Barking Dog: May 18, 2023
Lead Belly - Rock Island Line
He was born in Louisiana in the late 1880s and went to prison in Texas in 1918, but won an early release in 1925 by singing a song for the governor of Texas
He was incarcerated again in 1930, and the folklorists John and Alan Lomax met him in prison while they were making field recordings of inmates
They delivered a petition for his release to the Louisiana governor on the back of a recording they made of his song “Goodnight, Irene”
Once he was released, he made a number of recordings and became widely known for both his blues and folk recordings
This is an American folk song likely about the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad
The earliest known version was written in 1929 by Clarence Wilson, who was a member of a singing group formed by employees of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad
This recording was made in New York City in February of 1942
He first heard this song from an inmate at Cummins State Farm in Arkansas while he was working as the Lomaxes’ driver after his release
Ian & Sylvia - Marlborough Street Blues
Well-known folk duo who started performing together in Toronto in 1959
This song is by Ian
Off their 1965 album Early Morning Rain
Leon Redbone - Lord, I Looked Down the Road
Redbone moved to Canada from Cyprus with his family when he was a teenager in the 1960s, and first appeared onstage in Toronto in the 1970s
It’s been suggested that he was an alternative identity for someone like Frank Zappa or Andy Kaufman due to his reluctance to discuss his past, and he was often described as both a musician and a performance artist
This seems to be a little-known gospel song, previously recorded by the Golden Gate Quartet and Reverend Gary Davis
The Golden Gate Quartet - You’d Better Mind
They are a vocal quartet formed in Virginia by four high school students in 1934
They are still active today, but have undergone several changes in membership
This seems to be a traditional American gospel song, though it’s hard to find any concrete information about it
This recording is from 1939, and we’ll hear a couple other versions of the song after it
Bessie Jones & the Georgia Sea Island Singers - You Better Mind
Bessie Jones known for spreading folk music to a wider audience in the 20th century
She was one of the most popular performers of folk music in the 60s and 70s, often appearing with the Georgia Sea Island Singers, a folk music ensemble that’s been around since the early 1900s
Recorded in 1959 by the folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax
Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee - You’d Better Mind
Terry a blind musician who lost his vision at 16, which prevented him from doing farm work and caused him to rely on music as a living
McGhee a folk and blues singer known for his collaboration with Sonny Terry
This is off their 1959 album Folk Songs of Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee
Pharis & Jason Romero - Come On Home
Married duo from Horsefly, BC
From their 2013 album Long Gone Out West Blues
Arthur Russell - Maybe She
He was a cellist, singer, composer, and producer from Iowa who was part of the New York avant garde scene in the 1970s
He died from AIDS in 1992 at the age of 40 when his work was still somewhat obscure, but rereleases, books, and a documentary about him brought more attention to his work throughout the 2000s, and more of his recordings have been released over time
This is from the posthumous compilation album Love Is Overtaking Me, released in 2004
Stanley Triggs - The Oda G
He’s a musician, anthropologist, and photographer from BC who worked in logging camps, construction camps, in forestry, with survey crews, and on railroad gangs at different points in his life
He also played in coffee houses in Vancouver in the 1960s
Triggs wrote this song about the oldest tugboat that was still working
It was built in 1899, and when Triggs worked on the boat, it was called the Oda G
Aunt Molly Jackson - Ragged Hungry Blues
Jackson was a folksinger and union activist from Kentucky who was first arrested at the age of ten due to her family’s involvement in union organisation
Her first husband was killed in a mine accident in 1917, and her brother and father were blinded in another mining accident later on
After these events, she became a member of the United Mine Workers and began writing protest songs
She was arrested again because of her involvement in protests, and her second husband, a miner, was forced to divorce her to keep his job
She became known as a singer through her performances at protests, and began recording in 1931
Jackson travelled to New York and got involved in the Greenwich Village folk scene during the 1930s, and spent the rest of her life in New York City, dying in 1960
She wrote this song in May of 1930 during a miners’ strike after seeing her sister’s children, who hadn’t had anything to eat in two days, running barefoot to the soup kitchen that miners had built in a nearby meadow
Jackson said, “This song comes from the heart and not just from the point of a pen.”
Bruce Brackney - Hold the Fort
He’s a musician from Minnesota, now living in BC, who sometimes goes by the name “Haywire Brack”
This one is from the 1988 album Rebel Voices: Songs of the Industrial Workers of the World
The music to “Hold the Fort” is by Philip Bliss, and the lyrics are based on a song sung by the British Transport Workers Union which was adapted from an American Civil War song
Pete Seeger - Roll Down the Line
Was a very influential folk singer and an activist who, though blacklisted during the McCarthy era, remained a prominent public figure who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and international disarmament through his music
This is from his 1956 album American Industrial Ballads
The song is from Coal Creek, Tennessee
In the 1890s, prison labour was used in the mines in eastern Tennessee to force unions to accept company terms
Warfare broke out between the miners and the National Guard, to the extent that the miners gained control of the mines and released the prison labourers, but the miners were eventually starved into submission and their leaders went to prison
This is a miner’s version of a song that was sung by the Black inmates who worked in the mines
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
Si Kahn - Gone Gonna Rise Again
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
It’s his own song
Laura Baird - Dreadful Wind and Rain
She’s a multi-instrumentalist from New Jersey known for her work with her sister Meg as the Baird Sisters, and with guitarist Glenn Jones
This is from her 2017 debut solo album I Wish I Were a Sparrow
This is a traditional Northumbrian murder ballad also known as “Twa Sisters” and “Cruel Sister,” among other names
The first written version appeared in a 1656 broadside, and at least 21 versions of the ballad exist in English
Big Dave McLean - Atlanta Moan
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
The song is by Barbecue Bob, and was first recorded in 1931
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
Norman Rosten - Identity
He was a poet, playwright, and novelist from New York City
This is from the 1963 Folkways album The Poems of Norman Rosten
Charlie Lowe - Tater Patch
He was an old-time banjo player from Surry County, North Carolina who influenced well-known musicians like Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham
This was recorded in 1952
It’s an American reel from North Carolina, possibly written by Lowe
Noah Cline - Little Rose is Gone
He’s a banjo player and a banjo and dulcimer maker from West Virginia who’s been playing since 2008
This is from his 2020 album Mountain Opus
Wilson Douglas - Little Rose
He was a fiddle player from West Virginia who grew up in a family of musicians, learning the fiddle from his grandmother
This is an old-time reel from the United States
Jimmy Lee Williams - Have You Ever Seen Peaches
He was a blues musician from Georgia who started playing guitar at the age of 16, and spent his life working as a farmer, playing music on the weekends in local juke joints
This is from a series of recordings the musicologist George Mitchell made in 1977
Seven Boys with Home-Made Instruments - How Long Blues
Field recording from Louisiana of 7 boys working on a plantation, made on July 3, 1934
The song was first recorded by Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell in 1928, and was one of the very first blues standards
Uncle Sinner - Blow, Gabriel
Winnipeg artist
Off his 2015 album Let the Devil In
This seems to be a song largely from the slave shout singing tradition of the islands off the coast of the state of Georgia
Both the McIntosh County Shouters and the Georgia Sea Island Singers, two prominent groups of that tradition, recorded the song in the 20th century
Kacy & Clayton - Henry Martin
Duo from rural Saskatchewan which consists of second cousins Kacy Anderson and Clayton Linthicum
Traditional Scottish folk song about a sailor who becomes a pirate
From their 2013 album The Day Is Past & Gone
Old Man Luedecke - Brightest on the Heart
From Chester, NS
This is the EP version of the song from 2014, and he is joined by Ruth Moody on vocals
He takes a number of lyrics in this song from the traditional song “Storms Are On the Ocean”
Art Rosenbaum - The Great High Wind That Blew the Low Post Down
He was a folklorist and musician, and an art professor at the University of Georgia
The album this song is from won a Grammy award in 2008 for Best Historical Album
This is a traditional American song
Joe Glazer, Abe Brumberg - Our Line’s Been Changed Again
Glazer was a folk musician and labour activist from New York who recorded over 30 albums during his career
Brumberg was primarily a writer and editor who specialised in the Soviet Union, Judaism, and Eastern Europe
This is off the 1969 album My Darling Party Line: Irreverent Songs, Ballads and Airs
Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick - Good Mornin’ Brother Hudson
From a compilation album of recordings from Broadside magazine, an incredibly influential underground folk music magazine that published songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Little Boxes” for the first time
Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick was a civil rights activist who was an associate of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, where he was the director of folk culture
This is a song about the pollution of the Hudson River in New York State, which at that point was contaminated by Polychlorinated biphenyl due to nearby manufacturing activities by General Electric and other companies
David Rovics - 15
He’s a musician and writer based in Oregon who’s been touring internationally since the 1990s
This is off his 2014 album When I'm Elected President
Marie Hare - The Wexford Lass
Ballad singer from Strathadam, NB, known for her performances at the Miramichi Folksong Festival
This murder ballad has been widely circulated in Britain and Canada
This is lyrically the typical version found in Miramichi, though Hare switches to a melody more similar to “The Jam on Gerry’s Rock” for much of the song
David Francey - A Conversation
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who worked as a railyard worker and carpenter for 20 years before pursuing folk music at the age of 45
From his 2007 album Right of Passage
Harrison Kennedy - Nothin’ to Lose
Hamilton, ON artist with a career in blues and roots music spanning over 50 years
From his 2013 album Soulscape
Milton Kaye - Pop Goes the Weasel
From the 1956 album Nickelodeon and Calliope, recorded by Emory Cook at the height of a period of excitement surrounding new recording technologies
Kaye was a pianist and arranger from New York City who played solo at Carnegie Hall and in top orchestras, but also played in children’s TV show ensembles and in ragtime groups
It’s a traditional English and American song and nursery rhyme from the 19th century
The tune is a variation of an older tune called “The Haymakers,” from the 1700s
We’ll hear two other versions after this
Alan Mills - Pop Goes the Weasel
Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec
Known for popularising Canadian folk music, and for writing “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
From a 1956 children’s album of songs about animals
The liner notes describe “Pop Goes the Weasel” simply as an “American nonsense song”
Ella Jenkins - Pop Goes the Weasel
An American folk singer and actress dubbed the “First Lady of the Children’s Folk Song”
From her 1972 album Early Early Childhood Songs
Karen James - Morning Dew
A folksinger who grew up in England, Spain, and France, and moved to Canada as a teenager
A Newfoundland folk song
Martin McManus - The Falling of the Pine
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Skipping in the Mississippi Dew
Bob Dylan - Talkin’ Devil
