Barking Dog: June 6, 2024
Jake Xerxes Fussell - Leaving Here, Don’t Know Where I’m Going
He’s a musician from Georgia who grew up in an artistic family and apprenticed with the blues musician Precious Bryant from a young age
He often adapts traditional Southern folk music to his own style, and this new song is no different
It’s the second single off his forthcoming album, When I’m Called, which comes out on July 12
Fussell says he learned the song from Art Rosenbaum, who learned it from the fiddler, guitarist, and singer Joe Rakestraw of Athens, Georgia
It’s from the “Lonesome Road” song family
Bob Dylan - Dark Eyes
This is off the 2021 collection of bootleg recordings called Springtime in New York, which covers the years 1980-1985
It’s from Dylan’s 1985 album Empire Burlesque
Mary Lou Lord - Shake Sugaree
She’s a musician who got her start busking on the streets of Boston in the early 1990s
This is off her 1998 album Got No Shadow
The song is by Elizabeth Cotten, and the lyrics are by her great grandchildren
Gordon Lightfoot - Oh So Sweet
From his final album Solo, from 2020
Old Man Luedecke - Chester Boat Song
From Chester, NS
Off his 2015 album Domestic Eccentric, which he recorded in a cabin he built in his backyard
The Beach Boys - You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
This was recorded live at the University of Michigan in 1966
As they say, it’s their version of the Beatles’ song, led by Dennis Wilson
Hedy West - Hobo’s Lullaby
She was a folk singer from Georgia who was heavily influenced by her upbringing in a creative, politically active family, and she’s known particularly for writing the song “500 Miles”
Off the 2018 album Untitled, recorded in Germany in 1979
This song is by Goebel Reeves, a Texan folk singer active in the early 20th century
Joni Mitchell - House of the Rising Sun
Off the 2020 album Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 1: The Early Years
Recorded at CFQC Radio Station in Saskatoon in 1963
You might know “House of the Rising Sun” from the Animals’ famous recording, but it’s a traditional American folk song, with either English or French origins
Alan Lomax proposed that the location of the house was changed from England to New Orleans by white southern performers, though there’s not a tonne of evidence supporting this
The oldest published version of the lyrics was printed by Robert Winslow Gordon in 1925, but it was known to miners prior to 1905
David Rovics - What If You Knew
He’s a topical singer-songwriter based in Oregon who’s been playing since the 1990s
This is from his 2004 album Songs for Mahmud
Jack Kerouac - Lucien Midnight the Sounds of the Universe in My Window Pt. 1
This is from the 1960 album Readings by Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation
George Harrison - Apple Scruffs
This is a demo of the song from the second day of the recording sessions for his 1970 album All Things Must Pass
He wrote the song as a tribute to the group of die-hard Beatles fans who were known as “Apple scruffs”
Ian & Sylvia - Spanish Is a Loving Tongue
Ian & Sylvia were a married duo who performed together from 1959 until their divorce in 1975, and each continued their music careers after their divorce
This is off their 1963 album Four Strong Winds
The song is based on a poem by the cowboy poet Charles Badger Clark called “A Border Affair,” written in 1907
Billy Simon set it to music in 1925
Mance Lipscomb - Take Me Back Babe
Texan blues artist born Beau De Glen Lipscomb
Took the nickname Mance at a young age, which was short for Emancipation
He worked as a tenant farmer in Texas most of his life, but came to prominence 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 in November of 1964
Rachel Newton - Don’t Go Out Tonight My Darling
She’s a contemporary Scottish singer and harpist who’s been playing music since she was a child
Though she’s played in bands like The Shee, the Furrow Collective, and Boreas, this song is from her solo album West, from 2018
It seems to be a traditional Appalachian song, commonly recorded by string bands and bluegrass artists
Ollie Gilbert - Don’t Go Out Tonight, My Darling
She was a folksinger from the Ozarks, and the folksong collector Max Hunter recorded her singing over 300 folk songs
This is a field recording made by Hunter in Mountain View, Arkansas, in 1969
Big Bill Broonzy - Glory of Love
He was an American blues singer and guitarist, and was one of the leading figures of the emerging folk revival of the 1950s
This comes from the posthumous 1962 album Big Bill Broonzy Sings Folk Songs, which Folkways Records founder Moses Asch put together from a number of recordings of Broonzy
The song was written by Billy Hill and first recorded in 1936 by Benny Goodman, whose version became a hit
Suzanne Vega - Tom’s Diner
She’s a musician from California who’s been playing since the early 1980s
From the album Live at the Stephen Talkhouse, recorded in August of 2003 and released in 2005
She wrote the song in 1981 and it was first released in the 1984 debut issue of Fast Folk Musical Magazine
The song was used to test different compression methods when the MP3 was first being developed
Tom’s Diner refers to Tom’s Restaurant in New York City, which was also used in exterior shots for the cafe in Seinfeld
Edward de Souza - Mange Tout
This is from Herding Cats, the fifth album in the Guide Cats for the Blind series, which was produced to raise funds for the Technology Association of Visually Impaired People
It’s a collection of artists performing the poems of the English poet Les Barker, who was known primarily for his comic poetry
De Souza is an English character actor who began performing in the 1950s
Geneviève Racette - Boy from the North Country
She’s a musician based in Montreal who began releasing music in 2014
This is from her 2017 EP Covers, on which she also covers music by Nirvana and the Beatles
Bob Dylan wrote the song in late 1962, and it’s from his 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
Uncle Sinner - Motherless Child
From Winnipeg
It’s a traditional American spiritual, and Uncle Sinner’s version is inspired by the style of Skip James
Georgia Sea Island Singers, John Davis - Read ‘Em John
This is from the forthcoming album The Complete Friends of Old Time Music Concert, which Smithsonian Folkways is releasing in a few weeks
It’s a recording of a concert given by the Georgia Sea Island Singers, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and Ed Young in April of 1965
The Georgia Sea Island Singers are a folk music ensemble that’s been around since the early 1900s
“Read ‘Em John” is a traditional ring shout spiritual from the time of emancipation
Joseph Campbell - Page 65 of Finnegan’s Wake
This is from the album Meeting Of The Joyce Society At The Gotham Book Mart October 23rd, 1951
Campbell was a writer and professor of literature from New York, known for the since-discredited concept of the hero’s journey and for popularising the maxim “follow your bliss”
This is his reading of page 65 of Joyce’s novel Finnegan’s Wake
Happy Traum - Time’s A-Getting Hard
Traum an artist known for his involvement in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s and the Woodstock music scene of the 70s and 80s
This version of the song is from his 2005 album I Walk the Road Again
The song is about “contemplating the need to leave a homestead and move on, a situation faced by many sharecroppers in the South and Midwest in the 1930s”
The folksinger Lee Hays adapted the song from a version found in Carl Sandburg’s American Songbag
Willie Dunn - Rattling Along the Freight Train
Dunn was a Mi’kmaq musician and film director from Montreal, known for songs like “I Pity the Country” and “Son of the Sun”
He also won the NDP’s federal nomination for the Ottawa-Vanier riding in the 1993 federal election, though he lost to the Liberal incumbent
From the 2021 anthology of Dunn’s music called Creation Never Sleeps, Creation Never Dies
Nick Hart & Tom Moore - The Colour of Amber
They’re an English duo who have been performing together for over a decade
This is the title track from their 2023 album, The Colour of Amber
They got it from the singing of Mary Ann Haynes of Bristol, which was recorded by Mike Yates in 1974
It’s related to other ballads including “Died for Love,” “Black is the Colour,” and “Sailor Boy”
Vatulawa Trio - “Beautiful Eden”
From a 2014 album of string band field recordings from Fiji that were made in 1986
The title translates to “Beautiful Eden,” and it was composed by the lead singer of the group, Iliesa Koroi
Sis Cunningham - My Oklahoma Home
Important member of the folk community for many years
Founding editor of Broadside Magazine, an important publication for the Greenwich Village folk scene
One of the first people to be blacklisted as a communist sympathiser in post WWII America
This is from the 1976 album Sundown
Catherine MacLellan - When She Don’t Need Me
She’s a folk musician from Prince Edward Island whose father was the musician Gene MacLellan
She’s been playing since 2002, and this is off the 2019 compilation album When the Wind Blows: The Songs of Townes Van Zandt
It’s from Van Zandt’s 1978 album Be Here to Love Me
Ruby Dean, The Journeymen’s Quartet - Give Me One More Day
This is off an album recorded in the 1950s at the American Folk Song Festival in Kentucky
It’s a modern hymn, and Ruby Dean was nine years old when she sang it with the Journeymen’s Quartet
Brion Gysin - No Poets
Gysin was an English-Canadian artist and writer known for his association with members of the Beat Generation, especially William S Burroughs
This is from the 1999 compilation album Lunapark 0,10, a collection of avant-garde recordings made between 1913 and 1974
Eugene Rhodes - I’m Gonna Find My Woman
He was a musician from Kentucky who travelled through the southern states as a one-man-band until he ended up in Indiana State Prison, where he continued to play
Folklorist Bruce Jackson went to the prison to record an album of Rhodes’ music in 1963 called Talkin’ About My Time, which is where this song comes from
Rhodes learned this song from Blind Boy Fuller, who recorded it as “Worried and Evil Man Blues” in 1937
Willie Williams - Railroad Wreck
This is off an album of field recordings made in Virginia between 1936 and 1940
John A Lomax made this recording at the state penitentiary in Richmond, Virginia in May of 1936
Utah Phillips - Scribner on the Draft
He was an anarchist folksinger, storyteller, and labour organiser from Ohio who also rode the rails throughout the United States and worked as an archivist, a dishwasher, and a warehouse-man at various points in his life
This is from his 1991 album I’ve Got to Know
Myriam Gendron - There Is No East or West
She’s a musician from Montreal
This is off her new album Mayday, which came out in May
Doopees - Dooits!
