Barking Dog: March 31, 2022
Dyad - I Went to See My Molly
Victoria, BC
This is off their album Who’s Been Here Since I’ve Been Gone from 2002
It’s an Appalachian ballad about a woman who offers to dress in men’s clothes and join him as a soldier
He agrees, and they marry and go to war
There are a bunch of songs with this sort of theme, and this one seems to come from the broader tradition of “William and Nancy” or “Men's Clothing I'll Put On I,” which dates back to at least 1863
It seems they got this specific version from Lee Monroe Presnell, who sets it in the American Civil War
Lead Belly - Fannin Street
Born in Louisiana in late 1880s
Went to prison for attempted murder in Texas in 1918
He won early release in 1925 by singing a song for the governor of Texas
Incarcerated again in 1930
Ethnomusicologists and folklorists John and Alan Lomax discovered him in prison while making field recordings
They delivered a petition for his release on the back of a recording of “Goodnight, Irene” to the Louisiana governor, which possibly assisted in getting him released early
Once he was released, he made a number of recordings and became widely known for both his blues and folk music
Recorded his version in 1949
Tom Waits - Fannin Street
Waits a very well known American musician, composer, and actor who’s been playing professionally for 50 years
This is a song by Lead Belly, whose version we heard before Waits
Lead Belly visited Shreveport, Louisiana with his father when he was young, and recalled wanting to come back to visit Fannin Street when he was older
It’s a long street in Shreveport that was known for its many bordellos and its free-flowing alcohol
It’s also where many of the best musicians in the area congregated to play
Waits’ version is from his 2006 album Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
Bright Light Quartet - I’m Tired
Shedrick Cain, James Campbell, Arnold Fisher, and Lawrence Hodge singing with Robert Beane on guitar
They were a group of fishermen who hauled nets aboard the ships in the Chesapeake Bay and in the Atlantic, from Long Island to the Gulf of Mexico
The group got their practice singing shanties together on the trawlers, but they also gave performances at churches in their region
Recorded April 6, 1960 in Virginia
Willie Dunn - Rattling Along the Freight Train (To the Spirit Land)
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
From the 2021 anthology of Dunn’s music called Creation Never Sleeps, Creation Never Dies
Johnny Richardson - Railroad Man
He was a folksinger and mechanic from South Carolina who recorded four albums of children’s music for Folkways Records between the 50s and the 80s and performed around the world
He died in 2014 at the age of 105
Richardson wrote this children’s song about the railroad in the tradition of John Henry
From a 1964 album of children’s songs
Old Man Luedecke - Little Stream of Whiskey
From Chester, NS
This is off his 2012 album Tender Is the Night
Skip James - Everybody Ought to Live Right
American blues artist known for his dark, minor-key guitar playing
First recorded for Paramount in 1931, but his recordings did not sell well due to the Great Depression, and he faded into obscurity
Until the 1960s, when he was rediscovered by blues fans, and appeared at folk and blues festivals across the US, recorded several albums, and gave several concerts
This one was recorded in 1967, 2 years before his death, and wasn’t released until 1998
Rev. Gary Davis - I’ll Be All Right Some Day
Born 1896 in Laurens, SC
In the 20s he moved to Durham, NC, which was a centre of Black culture at the time
Taught Blind Boy Fuller, collaborated with a number of Piedmont blues artists
Was ordained a Baptist minister in 1933, and began to prefer gospel music
Was first recorded in 1935 for the American Record Company
Moved to New York in the 40s, career revived in the 1960s with the American folk revival
Played at the Newport Folk Festival and was an important figure in the Greenwich Village scene, teaching artists like Dave Van Ronk, Bob Weir, and Tom Winslow
This song shares some similarities with “We Shall Overcome,” most notably its tune
Recorded August 10, 1961 in New York
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
Pharis & Jason Romero - A Passing Glimpse
Married duo from Horsefly, BC
From their 2011 album of the same name
Woody Guthrie - The Ranger’s Command
Dust Bowl balladeer and important figure in folk music history who’s known particularly for his songs about the Okie migrants who travelled west during the Great Depression in search of work, though he composed and recorded songs on an enormous number of topics
This one is a reworking of the old cowboy tune “Fair Lady of the Plains,” in which the protagonist fights against Native Americans
Woody changed the antagonist to rustlers who are trying to steal livestock
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott claims that Woody wrote the song to encourage women to be active in the war against Hitler and fascism
Recorded April of 1944
Willie Sordill - Talking UFW
Wrote this song over a period of three days in April 1976, to be sung at a Food Day dinner and workshop in Fort Wayne, Indiana
He wanted to write something that offered a solution to the vulgar way farmworkers were–and still are–treated
This is a talking blues song, a style invented by Chris Bouchillon and since adopted for many songs, often with guitar very similar to the original—typically repetitive three chord progression
That’s the case with this one as well
Fraser Union - Canning Salmon
They’re a BC folk group that formed in 1983
This song is from their 2006 album This Old World
It was written by Linda Chobotuck in 1985
Algia Mae Hinton - Lima Beans
She was a Piedmont blues musician from North Carolina who learned to play the guitar from her mother, an expert in the Piedmont fingerpicking style who often played at local parties and gatherings
She met the folklorist Glenn Hinson in 1978, who arranged for her to perform at the North Carolina Folklife Festival
She gave several concerts outside of North Carolina after that, even travelling to Europe to perform in 1998
This is off the 1999 album Honey Babe
Donnie Stewart, Terry Perkins - Billy Boy
From a 1960 album of songs recorded at the American Folk Song Festival in Kentucky in the 1950s
Edward Tatnall Canby wrote of the song: A sentimental ballad that hides a barbed dig at the protecting mama. “Too young to be taken from her mammy”—but the lady that Willie courts, you'll note, is 77
Jean Ritchie - My Boy Willie
Known as the Mother of Folk
Learned traditional folksongs in the oral tradition from friends and family in her youth
Member of one of the two "great ballad-singing families" of Kentucky (the other the Combs family)
From 1952
Tony & Irene Saletan - Don’t You Hear the Bells A’Ringing?
Irene Kossoy one of the Kossoy Sisters who we’ve played before on the show
Tony Saletan, her husband, is a folk singer and educator who is credited with the modern rediscovery of the songs “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” and “Kumbaya”
This is their version of “When They Ring Them Golden Bells,” which clearly follows the same melody as the other versions, but its lyrics change significantly, and it notably incorporates lyrics from another hymn, called “The Christian’s Rest”
Bessie Jones - Oh Death
Bessie Jones known for spreading folk music to a wider audience in the 20th century
The actual origins of this song are uncertain, and although it shares lyrics with the better known song called “Oh Death,” this one seems to have more religious undertones compared to the ballad version
This recording is from 1959
West Virginia Collegiate Singers - I’m So Glad Trouble Don’t Last Always
The West Virginia Collegiate Institute glee club
Recorded in 1927 in New York
Robert “Guitar” Welch - What Shall I Do
This is from an album of songs that the folklorist Harry Oster recorded at Angola Prison, also known as the Louisiana State Penitentiary, in the 1950s
Welch was an inmate at the prison, and he was called "Guitar" and "King of the Blues" by the other inmates, some of whom–like Robert Pete Williams and Roosevelt Charles–were also talented blues musicians
It’s a traditional African American hymn from the southeast US
Kacy & Clayton - Cannery Yard
From Wood Mountain, SK
Off their 2017 album The Siren’s Song
Geraldine Sullivan - The Murder of Maggie Howie
From an album of Ontario folk songs from 1958, gathered by the folklorist Edith Fowke
This was a popular ballad among the Irish population in Ontario, as those referred to in the ballad were of Irish heritage
The murder it refers to took place around 1887 in Napanee
Elizabeth Cotten - Shoot That Buffalo
Known primarily for her guitar picking style, though she also learned banjo at an early age
Self-taught and was left-handed but learned to play on a right-handed banjo
She learned this tune from a man who visited her family’s home around 1910, and she put the words to it
Sonny Terry, Pete Seeger - Pick a Bale of Cotton
Terry was a blind musician from Georgia who lost his vision at 16, which prevented him from doing farm work and caused him to rely on music for a living
In fact, he discovered that playing “Campdown Races” for the plow horses in his area improved farming efficiency
He’s perhaps best known for playing as a duo with Brownie McGhee, and his collaborations with Woodie Guthrie and Ry Cooder
Seeger was a folk singer and an activist who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and peace through his music
Recorded live at Carnegie Hall in 1958
This is an African American work song that first appeared in print in 1936
We’ll hear a new version of it after this
Taj Mahal, Ry Cooder - Pick a Bale of Cotton
Taj is a Grammy-award-winning blues musician from New York City whose career has spanned over 50 years
Cooder is also a Grammy-award-winning musician with a career spanning over 50 years
This is a new single from the two, both of whom are known for their collaborations with other musicians
It’s from their forthcoming album, Get on Board: The Songs of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee
Uncle Sinner - Jubilee
From his 2020 album Trouble of This World
He’s from Winnipeg, but this song is a standard Appalachian party song, likely from the Ritchie family of Kentucky, of which Mother of Folk, Jean Ritchie, was a member
Glasgow Song Guild - Anti-Polaris
From the 1962 album Ding Dong Dollar: Anti-Polaris and Scottish Republican Songs by the Anti-Polaris Singers, who started a musical movement in protest of an American nuclear submarine that sailed into the Holy Loch in the early 1960s
Polaris was the United Kingdom’s first submarine-based nuclear weapons system
This is sung to the tune of “The Captain and His Whiskers”
David Francey - Waves
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who started to pursue music as a career at the age of 45 after working as a carpenter and in railyards for 20 years
From his 2007 album Right of Passage
Karen James - Taking Gair in the Night
A folksinger and daughter of Spanish musician Isabelita Alonso, who grew up in England, Spain, and France, and moved to Canada as a teenager
From her 1962 album Through Streets Broad and Narrow
The folklorist Edith Fowke collected this song from a Newfoundland singer who was living in Ontario
It’s a song about catching gair-fish
Hubby Jenkins - Parchman Farm Blues
Born and raised in Brooklyn
This song was written by Bukka White
Autobiographical, about his experience at Mississippi State Penitentiary, known as Parchman Farm
Lily’s Chapel School - Green Green Rocky Road
From an album of play songs from Alabama
This was recorded in York, Alabama at Lilly’s Chapel School
Karen Dalton - Green Rocky Road
American singer, guitarist, and banjo player known for her association with the 60s Greenwich Village folk music scene—including with artists Fred Neil and Bob Dylan
She was largely unrecognized for her contributions to the folk genre during her life, but has become an important influence for artists like Nick Cave, Devendra Banhart, and Joanna Newsom
This song largely written by Len Chandler, though based on a traditional tune from the South
Kemukserar and Pangatkar - His First Hunt
From a 1955 album of Inuit songs from Hudson Bay and Alaska
Kemukserar and Pangatkar were an old couple from Naujaat
Kemukserar was famous in the region for his prowess as a hunter and his wife was known as a skilled sewer
Both of them also knew many stories and songs, including this one, the words of which translate to:
"On his very first hunt / He killed a fine seal / Even in the dark. "
The Wakami Wailers - Joys of Quebec / Devil’s Dream
Jake Blount - Beyond This Wall
