Barking Dog: March 23, 2023
Big Bill Broonzy - Sixteen Tons
He was an American blues singer and guitarist, and one of the leading figures of the emerging folk revival of the 1950s
This song was written by Merle Travis in the 1940s
Recorded live at Club Montmartre in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1956
Pete Seeger - Well May the World Go
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
This is his own song, set to the tune of the Scottish song “Well May the Keel Row”
This recording features two five-string banjos, the other played by Fred Hellerman
Stan Rogers - The Flowers of Bermuda
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 his childhood
Rogers recorded this for his 1979 album Between the Breaks Live!
He wrote it in the Spring of 1978
Stephen Wade, Zan McLeod, Danny Knicely, Mike Craver - Train 45
This is from Stephen Wade’s 2012 album Banjo Diary: Lessons from Tradition, which documents the knowledge older musicians have passed along to younger musicians
Wade is from Chicago
He began playing blues guitar when he was 11, and later changed his focus to the banjo
In the 1970s, he developed a one-man theatre performance called Banjo Dancing, which ran for 10 years in Washington, DC, and he developed another theatre show called On the Way Home, which he performed throughout the 1990s
He’s joined by Zan McLeod on guitar, Danny Knicely on bass, and Mike Craver on pump organ
Wade learned this song from his mentor Fleming Brown
The North Fork Rounders - Roving Gambler
They’re an old-time string band that formed in Ohio in the mid 1970s
This is from their 1978 debut album Railroadin’ & Gamblin’
Ballad derived from the British ballad “The Roving Journeyman”, though it is changed enough that it can be considered a traditional American ballad
Alan Mills - Tickle Cove Pond
Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec
Known for popularizing Canadian folk music, and for writing “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
Written by fisherman and songwriter Mark Walker of Tickle Cove, Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland in the late 19th century
This recording is from 1953
Jesse Fuller - Railroad Work Song
Was an American one-man band born in Georgia in 1896
Though he had already learned two styles of guitar by the age of 10, he only decided to try making a living from music in the early 1950s
Started by working locally in clubs and bars in San Francisco and other nearby cities, but became better known by performing on TV
In 1958, when he was 62, Fuller recorded his first album
He could play multiple instruments simultaneously, using a harmonica holder to hold a harmonica, a kazoo, or a microphone, playing guitar, and tap-dancing or soft-shoeing as he played
This is his version of “Take This Hammer”, from his 1965 album Move On Down the Line
It’s an American work song that was popular on the railroad, as well as in prisons and logging camps
Uncle Sinner - You Got to Die
From Winnipeg
Off his 2008 album Ballads and Mental Breakdowns
This song is by Blind Willie McTell, and it’s also very similar to the traditional gospel song “Climbing High Mountains”
Malinda Herman - Where Have All the Flowers Gone
She’s a musician from Bangkok, Thailand who became known through her YouTube channel, where she uploads videos of herself playing traditional and popular songs
Several decades ago, she lost movement in the left side of her face after a serious car accident
Her son bought her a guitar and she began playing and singing as a form of physical therapy, and she now estimates that she’s regained about 75% of her facial movements through singing
Pete Seeger wrote this song in 1955, basing the lyrics on a traditional Slavic folk song
He used a traditional Irish melody for the music
Dink Roberts - The Coo Coo
From an album of black banjo music from North Carolina and Virginia
He learned this song when he was 16 from a man who came to the mill town of Glen Raven, North Carolina to play at parties
We’ll hear three versions of this song—this first one uses different lyrics than the others, including many found in other songs like “Ruben”, “Roustabout”, and “Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet”, but the melody is the same
Bob Dylan - The Cuckoo
This recording was made in 1962 at the Gaslight Cafe, a folk coffeehouse in New York City
Joan O’Bryant - The Cuckoo
Kansas folksinger and folklorist who taught folklore and English at the University of Wichita
This album was recorded in 1958, when O’Bryant was only 26 years old
She learned this version of “The Cuckoo” from the singing of Mary Jo Davis of Fayetteville, Arkansas
It’s a traditional English folk song, though it’s also popular in the US, Canada, Scotland, and Ireland
O’Bryant says of the song: “The words and images travel freely from song to song, so that it is impossible to say that any one of these songs is a version or variant of another.”
Robert Wilkins - That’s No Way to Get Along
He was a country blues artist from Mississippi known for his versatility across such genres as ragtime, gospel, and blues
He performed in Memphis in the 20s and 30s, and capitalised on the jug band craze of the time by starting one of his own
He recorded for Victor and Brunswick between 1928 and 1936, but quit playing music in 1936 after he witnessed a murder at the venue where he was performing
In 1950, he became an ordained minister
In 1964, at the age of 68, he was “rediscovered”, and began to make appearances at folk festivals and started to record again
Recording from 1930
Woody Guthrie - I’ve Got to Know
Guthrie an important figure in folk history who’s known for his songs about the Okie migrants who travelled west during the Great Depression in search of work
Woody Guthrie wrote this song later in his life, and it’s been widely recorded since
It uses the tune of the hymn “Farther Along”
This recording was made in 1951 when Guthrie was 39, a year before he was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease after several years of bad health and erratic behaviour
It was included on the 2012 Folkways compilation album Woody at 100
Bob Roberts - Leave Her, Johnny
Roberts was from Ipswich, Suffolk, England, and was known to English folksong collectors for his singing of sea songs
This is from his 1978 album Songs from the Sailing Barges
This song was usually sung during the last few tasks before leaving the ship after a rough voyage
It seems it’s a modern form of an older farewell shanty called “Across the Western Ocean”, which originated around 1850 during the peak of Irish immigration to North America
Dewey Balfa - The Trill: My Pretty Little Christine
He was a renowned Cajun fiddler from Louisiana who gained a wider audience after his performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival
This is from the 1977 album Cajun Fiddle, Old and New
This is Balfa’s example of a trill on the fiddle, which he demonstrates with the tune “My Pretty Little Christine”
Sweet Honey in the Rock - More Than a Paycheck
They’re an a cappella ensemble formed by Bernice Johnson Reagon in 1973 while she was teaching a vocal workshop in Washington, DC
This is their own song, written in 1981
Grupo Moncada - Candida Maria
They’re a band from Cuba that formed in the early 1970s and has to play and record together since
From a 1979 live album that Grupo Moncada recorded in Boston, Massachusetts
This is a traditional Venezuelan folk song
Ben Lucien Burman - Unnatural History
He was an author and journalist from Kentucky
From a 1956 album of songs & stories of the Mississippi River
Harmonica player Eddy Manson gives musical accompaniment to this one
Bryan Bowers - Dog
He’s an American musician often credited with introducing the autoharp to younger generations of musicians
From a 2007 album of 15 songs recorded at the Western Jubilee Warehouse Theatre in Colorado Springs, a venue owned by the western label Western Jubilee Recording Company
Recorded May of 2000
Cara Luft - The Blacksmiths
From Winnipeg
Off her 2003 album Tempting the Storm
A traditional English folk song first collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams in Herefordshire in 1909
Geoff Bartley - Tell It Like It Is
From a 1984 issue of Fast Folk Musical Magazine, a cooperative that was dedicated to reinvigorating the New York folk scene, and released over 100 albums between 1982 and 1997
Bartley is a musician from Massachusetts who’s been playing in different roots styles since the late 1960s
Mississippi John Hurt - Stagolee
American country blues singer and guitarist from Avalon, Mississippi
He made a couple of recordings for OkEh Records in the late 1920s but they were commercial failures, and when OkEh Records closed shop during the Great Depression, Hurt returned to his work as a sharecropper, continuing to play music at local events
His OkEh recordings were included on the incredibly influential 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, and in 1963 a copy of Hurt’s “Avalon Blues” was discovered, which led the musicologist Dick Spottswood to finding Hurt in Avalon
Hurt performed at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, which brought further attention to his music, and he toured extensively throughout the US and recorded 3 albums
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
Old Man Luedecke - Lost John
From Chester, NS
This is off his 2006 album Hinterland
Eric Leber, Martha Bixler - Pretty Saro
From a 1965 instructional record for learning to play the recorder
English folk ballad from the early 1700s
One of several folk songs that died out in England but was rediscovered in the Appalachian region in the early 20th century, preserved through the strong oral tradition of that area
Alex Campbell - Pretty Saro
He was a Scottish musician, and one of the first folksingers to tour Europe and the UK during the folk revival of the 1960s
Though he was never commercially successful, he’s said to have recorded over 100 records, which was easy for him because he collected his songs from many different sources and believed in recording quickly, in the style of early American bluesmen
This is from his 1987 album With the Greatest Respect
Isabel Etheridge, Mary Basnight - Amber Tresses
From the 1977 album Between the Sound and the Sea: Music of the North Carolina Outer Banks, researched and recorded by ethnomusicologist Karen G Helms
Etheridge and Basnight were sisters from Manteo, NC
Unspecified - Eye-Witness Accounts
From the 1962 album The House Committee on Un-American Activities: Hearings in San Francisco, May, 1960, which features excerpts from the hearings, interviews outside the courtroom, and eyewitness accounts of the violent protests
HUAC was a government committee formed in the late 1930s to investigate Americans allegedly involved in subversive activities
Its hearings led to many individuals from the film industry being blacklisted from major studios, but the effects of HUAC extended far beyond Hollywood
Many folksingers were also called before the committee to deliver testimony, including Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson, with the former convicted on 10 counts of contempt of Congress and sentenced to 10 concurrent one-year prison terms, which were overturned in 1962 before he served any time
Cindy Kallet - Wings to Fly
She’s a musician from New England
This is off her 1981 debut album Working on Wings to Fly
She wrote it in about half an hour one autumn night after a bike ride
Morley Loon - N’doheeno
He was a Cree musician and actor from Mistissini, Quebec
That one’s from his debut album, Northland, My Land, from 1981
The title translates to “The Hunter”, and reflects the hunting and gathering traditions of Loon’s people and region
Jerry Silverman - Greek Music in ⅞ time
Silverman is a musician, guitar teacher, and author from New York
From his 1964 instructional album for guitar players
Len Chandler - Father’s Grave
A folk musician from Akron, Ohio who earned a reputation as a protest songwriter during the Civil Rights Movement
From a collection of freedom songs recorded in 1964 during the Sing for Freedom Workshop , which brought together Chandler, the Freedom Singers, the Birmingham Movement Choir, the Georgia Sea Island Singers, Doc Reese, Phil Ochs
Chandler wrote this song while in Tennessee
Pharis & Jason Romero - Pale Morning
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 banjo named Clara on this one
It was the first banjo he built after their shop was destroyed by a fire in 2016, and he used wood salvaged from the blaze to make it
They say of this tune: “When Jason finished a banjo, he often puts it into whatever tuning the strings are closest too. This song came out of a new tuning on a freshly strung-up banjo.”
