Barking Dog: June 27, 2024
Old Man Luedecke - The Mermaid
From Chester, Nova Scotia
This is from his 2019 album Easy Money, and it’s a traditional sea ballad from around the 18th century that likely originated in England but is well-known across North America
Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk - Riding in My Car
Woody Guthrie wrote this song in the 1940s when he was living in Coney Island, New York
It’s one of his better-known children’s songs, and has been recorded by many artists over the years
They recorded it live at the Gaslight Cafe in New York City in 1961
The Mountain Goats - International Small Arms Traffic Blues
They’re a contemporary band formed in California in the early 1990s and currently based in North Carolina
This is from their 2003 album Tallahassee
Arthur Stitt, Robert Prosser, James Wilkerson, and William Carver - Raise a Ruckus Tonight
This is a field recording made by John Lomax at the State Penitentiary in Virginia in 1936
It’s a traditional African American song that dates back to the 19th century, and it was first recorded in 1923
The Coleman Brothers - Raise a Ruckus Tonight
They were a gospel group from New Jersey that formed in 1932 and were active until 1951
At one point, they were so successful that they formed a company that owned a record label, a hotel, and a chain of barbecue restaurants
This one was recorded at the peak of their success, in 1946
Jesse Fuller - Red River Blues
He was an American one-man band born in Georgia in 1896
He could play multiple instruments simultaneously, using a harmonica holder to hold a harmonica, a kazoo, or a microphone, playing guitar, and tap-dancing or soft-shoeing as he played
Though he had already learned two styles of guitar by the age of 10, Fuller only decided to try making a living from music in the early 1950s
He started by working locally in clubs and bars in San Francisco and other nearby cities, but became better known by performing on TV, and in 1958, when he was 62, Fuller recorded his first album
This is from the 1965 album Jesse Fuller’s Favorites
The liner notes state that he learned this song from Blind Boy Fuller
Willie Dunn - John McLean
Dunn was a Mi’kmaq musician and film director from Montreal, known for songs like “I Pity the Country” and “Son of the Sun”
This is from the 1999 album Metallic
Kate Bush - The Handsome Cabin Boy
She’s an English singer-songwriter best known for songs like “Running Up That Hill” and “Don’t Give Up”
This track was released as a B-side to her 1986 song “Hounds of Love”
It’s one of many traditional ballads about women disguising themselves as men
Frank Zappa - Handsome Cabin Boy
This is from the 1996 posthumous album The Lost Episodes
Seamus Heaney - Requiem for the Croppies
He was a Nobel Prize-winning poet, playwright, and translator from Ireland
This is from the 1968 album The Northern Muse, which is a collection of poetry readings by Heaney and his colleague John Montague
It’s a poem about the events preceding the Battle of Vinegar Hill in 1798 during the Irish Rebellion
“Croppies” were Irish rebels
Karen Dalton - Every Time I Think of Freedom
American singer, guitarist, and banjo player known for her association with the 60s Greenwich Village folk music scene—including with artists Fred Neil and Bob Dylan
She was largely unrecognised for her contributions to the folk genre during her life, but has become an important influence for artists like Nick Cave, Devendra Banhart, and Joanna Newsom
From a 2022 album of live recordings from 1963, called Shuckin’ Sugar, the reel-to-reels of which were rediscovered in 2018
Stephen Bennett - Wichita Lineman
He’s an American musician who’s known for both his finger-style guitar and his harp guitar skills
This one is off his 2014 album Still on the Line
The song was written by Jimmy Webb in 1968 for the American country musician Glen Campbell
Dyad - O Molly Dear
From Victoria, BC
This song is often known as “East Virginia” or “Old Virginny” and it’s closely related to other ballads including “Silver Dagger” and “Awake, Awake Ye Drowsy Sleepers”
It was one of the most popular ballads for early American recording artists to record
Off their 2002 album Who’s Been Here Since I’ve Been Gone
Mike Seeger - The Reckless Motor Man
Seeger was a folklorist and musician who co-founded the New Lost City Ramblers in the 1950s
This is from his 1966 album Tipple, Loom & Rail: Songs of the Industrialization of the South
The song was possibly written by Orville Jenks in 1915 about a real train accident he witnessed
Seeger’s mother, the folksong collector and composer Ruth Crawford Seeger, transcribed Jenks’ version of the song in 1940, and Mike learned the song as a child from the transcription disc
The version we heard, however, comes from the Carter Family’s recording from 1938
Etulu Etidloie - You Want to Come Along With Us?
He was a musician and carver from Cape Dorset, Nunavut, who began writing music in the 1960s, and recorded one album for the CBC in 1978 called Today’s Thoughts, which is where this song comes from
Rita MacNeil - No Saving Grace
She was a singer from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia whose career spanned nearly 40 years, during which she won several Juno Awards and was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame
This is from her 2012 album Saving Grace
Silvio Rodriguez - The Time is Giving Birth to a Heart
Rodriguez is a widely known Cuban musician known for his poetic and symbolic lyrics
From the 1970 album Canción Protesta: Protest Song of Latin America
The verse the title comes from translates to “The time is giving birth to a heart / It cannot go on, it is dying of pain / And we must run to the rescue / Because the future is falling”
Elliott Smith - These Days
He was an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist
The song was written by Jackson Browne when he was 16 years old and first recorded in 1967 by Nico, whose version remains the best-known recording of the song
Smith’s version is a live recording from 1999
Kacy & Clayton - If You Ask How I’m Keeping
Duo from Wood Mountain, SK
From their album Strange Country from 2015
The Golden Gate Quartet - This World Is in a Bad Condition
They are a vocal quartet formed in Virginia by four high school students in 1934
They are still active today, but have obviously undergone multiple changes in membership
This recording is from 1939
AJJ - This Is Not a War
They’re a folk punk band from Arizona that’s been performing for 20 years
They released this one in 2012 in support of the Occupy Wall Street Movement
Uncle Sinner - Reuben’s Train
From Winnipeg
This song is a member of a family of railroad songs that also includes “500 Miles” and “900 Miles”
He recorded this one in 1999
Pete Seeger - Newspapermen
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 1958 album Gazette, which is a collection of topical songs
The song is by folksinger and newspaper reporter Vern Partlow
The Folk Crusaders - I Don’t Know About War
They were a Japanese folk group active primarily during the 1960s, when Japan experienced a folk movement that ran parallel to folk revivals in western countries
This is a recording from their last concert, given in Osaka in 1968
The music is by jazz guitarist Hiroshi Kato, and the lyrics are by avant-garde writer, director, actor, and photographer Shuji Terayama
Woody Guthrie - Bury Me Beneath the Willow
This is a traditional American folk song that was first collected in Missouri in 1906, and first recorded by Henry Whitter in 1923
Guthrie is joined by his friends, musicians Cisco Houston and Sonny Terry, on this one
Tony Trischka, Vince Gill - Bury Me Beneath the Willow
Trischka is from New York and he’s considered one of the most influential contemporary banjo players
Gill is a musician from Oklahoma who’s been playing since 1975 as both a solo artist and a member of groups like Pure Prairie League and, more recently, Eagles
This is from Trischka’s new album, Earl Jam, which he recorded after receiving a thumb drive of recordings of Earl Scruggs jamming with John Hartford at private gatherings during the 80s and 90s
Blind Boy Fuller - Ain’t No Gettin’ Along
He was a popular Piedmont blues musician from North Carolina who performed between 1928 and 1940
This was recorded in 1937
Jack Owens - Ain’t No Loving, Ain’t No Getting Along
Owens was a blues musician from Mississippi
He learned several instruments as a child but his chosen instrument was the guitar
Owens never really aimed to become a professional recording artist, and instead farmed and ran a juke joint for much of his life before being recorded during the folk and blues revival of the 1960s when the musicologist David Evans learned about him from other blues musicians from his region
He toured throughout the US and Europe during the last decades of his life
This one was recorded by Gianni Marcucci, who travelled from Italy to the United States five times during the 70s and 80s to document blues music in the country
John Snipes - Cooking in the Kitchen
He was a farmer and banjo player from Chatham County, NC, and he was known in the region for being a marathon dance musician, and would often play a single tune at lightning speed for as long as an hour
This is off a 1998 album of African American banjo music from North Carolina and Virginia
He learned this song from banjo player Duke Mason
OJ Abbott - The Basketong
Abbott was 84 when this song was recorded for the album Lumbering Songs from the Ontario Shanties, compiled by Edith Fowke between 1957 and 1958
It’s a Canadian song that hadn’t reached the American shanties at the time of this recording
Belongs to a group of songs that describe life in a particular camp
David Francey - Border Line
He’s a Juno-winning folksinger who’s been performing since 1999, when he quit his job to begin a career in music at the age of 45
That one’s from his 1999 debut album, Torn Screen Door
Colter Wall - Wild Bill Hickok
From Swift Current, Saskatchewan
This song is from his 2018 album Songs of the Plains
Penny Lang - Promised Land
She was a folk musician from Montreal who was part of the folk revival of the 1960s
She first began playing professionally in 1963, and later played folk festivals and coffeehouses across North America
This is from her 1992 album Live at the Yellow Door
Ernest Hemingway - The Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
This is from the 1965 album Ernest Hemingway Reading, recorded between 1948 and 1961
He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954, and as he was unwilling to travel to Stockholm to give a speech due to surviving two plane crashed, he asked the US ambassador to Sweden to deliver the speech instead
Georgia Sea Island Singers, Bessie Jones, Ed Young - Handclapping, Cane Fife
This is from the recent Smithsonian Folkways album The Complete Friends of Old Time Music Concert
It’s a recording of a concert given by the Georgia Sea Island Singers, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and Ed Young in New York City in April of 1965
The Georgia Sea Island Singers are a folk music ensemble that’s been around since the early 1900s
They often performed with Bessie Jones, who was one of the most popular performers of folk music in the 60s and 70s
Here they perform with Ed Young as well, who was a Mississippi fife player
Pharis & Jason Romero - Going to Town
