Barking Dog: July 21, 2022
Nora Brown - Cumberland Gap
She’s a young banjoist and singer who carries on the old-time tradition
She’s found mentors in many folk masters, including the master banjo player Lee Sexton of Kentucky, the female bluegrass pioneer Alice Gerrard, and founder of the New Lost City Ramblers John Cohen
This is off her upcoming album, Long Time to Be Gone, which is out August 26 on Jalopy Records
Appalachian folk song likely from the late 19th century
Willie Dunn - I Pity the Country
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
That version is off the 2014 compilation album Native North America, though Dunn originally released it on his 1978 album Akwesasne (Ak-weh-sas-ney) Notes
Jessica Pratt - Midnight Wheels
A contemporary artist sometimes associated with the freak folk movement of the early 2000s
From her self-titled album from 2012
Group of 4 Ngoni Men - Liya Kamuchoma Wa Kanga
Off an album of Malawi music recorded in 1957
The title translates to “Without Liya the Dance is Not a Success”, though I couldn’t find a translation for “Liya”
Obray Ramsey - Rain and Snow
He was a musician and singer from Madison County, NC
Though he was widely respected by fans of old-time music from around the world, he actually became more widely known in the pop music world during his lifetime
He and his cousin, Byard Ray, performed both the old-time music they learned from family in their youth, but also played under the name White Lightnin’ with both other folk musicians and funk and avant-garde musicians in New York
They even appeared together in the surreal 1971 western film Zachariah
Rain and Snow is a folk song and murder ballad from North Carolina
It’s possible that it relates the story of a murder that occurred in Madison County, maybe at the turn of the century
Jean Ritchie - A Short Life of Trouble
Known as the Mother of Folk
Learned traditional folksongs in the oral tradition from friends and family in her youth
Member of one of the two "great ballad-singing families" of Kentucky (the other the Combs family)
A traditional American song, which it’s hard to find anything about from before its first recording by Dick Burnett and Leonard Rutherford in 1926
Usman Achmad - Stambul Naturil
Off a 1999 album of Indonesian guitar music
This one is from southern Sumatra
Achmad is an Abung person, one of the indigenous groups from the Lampung region of Indonesia
He began playing guitar in 1959, when he was 16, and he’s recognized as a master performer
He was once sponsored by the provincial government to perform in France
The type of music he plays, called “gitar tunggal,” or “solo guitar,” is most popular at weddings and other celebrations
The word “stambul” refers to melodies associated with the stambul theatre, a form that was popular from the 1890s into the 1930s
The text for the song is called Di Lapahan, which translates to “far from home” and it teases those who have left the village to find work outside of the region
Cara Luft - Someday Soon
From Winnipeg
An Ian & Sylvia song
Frank Schildt - Sarie Marais
He was a musician from the Netherlands who learned to play the guitar after high school but began playing professionally after WWII to entertain troops
They paid him in food and cigarettes since money didn’t really have value right after the war
He moved to Paris a few years later and became artistic director of a club, through which he met representatives from the University of Wisconsin who helped him set up a US tour for 1958
He toured across the country then went to NYC, where he played at coffeehouses and met his future wife
Schildt spent the rest of his life in the US
He recorded one album for Folkways in 1960, which is where this song is from
From his 1960 album Songs of Love, Play, and Protest
It’s in Afrikaans
Cool John Ferguson - No Hidin’ Place
He’s a blues musician from South Carolina who’s been playing since the 1970s
Taj Mahal ranks him among the five greatest guitarists in the world
He’s also the Director of Creative Development for the Music Maker Relief Foundation, and this song comes from their 2014 album We Are the Music Makers!
This is a traditional African American gospel song
Stanley G Triggs - The Oda G
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
He wrote this song about the oldest tugboat that was still working
She was built in 1899, and when he worked on her, she was called the Oda G
El Grupo Jatari - Ananay
They were a pioneering Ecuadorian folk group that was formed in the early 1970s by brothers Carlos and Patricio Mantilla
Their name means “rise up” in the indigenous Quechua language
That one is off their 1981 album El Grupo Jatari: Folk Music of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela
I believe it’s by the Ecuadorian composer Francisco Paredes Herrera
Tony Schwartz - When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again
Off a 2007 album of songs from the American Civil War Era played on the calliope
This one was written in 1863 by Irish-American bandleader Patrick Gilmore
The melody was published earlier that year as the music to the drinking song “Johnny Fill Up the Bowl”
It’s since been used for the popular children’s song Ants Go Marching
We’ll hear another version of it after this
Pete Seeger, Bill McAdoo - When Johnny Comes Marching Home
Seeger was a folk singer and an activist who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and peace through his music
McAdoo a folksinger from Detroit who was 23 when he recorded that song
Off the Folkways Records album Songs of the Civil War from 1960, which is based on the book of the same name by Irwin Silber
Mike Seeger - Breaking Up Ice in the Allegheny
Mike was a folklorist and musician and a member of the well-known musical Seeger family, who co-founded the New Lost City Ramblers in the 1950s
From his 2003 album True Vine
He got this tune from a home recording of Neal Collins from Boyd County, Kentucky, who made it up
Ferron - Our Purpose Here
She’s a Canadian musician and poet from BC
That one’s off her 1992 live album Not a Still Life, recorded at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco
Sam Amidon - Johanna the Row-Di
Contemporary folk artist from Vermont, parents are also folk musicians who I’ve played on the show
Off his 2010 album I See the Sign
It’s most likely a rowing song from the Georgia Sea Islands in the southern US
David Francey - A Thousand Miles
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who worked as a railyard worker and carpenter for 20 years before pursuing folk music at the age of 45
From his 2001 album Far End of Summer
Please Mr. Kennedy
Yesterday marked the 53rd anniversary of the very first moon landing in 1969, so we thought we’d play a song about that event
It happens to come from the 2013 movie Inside Llewyn Davis, which is very loosely based on the life of the folksinger Dave Van Ronk
In the scene this song is from, Llewyn has run out of money and is accompanying his colleague on a rather hokey song he wrote about the space race
Perhaps the funniest thing about this song is the general concept—a protest song narrated by someone who is being sent to space against his will
Mountain Ramblers - Shady Grove
They were a group from Galax, Virginia who won the World’s Championship for both band and fiddle at the Old Time Fiddlers’ Convention in Union Grove, NC
Traditional Appalachian folk song
There are many variations of this song, with at least 300 stanzas recorded by the early 21st century
Ellen Froese - Cannonball Blues
Contemporary artist who grew up on a dairy farm in Saskatchewan
This is from her self-titled album from 2017 and is a song that was popularized, if not written by, the Carter Family
Follows the “Buffalo to Washington” model also seen in songs like White House Blues by Charlie Poole
Redwing - The Allen-Bradley Clock
This song was released in 1975 for the “What Now People” series that advocated song as political action and social commentary
They were a Milwaukee, Wisconsin group that advocated for social causes through their music
The group included an engine-lathe operator who was the mother of five children, a printer, and a former professional musician turned turret-lathe operator
This song is about the world’s biggest four-faced clock, which was built in 1962 on the tower of the Allen-Bradley factory in Milwaukee
The band relates it to the workers’ struggle, and states that it symbolises a time that is coming… the workers’ time
Bob Zaidman - 1919 Influenza Blues
Zaidman a New York musician who was a staff member at the New School Guitar Study Center
From the 6th issue of Fast Folk Musical Magazine, a cooperative that was dedicated to reinvigorating the New York folk scene, and released over 100 albums between 1982 and 1997
Traditional blues song
Keith Clark - The Cherry Mine Disaster
Clark was an English instructor from LaSalle County, Illinois
From his 1957 album of modern ballads that tell the story of Ottawa, Illinois
That one’s about the 1909 Cherry Mine coal mine fire that killed 259 men and boys
It was the third most deadly disaster in American coal mining history
David Nzomo - Katumbu
He’s a musician from Kenya who recorded six albums of traditional Kenyan songs for Folkways records while he was studying at Columbia University in the 1960s and 70s
His early musical gigs were at local events like dances and wedding parties
This one’s off his 1975 album Children’s Songs from Kenya
The story the song tells varies according to the circumstances in which the song is sung and the purpose for singing it
In this version, the storyteller narrates the sad tale of a young couple’s separation
Marieda Perkins - I Love My Rooster
From an album of recordings from the American Folk Song Festival, made in the 1950s and released in 1960
This is a Southern play song in which each verse builds on the previous ones
Wade Hemsworth - The Blackfly Song
A respected Canadian folksinger from Brantford, Ontario
Only wrote about 20 songs during his career, though many of them, including this one, are so ingrained in Canadian culture that people consider them traditional Canadian folk songs at this point
Wade Hemsworth’s best-known song, written in 1949 and made popular through the National Film Board short
Rev EM Martin - I’m Coming Home on the Morning Train
Was recorded by the Library of Congress in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1942
This seems to be a traditional African American spiritual, likely composed by an enslaved person and passed on through the oral tradition
We’ll hear 2 other versions after this
Son House - I Want to Go Home on the Morning Train
Mississippi delta blues artist who influenced Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters
He and his band were recorded for the Library of Congress by Alan Lomax in 1941 and 1942, and in 1943 he left Mississippi for New York and gave up music
In 1964, though, a group of record collectors rediscovered him and his music, and persuaded him to relearn his music
He reestablished his music career, playing in coffeehouses, at folk festivals, and on tours
He also recorded several albums
Recorded June 11, 1970 for a radio station in London, England
Eric Bibb - Mornin’ Train
He’s an American musician who grew up around well-known musicians like Peter Seeger, Paul Robeson, and Bob Dylan, because his father, Leon Bibb, was a musical theatre singer who was part of the 1960s New York folk scene
From his 2017 album Migration Blues
Uncle Sinner - Wayfaring Stranger / Wabash Blues
From Winnipeg
Off his 2015 album Let the Devil In
Wayfaring Stranger is an American folk and gospel song likely from the early 19th century
May have originated from Scottish border song called “The Dowie Dens of Yarrow”
Wabash Blues is a traditional American tune
Charlie Sangster - Weeping Willow Blues
Born into a musical family in Brownsville, Tennessee in 1917
Learned to play mandolin and guitar at the age of 12
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
It shares lyrics with a number of other blues songs, including Stealin’ by the Memphis Jug Band and I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down by Mississippi John Hurt
Pharis & Jason Romero - Train on the Island
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
They learned especially from Tom Sauber and Mark Graham, and also from Matokie Slaughter, Tommy Jarrell, Bruce Molsky, and J.P. Nestor
Traditional song from the Appalachian region of the US
Old Man Luedecke - Just Like a River
From Chester, NS
Off his album Proof of Love from 2008
Harriet McClention - Go to Sleep
Recorded by John and Ruby Lomax in Sumterville, Alabama in 1940
The song likely comes from enslaved people in the southern states, and was passed down through the oral tradition through the years
Alan Mills - Peggy Gordon
Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec
Known for popularizing Canadian folk music, and for writing I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
Made a member of the Order of Canada in 1974 for his contributions to Canadian folklore
A Canadian folk song first collected mainly in Nova Scotia in the 1950s and 60s
Kaia Kater - Nine Pin
Grenadian-Canadian artist based in Toronto
From her 2016 album of the same name
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Hills of Mexico
From Toronto
Also known as On the Trail of the Buffalo and Buffalo Skinners
Sheesham and Lotus - Shuffle About
An old-time string band from Wolfe Island, ON
