Barking Dog: May 16, 2024
Ian & Sylvia - Some Day Soon
Ian & Sylvia were a married duo who performed together from 1959 until their divorce in 1975, and each continued their music careers after their divorce
This is their own song from 1964
Rob N Lackey - Poor Ellen Smith
Ry Cooder - I’ll Be Rested When the Roll is Called
Off his 2018 album The Prodigal Son
Song is by Blind Roosevelt Graves, a Mississippi blues guitarist and singer who recorded with his brother Uaroy (widely considered the greatest tambourine player of all time) in the 20s and 30s
Tarason Sakaliau, Salomo Sakaliau, Teu Lalag Ogok Sabaggalet - Urai Turuk Titiréré
This is off the 1995 album Music of Indonesia, Vol. 7
It’s a dance song, sung to praise the titiréré bird
Recorded in September of 1992 on the deck of someone’s home in Silak Dusun Madobag
Salomo leads the song
Margaret Glaspy, Julian Lage - Talkin’ Like You
Glaspy is a musician from California, now based in New York, who’s been playing since 2010
Lage is her husband, a guitarist and composer
This is from a 2017 Connie Converse tribute album called Vanity of Vanities
Converse was a musician and songwriter in New York City in the 1950s
She never found commercial success, and in the 1970s, she wrote letters to friends and family saying that she intended to leave home and start a new life somewhere else
Soon after that, she drove off and was never seen again, but interest in her music was revived in the early 2000s, and several collections of her music have been released in recent years
The song was originally released on the 2009 compilation album How Sad, How Lovely
Alan Mills - She’s Like the Swallow
Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec
Known for popularising Canadian folk music, and for writing the music for “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly”
Made a member of the Order of Canada in 1974 for his contributions to Canadian folklore
This is a distinct Newfoundland variant of a large family of traditional songs
Si Kahn - First Time at a War
Kahn is a community organiser and musician from Pennsylvania who moved to the south as an activist during the Civil Rights Movement
From his 1975 album New Wood
This is his own song, which he wrote after spending the summer of 1967 going through Army basic training
He writes, “When our four months’ training was up, I, as a Reservist, headed back to my daily life. Most of the others were shipped straight to Vietnam. I sometimes wonder how many of them only made it halfway home.”
Old Man Luedecke - The Girl in the Pearl Earring
From Chester, NS
This is off his 2015 album Domestic Eccentric
ruth weiss, Doug Lynner - 90
weiss was a German Beat poet, artist, playwright, and performer who spent her early childhood fleeing home with her family during the rise of Nazism
She eventually ended up in Chicago, then later ended up in San Francisco, where she began holding poetry and jazz sessions at a nightclub
Lynner is an analog modular synthesizer musician and composer from San Francisco
This is from the 2021 album we are sparks in the universe to our own fire
weiss wrote a poem every year on her birthday
This is the one she wrote when she turned 90
Lottie Murrell - I Got a Gal Cross the Bottom
A Tennessee musician nicknamed “The Wolf” because of all the Howlin’ Wolf songs he played
From the fourth in a series of albums called Living Country Blues USA, which comprise field recordings made of American blues artists in 1980 by two German blues enthusiasts named Axel Kustner and Siegfried Christmann
Recorded in November of 1980 in Somerville, Tennessee
Willie Dunn, Ron Bankley - The Tide Rises
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
Joined by Ron Bankley, who was an Ontario guitarist, poet, and songwriter
Ted Hawkins - Corrina, Corrina
He was a musician from Mississippi who had a rough childhood, and first learned to sing while he was at a reform school at the age of twelve
He drifted in and out of jail around the United States over the next few decades, recording several tunes and busking on the boardwalk in Venice Beach, California
He recorded an album in 1986 that became popular in Europe, and he toured there and lived in the UK for several years
In 1994, a few years after returning to the States, Hawkins recorded an album for Geffen Records, which finally brought him to national attention in the US, and he began to tour
He unfortunately died of a stroke when he was 58, just a few months after the release of his breakthrough album
This is a popular country blues song with countless versions, first recorded by Bo Carter in 1928
Ben Douglas - Fox Hunt
Off a 1960 album of informal recordings taped at the homes of different musicians in southwest Louisiana by the musicologist Harry Oster
This is a rhythmic instrumental with percussion on a Coke bottle and sticks beaten against wooden cylinders
Chapei Dang Veng Solo
This is from a 1979 album of traditional music from Cambodia, focusing on tribal music, folk music, and popular dances
The chapei dang veng is a long-necked lute often used to accompany folksingers
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”
Traditional fiddle tune of uncertain origin, likely comes from England and is from at least the 19th century
Declan Hunt - Who Is Ireland’s Enemy
He’s an Irish singer and guitarist who recorded in the 1970s
This is from his 1973 album Irish Revolutionary Songs Vol. 1
The song is by Irish writer, poet, and politician Brian O’Higgins
Zeinab Shaath - Resist
This is from the 1972 album The Urgent Call of Palestine, which was restored and re-released in March
Shaath was only a teenager when she recorded it, and it was some of the first English-language music to bring attention to the Palestinian struggle
Alistair Hulett - Way Too Long in the Tower of Song
He was a folksinger from Glasgow, Scotland, known as a member of the folk punk band Roaring Jack
This one is from the 2012 album Live in Concert, recorded at the Melbourne Folk Club in Australia in November of 2009, just a few months before his death in January of 2010
Johnny Richardson - Baby Birds in Their Nest
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 is from his 1971 album Lady Bug, Lady Bug and More Children’s Songs
Richardson says the song is based on an old folk poem
A Paul Ortega - Setting Sun
Ortega was an influential Apache musician who began as a tribal singer at the age of five
He moved to Chicago in the early 1960s and began to adapt blues guitar to Apache social songs
This is from the 1991 album Loving Ways, which he recorded with Joanne Shenandoah
Pharis & Jason Romero - Lost Lula
From Horsefly, BC
Off their 2013 album Long Gone Out West Blues
Oscar Brand - Which Side Are You On
Brand was a Winnipeg-born American folk musician and author who also hosted a weekly folk music show on WNYC Radio in New York City for 70 years, the longest running radio show with a single host in broadcasting history
The song was written in 1931 by union activist Florence Reece, whose husband was a union organiser in Harlan County, Kentucky, a region that’s historically been the site of violent labour struggles
Wade Hemsworth - Envoyons d’l’Avant
A folksinger from Brantford, Ontario
This is a lumberjack song from the French settlers who farmed along the St. Lawrence River
At the time of recording in 1955, it was only about 60 or 70 years old
It’s a song the shanty boys who worked in the logging camps would sing in anticipation of the fun they’d have when the work was finished for the season
Bob Dylan - The Story of East Orange
He recorded this live at the Gaslight Cafe in New York City in September of 1961
Phạm Duy - Thuong Bin / Ganh Lua
Off a 1965 survey album of Vietnamese music, recorded by the Vietnamese songwriter and musicologist Phạm Duy
The given English title for this song is “The Wounded Soldier,” and it’s performed by Duy
Jody Stecher, Kate Brislin - Willie Moore
He’s a musician from New York City who’s been playing since he bought a banjo in an antique shop for two dollars when he was twelve years old
The musician Dave Bromberg once said of him: “I have never known anyone so intensely and completely enveloped in music. It's my suspicion that if you drained all the music out of Jody, you could carry what was left around in an eye dropper.”
Kate Brislin is his wife, who he met in 1974
She played with several stringbands in the 70s and 80s, including the four-woman group the Any Old Time String Band
They started performing as a duo in 1985, and were married in 1987
This is off their 1995 album Stay Awhile
It’s a ballad about star-crossed lovers, which likely originated in 19th century Appalachia
Dyad - Soldier’s Horse
From Victoria, BC
Off their 2002 album Who’s Been Here Since I’ve Been Gone
An English ballad also known as “The Trooper and the Maid” or “The Light Dragoon”
Walt Robertson - Wandering
He was a Seattle folksinger and actor who was very influential in the west coast folk scene in the middle of the 20th century
From his 1955 album American Northwest Ballads, a compilation of ballads from the Pacific Northwest
He learned this song from an old hand he worked with in a meat-packing plant in Omaha, unloading freight cars
Pete Seeger - Kevin Barry
Seeger was a folk singer and activist from New York who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and other important issues through his music
This is off his 1965 album Strangers And Cousins, a collection of recordings from his world tour
This is an Irish rebel song about Kevin Barry, an 18-year-old member of the IRA who was hanged in 1920
The ballad was written in the 1920s, and it’s set to the tune of “Rolling Home to Dear Old Ireland”
Shane Parish - Avril 14th
Parish is a self-taught guitarist from Georgia
This is off his new album Repertoire, which is a collection of songs from the 20th and early 21st centuries, including music by Fred Rogers, John Cage, and Charles Mingus
That particular song is by Aphex Twin, from 2001
Uncle Sinner - God Don’t Like It
Winnipeg
This is a Blind Willie McTell song from 1935
Uncle Sinner recorded it in 2017
Sam Chatmon - Go Back Old Devil
Was a delta blues guitarist and singer
He was part of a well-known Mississippi musical family that started the Mississippi Sheiks, which first consisted of Chatmon, his brothers Lonnie and Bo Carter, and Walter Vinson
Gianni Marcucci made this recording for the Blues at Home record series
Marcucci travelled from Italy to the United States five times during the 70s and 80s to document blues music
Recorded at Chatmon’s home in Hollandale, Mississippi in 1976
Myriam Gendron - Look Down That Lonesome Road
She’s a musician from Montreal
This is off her new album, May Day, which came out last Friday
It’s a traditional song, sometimes recorded under the title “The Best of Friends Must Part Someday”
Bruce Cockburn - Love Song
Singer-songwriter and guitarist from Ottawa who’s been playing professionally for over 40 years
From his 1970 album High Winds White Sky
Turner Junior Johnson - Steal Away
He was a gospel and blues singer who was recorded by the Library of Congress in Mississippi in 1942
David Francey - Green Fields
Scottish-Canadian folksinger who was a railyard worker for many years before pursuing a career in music at the age of 45
Off his 2001 album Far End of Summer
Mike Campbell - Unbroken Wing
During the pandemic, Randall Poster, a music supervisor for filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson, became highly aware of the birds he could hear in his neighbourhood
He and his colleague, Rebecca Reagan, came up with the idea to invite musicians to create music built around birdsong
The result was For the Birds: The Birdsong Project, a collection of 242 songs and poems about birds by countless artists
Campbell is an American guitarist who’s known for playing with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
He plays the dulcimer on this song, which was given to him by Stevie Nicks
Sheesham and Lotus - Ora Lee / Old Folks Played While the Young Folks Danced
