Barking Dog: March 26, 2026
Marisa Anderson - Sarvi Simin
She’s a musician based in Portland, Oregon, known for her compositions inspired by the American primitive guitar style
This is a new single from Anderson’s upcoming album The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music, which was inspired by the private record collection of Harry Smith, who compiled the highly influential Anthology of American Folk Music in the early 1950s
Anderson’s album focuses on music from places the US has had conflict with since 1970
She got this track from the 1977 album Musical Instruments of the People of the USSR, on which it was performed by N. Ali-Zade on the rubob
Gisele Rodríguez Fernández accompanies Anderson on the violin
Pharis & Jason Romero - Lost Lula Redux
From Horsefly, BC
This is a new recording of the song, which they originally released on their 2013 album Long Gone Out West Blues
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Little Bird in the Ashbank
Contemporary stringband based in Toronto
They got the tune from their friend Scott Prouty
Drink Small - Worth a Million Dollar
He’s a blues musician from South Carolina who’s known as the Blues Doctor
He began playing music at the age of eight when he was thrown from a mule-drawn wagon and was bedridden for several weeks
In the 1960s he gained a following of university students, and began performing at universities across the Carolinas
This is from his 1972 album I Know My Blues Are Different Cause I’m the One Who Has Them
Dan Tate - Old True Love
He was a banjo player from Fancy Gap, Virginia
This recording was made in 1978
It’s a version of “The True Lover’s Farewell,” also known as “The Turtle Dove”
Lawrence “Black” Ardoin - I’ve Been There
This is from the 1984 album Lawrence “Black” Ardoin and His French Band
It’s his own song
Terre Roche, Maggie Roche - Kin Ya See That Sun
They were sisters from New Jersey who dropped out of high school in the late 1960s to tour as a duo, and later formed a trio called The Roches with their sister Suzzy
After Maggie died in 2017, two fans sent Terre tapes of live recordings that the duo had made in both 1975 and 2000, which Terre and her friend Michael Tannen compiled into the album Kin Ya See That Sun, released in 2022, which is where this one comes from
They recorded that one live in Albany, New York in 2000
JuJu - Njatigi
They’re a duo formed by British guitarist Justin Adams and Gambian fiddle player Juldeh Camara
This is from their 2008 album Soul Science
David Crosby, Michael League, Becca Stevens, Michelle Willis - 1967
Crosby was an American musician best known as a member of the groups the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash, though he also recorded as a solo artist throughout his career
This is off the 2018 album Here If You Listen
It’s their own composition
Kaigal-ool Khovalyg - Kyzyl Taiga
This is from the 1999 album Tuva, Among the Spirits: Sound, Music, and Nature in Sakha and Tuva
It was recorded between 1995 and 1998 “on horseback, in creek beds, caves, canyons, and grasslands”
Tuva is a Russian republic in southern Siberia, and Tuvans are a traditionally nomadic ethnic group indigenous to Tuva, China, and Mongolia
He’s a member of the Tuvan ensemble Huun-Huur-Tu
This is what’s called a “long song,” a song with long reverberation time, with the music reverberating off a cliff
Herders used to sing these songs to one another across the banks of a river because the music travelled farther than conversations could
Lily May Ledford - Absent-Minded School Days
Headed one of the first all-woman string bands to play on the radio
Ledford was rediscovered by Ralph Rinzler in the 60s and became popular again during the folk revival of the 1960s
This is from the compilation album Gems, which came out in 2000
Lily May Ledford - Red Rocking Chair
Traditional American old-time song known variably as “Sugar Baby,” “Honey Babe Blues,” and “Red Apple Juice,” amongst other names
Old Man Luedecke - The Mermaid
From Chester, NS
This is from his 2019 album Easy Money, and it’s a traditional sea ballad from around the 18th century that likely originated in England but is well-known across North America
Bela Fleck, Abigail Washburn - What’cha Gonna Do
Bela Fleck is probably the most widely known contemporary banjo player
He’s won 14 Grammy Awards and been nominated for 33
Washburn is a Grammy-winning contemporary banjo player and singer from Illinois who’s known as a solo artist and for her work in The Wu Force, Uncle Earl, and Sparrow Quartet
Washburn and Fleck married in 2009 and have been playing as a duo since 2013
This is from the 2024 album Live on Mountain Stage: Outlaws & Outliers, a collection of recordings from the Mountain Stage radio show produced by West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The song is originally off their 2014 Grammy-winning album
Lightnin’ Hopkins - Blues Jumped a Rabbit
Was a country blues musician from Texas who gained a broader audience with the folk revival of the 1960s after recording and performing around Texas in the 40s and 50s
He continued to tour and record throughout the 60s and 70s, and was the poet in residence for Houston, Texas for 35 years
This is a field recording made by Mack McCormick, off a compilation album of McCormick’s recordings called Playing for the Man at the Door, released by Smithsonian Folkways Records in 2023
It’s a combination of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s songs “Rabbit Foot Blues” and “Long Lonesome Blues,” among others
Ed McCurdy - Stackerlee
He was a musician and songwriter from Pennsylvania best known for the anti-war song “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream”
He also had a career as a CBC radio host in the 1940s and 50s, which was where he met musicians like Pete Seeger, Josh White, and Oscar Brand
He retired to Nova Scotia with his wife in the 1980s, and spent the rest of his life working sporadically as a character actor on Canadian TV
This is a well-known American ballad about the murder of Billy Lyons by "Stag" Lee Shelton in St. Louis, Missouri at Christmas, 1895, when Shelton shot Lyons after Lyons took his Stetson hat during an argument
It was first published in 1911 after circulating in the oral tradition since at least 1897, and was widely recorded in the 1920s
McCurdy included it on his 1956 album Blood Booze ’N Bones
Roy Harper, Johnny Bellar - Fisherman’s Luck
Harper was a country musician and painter from Tennessee who began performing while working railroad jobs in the 1940s, and in the 60s, he began recording a large repertoire of music
He continued performing until his death in 2021
Bellar is a musician known for his skill on the resonator and lap steel guitar
This is from an album of highlights from the 1989 Memphis Music & Heritage Festival
Richard Hartlan - Captain Wedderburn’s Courtship
This field recording was made by the folklorist Helen Creighton in South East Passage, Nova Scotia in 1943
It’s a Scottish ballad from at least the late 18th century, also known as “Lord Roslyn’s Daughter”
It’s also been collected in Ireland, North America, and Australia, and it’s an example of a riddle song, in which one character poses a series of riddles another character, who then perfectly answers each one and in doing so, achieves their goal
Karen James - Captain Wedderburn’s Courtship
A folksinger who grew up in England, Spain, and France, and moved to Canada as a teenager
From her 1961 self-titled album
Cara Luft - Lord Roslyn’s Daughter
From Winnipeg
Off her 2007 album The Light Fantastic
Lottie Kimbrough - Don’t Speak to Me
She was a country blues musician from either Arkansas or Missouri who recorded between 1924 and 1929
This recording was made in Richmond, Indiana in August of 1928
Malvina Reynolds - Trouble Keep Away
She was a folksinger from California known particularly for writing the song “Little Boxes,” though she wrote and recorded a large catalogue of music during her career
This is off Swedish musician Jan Hammarlund’s 2014 album Uncovered, a collection of previously unreleased songs by Reynolds, most of which are performed by Hammarlund, though we get to hear Reynolds perform this song
Art Bouman - Going to German
He’s a Halifax-based banjo player who’s interested in reclaiming the banjo as a traditional instrument of the African diaspora and highlighting the Black banjo players whose work has historically been overlooked
This is a song from his 2025 album Simple Songs for Trying Times
It’s from the repertoire of jug band leader Gus Cannon, who recorded it in 1929
“German” likely refers to a prison
East River Pipe - The Long Black Cloud
Stage name for FM Cornog, a musician based in New York City who’s been releasing music since the early 1990s
This one is off his 2003 album Garbageheads on Endless Stun
B. Dylan - Jim Jones
Traditional Australian folk ballad from the early 19th century
It’s narrated by Jim Jones, who is found guilty of poaching and is sentenced to live in the penal colony of New South Wales
He recorded it for his 1992 album Good As I Been to You
This is a live recording from 1993
Aoife O’Donovan, Taylor Ashton - Loretta
O’Donovan is a musician from Boston known for her work with the band Crooked Still
Ashton is a musician originally from Vancouver, BC, now living in New York City
This is a single released in 2020
It’s a song by Townes Van Zandt, who first released it on a 1977 live album recorded in Houston, Texas
Zachary Lucky - Ramblin’ Man’s Lament
He’s a musician from Saskatchewan, and this is a live recording from his new album The Lost River Sessions, which came out on February 27th
Blaze Foley - Cold, Cold World
He was a musician and artist from Texas, known for songs like “Clay Pigeons” and “Let Me Ride in Your Big Cadillac”
This one is from the 2010 compilation album The Dawg Years: 1975-1978
Dewey Corley, Walter Miller - Church Bell Tolling
Corley was a musician born in Arkansas who spent much of his life in Memphis, Tennessee, playing in the jug bands that proliferated there
Miller was a country blues musician from Tennessee
This recording was made by field researcher and festival curator George Mitchell in Memphis, Tennessee, in the summer of 1967
Leo “Bud” Welch - The Lord Will Make a Way
He was a gospel blues musician from Mississippi who worked as a lumberjack for 30 years while honing his skill on several instruments, including the guitar, fiddle, and harmonica
He made his first album, Sabougla Voices, in 2014, which is where this one comes from
Wade Hemsworth - The Bride’s Lament
A folksinger from Brantford, Ontario
This is from his 1955 album Folk Songs of the Canadian North Woods
He first heard the song from a man who sailed lake boats out of Port Arthur at the head of the Great Lakes
The song has been found on both sides of the Atlantic
Shelagh McDonald - Hullo Stranger
She’s a Scottish folk singer who released two albums in the early 1970s before disappearing from the music scene for over 40 years
In 2013, she began performing again, and released a new album, which she sold at her shows
This song comes from the 2005 compilation album Let No Man Steal Your Thyme
It was recorded live at the Dungeon Folk Club in London in the late 1960s
Scruj MacDuhk - The Northern Set
They were a folk band from Winnipeg that were active in the 1990s
This is from their 1999 album The Road to Canso
