Barking Dog: April 7, 2022
Buell Kazee - Wagoner’s Lad
Considered one of the most successful folk musicians of the 1920s
Grew up playing traditional five-string banjo in style he called “thrashing”
Began to study religion as a teen, ended up spending most of life as a preacher
Began recording 1927
Had formal voice training, unusual for mountain musician
This is a traditional tune from Appalachia but likely with origins in the UK
The song “On Top of Old Smoky” is descended from this song
Children’s Counting Song
This is off a 1972 album of traditional Kpelle (Pelle) music from Liberia
The performers are a group of children from Totota, Bong County
The oldest girl takes the part of soloist and the rest of the children make up the chorus, while everyone accompanies the singing with handclapping
Bob Connelly - Welcome In, Hawaii
From his 1975 Folkways Records album Yankee Go Home: Songs of Protest Against American Imperialism
It was commissioned by Pete Seeger, and he recorded it in one day on a borrowed guitar
The day he recorded it happened to be the same day that Seeger was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee
The next day, Moses Asch, head of Folkways Records, called him up and said, “Mr. Connelly, Mo here. Have you heard the news or read the newspaper? I do not think the time is right to release an album about American imperialism.” Connelly replied, “Darn right,” but the album ended up being released after all
This song is, as you may have observed, a song against the colonisation of Hawaii
Betty Smith - Little Rosewood Casket
From a 1975 album of traditional North Carolina songs
Smith was an educator and folksinger from Rowan County, NC
This is a traditional American folk song, the earliest printed version of which is from 1870
Gillian Welch - Make Me Down a Pallet on Your Floor
She’s one of the best-known contemporary American roots musicians, and has collaborated with artists like Allison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, and The Decemberists, though she’s known particularly for her musical partnership with Dave Rawlings
Blues/jazz/folk standard, the roots of which can be traced back to the 19th century
This is from her 2020 album Boots No. 2: The Lost Songs, Vol. 3
Pharis & Jason Romero - Right in the Garden
Married duo from Horsefly, BC
This is off their 2020 album Bet On Love
Memphis Jug Band - KC Moan
American pre-war style jug band active from the 20s to the late 50s
This appears to be their own song, and KC refers to the Kansas City Railroad Company
Geoff Muldaur - KC Moan
He’s a musician from New York, known as a founding member of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and a member of Paul Butterfield's Better Days
From the album The Harry Smith Project: The Anthology of American Folk Music Revisited, which is comprised of a series of live recordings of concerts staged in 1999 and 2001 that pay tribute to Harry Smith and his influential 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music that kick-started the folk revival of the 1950s and 60s
Song of Two Little Girls
From the 1972 album Baule Vocal Music, recorded in 1965 and 1966 in Côte d’Ivoire
The liner notes tell the legend of Queen Aura Poku, who sacrificed her son to allow her people to cross a river to freedom
Once the people were safely across the river, the queen could only repeat the word bauoli, which means the child is dead
This and other legends are represented in Baule music, which is popular throughout Côte d’Ivoire
Two or more voices are accompanied by percussion, fiddle, and harp-lute
Recorded in Kpouébo Village
James “Son” Thomas - Stop and Listen
He was a Delta blues musician from Mississippi, and he was also a gravedigger and sculptor
Thomas became better known after William Ferris included him in the films he made for the Center for Southern Folklore in the 1970s
He’s also known for making sculptures from the clay he dug up on the banks of the Yazoo River, many of which were skulls that contained real human teeth, reflecting his philosophy that "we all end up in the clay"
He died in 1993 but his son Pat continues to play his father’s music
His version of the Mississippi Sheiks’ 1930 song “Stop and Listen Blues”
“Blind Pete” Burrell - I Shall Not Be Moved
This is from an album of rural Black religious music
Burrell was a Louisiana gospel musician
“I Shall Not Be Moved” is a spiritual that became popular as a protest song and a union song during the Civil Rights Movement
Big Dave McLean - Needed Time
A blues musician from Winnipeg who’s been playing for over 50 years
It’s off McLean’s 2008 album Acoustic Blues: Got ‘Em from the Bottom
“Needed Time” is a traditional American song, popularised in the 20th century by Lightnin’ Hopkins
It uses the same tune as “Daniel in the Lion’s Den”
Unspecified - Down with US Imperialism
From the 1976 album Songs of the Philippine National Democratic Struggle, which protests Ferdinand Marcos’ military dictatorship and the American imperialism’s role in supporting his regime
Sibylle Baier - Remember the Day
She’s a German folksinger who came to prominence later in life with her 2006 album Colour Green, which she released when she was 51 years old but recorded in the 1970s
This is from that album
Grupo de Experimentacion Sonora - No Me Pidas
From a 1971 album of songs written, arranged, performed, and produced in Cuba by the Experimental Sound Collective of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industries
The title translates to “Don’t Ask Me,” and the liner notes state that it is “a declaration of a maturing process. The poet says that he no longer impulsively or grandiosely throws himself into things without trying to make some judgment about what the outcome will be. This individual development is part of the collective growth of the nation, from the early euphoric days after the triumph of the revolution, when everyone thought that everything could be accomplished right away, with a maximum of effort, to the present, when sober evaluations are being collectively made about what must and will be done over the long haul”
Dan J Morrison - Hé Mo Leannan (Hey, My Darling)
Off a 1955 album of Songs from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, which 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
One of the most popular songs for milling, recorded at Briton Cove
Annabelle Abraham - To Be Sure (Hey Logan)
Field recording from the Southern US from between 1934 and 1947
Victor Jara - El Pimiento
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
This is from the 1974 album Manifiesto, which was compiled after his death
The song is about a pepper plant
Smoky Babe - If I Had Listened to What My Mama Said
From an album of 17 Smoky Babe songs, recorded by the folklorist Harry Oster in the early 1960s but not released until 2014
Smoky Babe was an itinerant musician originally from Mississippi who grew up working on farms in his region, then travelled around Alabama and Louisiana working on barges and as a mechanic during the day, and playing at clubs at night
Blind Willie Johnson, Willie B Richardson - The Soul of a Man
Texan blues singer born in 1897
Johnson is joined by Willie B Harris, his first wife who accompanied him on many of his recordings
This is his own song
JB Lenoir - Vietnam
He was a Chicago blues musician active in the 50s and 60s who was known for his showmanship, which included flashy patterned outfits and his high-pitched singing voice
He played at clubs throughout the city with artists like Muddy Waters and Big Bill Broonzy, and became influential throughout the region, especially because he did not shy away from political commentary, as we heard in that recording
Interestingly, his name was simply “JB”, the letters weren’t initials
Nick Underhill - The Jones Boys
From a 1962 album of lumber and river songs from the Miramichi Folk Festival in Newcastle, New Brunswick
It is said that this song was written by Millet Salter, a clerk for one of the Miramichi lumber firms
Ting Ning - Calebass-Zither Music
Off a 1965 survey album of Vietnamese music, recorded by the Vietnamese songwriter and musicologist Phạm Duy
This is from the pre-Vietnamese section of the album, which presents the music of the ethnic minorities living on the Indochinese peninsula before the political formation of the nation of Viet Nam
A member of the Bahnar Tribe of the Central Highlands
Jim Albertson - Pinelands Traveller
From his 1985 album of songs and stories of southern New Jersey
This piece refers to a circuit preacher named Rev. Lorenzo Dow, who travelled the Jersey Pines preaching and spreading news and gossip from place to place
Albertson combined it with the fiddle tune “Arkansas Traveller” and some mosquito anecdotes told to him by a friend
John Prine - It’s a Big Old Goofy World
Prine was and is one of the most influential songwriters of his generation, if not to the general public, then to other musicians and artists
He died in on this day in 2020 from COVID at age 73, but he’s remembered for his social commentary, his unique style of singing, and his humorous and original turns-of-phrase
Off a 1991 album of recordings from the radio show Mountain Stage’s live shows
Uncle Sinner - Bruised Orange/Chain of Sorrow
From Winnipeg
Recorded in April of 2020, shortly after John Prine died
Prine wrote this song and released it on his 1978 album of the same name
Pete Seeger - How About You?
Seeger was a folk singer and an activist who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and peace through his music
This one was written by the miner and folksinger Jim Garland of Kentucky in 1932
He wrote this song because after 6 months of work in the mines he still wasn’t able to afford to buy his wife a pair of slippers
He and the other miners went on strike but they received an injunction stating that they would likely have to face the Federal Courts
So this song describes his feelings on the matter
Old Man Luedecke - Proof of Love
From Chester, NS
This is from his 2008 album of the same name
Peter Pasco - There’s Gonna Be Some Changes Made
From an issue of Fast Folk Musical Magazine, the songs of which were recorded live at the SpeakEasy in Greenwich Village in early 1987
Mississippi Fred McDowell - Going Down the River
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 the recordings Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins made of him while travelling across the southern states to collect field recordings
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
He first played slide guitar using a pocketknife and then a slide made from a polished beef rib bone, but later switched to a glass slide for a clearer sound
This seems to be his own song
Eupheme Cooper - All For You
Off the 1998 album Tribal, Folk, and Café Music from West Africa, compiled from recordings made in the 1940s
This one is from Liberia, and it was a popular song known in port towns from Lagos to Freetown
Eupheme Cooper was a member of the Americo-Liberian community of Monrovia, descended from Black American repatriates who returned to Africa in the early 19th century
Eugene Jemison - The Ocean Burial
From his 1954 album of songs about the life of Kansas settlers in the Solomon Valley
This is a sea song often called "The Sailor's Grave,” which was written by Edwin Hubbell Chapin, published in 1839, and put to music by George N Allen
Became popular on ships and in lumber camps and eventually found its way to Kansas, where it was adapted to a prairie setting and became “O Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie”
Mrs. T. Ghaney - The Lass of Glenshee
This is from an album of songs from the outports of the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland, compiled by MacEdward Leach and released in 1966
These outports had been settled by Irish immigrants during the famine
Leach described the record as “a sampling of what one would hear sitting in an out-port kitchen after supper was cleared away. The neighbors would drift in, ease themselves on the benches around the walls, get pipes going, discuss all the events of the day -- the state of the weather, the luck with the fish”
This was a very popular ballad in Scotland, and it was composed by Andrew Sharpe of Perth around 1817
Tony Trischka - John Cohen’s Blues
American banjo player from New York
John Cohen was a founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers, as well as a prolific photographer and filmmaker
