Barking Dog: May 5, 2022
Pharis & Jason Romero - Pale Morning
From Horsefly, BC
Brand new one off their forthcoming album Tell 'Em You Were Gold, which will be out on Smithsonian Folkways on June 17
Old Man Luedecke - Little Bird
From Chester, NS
Off his 2008 album Proof of Love
A Paul Ortega - Traveling Song
This is from an album of traditional Native American music from New Mexico, released in 1992
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 a protective song for travelers
Lucinda Williams - Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor
She’s a musician from Louisiana who’s been performing for over 40 years
This one’s from her 1979 album Ramblin’ on My Mind
Blues/jazz/folk standard, the roots of which can be traced back to the 19th century
Ian & Sylvia - You Were on My Mind
Ian and Sylvia Tyson, who were from Toronto
Written by Sylvia
The first song she ever wrote
Wrote it “in an empty bathtub in a suite at the Earle Hotel in Greenwich Village because it was the only place the cockroaches wouldn’t go.”
Martina and Maria Eugenia Diaz - La Palomita (My Little Dove)
From a 1957 album of Chilean songs
A lover’s lament that compares the narrator’s love to a dove that flies away after robbing him of his heart
Jimmie LaRocque, Gerry McIvor, Kim Chartrand - Big John McNeill
Off an album of Indigenous fiddle music from North and South America
LaRocque comes from North Dakota, and McIvor is from Winnipeg, but this was recorded in Maryland in May of 1995
It’s a well-known Scottish tune also known as “Lord Ramsey”
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Going Across the Sea
From Toronto
Off their 2016 album Gone for Evermore
Seems to be an old-time Appalachian song
Ella Jenkins - Going Down That Road Feeling Bad
An American folk singer and actress dubbed the “First Lady of the Children’s Folk Song”
This is from her 1999 album Ella Jenkins and a Union of Friends Pulling Together
Bucky Halker sings and plays guitar on this one–he’s a folk singer and historian who focuses on American folk music
Traditional song that seems to be from Black pre-blues tradition, though it’s been widely recorded by many well-known artists like Woody Guthrie, Elizabeth Cotten, and Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley
Also known as “Lonesome Road Blues”
Tampa Red - You Got to Reap What You Sow
He was a Chicago blues musician originally from Florida who’s known particularly for his single-string slide style on the guitar
His career really began when he was hired to accompany Ma Rainey, and in 1928 he made his first recording
He remained in demand as a session musician during this time, and later formed the Chicago Five, a group of session musicians that created the Bluebird sound, which was a stylistic precursor to rock n’ roll
Tampa Red’s home in Chicago was a centre for the blues community, and he provided rehearsal space, helped with bookings, and offered lodging to travelling musicians
Like many earlier blues musicians, he received further attention through the folk revival of the 1950s and 60s, and he made his final recordings in 1960
This is a traditional American spiritual, which Red recorded in 1929
We’ll hear two other versions of it after this
Mance Lipscomb - You Got to Reap What You Sow
Texan blues artist born Beau De Glen Lipscomb
Took the nickname Mance at a young age, which was short for emancipation
Worked as a tenant farmer in Texas most of his life, but was discovered in 1960 during the resurgence of country blues
This led to him recording an album in 1961, called Trouble in Mind, and appearing at the first Monterey Folk Festival in 1963
Recorded May 2, 1964 in Berkeley, California
Barbara Dane and the Chambers Brothers - You Got to Reap What You Sow
Politically active folk, jazz and blues singer from Detroit
Sung at many demonstrations, gained the attention of local music industry members, but turned down the opportunity to sing with Alvino Rey’s band to instead sing in union halls
The Chambers Brothers are a psychedelic soul band from California who have been playing on and off together since the mid-50s
That one is from their 1966 album Barbara Dane and The Chambers Brothers, and it uses the traditional spiritual pointedly, referencing key political figures in America’s involvement in the Vietnam War
Abigail Lapell - Waterfall
Songwriter from Toronto
Off her new album Stolen Time
Frank Proffitt - Beaver Dam Road
Appalachian banjo player, known for preserving “Tom Dooley”
Also inspired musicians during the 60s folk revival to play the traditional 5-string banjo
Was known as a skilled carpenter and luthier who made and played his own banjos
This song is local to Proffitt’s region of North Carolina
Frank said that the local sheriff caught a fellow making a little whiskey and took him over to the jail
While he was there he made up some of the verses of this song and he and the other inmates sang it to pass the time
Once he got out, the song traveled the countryside and others added more verses over time
Vesta Johnson - Sugar in My Coffee-O
She was an old-time fiddler from Missouri who learned to play fiddle by ear as a young child from her family, even though fiddling was not considered appropriate for girls in the 1920s
This is a widely known traditional old-time song
Hanunóo kudyapi’ player - Kaskas
From the 1953 album Hanunóo Music from the Philippines
The Hanunóo are a group of people who live on Mindoro, the seventh largest island in the Philippines, and they still maintain a relatively traditional way of life
A Kudyapi is a type of 6-string guitar
Uncle Sinner - Wolves A-Howling
Artist from Winnipeg
This is from his 2015 album Let the Devil In
It’s an old-time tune from the southwest United States
Norman Blake - When the Roses Bloom
Traditional American artist raised in Alabama
This is from his 2021 album Day By Day
It’s his version of the Carter Family song
Catherine McKinnon - Ten Thousand Miles
She’s a singer and actress from New Brunswick who began performing as a young child
This is from her first album, Voice of an Angel, from 1964
18th century folk ballad “Ten Thousand Miles,” also known as “The Turtle Dove” or “Fare Thee Well”
The earliest published version of the song appeared in England in 1710
Hubby Jenkins - I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole
Born and raised in Brooklyn
Traditional American spiritual
From his 2020 EP The Fourth Day
Joe Hickerson - Good Fish Chowder
Folk singer and songleader from Illinois
Was Librarian and Director of the Archive of Folk Song at the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress for 35 years
Known for his work as a lecturer, researcher, and performer, and for bringing the Ukrainian source and his own lyrics together to create the basis for Where Have All the Flowers Gone? along with Pete Seeger
This is by Greg Hildebrand of Boston, who combined portions of the poem “Jerry Mulligan” by John Ciardi with a tune by Oscar Brand (who was born in Winnipeg!)
The Weather Station - Chip on My Shoulder
From Toronto
Off the 2011 album All of It Was Mine
Unspecified - Laika’s Heart
This is off a 1958 Folkways album called Voices of the Satellites, which chronicles the sounds of the first thirteen American and Soviet satellites launched during that year
That was a recording of the heartbeat of Laika, the first dog to go to space
Leah K Hicks - Love Song
A modern Indigenous love song, performed by Leah K Hicks, who was a teacher in Nevada
Pete Seeger and Betty Sanders - Talking Un-American Blues
Seeger was a folk singer and an activist who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and peace through his music
This week marks what would have been his 103rd birthday
Sanders was a folk singer who performed throughout the US
She wrote this song with Irwin Silber
It’s about the persecution and blacklisting of left-wing individuals in the United States during the 40s and 50s
Seeger was one of many in the folk scene who were blacklisted, and we’ll hear another song about it after this
Karen James - The Pete Seeger Song
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 1961 self-titled album
Rosalie Sorrels - Hi-Fi Stereo Color TV
Very interesting figure in the folk revival
She was raised by parents who celebrated the written and spoken word
She started out in folk as a folksinger and collector of folk songs, and left her husband in the 1960s to travel across America with her five children, establishing herself as a performer and making connections with other folk musicians, writers, and artists
She died in June 2017 but is remembered for her storytelling abilities
From her 2006 album What Does It Mean to Love?
Wilmot MacDonald - The Lumberman’s Alphabet
From the 1962 album Lumber and River Songs from the Miramichi Folk Festival, recorded in Newcastle, New Brunswick
Song comes from the older “Sailors’ Alphabet”
In fact, many professions have alphabet songs specific to their work, including whalemen and, more recently, programmers
Stanley Triggs - Meadow Blues
Born in Nelson, BC in 1928
Worked in logging camps, construction camps, in forestry, with survey crews, and on railroad gangs
Also worked as a freelance photographer and earned a living playing in coffee houses in the 1960s
Song was made up by a young girl named Carla Miller from Merritt BC, who was the cook at a logging camp in the Lardeau Valley that Triggs worked at in 1946
Harry Gibbons - Bird Imitations
From a 1955 album of Inuit songs from Hudson Bay and Alaska
He was from Southampton Island in Nunavut
In that recording he imitates the calls of the Canada goose, the snow goose, and the swan
Tom and Mark Wisner - Susquehanna Down
Tom was a musician and educator from Maryland who was passionate about the Chesapeake Bay
He’s joined on this song by his song Mark, with whom he recorded this album, his first for Folkways Records, called Chesapeake Born
Mark wrote this one in 1978
Gene Bluestein - Talking Union
He was a musician, folklorist, activist, and English professor from Minnesota
This is off the new Smithsonian Folkways album The Village Out West: The Lost Tapes of Alan Oakes, which is a collection of field recordings from the 1960s California folk scene
Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, and Pete Seeger are credited with writing this song when they were members of the Almanac Singers in 1941
Larry Penn, Darryl Holter - Ghosts of Bay View
Penn was Wisconsin’s Labour Poet Laureate, a songwriter, toymaker, activist, and union man
Pete Seeger said of his music: "Larry's work was as good as anything Woody Guthrie ever created."
Holter is a musician and historian from Minneapolis
This is from their 1989 album Stickin’ with the Union: Songs from Wisconsin Labor History
It was exactly 136 years ago today that 1500 workers marched to the gates of the North Chicago Rolling Mill in Bay View, Wisconsin in support of the eight-hour day, and clashes with state militia who had been given orders to kill
Seven were killed, with the support of the mayor and the Wisconsin governor
That song is about that event in Wisconsin labour history
Govindman Serchan - Tibetan Folk Song
From the 1964 album Songs and Dances of Nepal
Serchan played on a European violin instead of the sarangi, which is the Indian or Nepali equivalent of a violin
Kacy & Clayton - Pretty Saro
English folk ballad from the early 1700s
One of the folk songs that died out in England but was rediscovered in the Appalachian region in the early 20th century, preserved through the strong oral tradition of that area
Kacy & Clayton a duo of second cousins from Wood Mountain, SK
Willie Dunn - Wounded Lake
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
Off his 1984 album The Vanity of Human Wishes
Big Dave McLean - Sliding Delta
A blues musician from Winnipeg who’s been playing for over 50 years
From his 1998 album For the Blues–Always!
This is a Mississippi John Hurt song
Williams Jubilee Singers - The Gospel Train Is Coming
They were a Chicago group that were formed by Charles P. Williams and his wife in 1904 and toured the United States and Europe until the early 1930s
A traditional African American spiritual that developed out of a tradition of songs about a Gospel Train
Alan Mills - May Day Carol
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
This seems to be a traditional English song
Male Assam Soloist, singers with percussion - Abor Song No. 6A
This is a field recording from Assam, India, from 1960
It was sung at festivals to tell the story of the origin of the world
