Barking Dog: March 2, 2023
Miriam Makeba - Hush
She was a musician, actor, and activist from South Africa
She met the American singer Harry Belafonte in London in the late 1950s, and he became her mentor as she recorded her first album after moving to New York City in 1960
Makeba gained popularity in the United States during this time, and she and Belafonte recorded an album together in 1965 called An Evening with Belafonte and Makeba
Makeba was deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement and anti-apartheid activism, and married Black Panther Party leader Stokely Carmichael in the late 1960s, which lost her the support of many white Americans
After this, the US government revoked her visa while she was out of the country, and she and her husband relocated to Guinea, where she continued to perform and take part in political activism until her death in 2008
This is a traditional American gospel song
Hedy West - The Unquiet Grave
She was a folk singer from Georgia, known particularly for writing the song “500 Miles”, who was heavily influenced by her upbringing in a creative, politically active family
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
Pharis & Jason Romero - Engine 143
From Horsefly BC
There are a number of other American train wreck songs from the early days of the steam locomotive
This one is based on the true story of the wreck of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway’s Fast Flying Virginian on October 23, 1890
Mike Seeger - Darling Cora
Mike was a folklorist and musician who co-founded the New Lost City Ramblers in the 1950s
Collected in North Carolina in 1918 by English folk music collector Cecil Sharp during his trip to America
First recorded on January 6, 1927 by Clarence Gill but never released, recorded again by Buell Kazee in April 1927
This one is from Seeger’s 1998 album Southern Banjo Sounds
He got this banjo picking style and tuning for this song from a man named CB Thornsberry, who attended an eastern Kentucky senior citizens’ lunchtime program that Mike played at with the banjo player Roscoe Holcomb
He takes the lyrics from BF Shelton’s version of the song
Harrison Kennedy, Jean-Jacques Milteau, Vincent Segal - Blues Solution
Harrison Kennedy a Hamilton artist with a career in blues and roots music spanning over 50 years
Milteau a French harmonica player, singer and songwriter, and Vincent Segal a French cellist and bassist
This is from their 2018 album CrossBorder Blues
George “Bongo Joe” Coleman - I Wish I Could Sing
He was a street musician from Florida known for his drum kit, which he made from 55-gallon oil drums and perfected over the years as he performed around Texas
Coleman was well-respected and was often offered performance time at venues that would have paid more than street shows, but he preferred to play on the streets rather than the stage
This is from the only album he recorded, George Coleman: Bongo Joe from 1968, produced by Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records
Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston - We Shall Be Free
Born in Louisiana in late 1880s
Went to prison in Texas in 1918, and won an early release in 1925 by singing a song for the governor of Texas, but was incarcerated again in 1930
Ethnomusicologists and folklorists John and Alan Lomax met him in prison while they were making field recordings of inmates
They delivered a petition for his release on the back of a recording of “Goodnight, Irene” to the Louisiana governor
Once he was released, he made a number of recordings and became widely known for both his blues and folk recordings
He’s joined here by his friends Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston
This is a “talking blues” song recorded in 1944 for Asch Records, which later became Folkways Records, and some of its lyrics come from the very first talking blues song, recorded by Chris Bouchillon in 1926
The chorus that Lead Belly sings comes from the “Mourner, You Shall Be Free” song family, a very broad group of songs that all use the same chorus
Leonard Cohen - Passing Through
Recorded live in London in 1972
The song was written by American professor of English Dick Blakeslee in 1948
Judee Sill - There’s a Rugged Road
She was a musician from California who had a rough childhood and, after a few stints in reform school and jail, started to work as a composer
She opened for Graham Nash and David Crosby on a tour and was later signed to David Geffen’s label
She released her first album in 1971 and her second in 1973, neither of which sold well, but were nonetheless critically acclaimed
She didn’t deal well with the poor sales of her albums, and was dropped from her label, though she continued to write songs and record demos
She struggled with addiction after a string of car accidents and failed back surgery, and sadly died from a drug overdose in 1979
Despite being relatively obscure, she’s remained influential for many musicians, including Andy Partridge of XTC, Warren Zevon, and Laura Veirs, who wrote a beautiful song called “Song for Judee” for her 2016 collaborative album with Neko Case and KD Lang
This is one of her demos
Michael Cooney - The Bankers and the Diplomats Are Going in the Army
He’s a folk singer from California who got his start during the 1960s folk revival and later organised and played at folk festivals across the continent, including Winnipeg Folk Fest
This is from his 1968 album The Cheese Stands Alone
The song is by the California folk singer Malvina Reynolds, who also wrote “Little Boxes”
She wrote it in the 1950s, and Cooney says, “What do you suppose would happen if the guys who started the wars also had to go fight them? Maybe they’d settle it by playing checkers or arm wrestling or something. If you think about it like that long enough, you might begin to realise how impossible the whole concept of war is.”
The Weather Station - Everything I Saw
Based in Toronto
2011 album All of It Was Mine
Bob Dylan - Farewell
A recording made for Folkways Records in January of 1963
He’s joined by folksinger, editor, actor, preacher, and activist Gil Turner on that one
Arthur Merwin Greenhall - At the Zoo: Rhea
From a 1954 album called Sounds of Animals, an instructional recording of the sounds of different animals from the Detroit Zoo and The Cornell Behavioral Farm at Cornell University
Greenhall was the curator at the Detroit Zoological Park
Solomon Linda’s Original Evening Birds - Mbube
They were a South African vocal group that formed in 1933 and performed until 1944
This song is the origin of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” which was adapted into English by The Tokens in 1961
The Weavers previously introduced it to western audiences through their 1951 recording under the title “Wimoweh”
This recording is from 1939
Sheesham and Lotus - We All Go to Heaven When the Devil Goes Blind
From Wolfe Island, ON
This tune seems to be by Ed Morrison of Kentucky
Ruth Moody - Dancing in the Dark
Winnipeg
A member of the Wailin’ Jennys
A folky cover of the classic Bruce Springsteen tune
Stuart M Frank - Paddy on the Railway
He’s mainly an author who writes about maritime traditions and folklore
This is from an album of sea shanties and forecastle songs recorded at the Mystic Seaport Maritime Museum in Connecticut
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 partially with Irish labour
Pedro Pietri - Telephone Booth Number 905 ½
He was a New York poet and a founding member of the Nuyorican movement, which consisted of artists of Puerto Rican descent living in New York City
This is from his 1979 album Loose Joints: Poetry by Pedro Pietri
Lawrence Older - Frog in the Spring
Woodsman and mountaineer from New York State who learned most of his songs from his parents through a family tradition that stretched back to the early 19th century
Got his first job clearing land in the 6th grade and bought a fiddle with three dollars of the first week’s pay
Was fired when the foreman discovered his real age, but was back on the mountain clearing wood the following winter
Abdoulaye Diallo - Ayinga Baniil Is Already Born
This is from a brand new collection of ekonting music that Folkways released at the start of February
The ekonting is a three-stringed gourd instrument played by the Jola people of Gambia and Senegal, and it’s likely the main instrument that the banjo is descended from
Diallo is in his 70s, and he says, “Every song has a significance. There is the song, but then there is the story behind the song.”
Unfortunately, the liner notes for the album aren’t up on the Folkways website yet, so we’ll have to wait to learn the story behind this song, but we’ll keep playing songs from this album for the next little while
Édith Butler - Vishten Avina Vi
She’s an Acadian musician and folklorist from New Brunswick who began her career in the early 1960s
This is from her 2021 album Le Tour du Grand Bois, which was produced by fellow New Brunswickan Lisa Leblanc
She wrote and composed that song, which is inspired by a traditional song
David Rovics - East Palestine
He’s a musician and writer based in Oregon who’s been touring internationally since the 1990s
This is a brand new one from about a week ago
He says: As people fall ill and animals die, the EPA rushes to tell the poisoned people of East Palestine, Ohio their air and water are clean, in the wake of yet another freight train full of toxic chemicals derailing and burning in the USA.
Pete Seeger - Talking Union
Pete Seeger was a very influential folk singer and activist from New York who advocated for countless important social causes through his music
This one advocates for workers’ unions
Pete Seeger, Millard Lampell, and Lee Hays are credited with writing this song when they were members of the Almanac Singers in 1941
This recording is from the 1959 album Hootenanny Tonight!
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Damned Old Piney Mountain
From Toronto
This recording is from their 2021 live album, Lively Times, recorded in Vancouver
This song is by Craig Johnson, and the lyrics are mostly direct quotes from an old man he met in the mountains of West Virginia who was once a logger and fiddler
Marita Gunther - Lend Me Your Ears!: Phonation of Words
From the 1956 album Vox Humana: Alfred Wolfsohn’s Experiments in Extension of Human Vocal Range
Wolfsohn became interested in the abilities of the human voice after serving in the First World War, turning to these musical experiments as a form of therapy as he suffered from PTSD
This track is meant to “demonstrate that intelligible phonation of words can be made in ranges beyond those thought practical by previous theory”
Stanley G Triggs - Meadow Blues
An anthropologist and photographer from who worked in logging camps, construction camps, in forestry, with survey crews, and on railroad gangs in BC
Also played in coffee houses in the 1960s
Song was made up by a young girl named Carla Miller from Merrit BC, who was the cook at a logging camp in the Lardeau Valley that Triggs worked at in 1946
Uncle Sinner - The Cuckoo
From Winnipeg
Off his 2008 album Ballads and Mental Breakdowns
A traditional English folk song, though it’s also popular in the US, Canada, Scotland, and Ireland
Wilf Carter - Rescue from Moose River Gold Mine
He was a very well-known country musician from Nova Scotia known as Wilf Carter in Canada and as Montana Slim in the US
His recording is from 1936, the same year the roof of the Moose River Gold Mine in collapsed and trapped three men 150 feet below the earth for 11 days
He wrote this song about that event, which was the first breaking news story in Canada to receive live 24-hour radio coverage
Barry Hall - Pretty Peggy-O
From a 1964 album called Virtuoso Five-String Banjo
Hall was from Vancouver, BC, and at the time of this recording, he was 20 years old
He learned this song from a UBC professor named Jim Butler
The song comes from the Scottish folk song “The Bonnie Lass o’ Fyvie”
Peter, Paul and Mary - Have You Been to Jail for Justice?
One of the most famous groups to come out of the 60s folk revival
This song is by Anne Feeney, a folksinger, activist, and attorney from Pennsylvania
They included it on their 2004 reunion album In These Times
The Wakami Wailers - Peter Emberley
They’re a band that formed in 1981 when four employees at Wakami Lake Provincial Park, near Chapleau, Ontario, started playing Canadian folk music together
They have continued playing since then, and have released four albums
This is off their 1985 album The Last of the White Pine Loggers
It’s a folk song from New Brunswick that tells the story of a boy from Prince Edward Island who was fatally injured in the Miramichi logging woods when a log fell on him
One of the best-known New Brunswick songs, with lyrics written by Emberley’s friend John Calhoun in 1881, and a traditional Irish tune put to use for it by local singer Abraham Munn
John Fizer - Think on These Things
That recording was released in January on the album Treasure Man, which was produced by James Johnson
Johnson first became acquainted with Fizer as a local character who lived in his old Volvo, play chess, and filled a “treasure tree” with trinkets and gems which he let children take as they passed
Johnson got to know him, and Fizer showed him a collection of cassettes of his old performances
Johnson remastered the cassettes for Fizer, then they found the master tape, which Johnson also cleaned and remastered
He says of Fizer: All John has ever really wanted in life, beside making a lot of children happy, is for his songs to be released on vinyl”
Fizer is now living in a nursing facility in Northern California, and his beautiful recordings are finally available for everyone to hear again
Marie Hare - Green Valley
Ballad singer from Strathadam, NB, known for her performances at the Miramichi Folksong Festival
This recording is from 1962
An uncommon song at the time this was recorded, with only a couple published variants from the east coast of Canada and some of its stanzas appearing in songs in the States
Morley Loon - Wee Jee
He was a Cree musician and actor from Mistissini, Quebec
This one’s from his debut album, Northland, My Land, from 1981
The title translates to “Is It Over”
Gary Green - Song About What’s Happenin’ Now
He’s a Tennessee folksinger
Off his 1977 album Gary Green, Vol. 2: Allegory
He says of this song: A while back somebody asked me if I had any songs about “what is happening now.” I thought for a while about just what is happening now… and this song sort of came to me.
Aaron Kramer - Unemployed Song
He was a poet, social activist, and translator from New York
This poem is from his 1957 album Serenade by Aaron Kramer: Reading His Own and Other Poems by Poets of New York
Jenny Whiteley - Oxford Town / Old Mother Flanagan
She’s a Juno award-winning musician from Toronto who’s been playing since the 1970s, when she recorded with children’s musician Raffi when she was 5
Whiteley is the daughter of blues musician Chris Whiteley and the niece of folk musician Ken Whiteley
This is from her 2016 album The Original Jenny Whiteley
“Oxford Town” was written by Bob Dylan, while “Old Mother Flanagan” is a traditional Irish reel
Jean Carignan, Pete Seeger - Reel du Pendu
Chris Coole - Hangman’s Reel
