Barking Dog: May 4, 2023
Bo Carter - Corrine Corrina
Bo Carter was an early blues musician, born Armenter Chatmon
His brothers, Lonnie and Sam Chatmon, were also blues musicians
This is a popular country blues song with countless versions, three of which we’ll hear now
This is the first recording of the song, from 1928
Daddy Hotcakes - Corrine Corrina
George “Daddy Hotcakes” Montgomery was a musician who played on the streets of New Orleans and entertained people on streetcars
Recorded in St. Louis in May, 1961 by Samuel Charters for Folkways Records
Bob Dylan - Corrina, Corrina
Recorded at Gerde’s Folk City coffee house in April of 1962
Old Man Luedecke - Caney Fork River
From Chester, NS
From his album My Hands Are On Fire and Other Love Songs
The song is by Willie P Bennett, who wrote it to stay awake on a 14-hour drive to his next gig
He apparently crossed the Caney Fork River four times on that trip, which inspired the song
Logan English - Clementine
He was a folksinger, playwright, and actor from Kentucky who’s known for his involvement in the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene
He’s remembered particularly for being the MC at the coffeehouse Gerde’s Folk City, and for recording one of the earliest albums in tribute to Woody Guthrie
From his 1957 album The Days of ’49: Songs of the Gold Rush
This song was likely written by Percy Montross around 1883
Glenn Ohrlin - Reincarnation
He was a cowboy singer and storyteller from Minnesota who first encountered cowboy songs during his childhood, and left home at age 16 to become a working cowboy in Nevada
This is from his 1998 album A Cowboy’s Life
Maria Dunn - Do You Know Slim Evans?
She’s a Juno-award-winning musician based in Alberta who’s been performing since the late 1990s
This is from her 2004 album We Were Good People
It’s about the organiser Arthur “Slim” Evans who organised for the local One Big Union in the Drumheller Valley coalfields from 1919 to 1924
The Duhks - Pretty Boy Floyd
Winnipeg band
This is their version of one of Woody Guthrie’s best known songs, though Guthrie romanticised Floyd’s life to quite an extent
Pretty Boy Floyd was an Oklahoma outlaw, active between the 1920s and 30s, who robbed and killed throughout Oklahoma and Ohio until he was killed by FBI agents in 1934
Karen James - Taking Gair in the Night
A folksinger who grew up in England, Spain, and France, and moved to Canada as a teenager
From her 1962 album Through Streets Broad and Narrow
The folklorist Edith Fowke collected this song from a Newfoundland singer who was living in Ontario
The song was likely written by lighthouse keeper Jerry Fudge of Newfoundland as “Taking Gear in the Night”
Sammy Walker - My Old Friend
He’s a folksinger from Georgia who recorded his first albums in the mid 1970s
This is from his 1976 self-titled album
Ian & Sylvia - Makes a Long Time Man Feel Bad
Traditional song first recorded at Mississippi State Penitentiary in the 1940s by Alan Lomax, performed by a group of black prisoners
From their 1962 album called Ian & Sylvia
Carl Sandburg - He’s Gone Away
He was a Pulitzer-prize-winning poet, writer, and editor from Illinois who compiled a book called The American Songbag in 1927, which presented folk songs from across the United States
He performed many of those songs at lectures and poetry recitals, accompanying himself on guitar several decades before the folk revival of the 50s and 60s popularised the idea of the urban folk singer
Sandburg recorded this one in the mid-1950s
In his book, he writes of the song: “This is an arrangement from a song heard by Charles Rockwood of Geneva, Illinois, during a two-year residence in a mountain valley of North Carolina.”
He states that the song is of British origin, though with mountain and African-American influences
Uncle Sinner - Josh Thomas’ Roustabout
From Winnipeg
Off his 2008 album Ballads and Mental Breakdowns
He got this song from Mike Seeger, who wrote about it: “This piece is a 19th-century African-American banjo song becoming the blues.”
Josh Thomas was a Virginian banjo player and singer
Berenice Ford, Eunice Ford, Bessie Lee Daniels - Blind Child
This is a field recording from an album of play and dance songs from Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi in 1956
Recorded near Dobine Creek, Perry County, Alabama, May 8, 1954
Peggy Seeger - Jane Jane
She’s a member of the Seeger family—Mike and Pete Seeger were her brothers, her father was Charles Seeger, a folklorist and musicologist, and her mother was Ruth Crawford Seeger, a composer and the first woman to receive the Guggenheim Fellowship
She’s been living in the UK for over 60 years
This song also known as “Children, Go Where I Send Thee”
It’s a traditional African-American spiritual and a cumulative song, like the “Twelve Days of Christmas,” where each verse grows longer than the last
AL Phipps and the Phipps Family - Charles Guiteau
An American country music group which consisted of Arthur Leroy Phipps, Kathleen Norris Helton, and their various children
They began performing in the 40s and were also part of the 60s folk revival
This is from the 1965 album The Phipps Family: Faith, Love, and Tragedy, recorded by Ralph Rinzler
Charles Guiteau was an American writer and lawyer who was convicted of the assassination of James Garfield, the 20th US president
Unspecified - In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree
From a 1961 album called Music of the Carousel, played on the calliope
An American popular song written by Harry Williams and Egbert Van Alstyne in 1905
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott - Shade of the Old Apple Tree
He ran away from home at the age of 15 to join Colonel Jim Eskew’s Rodeo, rather than become a surgeon as his father intended
He was only with them for 3 months before his parents found him and dragged him home, but his first exposure to a singing cowboy left him rapt, and at home he taught himself guitar and began busking for a living
This is Elliott’s parody version of “In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree”
Elliott recorded it in 1964
Primeaux and Mike - Standing All Alone
They’re a Grammy-award-winning duo of Indigenous musicians based in Arizona
This is from the 2002 album Hours Before Dawn: Harmonized Peyote Songs of the Native American Church
Howie Mitchell - The Drone Method: Sweet Betsy from Pike / What a Friend We Have in Jesus
Mitchell was a Virginian dulcimer player who was first introduced to the instrument during the folk revival of the 1950s
From his 1972 album The Hammered Dulcimer: How to Make It and Play It, recorded for Folk-Legacy Records
“Sweet Betsy from Pike” is a Gold Rush-era song
“What a Friend We Have in Jesus” was first written as a poem by the preacher Joseph M Scriven in 1855 for his mother
The tune was composed by Charles Crozat Converse in 1868
Si Kahn - Dump the Bosses Off Your Back
Kahn is a community organiser and musician from Pennsylvania who moved to the south as an activist during the Civil Rights Movement
This is off an album in tribute to Utah Phillips, who often performed the song
The lyrics are by John Brill, and it’s to the tune of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus"
Kacy & Clayton - The Plains of Mexico
From Wood Mountain, SK
This song is often known as “Santianna,” and it’s a sea shanty referring to the Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna
It was written around the 1850s
From their 2016 album Strange Country
Hattie Ellis, “Cowboy” Jack Ramsey - Desert Blues
Recorded near Huntsville, Texas, May 14, 1939 at the Goree State Farm for Women by John and Ruby Lomax
Before the Lomaxes visited to make recordings, the women at the prison had become known through the local radio program Thirty Minutes Behind the Walls, which showcased the talents of female inmates and quickly became a nationwide hit, drawing millions of listeners and running from 1938 to 1944
Ellis was a Texan in her twenties who was serving 30 years for murder, and had previously sung in the nightclubs of Dallas
John Lomax had heard her on the radio show and visited Goree to record her specifically
She was released the following year on conditional parole but returned to prison later in her life and never appeared on the radio again
Willie Dunn - Broker
Dunn was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
From the 2021 anthology album Creation Never Sleeps, Creation Never Dies
The Wailin’ Jennys - Glory Bound
Folk group formed in Winnipeg in 2002
From their 2006 album Firecracker
Odetta, Larry Mohr - I Know Where I’m Going
She was born in Birmingham, Alabama and had operatic vocal training from the age of 13
This is a traditional Scottish or Irish ballad
Marie Hare - The Banks of the Miramichi
Ballad singer from Strathadam, NB, known for her performances at the Miramichi Folksong Festival
Pat Hurley from Trout Brook, NB wrote the lyrics to this song, and it is likely from the early 1900s
Maria Dunn - From the Bread Line to the Front Line
From her 2004 album We Were Good People
David Rovics - Song for the ELF
He’s a musician and writer based in Oregon who’s been touring internationally since the 1990s
From the 2002 album Hang a Flag in the Window
He says of the song, “For the record, I think arson is a counterproductive tactic for the purposes of movement-building as a general rule. I do admire many of the folks who have carried out these kinds of militant forms of direct action, some of whom are good friends, it turns out.”
George “Bongo Joe” Coleman - Crazy with Love
He was a street musician from Florida known for his drum kit, which he made from 55-gallon oil drums and perfected over the years as he performed around Texas
Coleman was well-respected and was often offered performance time at venues that would have paid more than street shows, but he preferred to play on the streets rather than the stage
This is from the only album he recorded, George Coleman: Bongo Joe from 1968, produced by Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records
Selah Jubilee Singers - How Happy Am I
They were an American gospel vocal quartet active from 1927-1953
This song was recorded on April 28, 1939
Pharis & Jason Romero - Where Is the Gamblin’ Man?
Married duo from Horsefly, BC
This is a traditional gospel song
They included it on their 2011 album A Passing Glimpse
Lily May Ledford - Red Rocking Chair
She headed the Coon Creek Girls, one of the first all-female string bands to play on the radio
Ledford performed at the White House in 1939 for Franklin D Roosevelt and his guests, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth
She was rediscovered by Ralph Rinzler in the 60s and became popular again during the folk revival of the 1960s
This song is known by a bunch of other names, including ““Honey Babe Blues”, “Sugar Babe”, and “Red Apple Juice”
The different versions vary greatly both in lyrics and melody, but the song is recognized as one song or one song family
Che Apalache - Red Rocking Chair
They’re a Grammy-nominated Argentinian-American string band formed in Buenos Aires in 2013 that incorporates latin elements into traditional Appalachian music
Their version of “Red Rocking Chair” is from their 2017 album Latin Grass
Stan Rogers - Leave Her, Johnny, Leave Her
This is from the posthumous album From Coffee House to Concert Hall, released in 1999
This song was usually sung during the last few tasks before leaving the ship after a rough voyage
It seems that this song is a modern form of an older farewell shanty called Across the Western Ocean, which originated around 1850 during the peak of Irish immigration to North America
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Traditional
George Henry Bussey - Looking for My Woman
