Barking Dog: March 30, 2023
We’ll kick off the show today with a few birthdays.
Tracy Chapman - The Times They Are A-Changin’
She’s 59 today
Chapman is a well-known musician from Ohio who’s been writing music since she was around 8 years old
This was recorded live at Madison Square Garden in New York City on October 16, 1992, during a celebration of the 30th anniversary of Bob Dylan’s career as a recording artist
Sonny Boy Williamson I - Deep Down in the Ground
He was born 109 years ago today, in 1914
He was a harmonica player and blues singer from Tennessee
In the 40s, Aleck Miller started going by the name Sonny Boy Williamson to take advantage of the original performer’s fame
That’s how the first Sonny Boy Williamson came to be known as Sonny Boy Williamson I or The Original Sonny Boy
This song was recorded in Aurora, Illinois in 1938 for Bluebird Records
It’s based on “Stack O’ Dollars”, written by Sleepy John Estes, whose music has been compared to Williamson’s
Butch Cage, Clarence Edwards, Cornelius Edwards - Stack O’Dollars
Cage was a fife, guitar, and fiddle player originally from Mississippi, though he moved to Louisiana in the 1920s as a result of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927
Clarence and Cornelius Edwards were brothers and blues musicians from Louisiana who first began playing in bands together in the 1950s
Clarence became more widely known in the 1980s, when he performed at blues festivals throughout the country
This one was recorded at the home of Butch Cage in Zachary, Louisiana by the musicologist Harry Oster in either the late 50s or early 60s
It’s another version of “Deep Down in the Ground”
Pharis & Jason Romero - Black Guard Mary
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
The banjo he plays on that song is named Big Blue, and it was built in 2020 and was influenced by details from 19th-century banjos
Pharis wrote the words of this song after reading about the entourage that followed royalty in old Britain
She wrote it to suit Jason’s playing style
Angelo Dornan - When I Wake in the Morning
Folksinger from New Brunswick who lived most of his life in Alberta
Retired to his birthplace in his 60s, where researcher Helen Creighton collected about 135 traditional songs from him in the 1950s for use in her book of New Brunswick music
He could only remember two verses of this song when Creighton collected it
Jack Owens - I Love My Baby
Owens was a blues musician from Mississippi
He learned several instruments as a child but his chosen instrument was the guitar
He never really aimed to become a professional recording artist, and instead farmed and ran a juke joint for much of his life before being recorded during the folk and blues revival of the 1960s when the musicologist David Evans learned about him from other blues musicians from his region
He toured throughout the US and Europe during the last decades of his life, often with his harmonica-playing friend Bud Spires
This is from their album It Must Have Been the Devil from 1971
Kaia Kater - White
A Grenadian-Canadian musician based in Toronto
This is from her 2016 album Nine Pin
This is a Sacred Harp piece from around 1810, more commonly called “Long Time Traveller”
It was apparently one of Abraham Lincoln’s favourite songs
David Rovics - Hobo’s Lullaby
He’s a musician and writer based in Oregon who’s been touring internationally since the 1990s
This song is by Goebel Reeves, a Texas folk singer from the early 20th century
From his album Live at Club Passim from 2000
John Fizer - Train Song
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
Sharon Burch - Welcome Home
She’s a musician, composer, educator, and writer who was raised in the traditional Navajo culture in New Mexico
She wrote this song in a contemporary folk style but used the Navajo language and included elements of traditional Navajo music
It was recorded at the National Museum of American History in 1991
Horace Sprott - Takes Rocks and Gravel to Make a Solid Road
Sprott a wandering musician from Alabama who was recorded in the 1950s by researcher and writer Frederic Ramsey
Recorded near the Cahaba River in Perry County, Alabama on April 10, 1954
Seems to be a traditional blues song
Bob Dylan - Rocks and Gravel
The recording was made in October, 1962 at the Gaslight Cafe, a folk coffeehouse in Greenwich Village, New York City
Godfrey & Tod - The Cuckoo
Contemporary old-time duo from Calgary
Nathan M Godfrey and Mike Tod
A traditional English folk song, though it’s also popular in the US, Canada, Scotland, and Ireland
David Francey - Red-Winged Blackbird
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who worked as a railyard worker and carpenter for 20 years before pursuing folk music at the age of 45
From his first album, Torn Screen Door from 1999
John Jackson - Roll On Buddy
He was a piedmont blues musician from Virginia who had given up playing music in his community by the time folklorist Chuck Perdue met him in 1949
Arhoolie Records released his first recordings in the early 60s, and he toured Europe, played folk festivals, and recorded for a few other record companies during that time
This is from a 1999 collection of his recordings from Arhoolie Records
This song is part of a large song family that includes other songs like “John Henry,” “Spikedriver Blues,” “Roll On John,” and “Take This Hammer”
Sharon Shannon, Roisin Elsafty, The Elsafty Family - An Phailistin
Shannon is an accordionist, fiddler, and singer from Ireland who began her career as a member of the Waterboys
This is from her 2003 album Libertango
She’s joined by Roisin Elsafty and her family
Elsafty is a traditional Irish singer with Irish and Egyptian roots, and her family also performs on this song
It was written by her mother Treasa and Donal Lunny in both Gaelic and Arabic, and the title translates to “Palestine”
Dyad - Early Early in the Spring
From Vancouver, BC
British folk song from the late 17th century
Off their 2002 album Who’s Been Here Since I’ve Been Gone
Pedro Pietri - Telephone Booth Number 23
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
The Blue Grass Mountain Boys - Ruben
This is from the 1962 album 37th Old Time Fiddler’s Convention at Union Grove, North Carolina
They were a group from Kannapolis, NC
This song is a member of a family of railroad songs that includes “Reuben’s Train,” “500 Miles,” and “900 Miles”
Patrick Sky - Reuben
Patrick Sky was a musician from Georgia who was a member of the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 60s
Later in his life, he became an expert in building and playing Irish pipes with his wife Cathy
He included the song on his 1965 self-titled debut album
Martin Young and Corbett Grigsby - Ruby
Field recording from Hazzard, Kentucky
The Carriére Brothers - Blues of the Lonesome Road
They were Calvin Carriére, his father Eraste, and his uncle Bebe
They were all from Louisiana, and Calvin became known as the King of Zydeco Fiddle
His father and uncle both played the fiddle and accordion as well
This song is from the 1977 album La La Louisiana
Fiver - Rosemary & Rue
Stage name of Toronto-based artist Simone Schmidt
This is off the soundtrack they did for the recent documentary A More Radiant Sphere, which tells the story of Joe Wallace, a Canadian communist, political prisoner and poet who was largely ignored within the country but admired in Eastern Europe
Florent Vollant - Son of the Sun
He’s an Innu musician from Quebec who was part of the popular folk duo Kashtin
This song is off his 2015 album Puamuna, and it’s a cover of Willie Dunn’s song
Gene Bluestein - Paul Bunyan
He was a musician, folklorist, activist, and English professor from Minnesota
This is off his 1958 album Songs of the North Star State, which was made to celebrate the centennial of Minnesota’s statehood in 1958
In the liner notes, Bluestein notes how odd it is that there are relatively few folk songs about the famous North American folk figure Paul Bunyan, a giant lumberjack who is often accompanied by Babe the Blue Ox
Bluestein wrote the melody for this song
Fraser Union - Bank Trollers
They’re a BC folk group that formed in 1983
This song is from their 2006 album This Old World
This song was originally a poem written by BC novelist Bill Sinclair in the early 1950s, and his friend Phil Thomas, a school teacher who collected folk songs in the province, put the words to music
Lisa Null - The Death of Mother Jones
Null is a folk musician who’s been performing around the Washington, DC area for more than 40 years
This is from her 2015 album Legacies, released by Folk Legacy Records
As of this recording, Null had been singing that song for over 40 years
Mother Jones was born in 1837, and worked as an advocate for safe working conditions, the 8-hour work day, and the rights of children throughout her life
She was one of the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World, and often spoke at strikes and marches around the United States
Null learned the song in the 1970s, and sings it to exemplify a strong woman for women’s song workshops at folk festivals
Unidentified Group of Tobacco Workers - Run Sinner, and Hide Your Face
Recorded in South Carolina between 1924 and 1939 by the folk music collector Lawrence Gellert
Traditional African-American spiritual related to songs like “O Death”(popularized by Charley Patton)
It’s been widely recorded and adapted into more contemporary musical settings, including a 10-minute version by Nina Simone
The Golden Gate Quartet, Josh White - Run, Sinner, Run
They are a vocal quartet formed in Virginia by four high school students in 1934
They are still active today, but have obviously undergone several changes in membership
White was an 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
That’s from the album Freedom: The Golden Gate Quartet and Josh White at the Library of Congress, recorded in 1940
They combine the song with “Feel Like My Time Ain’t Long”
Mance Lipscomb - Run, Sinner, Run
Texan blues artist born Beau De Glen Lipscomb
Took the nickname Mance at a young age, which was short for emancipation
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
The recording we heard was made live at The Cabale in Berkeley, California in 1964
He combines “Run, Sinner, Run” with the song “I’m So Glad”
The Wailin’ Jennys - Wildflowers
Folk group formed in Winnipeg in 2002
This is from their 2017 album Fifteen
It’s a Tom Petty song from 1994
Morley Loon - Agajee Dona Nooch
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 “To Hunt No More?”
Ferron - The Return
She’s a Canadian musician and poet from BC
This is off her 2013 album Thunder and Lighten-ing
Uncle Sinner - Glory in the Meeting House
From Winnipeg
From his 2020 album Trouble of This World
Old-time breakdown from the Kentucky River basin that was a popular tune to play at fiddle contests
Bob Hill, Aldor Morin - Le Reel de l’Harmonica
