Barking Dog: April 13, 2023
The New Lost City Ramblers - When First Unto This Country
The group formed in 1958 and focused on playing music taken from 78s from the 20s and 30s
Every version of this song seems to come from a family called the Gants, whom the folklorists John and Alan Lomax recorded in 1934
It was likely relatively new when they made the recording, though some have noted that it has a frontierish feel
Wade Hemsworth - Peter Rambeley
A folksinger from Brantford, Ontario who only wrote about 20 songs during his career, though many of them, like “The Black Fly Song,” “The Logdriver’s Waltz,” and “The Wild Goose” are so ingrained in Canadian culture that people consider them traditional Canadian folk songs at this point
This is a folk song from New Brunswick that tells the story of a boy from Prince Edward Island who was fatally injured in the Miramichi logging woods when a log fell on him
John O’Connor - Mister, Slow It Down
He’s a musician from Iowa
From his 1984 album Songs For Our Times
Lesley Riddle - I’m Working on a Building
Riddle was a musician who collaborated with the Carter family, gathering songs from the region around the Carter family home and memorising their melodies while AP Carter transcribed the lyrics
He learned to play the guitar while recovering from the amputation of his right leg as a young man, and developed a distinct picking and slide method
Riddle retired from music in the 1940s but was rediscovered by Mike Seeger in 1965, and Seeger persuaded him to return to music
Over the next 13 years, Seeger made a number of recordings of Riddle’s music
This one’s from the 1993 compilation album Step By Step
It’s a widely recorded traditional American gospel spiritual
Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys - I’m Working on a Building
Monroe is known as the Father of Bluegrass because of his role in helping to create the genre, and was the first musician to record bluegrass music
Recorded in Maryland in May of 1956
Monroe learned the song from the Carter Family
Percy Randolph - Blowing the Train
New Orleans harmonica player also known as Brother Randolph
His main income came from a junk business, which he advertised by walking down the street with a cart, bellowing about the services he offered
He rarely played for money, but often performed on the streets of the French Quarter in New Orleans
This is a track where he mimics the sound of a train with his harmonica
It was very common for musicians to mimic sounds on their instruments, including fox chases and bagpipes
Tracy & Eloise Schwarz - I’m Going ‘Cross the Sea
From their album Down Home with Tracy and Eloise Schwarz from 1978
Tracy was a member of the New Lost City Ramblers, who we heard at the start of the show
They got this song from Cousin Emmy
Kacy & Clayton - I’ll Be So Glad
Duo from Wood Mountain, SK
This seems to be a traditional spiritual popularised by Lead Belly
Frank Bode - Roving Gambler
Bode was a guitarist and banjo player from Mt. Airy, North Carolina who learned to play from his wife Ginger and her family
He played in a group called the Toast String Stretchers with his wife and the banjo player Paul Brown
This ballad is derived from the British ballad “The Roving Journeyman”, though it is changed enough that it can be considered a traditional American ballad
Uncle Sinner - Shady Grove
Contemporary artist from Winnipeg
This on is off his 2008 album Ballads and Mental Breakdowns
It’s a traditional Appalachian folk song
There are many variations of this song, with at least 300 stanzas recorded by the early 21st century
The Foc’sle Singers - Haul on the Bowline
From a 1959 album of foc’sle songs and shanties that were sung by sailors at work on ships
This one is led by Dave Van Ronk, but we also hear Paul Clayton, Bob Brill, Roger Abrahams, and Bob Yellin
The song apparently originated in 1869
I say “apparently” because the bowline stopped being a rope worth singing about in the early 17th century, as it could be tightened by just one or two hands at this point
The oldest versions have been found all across the east coast of North America and in Scotland
Norman & Nancy Blake - The Sunny Side of Life
Traditional American artist raised in Alabama
His wife Nancy is a cellist who was classically trained before playing with traditional folk groups
This is from their 2004 album The Morning Glory Ramblers, which marks 30 years of Norman and Nancy recording together
In the liner notes, they state that this song was the audition number that the Blue Sky Boys sang for Blue Bird Records in June of 1936 in Charlotte, NC
Jean Ritchie - Edward
Ritchie learned traditional folksongs in the oral tradition from friends and family during her youth in Kentucky, and in adulthood moved to New York to work as a social worker, where she met folk musicians like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Alan Lomax
In 1952, she received a Fulbright scholarship to study the connections between American and British ballads, and travelled to the UK where she recorded many well-known traditional singers
She continued to perform for the rest of her life, and passed away at her home in Kentucky in 2015, at the age of 92
This one is from her 1960 album British Traditional Ballads in the Southern Mountains
Though the ballad is originally from Britain, it has been frequently collected in the United States as well
Ritchie learned her version from her sisters Patty, Edna, Una, and May, who learned it at school, and it’s similar to most versions found in southern Appalachia
Burl Ives - Edward
Was an American singer and actor who began as a travelling singer and banjoist
He had his own radio show called The Wayfaring Stranger, which popularised traditional folk songs
Sam Amidon - How Come That Blood
Contemporary musician from Vermont
From his 2010 album I See the Sign
Ed McCurdy - There Was a Man Called Mr. Price
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 from his children’s album Songs and Stories, recorded in 1959 and released in 1980
It’s his own song
Old Man Luedecke - Delia and Wilhelmina
From Chester, NS
This is from his 2018 album One Night Only! Live at the Chester Playhouse
Lisa Null - I Want to See My Mother
Null was a folk musician who performed around the Washington, DC area for more than 40 years
This is from her 2015 album Legacies, released by Folk Legacy Records
Bob Clayton plays banjo on this one
Null got it from the Ozark singer Almeda Riddle, whose mother sang it to her as a child
Karen Dalton - Other Side to This Life
American singer, guitarist, and banjo player known for her association with the 60s Greenwich Village folk music scene
She was largely unrecognised 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 is by her friend Fred Neil, who first recorded it in 1965, a year before Dalton’s recording
Bruce Cockburn - You Point to the Sky
Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who’s been playing professionally for over 40 years
From his 1971 album High Winds White Sky
Tzo’kam - The Gift
Tzo’kam are a family band from what is now British Columbia
They’ve been singing together at community events for over half a century, and they started performing and recording publicly in 1997 to share their traditional and contemporary culture
Tzo’kam means “chickadee” and “visitors are coming” in the Stl’atl’imx (Stat-lee-um) language
This is from their 2004 album Songs of the Lillooet
John Beecher - Undesirables
He was an activist, poet, writer, and journalist who often wrote about the southern United States
His father was a steel executive, and his family expected him to enter the same line of work, but his experiences in the steel mills caused him to become active in labour movement activities
This poem about American immigration biases from his 1968 album of poetry To Live and Die in Dixie
The North Fork Rounders - Cluck Old Hen
They’re an old-time string band that formed in Ohio in the mid 1970s
This is from their 1978 debut album Railroadin’ & Gamblin’
Traditional Appalachian fiddle and banjo tune
Ernest Sellick - Drimindown
From the folklorist Helen Creighton’s 1962 album of music from the Maritime provinces
Sellick, from Charlottetown, PEI, learned this song from his father, who used to sing it as a bedtime song
It’s described as a humorous lament, and is quite possibly Irish in origin
Malvina Reynolds - Let It Be
Malvina Reynolds came to folk music later in her life, when she met Pete Seeger and other folk singers when she was in her 40s
She had received a doctorate from the University of California in 1938, but went back to university in the late 1950s to study music theory
She’s known particularly for writing the song “Little Boxes,” though she wrote and recorded a large catalogue of music during her career
This one is from her 1960 album Another County Heard From
Jennifer Castle - Walkin’ Down the Line
Artist from Toronto, ON
This is a song by Bob Dylan
Stan Rogers - Free in the Harbour
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
This is from his 1981 album Northwest Passage
JD Cornett - Barbara Allen
An old Scottish ballad that has been collected all over North America and the British Isles
This version was recorded in 1959 and notably contains a rare reference to St. Martinmas in its opening verse
Roscoe Holcomb - Barbara Allen Blues
Holcomb was a construction worker, coal miner, and farmer much of his life
He was first discovered by John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers playing on his front porch in Daisy, Kentucky in 1958, and became popular during the folk revival of the 1960s
This is from his 1965 album The High Lonesome Sound
It’s an instrumental version of the ballad
Bob Dylan - Barbara Allen
He recorded it live at the Gaslight Cafe coffeehouse in Greenwich Village, New York City in October of 1962
Pharis & Jason Romero - Sour Queen
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 Papillon, and it was finished right before they made the record
They describe the song as “exploring a bluesy banjo tune with lyrics from some notes scrawled down over the years”
Woody Guthrie - Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy
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
Traditional ballad likely of African American origin
Mississippi Fred McDowell - Wished I Was in Heaven Sitting Down
He was a hill country blues musician originally from Tennessee, though he moved to Mississippi in 1928 and continued to farm there full-time while playing music on the weekends
His music caught the attention of producers and blues fans in the early 1960s due to recordings that Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins made of him while on a field recording trip through the southern states
Within a couple of years of this attention, he became a professional musician and recording artist who played at folk festivals and toured clubs around the world
This is a traditional African American spiritual, which McDowell recorded in May of 1965 in Como, Mississippi
Amos Jollimore - Plains of Waterloo
From the folklorist Helen Creighton’s album of Maritime folk songs from 1962
Sung by Amos Jollimore, a fisherman who lived in Terence Bay, NS
It’s called a “broken token” ballad, and it’s one of many, many songs about a lover who returns in disguise to test his sweetheart’s love then reveals his identity by showing her a ring they had broken together
Selah Jubilee Singers - I’ll Fare Better in That Land
An American gospel vocal quartet active from 1927-1953
Recorded in December of 1944
Stanley Triggs - The Wreck of the Number Nine
Born in Nelson, BC in 1928
Worked in logging camps, construction camps, in forestry, with survey crews, and on railroad gangs
Also worked as a freelance photographer and earned a living playing in coffee houses in the 1960s
American train wreck song written by Carson Robison in 1927
Triggs collected this version in BC
Dan J Morrison - Hé Mo Leannan (Hey, My Darling)
Off the 1955 album Songs from Cape Breton Island
Cape Breton, Nova Scotia has historically been populated by Scottish Gaelic-speaking communities
The performers on this album were members of the last generation of Scots in Canada to hear and speak Gaelic from birth
This was one of the most popular songs for milling, recorded at Briton Cove
Daniel Koulack & Karrnnel Sawitsky - The Little Mountain Stream
Mississippi John Hurt - Poor Boy, Long Ways From Home
