Barking Dog: May 2, 2024
David Francey - Red-Winged Blackbird
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who worked as a railyard worker and carpenter for 20 years before pursuing folk music at the age of 45
This is from his first album, Torn Screen Door, from 1999
Van Morrison, The Chieftains - She Moved Through the Fair
Van Morrison and The Chieftains are both from Ireland, and this is from their 1988 album Irish Heartbeat
It’s a traditional Irish folk song, the lyrics of which were first published in 1909, though it’s likely older than that
Karen James - Hurrah, Lie!
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
She got this song from Ethel Park Richardson's 1927 book American Mountain Songs
It’s an American version of the English song “Martin Said to His Men,” which is from at least the mid-19th century
Cancioneros de los Santos - Run, My Little Locomotive
This is off the 1956 Folkways compilation album Mexican Corridos
It was recorded in San Antonio, Texas in 1929 for Columbia Records
Rex Griffin - The Last Letter
He was a country musician from Alabama who performed in the early years of the genre, between the 1930s and 1950s
This is his biggest hit, from 1937
Bob Dylan - To Ramona
Dylan wrote this in 1964, and first recorded it for his album Another Side of Bob Dylan, though the recording we heard was made live at the Isle of Wight Festival in August of 1969
It’s inspired by Mexican Corrido music and “The Last Letter”
Jennifer Castle - Down River
Singer-songwriter based in Toronto
From her 2014 album Pink City
John Denver - What’s That I Hear Now?
From his 1966 album John Denver Sings, which he gave to friends and family for Christmas before he found success as a musician
The song is by Phil Ochs, from his debut 1964 album All the News That’s Fit to Sing
Margaret Barry - It’s Better to be Single Than a Poor Man’s Wife
Barry was an Irish Traveller musician who became a well-known member of the 1950s London folk scene, and later became well-known in North America, even performing at Carnegie Hall and the Rockefeller Center in New York during the 1970s
This was recorded in 1965
Tim O’Brien - Maggie’s Farm
O’Brien is a Grammy-winning musician from West Virginia who’s been playing professionally for almost 50 years, and has performed both as a solo act and with his band Hot Rize
This is from his 1996 album Red on Blonde, a collection of Bob Dylan covers
Lee Cremo Trio - Constitution Breakdown
Was a Mi’kmaq fiddler from Cape Breton Island, NS known as the “Best Bow Arm in the World”
He was a protégé of the Quebecois fiddler Jean Carignan, whom we often play on the show
George Pegram, Walter Parham - I Am a Pilgrim
Pegram was from Guilford County, NC, which was known for its traditional music
He won a number of annual awards at the Galax Fiddlers' Convention for his "double-thumbing" banjo-picking style
Parham was a harmonica player from the same region
“I Am a Pilgrim” is a traditional American Christian hymn from at least the mid-19th century
This recording was made by the folklorist Bascom Lamar Lunsford in Asheville, North Carolina in 1955
The Dylan II - If You Feel Like It
They were a Japanese folk duo active in the early 1970s
This is from the live recording of their last concert in 1975
It’s a song with words by the writer and composer Kinta and music by folk singer Isato Nakagawa, who we’ll hear after this
Isato Nakagawa - Rokubancho Rag
He was one of the pioneer finger-picking guitarists in Japan, and began playing professionally in 1967
This is from his 1977 album 1310
Willie Dunn - Lure of the Little Voices
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
This song is off his 1980 album The Pacific
Sonya Cohen Cramer, Elizabeth Mitchell, Daniel Littleton - You’ve Been a Friend to Me
Cramer was a musician and graphic designer from New York
She was the daughter of musician, filmmaker, and photographer John Cohen and folk singer Penny Seeger, and she inherited a love of folk culture from both of them
She died in 2015 at the age of 50
This is the title track from an upcoming Smithsonian Folkways album of Cramer’s recordings
The song became a personal anthem for Cramer as she went through cancer treatment in the last year of her life, and she sang it for a big group of friends who had gathered for her 50th birthday party a few months before her death
It’s a traditional song originally published in 1858, and popularised by the Carter Family in 1936
Joan Baez - It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
Baez is one of the best known musicians to come out of the 1960s folk revival
She performed for over 60 years and released over 30 albums before retiring in 2019
This is from her 1965 album Farewell, Angelina
It’s a song by her friend Bob Dylan, written in 1965 for his fifth album, Bringing It All Back Home
Stan Rogers - The Witch of the Westmorland
Born and raised in Ontario, but known for his maritime-influenced music that was informed by his time spent visiting family in Nova Scotia during the summers of his childhood
This song is by English folksinger Archie Fisher, who first recorded it in 1976
Rogers recorded it for his 1979 album Between the Breaks Live!
Horace Sprott - Smoke Like Lightning
Sprott a wandering musician from Alabama who was recorded in the 1950s by researcher and writer Frederic Ramsey
Recorded near the Cahaba River in Perry County, Alabama in 1954
Howlin’ Wolf song written in the 1930s and first recorded in 1951
It draws on songs like “Stop and Listen Blues” by the Mississippi Sheiks and “Moon Going Down” by Charley Patton, both from 1930
We’ll hear two related songs after this
Alonzo Burks - Smokestack Lightning
This is a field recording from Mississippi
Gianni Marcucci travelled from Italy to the United States five times during the 70s and 80s to document blues music
He found Burks in Flora, Mississippi, through the nephew of blues artist William “Do Boy” Diamond, and recorded several of his songs in the summer of 1978
Yukadan - Rollin’ & Tumblin’
They’re a Japanese blues band that was active between the 1970s and the 1990s, and later reunited in 2013
The band name is a translation of “blues band,” and the group was the first Japanese group to perform at the Chicago blues festival
They also opened for Sleepy John Estes and played with Muddy Waters
This is off their 1975 album Blues 1973-1975, and they attribute their version to Waters
Norman Brokenshire - Free World vs. Police State
This is from the 1961 album Radio Moscow and the Western Hemisphere, released on Cook Records
It attempted to collect excerpts of material purportedly broadcast on Radio Moscow, and the Smithsonian Folkways website description says: “These excerpts, out of context in their brevity and interpolation, cover a broad spectrum of topic including religion, segregation, the police state and US imperialism; all fall under the general heading of the Cold War”
Richie Havens - Vigilante Man
He was a musician from New York City and was the opening act at Woodstock
From the 1972 compilation album A Tribute to Woody Guthrie
The song is by Woody Guthrie, who released it on his 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads
It’s about the hired thugs who chased away migrant workers in California as they tried to escape the Dust Bowl and find work during the Great Depression
Utah Phillips - There Is Power in a Union
He was an anarchist folksinger, storyteller, and labour organiser 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
This is from the 1983 album We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years, recorded in BC in 1981
As Phillips said, the song is by Joe Hill, a Swedish-American labour activist and union songwriter who was unjustly convicted of the murders of a former police officer and his son after a controversial trial and was executed in 1915
Neil Young - Down, Down, Down
This is from the 2020 album Neil Young Archives Vol. I (1963-1972)
This is a demo recorded in Hollywood in 1966, and it was later incorporated into the Buffalo Springfield song “Broken Arrow,” which was included on their 1967 album Buffalo Springfield Again
Zeinab Shaath - Take Me Back to Palestine
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
The lyrics are by Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati, an Iraqi poet who helped establish the school of new Arabic poetry
Susan Aglukark - Whaler’s Lullaby
She’s a Juno-winning musician from Nunavut who’s known for blending traditional Inuk music with genres like country and pop
This is from her 2004 album Big Feeling
Cora Mae Bryant - I Saw That Man
She was a blues musician from Georgia
It’s from her 2001 album Born With The Blues
It seems to be her own song
Albert Macon & Robert Thomas - How Can You Do It
They were both guitarists who began playing together in the 1950s
Little is known about them outside of the music they recorded, though we do know that Macon was a school bus driver
Recorded by folk song collector and festival curator George Mitchell in Macon County, Alabama in the early 1980s
Damien Dempsey, Barney McKenna, John Sheahan - The Rocky Road to Dublin
Dempsey is an Irish musician who’s been playing since the mid 1990s
McKenna and Sheahan were both members of The Dubliners, an Irish folk group that formed during the folk revival of the 1960s
This is off Dempsey’s 2008 album The Rocky Road
It’s an Irish song written by the poet DK Gavan in the 19th century for the music hall performer Harry Clifton
Hideo Date - Blues for Smoky Babe
He’s a Japanese jazz and blues guitarist based in Berkeley, California
This is his own song from the 2018 album Hideo Date Plays Country Blues
This one is in the style of Smoky Babe, who we’ll hear after this
Smoky Babe - Two Wings
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
From a 1996 album of recordings that the folklorist Harry Oster made of Smoky Babe in the early 1960s
William Dotson provides backing vocals on this one, which Babe got from a record by Reverend Utah Smith from 1953
Uncle Sinner - My Babe
From Winnipeg
This is a blues standard written by Willie Dixon and first recorded by Little Walter in 1955
The song is based on the traditional gospel song “This Train”
Karrnnel Sawitsky, Daniel Koulack - The Woodchuck Set
From Manitoba
Off their 2015 album Fiddle & Banjo: Tunes from the North, Songs from the South
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Doc Belmont’s Tune
John Davis & Group - Join the Band
