Barking Dog: June 30, 2022
Pharis & Jason Romero - Cold Creek Shout
From Horsefly, BC
Off their brand new album Tell 'Em You Were Gold, which was recorded live over six days in a 60-year-old barn beside the Little Horsefly River
This tune is an homage to both Coal Creek March and Baptist Shout, two of the couple’s favourite banjo tunes
Clark Jones - Aiken Drum
He was a musician from Charlotte, North Carolina who travelled through his home state absorbing and interpreting traditional songs
This one is from his 1982 album Early American Folk Music & Songs, a botanically themed album that was inspired by the director of the North Carolina Botanical Gardens, who was one of Jones’s guitar students
This is a very well-known Scottish folk song and nursery rhyme, which is likely descended from an 18th century folk song about the 1715 Battle of Sheriffmuir
Pete Seeger - Fare Ye Well, Old Ely Branch
Seeger was a folk singer and an activist who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and peace through his music
That is from his 1956 album American Industrial Ballads
Folksinger and union activist Aunt Molly Jackson wrote it around 1930 or 1931
The coal operator at Ely Branch, where Jackson’s husband worked, had been expecting a strike, so he didn’t order food for the commissary
There was no food left, since there wasn’t anywhere to buy food except the commissary, so her husband decided they had to leave
She was sad to leave, since they had just bought a new house, so she wrote that song and dropped it by the spring where all the women went to get water so it would get around without anyone knowing who wrote it
Elder Anderson Johnson - Glory, Glory
He was a preacher, singer, and painter from Newport News, Virginia
He began preaching when he was 8, and travelled across the country preaching for around 40 years
Traditional American spiritual which has been recorded in a number of genres
The melody is very similar to Will the Circle Be Unbroken
Uncle Sinner - 900 Miles
From Winnipeg
That song is a member of the family of railroad songs that includes Reuben’s Train and 500 Miles
His version is off his 2015 album Let the Devil In
Fraser Union - The Goodnight-Loving Trail
They’re a BC folk group that formed in 1983
That song is from their 2003 album Hello, Stranger
It’s by Utah Phillips, and it’s about the cattle trail that extended across Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming, and was named after cattlemen Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving
Les Pine - Depression
Here’s a monologue now off the 1959 album Hootenanny Tonight!
It was written and performed by standup comedian, playwright, and screenwriter Les Pine from Chicago
Goodnight, Texas - Hayride
So called because Goodnight, Texas because the town of Goodnight, Texas the centre point between the cities in which the members of the band live
From their 2014 album Uncle John Farquhar
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Damned Old Piney Mountain
From Toronto
This recording is from their new live album, Lively Times, recorded in Vancouver
This song is by Craig Johnson, and the lyrics are mostly direct quotes from an old man he met in the mountains of West Virginia who was once a logger and fiddler
Unspecified - South China: Folk Tune
This is from a 1951 album of field recordings from Southeast Asia, which captures the influence, and in certain cases the rejection, of the Western musical tradition on the music of the region
The liner notes state that the tune is played on a “plucked instrument in a banjo-like figure,” and suggests similarities with African American and Scottish songs
Connie Converse - There Is a Vine
Born 1924
Moved to New York City from New Hampshire, began writing songs and performing for friends in the early 1950s
Made an appearance on The Morning Show with Walter Cronkite but nothing came of it
Eventually became frustrated with failed attempts at music career so moved to Michigan to work a secretarial job at the university her brother worked at
Wrote many letters to friends and family in 1974 suggesting she intended to start a new life somewhere else
Shortly after she packed her things into her car and drove off, never seen again
Rediscovered 2004 from home recordings played on a radio show, 2009 an album of 17 home recordings was released
Essie Mae Brooks - Rain in Your Life
She’s a gospel blues singer from Georgia who began writing her own songs at the age of 9
She is now in her 90s and still avidly writes music and sings with her church
That song is off her album, also called Rain In Your Life, from 2000
Stan Rogers - Make and Break Harbour
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 summers
This song comes from his 1977 album Fogarty’s Cove
Eli Conley - All That Ends
He’s a folk musician from Virginia who states that his songs, “tell stories that aren’t often reflected in roots music,” and that he writes music for “queer and trans folks, justice seekers, and anyone who doesn’t easily fit in a box.”
That one is off his 2017 album Strong and Tender
Angel Parra - Me Gustan los Estudiantes
From a 1970 album of protest songs from Latin America
He was a Chilean singer and songwriter, and the son of Violeta Parra, a composer, musician, folklorist, and artist
He often travelled internationally, helping to preserve the Nueva Canción tradition in Chilean communities around the world
That one is by his mother
Wallace House - The Night Before Waterloo
From a 1954 album of traditional English “dialect readings,” or poems
House was a musician, actor, and professor who was born in England and raised in Canada
This one was written by poet Marriot Edgar
Louis Killen, Stan Hugill, X-Seamen’s Institute - Mingulay Boat Song
They were a quartet founded in New York City’s South Street Seaport in 1968 who were dedicated to continuing the ancient tradition of singing songs of the sea
On Tuesday evenings in the summer they performed shanties, and were joined by hundreds of members of the public
From a 1979 album called Sea Songs: Louis Killen, Stan Hugill and the X Seamen's Institute sing of Cape Horn sailing at the Seattle Chantey Festival
This song was written by the Scottish composer Sir Hugh S Roberton in the 1940s
It uses a traditional Gaelic tune and describes fishermen sailing home to the island of Mingulay in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland
The Wakami Wailers - The Rivermen
They’re a band that formed in 1981 when four employees at Wakami Lake Provincial Park, near Chapleau, Ontario, started playing Canadian folk music together
They have continued playing since then, and have released four albums
From their 1993 album Waltz with the Woods
It was written by David Lickley
Frederick McQueen, Reverend WG McPhee - Long Summer Days
From an album of Bahamian rhyming music from 1995
Recorded in Nassau, Bahamas, in June of 1965
Norfolk Jazz and Jubilee Quartet - I Hope I May Join the Band
They were the most influential vocal quartet of this kind to emerge from their region of Virginia at the time
They formed around 1919, and appeared in vaudeville and variety shows and in musical revues throughout the 20s
Their final recording session took place in April 1940
This is a traditional American religious song of uncertain origin, from at least the late 19th century
They recorded it in July of 1921 in New York City
Lead Belly - Join the Band
Born in Louisiana in late 1880s
Went to prison for attempted murder in Texas in 1918
He won early release in 1925 by singing a song for the governor of Texas
Incarcerated again in 1930
Ethnomusicologists and folklorists John and Alan Lomax discovered him in prison while making field recordings
They delivered a petition for his release on the back of a recording of “Goodnight, Irene” to the Louisiana governor
Once he was released, he made a number of recordings and through his association with the Lomaxes, became widely known for both his blues and folk recordings
Recorded for the Library of Congress in Washington in 1940
Precious Bryant - If You Don’t Love Me, Would You Fool Me Good
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
This recording was included on a 2014 Music Maker Foundation album called We Are the Music Makers!, though another recording of it can be heard on her 2002 album Fool Me Good
Old Man Luedecke - I Quit My Job
From Chester, NS
Off his album Hinterland from 2006
Elizabeth Knight - Let Us All Speak Our Minds
From a 1958 album of songs from the suffragette movement
The liner notes for the album state that although this is not specifically a suffrage song, it is “the most forthright, outspoken feminist musical statement which we have been able to find”
Interestingly, the words seem to have been written by a William Brough
Langston Hughes - Ballad of the Landlord
He was a poet and author, and perhaps one of the best-known figures from the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s
He recorded a selection of his writings for Asch Records, later called Folkways Records, in the mid-1940s
Hughes wrote this one in the 1930s about the difficulty experienced while trying to get landlords to make repairs
Josh White - Bad Housing Blues
Extremely successful musician who started playing music in the late 20s and gained fame as a blues, jazz, and folk musician, as well as a film and Broadway actor
That song is from around 1940
We heard another piece about bad housing before that, performed by
Singers from OMM - Revolution Song
From a 1980 album of music from Mozambique
After Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in 1975, Mozambican music and dance traditions that were previously suppressed during colonization exploded onto the public scene
Dance songs, work songs and songs that promoted the rebuilding of communal villages were all popular at the time, and this album was recorded in one of those communal villages in the late 70s
Those were 2 revolutionary songs about working for the entire nation and leaving behind colonial customs
Wellington Thompson - A Hungry Fox
From an album of Saskatchewan songs collected by Barbara Cass-Beggs and released in 1963
Thompson was from Regina
This is a children’s song inspired by one of Aesop’s Fables
Thompson picked it up when he was a small boy
Horace Sprott - Takes Rocks and Gravel to Make a Solid Road
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 on April 10, 1954
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
Miss Saffman’s Ladies Choir - Old Woman
From a 1980 compilation album of live recordings of both gay and straight musicians
This song is by Michelle Brody
Karen James - Mary-Anne
A folksinger who grew up in England, Spain, and France, and moved to Canada as a teenager
This is a sea ballad, likely from England, from at least the mid 19th century
Si Kahn - Sunrise
He’s a community organizer and musician from Pennsylvania who moved to the south as an activist during the Civil Rights Movement
This song was recorded in 1977 for the “What Now People” series that advocated song as political movement
He says about the song, “As far as information about the song, I can’t remember when or where I wrote it, so I’d just as soon let it stand on its own”
Silvio Rodriguez - Fusil Contra Fusil
From the 1973 album Che Guevara Speaks, which includes a selection of his writings, as well as songs about Guevara
Rodriguez is a widely known Cuban musician known for his poetic and symbolic lyrics
The title translates to Rifle Against Rifle, and it’s about the death of Che Guevara
Fog Holler - Weary Traveler
They’re a contemporary bluegrass band based out of Portland, Oregon who have toured internationally and played with artists like The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys and the Del McCoury Band
This one is from their 2021 album Rocking in a Weary Land
Mrs. Stan Marshall - A Maid I Am in Love
This is a field recording from Amherst, Nova Scotia
In her liner notes, Helen Creighton, the collector of this song, explains that she was surprised that the name of the hero of the song was Jutney, when more typical names like Willy, John, and Jimmy often appear in song
When she called the father of the woman who sings this song, he said that it was much more likely that the name was Jimmy, but that the lyrics had changed through the oral tradition over time
In fact, the hero’s name is most often Johnny in other versions of the song, though he has been called Jimmy in some variants
The song is most often called Short Jacket and White Trousers or Maid That’s Deep In Love
Uncertain where the song comes from, but it’s likely an English sea ballad
Fiver - Drink Less Champagne
Stage name of Toronto-based artist Simone Schmidt
This is off their new recording "Soundtrack to A More Radiant Sphere: The Joe Wallace Mixtape"
It was commissioned for the recent documentary "A More Radiant Sphere," which tells the story of Joe Wallace, a Canadian communist, political prisoner and poet who was largely ignored within the country but admired in Eastern Europe and Russia
Sheesham and Lotus - Saute de Lapin / Rooster on a Rail Fence
