Barking Dog: May 25, 2023
We kicked off this week’s show with a few songs by Bob Dylan, who had his 82nd birthday yesterday.
Pete Seeger - Masters of War
Seeger was a folk singer and an activist from New York who advocated for countless social causes through his music for 75 years
This is off his 1965 album Strangers And Cousins, a collection of recordings from his world tour
This song is from Dylan’s 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, and Haruhiro Fukui, Seeger’s interpreter, provides a live Japanese translation of the lyrics
Simon & Garfunkel - The Times They Are A-Changin’
From their 1964 album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., which was recorded about a month after Dylan released his version of the song
Bob Dylan - He Was a Friend of Mine
Traditional folk song that laments the death of a friend
Alan Lomax, ethnomusicologist and folklorist for the Library of Congress, was the first to collect the song in 1939 and described it as a "blues" that was "a dirge for a dead comrade."
Dylan got it from Rolf Cahn, the first professional musician to pick up the song from the Library of Congress collection
A Paul Ortega - The Handshake
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 comes from a 1992 Smithsonian Folkways compilation album called Music of New Mexico: Native American Traditions
The fragment of music at the beginning and end is adapted from the Zuni Sunrise Song
Algia Mae Hinton - I Want Jesus to Walk with Me
She was a Piedmont blues musician from North Carolina who learned to play the guitar from her mother, an expert in the Piedmont fingerpicking style who often played at local parties and gatherings
She met the folklorist Glenn Hinson in 1978, who arranged for her to perform at the North Carolina Folklife Festival
Hinton gave several concerts outside of North Carolina after that, even travelling to Europe to perform in 1998
This is off the 1999 album Honey Babe
It’s a traditional African American spiritual
Leon Redbone - Me and the Devil Blues
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 is a song by Robert Johnson, which he recorded in Dallas, Texas in 1937
Pharis & Jason Romero - Sweet Old Religion
Married duo from Horsefly, BC
Off their 2018 album of the same name
The Country Gentlemen - Don’t the Road Look Rough and Rocky
A Washington, DC bluegrass group that played between the late 1950s and the mid-2000s
This is from their 1973 album Going Back to the Blue Ridge Mountains
They describe this song as a “bluegrass classic”
It was written by Flatt and Scruggs and first performed in the early 1950s
The Almanac Singers - I Don’t Want Your Millions, Mister
Founded by Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger in 1940
This is off their 1955 album Talking Union and Other Union Songs
The lyrics are by Jim Garland, who wrote it in 1932 during the Great Depression after a miners’ strike in Harlan County, Kentucky resulted in him being blacklisted from working
It uses the same tune as “Green Back Dollar” and “East Virginia”
Old Man Luedecke - I Am Fine
From Chester, NS
That recording from his 2018 album One Night Only! recorded live at the Chester Playhouse
It’s originally from his 2012 album Tender is the Night
Precious Bryant - It’s Alright
She was an American musician described as one of Georgia’s great blueswomen
She was first recorded by George Mitchell in 1967, and by the mid 1980s her fanbase had grown enough for her to perform internationally
From her 2005 album My Name Is Precious
Kacy & Clayton - Wood View
Second cousins from Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan
From their 2013 album The Day Is Past & Gone
Johnie Lewis - I Got to Climb a High Mountain
He was a slide guitarist and singer from Alabama who worked primarily as a house painter
He also taught himself to play guitar and sing so he could supplement his income by playing at house parties
Lewis later moved to Chicago to find work and escape the segregation of the South
The film director Harley Cokeliss learned of him through one of his painting customers and included him in his 1970 film The Chicago Blues, which resulted in two recording sessions for Arhoolie records in the early 1970s
“Climbing High Mountains” is a traditional gospel song possibly written by Reverend MC Durham
Lewis dedicates his version to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Frank Hutchison - Worried Blues
Early American country blues musician, known for his slide guitar
Considered to be the first white rural guitarist to record the blues
This was recorded September 28, 1926
Traditional American freeform blues song
Eric Bibb - Worried Man Blues
Bibb is an American musician who grew up around well-known musicians like Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson, and Bob Dylan, because his father, Leon Bibb, was a musical theatre singer who was part of the 1960s New York folk scene
He’s been playing guitar since he was seven, when he was given his first steel-string guitar
He’s lived in Sweden for many years, and has continued collaborating with artists like Taj Mahal, Odetta, and Habib Koité
This song was popularised by the Carter Family through their 1930 recording, though it is a traditional song and there are many different versions of it
Karen James - But Black is the Colour
A folksinger who grew up in England, Spain, and France, and moved to Canada as a teenager
The song originated in Scotland but it’s popular in the Appalachian region of the US as well
James combined various versions of the song to create her own interpretation
Magnolia Sisters - Sur la Bord de L’eau
They’re Louisiana-based musicians Ann Savoy and Jane Vidrine
This is from their 1995 album Prends Courage, a collection of some of their favourite Cajun songs
They got this song from Cajun legend Blind Uncle Gaspard, who recorded it in 1929
It has roots in the seafaring communities of Brittany, France, and it crossed the ocean and became an Acadian standard
The title translates to “By the Water’s Edge”
Reverend Gary Davis - Death Don’t Have No Mercy
Davis was from South Carolina but he moved to Durham, North Carolina, in the 1920s, which was a centre of Black culture at the time
There, he collaborated with a number of other Piedmont blues artists
He was ordained a Baptist minister in 1933, and began to play gospel music instead of the secular music he was previously known for
Davis first recorded in 1935 for the American Record Company
He moved to New York in the 40s, and his career was revived in the 1960s with the American folk revival
He played at the Newport Folk Festival and was an important figure in the Greenwich Village scene, teaching artists like Dave Van Ronk, Bob Weir, and Tom Winslow
This is his own song, which he first recorded in 1960
It was covered by a range of musicians during the folk revival, including Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, and Hot Tuna
This version is from his set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Island
A Critical Mass Choir - Frank Talk About Policing
This is a recording reflecting on police violence that occurred at a Critical Mass rally in May of 2006
Critical Mass is a celebration of human-powered transportation that began in San Francisco in 1992, and has since spread to other cities worldwide
On May 3, 2006, about 50 Winnipeggers biked out to the Pioneer Arena to protest urban warfare training exercises that were taking place there
Seven people were arrested that night, one for simply photographing an arrest
23 days later, the police violently arrested 9 more people during the monthly Critical Mass ride, tackling them, holding them down with their knees, and even punching one person in the face
One of the people arrested was also beaten while in custody
Patrick Krawec, Ian La Rue, and Tara Norberg recorded this one in their kitchen in June of 2006
Jake Field and Group - Down Here Lord, Waitin’ on You
From a 1956 album of field recordings made by Frederic Ramsey Jr. in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi of older musicians he met during his travels through the southern states
Jake Field and a group of singers that included members of the Holifield, Brand, Field, and Greene families
Field was around 60 years old when this was recorded near Morgan Springs, Alabama on April 18, 1954
Alan Mills - I Ride an Old Paint
Mills a Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec who was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1974 for his contributions to Canadian folklore
A traditional American cowboy song, first collected and published in Carl Sandburg’s American Songbag in 1927
From a 1954 album of children’s songs
Uršulė Žemaitienė - Vaikščio' Močiutė (The Mother Was Walking)
This is off the 1955 album Lithuanian Folk Songs in the United States, which was made to catalogue the folk songs brought to the US from first- and second-generation Lithuanian immigrants
Žemaitienė arrived in the United States in 1914, when she was 24, and lived in Minden, West Virginia until 1929, when she and her husband moved to Chicago
The liner notes state that her memory was “marvellous,” and she was quoted as saying, “If I hear a song only once, I know it. The song is the best remedy in sorrows.”
She knew about 300 folk songs at the time this was recorded in 1949
Willie Dunn, Ron Bankley - How Long
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 song, though it references Leroy Carr’s blues standard “How Long Blues”
Eugene Powell - My Lonesome Song
More commonly known as Sonny Boy Nelson, he was a Delta blues musician from Mississippi who played guitar, banjo, mandolin, violin, horn, and harmonica
This is his own song, recorded between 1976 and 1982
Clyde Davenport, WL Gregory - John Henry
Davenport was an old-time fiddle and banjo player from Kentucky
WL Gregory was a fiddle player who often played with Davenport
This is one of several songs about the legend of John Henry, a railroad worker working on the Big Bend Tunnel in West Virginia, who raced a steam drill and won, but died shortly after
We’ll hear 2 other songs about John Henry after this
Blind James Campbell - John Henry
He was a blues musician from Nashville, Tennessee who found steady work performing at parties, dances, and other local events with The Nashville Street Band, which he formed in 1936
In the late 50s, the founder of Arhoolie Records, Chris Strachwitz heard a field recording made of the band, and he set off to Nashville to find and record them
In 1963, the album Blind James Campbell And His Nashville Street Band was released, which is what this recording is from
Taj Mahal - Spike Driver Blues
Taj Mahal is a Grammy-award-winning blues musician from New York City whose career has spanned over 50 years
This John Henry song was popularised through the inclusion of Mississippi John Hurt’s 1928 recording of it on Harry Smith’s very influential 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music
Big Dave McLean - Michael Hendersen
A blues musician from Winnipeg who’s been playing for over 50 years
This off McLean’s 2008 album Acoustic Blues: Got ‘Em from the Bottom
It’s a ballad McLean wrote about a man he knew who was killed by Winnipeg police in 1981 after his life unravelled and he ended up injuring a cab driver with a shotgun and exchanging gunfire with the police outside the Garrick Theatre
The Golden Gate Quartet - Toll the Bell Easy
They are a vocal quartet formed in Virginia by four high school students in 1934
They are still active today, but have gone through several changes in membership
This song is also known as “In My Time of Dying” and is a traditional gospel song
Dave Van Ronk - My Baby’s So Sweet
A member of the Greenwich Village folk scene in New York City, known as the “Mayor of MacDougal Street”, MacDougal Street being where practically every coffeehouse in New York was located in the 1960s
Ronk learned this song from Blind Boy Fuller
Stanley Triggs - Lake of Crimson
An anthropologist and photographer who worked in logging camps, construction camps, in forestry, with survey crews, and on railroad gangs in BC
Also played in coffee houses in the 1960s
Dance tune written by a man in Flatbush, Alberta
Sheesham and Lotus - Duck River
Lonesome Ace Stringband - American Refugee / Winnebago
Aaron Kramer - Rosenfeld: My Camping Ground
