we all know somebody like that? This one dates to probably sometime around the end of the 1800s.

• The Xi’An Sí - The Blackthorn Stick

  • They’re a traditional Chinese music group that met in 2000 when they were studying at the Xi'An Conservatory of Music

  • They disbanded after graduation to pursue solo careers, and around this time their guzheng player, Li Kai, was introduced to Irish music and noticed its similarities with the music of her region

  • She began learning traditional Irish songs on the guzheng, and moved to Ireland for a time before returning to China and reuniting the Xi’An Sí

  • In 2008 they released an album of Irish music played on Chinese instruments, called The Xi’An Sessions

  • An Irish tune found throughout Britain and North America as well

• Cara Luft - Black Water Side

  • From Winnipeg

  • Traditional folk song that likely originated near River Blackwater in Ulster, Ireland

• Joe Hickerson - Erin’s Green Shore

  • Was a folk singer and songleader from Illinois

  • Was Librarian and Director of the Archive of Folk Song at the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress for 35 years

  • This is an Irish song from the mid-19th century that dreams of a positive outcome to Ireland’s struggle for freedom

• Harry Cox - The Young Sailor Cut Down in His Prime

  • He was an English farm labourer from the East Anglian coast, and was one of the most influential traditional singers of the English folk revival

  • The song is a version of the Elizabethan ballad “The Unfortunate Rake”

• Washington Phillips - Jesus Is My Friend

  • He was an interesting fella—an unordained or “jackleg” preacher, who spoke to spontaneous street gatherings and criticized the sectarianism of organized religion

  • While the instruments he plays on his recordings were listed only as “novelty accompaniment” by Columbia Records, he called them “manzarenes” or “dulceolas”, which he made out of broken instruments

  • The 78s he made for Columbia are coveted by record collectors, and in 2018 an album of his recordings, called Washington Phillips and His Manzarene Dreams was released, which received two Grammy nominations

  • This hymn was written by the Irish preacher and poet Joseph M. Scriven in 1855 for his mother while he was living in Canada

  • It was later put to music by Charles Crozat Converse

  • Recorded 1928

• Mississippi John Hurt - What a Friend We Have in Jesus

  • American country blues singer and guitarist who taught himself guitar around the age of nine

  • Recorded in July of 1963

• Mick Moloney - Daisy Bell

  • He’s an Irish musician and folklorist

  • In 1999, he received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts for his work in public folklore, which is the highest honour in the folk and traditional arts

  • This recording is from an album he made to accompany his book, Far from the Shamrock Shore, which tells the story of Irish immigration to the United States

  • It refers to a popular song of the same name written in 1892 by the British songwriter Henry Dacre

• Pete Seeger - Henry My Son

  • He was a folk singer and an activist who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and peace through his music

  • It’s a parody of the Anglo-Scottish border ballad “Lord Randall”

• Grace Carr - Henry My Son

  • From an album of Saskatchewan songs collected by Barbara Cass-Beggs and released in 1963

  • The liner notes for the album state that “the tune has a flippant touch which suggests a parody”

• The Song Swappers - Finegan, Beginigin

  • This is off a 1959 album called Camp Songs, and the “Song Swappers” on these recordings were 6 to 11 year olds who were directed and accompanied by Pete Seeger and Erik Darling

  • The song is more commonly known as Michael Finnegan, and it’s possibly Irish in origin

  • It’s an unboundedly long song, like “The Song That Never Ends” and “99 Bottles of Beer,” meaning that it can continue indefinitely

• Tom Brandon - The Blarney Stone

  • He was a second-generation Canadian from Peterborough whose grandparents emigrated from Ireland in the 19th century

  • The folklorist Edith Fowke recorded his album, The Rambling Irishman, for Folk Legacy Records in 1962

  • He can also be found on Fowke’s albums of field recordings from Ontario and from the Ontario lumber shanties

  • You’ll notice his Irish lilt, which managed to survive two generations outside of Ireland

  • This is a well-known Irish song credited to Seamus Kavanagh

• Margaret Barry - The Blarney Stone

  • She was an Irish traveller musician who became a well-known member of the 1950s London folk scene

  • She later performed at Carnegie Hall and at the Rockefeller Center in New York

• Colm Ó Caodháin - The Mountain Top

• William Clancy - Trip O’er the Mountain