Barking Dog: March 9, 2023
Harrison Kennedy - Who U Tellin’?
He’s 81 today!
A Hamilton, Ontario artist with a career in blues and roots music spanning over 50 years
This one is from his 2017 album Who U Tellin’?
Oscar Isaac - Green, Green Rocky Road
44 today
This is off the soundtrack for the Coen Brothers’ 2013 film Inside Llewyn Davis, in which Isaac plays the main character, a hapless folksinger in 1960s Greenwich Village
This song largely written by Len Chandler, though it’s based on a traditional tune from the southern United States
Doc Watson, Clarence Ashley - I Saw a Man at the Close of Day
Watson’s 100th birthday was March 3rd
He was a Grammy award-winning musician from North Carolina known for his fingerstyle and flatpicking skill
Had a 60 year career, and often played with other skilled musicians like Jean Ritchie, Clarence Ashley, and his son, Merle Watson
Recorded April, 1962 in Los Angeles, joined by fiddle player Fred Price
Both Doc and Fred remembered this song from their youth
Originally recorded by GB Grayson and Henry Whitter in the 1920s
Strange Creek Singers - I Truly Understand That You Love Another Man
They were a supergroup made up of Mike Seeger, Hazel Dickens, Tracy Schwarz, Alice Gerrard, and Lamar Grier
This is off their 1972 self-titled album
It’s a traditional American folk song that shares some lyrics with “The Storms Are on the Ocean” and “Long Lonesome Road”
They got their version from George “Shortbuckle” Roark’s recording, made in 1928
Uncle Sinner - Move Daniel
From Winnipeg
Off 2015 album Let the Devil In
This is a traditional slave shout song from the same region of Georgia as the Georgia Sea Island Singers
Bessie Jones, The Georgia Sea Island Singers - Before This Time Another Year
Bessie Jones known for spreading folk music to a wider audience in the 20th century
She was one of the most popular performers of folk music in the 60s and 70s, often appearing with the Georgia Sea Island Singers, a folk music ensemble that’s been around since the early 1900s
Recorded by Alan Lomax in either 1959 or 1960
It’s a traditional spiritual which Jones learned from her grandparents
David Cort - Nasby and the Draft
From the 1962 album Dear Abe Linkhorn: The Satire of the Civil War, narrated by David Cort
Cort was a writer, best known as the foreign news editor at Life magazine
This one was written by Petroleum V Nasby, whose real name was David Ross Locke
Locke was a journalist, humorist, and political commentator from New York
This is part of his most famous work, known as the “Nasby Letters”, which was essentially humorous propaganda intended to garner support for the Union army, of which Abraham Lincoln was an enormous fan and once wrote to Locke, saying, “For the genius to write these things I would gladly give up my office.”
This one appeared in the March 10, 1863 edition of the Findlay, Ohio newspaper the Jeffersonian, almost exactly 160 years ago
Bob Dylan - Cuban Missile Crisis
Recorded in January of 1963 at Folkways Studios in New York City
Gil Turner - Benny Kid Paret
Turner was a folksinger, editor, actor, preacher, and activist from Connecticut who was a well-known figure in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s
He was the Master of Ceremonies at Gerde’s Folk City, a popular folk coffeehouse, and he was an editor at Broadside Magazine, an important platform for topical song publication
That is one of his best-known songs, about the boxer Benny Paret, who was knocked unconscious in the ring in March of 1962 and died 10 days later
It’s one of several songs questioning whether one human should be allowed to kill another in front of a cheering audience
The issue persists, with at least four deaths recorded in this decade so far
The Candy Band - Little Lauren Brown
They were a folk quintet from New York
This is off their 1980 album Going Home: New Songs for Children and Parents
It was written by Julie North and Jeff Beck, two members of the band
Eli Conley - How Do We Know
He’s a folk musician from Virginia who states that his songs, “tell stories that aren’t often reflected in roots music,” and that he writes music for “queer and trans folks, justice seekers, and anyone who doesn’t easily fit in a box.”
That one is off his 2017 album Strong and Tender
Ferron - Ain’t Life a Brook
She’s a Canadian musician and poet from BC
That one’s from her 1980 album Testimony
Stanley Baby - Homeward Bound
This is from an album of songs from the Great Lakes
Born in late 1800s in Port Huron, Michigan, but lived most of his life in Ontario
Learned many songs from his sea captain father who sang many maritime ballads and shanties when he was home in the winter months
He learned this one from his father, and another sea captain said of it: “In sailing ship days this song was a prime favourite and was sung all the world over”
These are only two of the nine stanzas of the song
Hilda and Phil Thomas - The Kettle Valley Line
This is a song about a scenic railway that ran from Hope, BC to Lethbridge, AB, from the perspective of a hobo riding the rails during the Great Depression
It was written by Ean Hay
This version was recorded by Hilda and Phil Thomas at Expo ’86 in Vancouver
Elisa Diedhiou - Aline Sitoe
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
Woody Guthrie - Girl I Left Behind Me
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
This is off a 1994 compilation album of previously unreleased Folkways masters recorded by Guthrie between 1944 and 1949
This one was recorded on March 1, 1945
Guthrie plays the fiddle, and is joined by Bess Lomax Hawes on mandolin and Butch Hawes on guitar
It’s a traditional tune likely from England but popular throughout the United States
Hobart Smith - The Girl I Left Behind Me
An old-time musician who was rediscovered in the 60s after performing throughout the first half of the 20th century, often with his sister Texas Gladden
This is from the 1964 album Hobart Smith of Saltville, Virginia
Unspecified - Girl I Left Behind Me
From a 1950 album of recordings of 19th century music boxes, carousels, and hand organs
That one is played on what they call a “Swiss box with three beautiful silver bells”
Henry Jacobs - Interview with Jocko
From the 1955 album Radio Programme, No, 1: Henry Jacobs’ “Music and Folklore”
The Folkways website description of the album states, “Experimental radio programs from San Francisco’s KPFA station produced this series of "audio collages," which includes an eclectic mix of electronic music, a "sonata for loudspeaker," a polyrhythmic improvisation created by sampling "primitive percussion instruments and voice," and spoofed interviews with a phony scholar and musicians.”
This is one of those spoofed interviews
Male and Female Singers - Nab ba tek (Frere Jacques)
From a 1981 album of music of the Palikur people of Brazil and French Guiana
That one was sung by the children of Tipoche Village, and it highlights the influence of the Catholic missionaries who had been present in the region for over 100 years at the time of recording
Helene Baillargeon, Alan Mills - Frere Jacques
Mills was a Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec
Baillargeon was a singer, actor, and folklorist from Quebec who hosted the CBC show Chez Hélène between 1959 and 1973
This is from their 1961 album Chantons en Français, Vol. 1
It’s a traditional French nursery rhyme often sung in the round
Wilf Carter - The Hindenburg Disaster
He was a very well-known country musician from Nova Scotia known as Wilf Carter in Canada and as Montana Slim in the US
Carter wrote and recorded this ballad within 24 hours of the Hindenburg airship crashing in Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937
Nathan France - Goodbye, My Friend
From a 1982 album of music by the Arawak, the Kalinago, and the Warao people of Guyana
France was a Warao man, though this seems to be a traditional English song
Eric Bibb, Habib Koité - Blowin’ in the Wind
Bibb is an American musician who grew up around well-known musicians like Peter Seeger, Paul Robeson, and Bob Dylan, because his father, Leon Bibb, was a musical theatre singer who was part of the 1960s New York folk scene
He’s been playing guitar since he was seven, when he was given his first steel-string guitar
He’s lived in Sweden for many years, and has continued collaborating with artists like Taj Mahal, Odetta, and Habib Koité, who appeared on that song with him
Habib Koité is a Malian musician who comes from a line of traditional troubadours who provide entertainment and wisdom at gatherings and events
He’s been performing since 1988, and met Bibb in 1997 while recording an album called Mali to Memphis
They stayed in touch and decided to record together again, which resulted in the 2012 album Brothers in Bamako
This song is from that album
Lord Buckley - The Train
He was a comedian from California known for his performances in the 40s and 50s
This is off the posthumous 1970 album a most immaculately hip aristocrat
Kacy & Clayton - The Downward Road
Second cousins Kacy Anderson and Clayton Linthicum from Wood Mountain, SK
From their 2013 album The Day is Past & Gone
Erik Darling - Long John
He was an American folk musician who was an important figure in the folk music revival of the 1950s and 60s
From his 1963 album Train Time
Several tunes use this title, and tell the story of John the Trickster Slave, a folkloric trickster figure who outwitted possible captors by wearing shoes with backwards soles
Willie Dunn - Métis Red River Song
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
This is off his fourth album The Vanity of Human Wishes, from 1984
Jimmie LaRocque, Gerry McIvor, Kim Chartrand - Road to Baroche
Off an album of Indigenous fiddle music from North and South America
LaRocque comes from North Dakota, and McIvor is from Winnipeg, but this was recorded in Maryland in May of 1995
Aztec violinist, guitarist, male dancers with rattles - Nopalli
From a 1977 album of sacred guitar and violin music of the Nahua people, recorded in the Huasteca region of Veracruz in Mexico
This is a song traditionally played at a rattle dance during a winter solstice ceremony as an offering of gratitude and appreciation to the deity Tonantsi
This one is named after the prickly pear cactus, the Nopal
Ernest Williams, James “Iron Head” Baker - Ain’t No More Cane on the Brazos
A field recording the ethnomusicologists John and Alan Lomax made in 1933 at Central State Farm, the state prison farm in Sugar Land, Texas
This is a traditional prison work song from the southern US
It refers to the task of cutting sugar cane along the Brazos River where many prison work farms were located between the late 19th and early 20th century
Odetta - No More Cane on the Brazo
Musician whose music has been called the “soundtrack to the Civil Rights movement”
Born in Birmingham, Alabama
Had operatic vocal training from the age of 13
Recorded in 1954
Joined by Larry Mohr
Bukka White - Fixin’ to Die Blues
He was a Delta blues musician from Mississippi who began his recording career in 1930
After serving in the US Navy in the early 1940s, he settled in Tennessee and put his music career on hold, but after Bob Dylan covered “Fixin’ to Die” on his first album, the musician John Fahey and producer Ed Denson searched for White and found him in 1963, which started his music career up again
He recorded a new album for Denson and Fahey’s record label, Takoma Records, and Denson became his manager
He continued to play and record until his death in 1977
He’s known particularly for writing this song and “Parchman Farm Blues”
This seems to be the original recording from 1940
María Sabina - Soso Soso
From a 1957 album recorded at the mushroom ceremony of the Mazatec people of Oaxaca, Mexico by Dr. Valentina Wasson and her husband Gordon Wasson
They engaged in a pursuit they called “ethno-mycology”, studying the role played by wild mushrooms across human cultures
They first learned of the mushroom ceremonies practiced by several Indigenous groups in Mexico in 1952, and travelled there to learn more
The curandera, a healer, named María Sabina allowed them to attend the nocturnal rite, and they returned on several occasions
They recorded only the fourth performance they attended, which they note was unsuccessful, in that the divine communication they were attempting did not take place, though it occurred the other three times they were there
Fred Eaglesmith - I Pray Now
He’s an Ontario musician who hopped a freight train going west as a teenager and began writing and performing his music
This is from his 2008 album Tinderbox
Pete Seeger - Wimoweh
Pete Seeger was a very influential folk singer and activist from New York who advocated for countless important social causes through his music
From his 1968 album Wimoweh and Other Songs of Freedom & Protest
This song was written by Solomon Linda as “Mbube” and recorded by Solomon Linda’s Original Evening Birds
It’s the origin of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” which was adapted into English by The Tokens in 1961
The Weavers, of which Seeger was a member, previously introduced it to western audiences through their 1951 recording under the title Seeger uses for this recording, “Wimoweh”
Unspecified - How We Hear
Off the 1958 album The Science of Sound, produced by Bell Telephone Laboratories
Pharis & Jason Romero - Roll On My Friend
Married duo from Horsefly, BC
This is from their 2020 album Bet On Love
The Nashville Quartet - You Better Leave Segregation Alone
Four male seminary students
Off the 1990 album Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through Its Songs
Bruce Cockburn - Blind Willie
Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who’s been playing professionally for over 40 years
Off his 2019 album Crowing Ignites
