Barking Dog: July 3, 2025
Reverend Gary Davis - I Belong to the Band
He was from South Carolina but moved to Durham, North Carolina in the 20s and was ordained a Baptist minister in 1933, after which he began to play gospel music instead of the secular music he was previously known for
He moved to New York in the 40s, and he was later active in the 1960s folk revival; he played at Newport Folk Festival and was an important figure in the Greenwich Village scene in New York, teaching and performing with popular artists including Dave Van Ronk
This is a brand new discovery from the archives of folksinger and folklorist Ellen Stekert, released by Swingin’ Pig, also known as Ross Wylde, who’s been helping her digitize and release her archival recordings
It’s most likely the earliest home recording of Davis, made in 1951 by John Cohen, later of the New Lost City Ramblers, who was a high school friend of Stekert’s
Stekert was present at the recording, which was done in Davis’s apartment in the Bronx, and she writes:
“Gary played, and played. Even though he sang mostly church songs, it made little difference to us — his playing, the “music,” was right out of the traditions of street singers and blues players. He had been working all day, but he loved playing, and he was amazing. How in the world, I wondered, could one person do all that on a single guitar? How could he get that running bass and also the melodies (in harmony, to boot) on the upper strings? To me, he was a phenomenon. His music offered glimpses of other places I realized I had to visit and understand. A few weeks later, John gave me this tape you hear now. He knew I wanted to listen to that day again. I never imagined that the next time I would see Reverend Gary Davis in person would be in 1962 at the Swarthmore Folk Festival, when he and I would share a two-part concert.”
Seth Hanson - What a Friend We Have in Congress
He’s a songwriter from Minnesota now based in Boston who makes music for adults and children alike, often inspired by traditional folk music
He adapted this song from Ernie Marrs and Pete Seeger’s earlier song of the same name, which is a parody of Charles Converse and Joseph Scriven’s hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”
The McMillan's Camp Boys - If We Never Meet Again
They’re a band originally from British Columbia, now based in Nova Scotia
This is from their brand new EP The McMillan’s Camp Boys Sing Their Gospel Favourites: Live at Steeple Green, which they recorded in February in Musquodoboit Harbour in Nova Scotia
The song was written by American composer Albert E Brumley
Dave Van Ronk - He Was a Friend of Mine
Traditional folk song that laments the death of a friend
Alan Lomax, ethnomusicologist and folklorist for the Library of Congress, was the first to collect the song in 1939 and described it as a "blues" that was "a dirge for a dead comrade."
This is a live recording from the Phils Ochs Memorial Concert, held in May of 1976 at Madison Square Garden in New York City
Van Ronk dedicates the song to Ochs and Victor Jara, a Chilean folk singer who was assassinated in 1973 during the military coup
Van Ronk learned it from Bob Dylan, who got it from Rolf Cahn, the first professional musician to pick up the song from the Library of Congress collection
Victor Jara, Inti-Illimani - Vientos del Pueblo
Jara was a Chilean musician, poet, teacher, theatre director, and activist who was tortured and killed in 1973 during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet
His work is widely remembered and celebrated throughout the world for its focus on peace, love, and social justice
Inti-Illimani were a folk ensemble from Chile that formed in 1967 and were part of the nueva canción movement
The title of this song translates to “Winds of the People”
Kev Carmody, Paul Kelly, Kelton Pell - This Land Is Mine
Carmody is an Aboriginal Australian musician who’s been playing professionally since the 1980s
Kelly is an Australian musician who plays in several different genres, including rock, folk, and reggae
Pell is an Aboriginal Australian actor
This is from the 2020 album Cannot Buy My Soul: The Songs of Kev Carmody
The song is by Carmody and Kelly, from the 2001 film One Night the Moon, in which Kelly and Pell star
Bonnie Dobson - Love Henry
She’s a Canadian folksinger who joined the folk revival scene in Toronto in the 1960s, and later moved to the UK, where she’s been living since
This is from a performance she gave at Gerde’s Folk City in New York in 1962
It’s a version of the American ballad “Henry Lee,” which evolved from a tragic British ballad called “Young Hunting”
Cher - Masters of War
This is off her 1968 album Backstage
This song is by Bob Dylan, who released it on his 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
Avril Lavigne - Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
The B-side to her 2004 song “Nobody’s Home”
Bob Dylan wrote the song for the soundtrack to the 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, which he also acted in
Guitar Slim - I’m Feelin’ Lonesome
His real name was James Stephens, and he was a blues musician from North Carolina
This is from the 8th album in a series called Living Country Blues USA, which comprise field recordings made of American blues artists in 1980 by two German blues enthusiasts named Axel Kustner and Siegfried Christmann
Tinariwen - Tenere Maloulat
They’re a Grammy-winning group of Tuareg musicians from Mali who formed in 1979 and are considered one of the pioneering forces behind desert blues
This is from their recent album of demos and unreleased archival material, called Idrache: Traces of the Past
The title of the song translates to “The White Desert”
Charlie Panigoniak - Maqainniangimulli
He was an Inuk songwriter and musician from Nunavut who began recording in the 1970s
This is from the deluxe edition of his 1973 album Inuktitut Songs, released by Aakuluk Music in 2023
One of the label’s founders went to Rankin Inlet to meet with his wife Lorna prior to re-releasing the album, and she brought out an iPod that had a bunch of unreleased songs by Charlie
They succeeded in getting the music off the iPod and onto a laptop, and were then able to include them on the new edition of the album
This is one of those songs
Ed Young, Lonnie Young Sr., GD Young - Church, I Know We Got Another Building
They were brothers from Mississippi—Ed played the fife, Lonnie played bass drum, and G.D. Young played snares
They later called themselves the Southern Fife and Drum Corps, and they appeared at the Newport Folk Festival and a Friends of Old-Time Music concert in the 1960s
This was recorded by the folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax in September of 1959 at the home of Ed Young in Como, Mississippi
Pete Seeger - The Jack Ash Society
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 1961 album Gazette, Vol. 2, which is a collection of topical songs
The liner notes for the album explain:
“Robert Welch, founder and chief factotum (read "Fuehrer") of the John Birch Society, believes that American life is dominated by Communists. He is supposed to have called former President Eisenhower a card-carrying Communist, although there seems to be some dispute about whether he actually said "card-carrying." He has also accused Allen Dulles, former head of CIA and Milton Eisenhower of being members of the Communist Underground. A radio commentator suggested recently that "Jack Ash" might be a more suitable title for the John Birch Society.”
The song was written by Mary Brooks
Holly Near - She
She’s a musician, actor, and activist from California who began performing when she was eight years old
This is off her 1984 album Watch Out!
It’s her own song
Maxwell Street Jimmy Davis - Cryin’ Won’t Make Me Stay
He was an electric blues musician originally from Mississippi who learned to play the guitar from John Lee Hooker, and later moved to Chicago, where he got his name from regularly performing in the marketplace on Maxwell Street
He owned a restaurant there as well, which he performed outside of in the summer
This is a recording he made for a Testament Records compilation album of Chicago blues in 1964
Utah Phillips - I Will Not Obey
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 2000 album Making Speech Free
In the introduction to the song, Phillips speaks about Ammon Hennacy of Salt Lake City, an anarchist Christian pacifist who ran the Joe Hill Friendship House, which provided a warm place with a blanket and a meal for floaters and drifters who passed through town
Margaret Christl, Ian Robb, Grit Laskin - By the Hush
Laskin is an Ontario luthier and musician whose guitars have been exhibited in several art museums
Robb and Christl British-born artists who immigrated to Canada as young adults and recorded a collection of folk songs found in the eastern provinces of Canada in 1976 called The Barley Grain for Me, which is where this song comes from
This is an unusual ballad about the American Civil War, though versions of it were never found in the United States
It’s a combination of two themes common in traditional Irish songs: emigration, and becoming involved in other countries' wars
They got the song from Edith Fowke’s recording of OJ Abbott of Hull, Quebec
Bob Dylan - If I Was a King
This is an improvisation recorded at a hotel in Glasgow, Scotland in 1966
Pharis & Jason Romero - Engine 143
From Horsefly BC
There are a number of American train wreck songs from the early days of the steam locomotive
This one is based on the true story of the wreck of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway’s Fast Flying Virginian on October 23, 1890
Their version is off their 2011 album A Passing Glimpse
The New Lost City Ramblers - Private John Q
They were a group formed by John Cohen, Mike Seeger, Tom Paley in 1958
This comes from their 1968 album Modern Times, which is a collection of songs about the industrialization of rural areas in the southern states in the 20s and 30s
The song is by American country musician Roger Miller
Cassie and Maggie - The Old Miner
They’re a sister folk duo from Nova Scotia
This is from their recent album, Gold and Coal, and it’s a poem they found in the Oxford book of traditional verse and put to music
Stan Rogers - Last Watch
This was recorded live at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium in Halifax in 1982
The song was later posthumously released on the album From Fresh Water, a concept album that focuses on the Great Lakes
Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer - Room for the Poor
A married duo that has been performing together for over 35 years
Cathy Fink is from Maryland, but began her career in the early 70s, busking and playing folk music in Canadian coffeehouses
She met Marcy Marxer, originally from Michigan, in Toronto in 1980, and they started writing songs together in 1983
Since then, they have released about 35 albums and received 14 Grammy nominations and 2 Grammy awards
This is off a 2008 album in tribute to Utah Phillips, called Singing Through the Hard Times
Shirley Davidson - Half Asleep in My Saddle
Off a 1960 album of songs and ballads from northern Saskatchewan and northern Manitoba
Davidson was a musician from Saskatchewan who joined her parents’ family orchestra when she was 10, along with her brother Marvin
This song was written in 1954, right before the family moved to the Pas to make a better living after their region was hit by floods for several years
Chris Bouchillon - Born in Hard Luck
American country and blues artist born in 1893 in South Carolina
He developed a style of talk-singing because of his purportedly awful singing voice
His recording director liked his talking voice, and suggested he re-record some of his songs in this style
He released the album Talking Blues in 1927 and he and the style became a hit
He make this recording for Columbia in 1927
Ken Whiteley - Shady Grove
Ken Whiteley is a musician from Toronto who’s been playing folk music since the early 1970s
This is from his 2022 album Long Time Travelling
It’s a traditional Appalachian song, though Whiteley wrote some new lyrics
Othar Turner - Bumble Bee
One of the last well-known fife players in the American fife and drum blues tradition
This is a recording that the folklorist George Mitchell made in Como, Mississippi in August of 1967
William Stafford - The Star in the Hills
