Barking Dog: April 21, 2022
Tom Paxton - The Willing Conscript
Member of the Greenwich Village folk scene who used to write one song every day to get into the habit
Wrote this in 1963 after reflecting on his army basic training exercises
The Boarding Party - Solar Privateer
Group from Washington DC, consisting of three Americans and two Englishmen
Jonathan Eberhart, who wrote this song, is an award-winning aerospace writer and founder of the folklore society of greater Washington
Helped folksinger Pete Seeger sail the Sloop Clearwater and sang and performed with Seeger along the route
This is off their 2003 album Too Far from the Shore
Abigail Lapell - Land of Plenty
Songwriter from Toronto
This is a new single
George Davis - Harlan County Blues
Davis was known as The Singing Miner, and he became a disc jockey in Hazard, Kentucky, after working as a miner for 38 years
He started playing music when he was 27, when the mines were being organized by the United Mine Workers Union
He would practice on his front porch every evening, and the miners would come and stand on the railroad tracks to listen to him
That same year, his arm was seriously injured in a mining accident, and he had to reteach himself to play the guitar in a new way
He knew then that he could never be a great guitar player, but he continued to compose and perform his songs about life in the mines, because he knew they were important to the miners
In 1947, he was invited to do his first radio show, and at one time had at least three radio shows in three different towns, driving 480 km a day to record them, since these were the days before tape recorders were common
This song is about Harlan County, Kentucky, also known as "Bloody Harlan County", where confrontation between workers, companies, and strikebreakers occurred almost continuously from the early 1900s to the 1970s
William and Versey Smith - When That Great Ship Went Down
Were an American blues and gospel married duo who came from either Texas or the Carolinas and recorded 4 tracks for Paramount in 1927
Recorded in Chicago in August of 1927
Ed Badeaux - Ship Titanic
From an album called The Songs of Camp, which was recorded for Folkways at a children’s sleepaway camp in Hancock, Vermont, in 1958
It’s one of many ballads about the Titanic, likely written by a W.O. Smith, who drove a horse cab in Durham, NC, in the early 20th century
This one has since become a relatively popular folk song and children’s song, and we heard a much earlier recording before that one, performed by
Karen James - The Ryans and the Pitmans
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
This song, also known as “We’ll Rant and We’ll Roar,” is a popular Newfoundland folk song that’s based on the English shanty Spanish Ladies
The Newfoundland politician Henry W. LeMessurier composed the Newfoundland-specific lyrics around 1875
Townes Van Zandt - White Freight Liner Blues
He was a musician from Texas, known mainly for his own compositions, though he recorded many traditional songs as well
Off the 1993 album Rear View Mirror, which was recorded in Oklahoma in 1978
Pharis & Jason Romero - Babes, Mothers and Fathers
From Horsefly, BC
This is from their 2018 album, Sweet Old Religion
Fannie Lou Hamer - Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning
She was a Civil Rights and women’s rights activist who co founded the Freedom Democratic Party and the National Women's Political Caucus
This song is from the 2015 album Songs My Mother Taught Me, which was recorded in 1963
It’s a traditional gospel blues song which she learned in her youth
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
Beck - True Love Will Find You in the End
Contemporary American musician who got his start as a teenager performing folk music on city buses in Los Angeles
This is his cover of a Daniel Johnston song
Jo Ann Kelly - Sugar Babe
She was an English blues musician who was well-known internationally as a skilled country blues guitarist
This is from the posthumous compilation album Blues & Gospel: Rare and Unreleased Recordings from 2004
There are many other variations of the song with titles as varying as “Red Rocking Chair”, “Honey Babe Blues”, and “Red Apple Juice”
The different versions also vary greatly both in lyrics and melody, but the song is still recognized as one song or at least one song family
Uncle Sinner - Move Daniel
From Winnipeg
Off 2015 album Let the Devil In
This is a traditional slave shout song, a tradition involving call-and-response singing, percussive rhythm, formalized dance-like movement, and Christian belief, localized largely to the coast of Georgia
Lisa LeBlanc - Dead Man’s Flats
A New Brunswick musician
I assume this is named after the hamlet in Alberta called Dead Man’s Flats
John Leahy - Jack Haggerty
From the 1961 album Lumbering Songs from the Ontario Shanties, collected by the folklorist Edith Fowke
Sung by John Leahy of Douro, Ontario
This ballad was widely known in the Great Lakes region
It was likely composed in the late 1860s by Dan McGinnis, a suitor for the hand of Anne Tucker, a blacksmith's daughter who lived in the logging town of Greenville on Flat River in southern Michigan
The story goes that McGinnis made up the song to get even with Anne's fiance, George Mercer, who had been made foreman of the camp in which both McGinnis and Jack Haggerty worked
He used Jack Haggerty's name, although he had never been engaged to Anne
It’s likely that this Ontario version changed some of the original details to suit a local situation
Big Dave McLean - Rollin’ and Tumblin’
A blues musician from Winnipeg who’s been playing for over 50 years
From his 1998 album For the Blues–Always!
A version of “Roll and Tumble Blues,” first recorded by Hambone Willie Newbern in 1929
Bob Bentley, Charlie Blake, Hammer Clarence Banks, Harold Vosburg - Travelin’ to That New Buryin’ Ground
A field recording of a quartet of prisoners at Reid State Farm in Boykin, SC, made on December 19, 1934 by folklorists and ethnomusicologists John and Alan Lomax and the folk musician Lead Belly
We know about as much about the people who sung this song as we do about the song itself
The liner notes for this recording state that “most sources estimate this variation is as old as it is uncommon, with sparse documentation in the form of transcriptions dating back to the nineteenth century”
Most variations of the song can be found in Virginia and the Carolinas
Unspecified - Tao Ang Mahalaga (The People Are the Decisive Force)
From the 1976 album Songs of the Philippine National Democratic Struggle, which protests Ferdinand Marcos’ military dictatorship and American imperialism’s role in supporting his regime
Michael Hurley - Loch Lomond / Molly Malone
Member of the 1960s Greenwich Village scene, also a cartoonist and painter
From his 2009 album Ida Con Snock
A medley
“Loch Lomond” is a traditional Scottish song, and “Molly Malone” is an old popular music hall song known as Dublin’s unofficial anthem
Utah Phillips - Joe Hill
He was an anarchist folksinger, storyteller, and labour organizer from Ohio who also rode the rails throughout the United States and worked as an archivist, a dishwasher, and a warehouse-man at various points in his life
The song is about Joe Hill, a Swedish-American labour activist and songwriter known for songs like “The Preacher and the Slave”—through which he coined the phrase “pie in the sky”—“There is Power in a Union,” and “Casey Jones, the Union Scab”
Hill was convicted of the murders of a former police officer and his son in 1914 after a controversial trial and was executed in 1915
The song was originally a poem written by Alfred Hayes around 1930, and was put to music in 1936 by Earl Robinson
Selah Jubilee Singers - Motherless Child When Mother is Gone
An American gospel vocal quartet active from 1927-1953
Many popular doowop groups of the 50s were musically descended from prewar groups like the Selah Jubilee Singers
Blues standard first recorded by Blind Willie Johnson in 1927
Boubacar Traoré - Fogniana Kouma
Traore is a Malian musician who became very popular in his country as a symbol of their recent independence in the early 1960s
His popularity declined through the 1970s, but interest in his music was revived in 1987 after a TV appearance
While he was working in France, a record producer discovered a previous recording and gave him a record deal, and he released his first album in 1990
Since then, he’s released 10 more albums, had a film made about him, and has toured internationally
From his 2014 album Mbalimaou
Nora Brown - Frankie and Albert
She’s a 15-year-old contemporary banjoist and singer who carries on the old-time tradition
She’s found mentors in many folk masters, including the master banjo player Lee Sexton of Kentucky, the female bluegrass pioneer Alice Gerrard, and founder of the New Lost City Ramblers John Cohen
This is off her 2021 album, Sidetrack My Engine
Charley Patton - You’re Gonna Need Somebody When You Die
Patton a Mississippi blues musician known as the Father of the Delta Blues
Recorded in October 1929 in Grafton, WI
It’s likely related to "You'll Need Somebody on Your Bond", which was first recorded by Blind Willie Johnson in 1930
Blind Boy Paxton - Pretty Saro
Young artist from Los Angeles
Influenced by pre-WWII blues and jazz music
English folk ballad from the early 1700s
One of the folk songs that died out in England but was rediscovered in Appalachia in the early 20th century, preserved through the strong oral tradition of that region
Old Man Luedecke - I Wanna Go
From Chester, NS
Off his 2019 album Easy Money
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott - Brother Won’t You Join in the Line
He ran away from home at the age of 15 to join Col. Jim Eskew’s Rodeo, rather than become a surgeon as his father intended
He was only with them for 3 months before his parents found him and dragged him home, but his first exposure to a singing cowboy left him rapt, and at home he taught himself guitar and began busking for a living
Later became a student and admirer of Woody Guthrie, who had an enormous influence on Elliott
I believe he’s joined by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger on this one
MacColl and Seeger wrote the song around 1958, and it’s to the tune of "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime"
Johnny Richardson - Down Home
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
This one is from his 1964 album Children's Activity Songs
John Jacob Niles - Frog Went A-Courtin’
American musician, composer, and collector of traditional ballads
Influential figure during the folk revival of the 1960s
Folk song of Scottish origin, the most early musical version of which was published in 1611
It has been popular in the southern United States since settlers brought it from Britain, with over 40 different versions of it collected by the mid-20th century
Mickey Miller - Pretty Polly
Folksinger from Washington, DC, who moved to California in the 40s
This is from her 1959 album Mickey Miller Sings American Folk Songs
Mid-eighteenth century American murder ballad that comes from the older “Gosport Tragedy” ballad
Kaia Kater - Rose on the Mountain
Grenadian-Canadian artist based in Toronto
This is a reel from Kentucky
Victor Jara, Conjunto Curcumen - Doña Maria Le Ruego
He was a Chilean musician, poet, teacher, theatre director, and activist who was tortured and killed in 1973 during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet
His work is widely remembered and celebrated throughout the world for its focus on peace, love, and social justice
Title translates to “Dona Maria I beg you”
It’s a Christmas song that belongs to a group of songs in which the singers greet the Holy Family
VL and Cleve Sutphin - The Train that Carried My Girl from Town
From Virginia
Vernon the son of Cleve, a banjo player who played with Henry Whitter and GB Grayson
Whitter gave Vernon a harmonica when he was a child, and Vernon recorded a few songs, though he gave up music when he entered the army and only played occasionally afterwards
This song is from a 1920s recording by mountain bluesman Frank Hutchison
Wade Hemsworth - Donkey Riding
Wade Hemsworth was a respected Canadian folksinger known for the Black Fly Song and many others
Traditional work song widespread across Canada, Scotland, and the Northeastern US that has since become a popular children’s song
Many believe the “donkey” referred to is the steam donkey, a type of general-purpose steam engine
David Francey - Morning Train
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 2006 album The First Set: Live from Folk Alley
Jean Carignan - Devil’s Dream
Carignan born in Levis, Quebec
Made a member of the Order of Canada in 1974 as “the greatest fiddler in North America”
