Barking Dog: April 9, 2026
Ellen Stekert - The Little Sparrow
Stekert is a folklorist, musician, and scholar from New York (now based in Minnesota) who began her career in Greenwich Village in the 1950s
In the last couple of years, she’s been working with the producer Ross Wylde on cleaning up archival recordings, and with writer Christopher Bahn on a website where they share music, writing, and photography from her archives
This is her latest release
It’s a traditional Appalachian ballad also known as “Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies”
José González - Etyd
He’s an Argentinian-Swedish musician who’s been playing professionally since the early 2000s
This is a track from his new album Against the Dying of the Light, which came out at the end of March
“Etyd” is the Swedish word for “étude”
I’m With Her - The Obvious Child
They’re a folk trio comprised of American musicians Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, Sara Watkins, that formed in 2014
This is a live cover of Paul Simon’s “The Obvious Child,” recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, and released in February
Carl Perkins - Blue Suede Shoes
He was a highly influential rock and country musician from Tennessee, and he would have turned 94 today
He’s known especially for this song, which he wrote and first recorded in 1955
This is an acoustic version of the song
Mance Lipscomb - I Just Hang Down My Head and I Cry
Today is his 131st birthday
Texan blues artist who worked as a tenant farmer in Texas most of his life, but came to prominence in 1960 during the resurgence of country blues
This led to him recording an album in 1961, called Trouble in Mind, and appearing at the first Monterey Folk Festival in 1963
This was recorded in May of 1974, and it’s his own song
Paul Robeson, Lawrence Brown - There’s a Man Going Round
He was born 128 years ago today
Robeson was a singer, actor, lawyer, activist, and football player from New Jersey who was part of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City during the 1920s
It was there he met Lawrence Brown, who was a well-known pianist and composer, and the two arranged several spirituals to perform together
Through their performances, Victor Records learned of Robeson and he signed a contract with the company in 1925
This was released in 1949
It’s an old African American spiritual that’s been widely recorded since the 1920s
Quilapayún - Continuara nuestra lucha
Quilapayun are a Chilean folk group that have been around since 1965, and are one of the most influential groups in the Nueva Cancion movement
This is from their 1976 album Patria
The title translates to “Our Fight Will Continue,” and it’s dedicated to those who have died in labour struggles
Mimi Fariña, Tom Jans - Carry It On
Mimi Fariña was the younger sister of Joan Baez and a talented folksinger in her own right, who founded Bread and Roses, an organisation that presents free music and entertainment to those in institutional environments
Jans was a folk singer from San Jose, California, best known for the song “Loving Arms”
He was introduced to Fariña in 1970, and the two performed as a duo in the San Francisco area for a couple years before splitting up in 1972
This was recorded live at Case Western Reserve University on April 8, 1972
Gil Turner wrote the song while he was working as a song leader in the South during the 1960s Civil Rights movement
Kate Wolf - Scott’s Creek Bluff
She was a musician from California who began her recording career in 1976
This one is off the posthumously released 2018 album Live in Mendocino, a collection of 20 tracks selected from 15 hours of live recordings made at Wolf’s concerts in Mendocino County, California between 1979 and 1982
The song is by Wolf’s good friend and mentor Utah Phillips
Alphabetical Four - I Can’t Feet at Home in This World Anymore
NYC Jubilee gospel quartet that recorded between 1938 and 1943
This track was recorded in New York in November of 1943
It’s a traditional American gospel hymn, first published in print in 1919 and first recorded in 1924 by blues singer Stovepipe No. 1
Woody Guthrie - I Ain’t Got No Home
Guthrie is one of the best-known American folk singers of the 20th century
He began playing music as a teenager, learning songs from people he met around his hometown of Okemah, Oklahoma
The Dust Bowl and the Great Depression significantly impacted his life during the 1930s, and he ended up leaving his young family in Texas to try to find work in California, where he found fame as a radio performer and began writing songs about his experiences
He released them in 1940 on his first album, Dust Bowl Ballads, which is considered to be one of the first concept albums
That version was recorded by the folklorist Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress in 1940
Bob Dylan, The Band - I Ain’t Got No Home
This song is by Woody Guthrie, who was one of Dylan’s major influences at the beginning of his career
The song is based on the old gospel song “Can’t Feel at Home”, though it reflects more specifically the plight of those made homeless by the Dust Bowl that afflicted prairie states and provinces in the 1930s, as Guthrie stated after the version we heard him sing just before that
This was recorded live at Carnegie Hall on January 20, 1968 during the Tribute to Woody Guthrie concert
Jay Farrar, Will Johnson, Anders Parker, Yim Yames - New Multitudes
They’re all American folk and indie musicians who collaborated on the New Multitudes project, a tribute to Woody Guthrie in honour of his 100th birthday, which was released in 2012
Guthrie’s daughter, Nora, entrusted Farrar with adding new music to some of her father’s unfinished songs
Farrar invited the other artists who contribute, and each wrote music for the lyrics they found inspiring
Farrar wrote the music for this one
Cara Luft - Wilcox
Winnipeg
Off her 2007 album The Light Fantastic
Frank Harte - Sweet Sorrow in the Wind
Harte was a traditional Irish singer, song collector, and architect who began collecting songs early in his life and had collected over 15,000 songs by the end of his life
This track was recorded live in Dublin in 2003, with West Virginia singer Molly Andrews accompanying Harte
It’s a song by Appalachian folk singer Jean Ritchie, who composed it for her husband for their wedding anniversary
Blind (Le Moise) Roosevelt Graves - I’ll Be Rested (When the Roll is Called)
An American blues artist who recorded both secular and religious music in the 20s and 30s, accompanied by his brother Uaroy who is widely considered to be the greatest tambourine player of all time
Recorded in Hattiesburg, Mississippi on July 7, 1936
Charles Owens - I’ll Be Present When the Roll is Called
The singer of this song, Charles Owens, was a Black Nova Scotian who the folklorist Helen Creighton recorded in 1953, when he was 99 years old
He was still walking to town every day when weather permitted, and made it to at least the age of 101
This is a hymn also known as “Saved Through Jesus’ Blood,” and it was written by Judson W. Van DeVenter in 1899
Art Bouman - Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed
He’s a Halifax-based banjo player who’s interested in reclaiming the banjo as a traditional instrument of the African diaspora and highlighting the Black banjo players whose work has historically been overlooked
This song is more commonly known as “In My Time of Dying” and it’s a song attributed to Blind Willie Johnson, though parts of it come from older gospel songs
Bouman’s version is largely inspired by Joe Ayers’ version
It’s from his 2025 album Simple Songs For Trying Times
The Good Ones - My Smartest Friend Has Lost His Mind
The Good Ones are a band formed by a group of Rwandan farmers after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, as a way to begin healing and to reunite Rwanda’s three tribes, as each of the original members was from a different tribe
In 2009, producer Ian Brennan met the group, and has worked with them on their three studio albums
This is from the 2019 album Rwanda, You Should Be Loved, which they recorded at band leader Adrien Kazigira’s hillside farm
Johnny Norris - All My Friends are Gone
He was an Irish musician who performed folk and blues around Dublin in the 60s and 70s
From the 2015 album Live at Foxrock Folk Club, recorded in Dublin in the early 1970s
The song was popularized by Reverend Gary Davis, and it’s a murder ballad also known as “Delia,” which is based on the murder of Delia Green, a 14-year-old African American girl, on December 25, 1900
Norman & Nancy Blake - Don’t Be Afraid of the Neo-Cons
They’re a Grammy-nominated duo who have been married for 50 years and toured and recorded together throughout that time, though they’ve now retired from touring and spend much of their time at home in Georgia
This is from their 2006 album Back Home in Sulphur Springs, and it’s in the tradition of older topical ballads from mid-century America
It uses the tune of the Irish anti-war song “Mrs. McGrath”
Gil Scott-Heron - Omen
He was a poet, musician, and author, best known as a spoken-word performer
This is off his 1971 album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox
Malvina Reynolds - We Hate to See Them Go
She was a folksinger from California 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
Alice Namakelua - Nalo Meli
She was a Hawaiian musician, composer, and dancer, and an expert of the Hawaiian language and the ki ho’alu, or slack key, guitar style
This is from her 1974 self-titled album
The title translates to “honey bee,” and she wrote the song after she observed a honey bee drinking nectar from a series of flowers including hibiscus, plumeria, and guava
Enoch Kent - The Gallawah Hills
A Scottish-born folksinger now based in Canada, who began playing professionally in the 1950s
This one is from his 2010 album Take a Trip With Me
It’s a traditional Scottish song likely based on “The Braes of Galloway” by William Nicholson, a minstrel who travelled around Scotland in the 19th century, sharing his songs
Scottish ballad singer Jeannie Robertson popularised the song in the 20th century
Helen Bonchek Schneyer - Driving Saw-Logs on the Plover
She was from New York City, and was introduced to folk music when she attended Columbia University
She worked with artists such as Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie during her sixty-year career
This is a song warning young men against leaving their family farms to work in lumbercamps, for fear they will die while floating the logs downstream in the spring
It was written in 1873 by William Allen, who lived in Wisconsin but was originally from St. Stephen, New Brunswick
He wrote it from personal experience, having worked in the logging woods of Wisconsin for many years
Allen based the song on the popular ballad “As I Rode Down Through Irishtown,” which he likely learned from his Irish parents
Uncle Sinner - The Dying Californian
Winnipeg
This is off his latest album, Everybody Wants to Know How I Die
It’s an American hymn that’s based on a letter telling of a New Englander’s death at sea while on the way to California during the time of the Gold Rush, and it first appeared in print in 1854
David Francey - Corpus Christi
He’s a Juno-winning folksinger based in Elphin, Ontario, who’s been performing for over 25 years
This is a bonus track from his 2025 album Maps
William Prince - The Carny
He’s a musician from Peguis First Nation, now based in Winnipeg
This one is off his 2015 debut album, Earthly Days
Ron Sexsmith - Tight Connection to My Heart
He’s a musician from St. Catharines, Ontario, who’s been recording since 1985
This is a 2017 cover of Bob Dylan’s song from his 1985 album Empire Burlesque
Willie Dunn, Ron Bankley - Old Crow
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
Joined by Ron Bankley, who was an Ontario guitarist, poet, and songwriter
This is his own talking blues song, a demo recorded in July of 2002
Ken Whiteley - A Smooth One
Ken Whiteley is a musician from Toronto who’s been playing folk music since the early 1970s
This one is off his new album Keep Going, which came out at the beginning of March
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Uncle Henry
