Barking Dog: July 31, 2025
Fibre arts and folk music often go hand-in-hand—a few of the songs we’ll hear today are field recordings of people singing while processing fibres, while many of the songs we’ll hear are about the labour issues that arose out of poor working conditions in textile mills after the Industrial Revolution. Textiles are all around us, and the basic technologies we use for textile production have existed for centuries if not millennia, which means there are many songs that reflect the central role fibres play in our daily lives as producers and consumers. We’ll begin today with some songs about the early stages of textile production, cotton picking and spinning, and move on to the labour songs, many of which revolve around mills in the southern States and in England. After that, we’ll hear some more general weaving songs, and end the show with some of the last steps of the process: fulling, dyeing, and sewing.
Ella Jenkins - Pick a Bale of Cotton
She was an American folk singer and actress dubbed the “First Lady of the Children’s Folk Song”
This is from her 2011 album A Life of Song, recorded with children at two elementary schools in Chicago
This is an African American work song that first appeared in print in 1936
It was popularized by Lead Belly and Sonny Terry
Mike Seeger - Spinning Room Blues
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
Seeger explains in the liner notes that many early southern country musicians worked in the textile industry, including Henry Whitter and Earl Scruggs, who leveraged their musical talent to leave their looms behind
He also mentions the brothers Dorsey and Howard Dixon, who worked in a mill in North Carolina for their whole lives, and cut two sides for Victor Records in 1936, called “The Weave Room Blues,” which we’ll hear later on, and this one
“Weave Room Blues” caught on with other musicians, but “Spinning Room Blues” did not, and it remained an obscure song
Art Thieme - The Spinning Mills of Home
He was a folk musician, photographer, and radio host from Chicago who specialised in music and stories from the upper midwest United States, but he also had an interest in cowboy songs
This is from his 1986 album On the Wilderness Road
It’s a song by Si Kahn about the difficulties of leaving one’s home for more job opportunities
Japanese singer with background vocalists - Itokuri-uta
This is from the 1952 album Folk Music of Japan, released by Folkways Records
This is a spinning song, sung by women while spinning yarn—the loud sound in the background is the spinning wheel
The liner notes state that “home handicrafts such as spinning have become uncommon and songs such as this one which are associated with them have become rare”
The song refers to the different steps involved in creating cloth, along with some romantic stanzas
Si Kahn, Charlotte Brody - Boxes of Bobbins / Time to Organize
Kahn is a community organiser and musician from Pennsylvania who moved to the south as an activist during the Civil Rights Movement
Brody was his wife, a registered nurse and, along with Kahn, a full-time organiser for the Carolina Brown Lung Association
These song was recorded in 1973 for the What Now People series that advocated song as political movement
Brody wrote them as organising tools for the campaign to unionise JP Stevens, one of the largest textile corporations in the US at the time, which had done everything in its power to avoid the creation of a union
Unions were particularly important in the textile industry because of the health issues that could be caused by unsafe labour practices—particularly “brown lung,” a respiratory condition caused by the clouds of cotton dust that blew around the mills
Hedy West - Babies in the Mill
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”
This is from her 1976 album Love, Hell and Biscuits, and the song is by Dorsey Dixon
Utah Phillips - Bread and Roses
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
Recorded live in British Columbia in February of 1981
As Phillips notes, the slogan “Bread and Roses” is closely associated with the 1912 textile strike in Lawrence Massachusetts, which was led largely by women, many of them immigrants
The slogan first originated in a speech given by Helen Todd, an American suffragette, and the writer James Oppenheim then adapted the phrase into a poem, which we’ll hear Phillips perform as a song, with music by Mimi Fariña, who later founded Bread and Roses Presents, an organisation that presents free music and entertainment to those in institutional environments
Pete Seeger - Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues
Seeger was a folk singer and activist who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and peace through his music
He learned the song from a singer at an industrial school for women in North Carolina
Jake Xerxes Fussell - Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues
He’s a North Carolina artist who was raised in an artistic family and apprenticed with the blues musician Precious Bryant from a young age
From his 2019 album Out of Sight
He heard this song from his friend, folklorist and artist Art Rosenbaum, who learned it from Pete Seeger in the 1940s
Joe Glazer - Weave Room Blues
Glazer was a folk musician and labour activist from New York who recorded over 30 albums during his career
Off his 1975 album Textile Voices: Songs and Stories of the Mills
It’s another song by the Dixon Brothers
Ian Robb, Hang the Piper - The Handloom Weaver’s Lament
He’s a musician originally from the UK, though he’s lived in Canada since 1970 and has been a mainstay of the Canadian folk scene for over 50 years
This is off a 1979 album he recorded with Hang the Piper, made up of luthier and musician Grit Laskin, guitarist Terry Rudden, fiddle player Seamus McGuire, and Irish piper Jon Goodman
The song originated with the industrialization of the textile industry in Lancashire, England, and it refers specifically to a period during which the supply of woven goods outweighed the demand, partly because of mechanization, which caused jobs and wages to decline
The liner notes state:
“The ‘gentlemen and tradesmen’ of the song followed the official propaganda line in blaming the Napoleonic wars and Bonaparte himself for much of the starvation and hardship which resulted. Apparently, however, the working men and women of the factories and mills were not so easily taken in, and many of them, seeing little decline in the comforts of the ruling and merchant classes, held a sneaking respect and admiration for ‘Boney,’ whom they regarded as a champion of the poor.”
Dixon Brothers - Weaver’s Life
They were country and old-time musicians Dorsey and Howard Dixon from South Carolina, who left school before they were teenagers to begin working in textile mills in the Carolinas, where they spent much of their working lives
They began performing together as a duo at local functions in the early 1930s, and Dorsey began writing songs, including this one
They recorded over 50 songs together between 1936 and 1938, and after Howard died in 1961, Dixon recorded a new album and performed at the Newport Folk Festival
They made this recording in 1937
Golden Ring - Weaver’s Reverie
This is off the 1992 album For All the Good People: A Golden Ring Reunion
Golden Ring was started in 1964 as “a gathering of friends for making music” and recorded by Folk-Legacy Records during the height of the folk revival
This one is led by Ed Trickett, with Cathy Barton, Dave Para, Caroline and Sandy Paton, and Harry Tuft providing the chorus
Ed learned the song from Bob Coltman of Massachusetts, who wrote the song in 1989 after finding an article by Harriet Farley that appeared in the Lowell Offering, a mill newsletter, in 1841
Maddy Prior, June Tabor - Four Loom Weavers
They’re also known as the Silly Sisters, and they’re an English folk duo that formed in the 1970s
This one is off their 1976 self-titled debut album
This is another song about the Lancashire cotton industry, and it refers to the Cotton Famine, during which the cotton trade was interrupted by the American Civil War, greatly decreasing the wages of the power loom weavers in Lancashire mills
English musician and researcher Brian Peters maintains that this version of the song was likely rewritten by Ewan MacColl, from an earlier broadside ballad sometimes known as “The Poor Cotton Weaver”
Wolfgang Roth - Die Leineweber haben (The Linen-Weavers)
This is off the 1963 album Early German Ballads Vol. 2: 1536-1800
The Folkways website notes: “After leaving Germany in the early 1930s, Roth did not return to his lute until the release of this collection, and it is here that he found comfort in the stories ‘of a German people who were believers in good and not evil’”
After arriving in the States, Roth became a renowned set designer and graphic artist
The song comes from around 1750
It employs gallows humour to talk about the dreadful conditions weavers worked under during that time
Nimrod Workman - Brown Lung Blues
American singer, coal miner, and union organiser who spent much of his life in West Virginia
Workman was a coal miner for 42 years until he had to retire because he contracted black lung
After his retirement, he advocated for miners with black lung and also became known as a folk singer
He performed all around the Appalachian region and at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and he also received a National Heritage Fellowship in 1986
He died in November, 1994 at the age of 99
This is an adaptation of Si Kahn’s song “Aragon Mill,” which Workman recorded at the Augusta Festival in West Virginia in July of 1978
Malvina Reynolds - Carolina Cotton Mill Song
She’s known particularly for writing the song “Little Boxes,” though she wrote and recorded a large catalogue of music during her career
This is from the 2000 compilation album Ear to the Ground
The liner notes state:
“Malvina had no use for "New Age" ways. People trying to usurp other people's spirituality without putting in the time and thought, trying to take on old ways by buying them in a store rather than doing the work, and the idea of improving one's image by wearing fine cotton or even denim without knowing who makes it or what goes into the making of it made her downright mad. This is a song about conditions in a cotton mill that Malvina visited when it was on strike, and the song grows out of her commitment to labor organizing and anger at the mistreatment of workers.”
Maria Dunn - Blue Lung
She’s a Juno-winning musician based in Alberta who’s been performing since the late 1990s
This is off her 2012 album Piece by Piece
She was inspired by the experience of Lillian Wasylynchuk, who died in 2009 after battling Pulmonary Fibrosis for 7 years, which she believed was caused by exposure to fibre dust while working at the GWG clothing factory in the 50s and 60s
Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger - The Wark of the Weavers
A well-known married duo
MacColl was a British folksinger and labour activist, and Seeger is an American folksinger who’s been living and performing in the UK for over 60 years
The song is originally from Kincardineshire, Scotland, and it’s from the time of the Industrial Revolution, when weaving transitioned from a craft to an industry
Wu Fei, Abigail Washburn - Weaving Medley: Busy Weaving / Julianne Johnson / Open Little Hand / Back Step Cindy
Washburn is a well-known contemporary banjo player from Illinois
Wu Fei is a composer and musician from Beijing who now lives in the US
They met in 2006 and started playing together in the trio The Wu Force in 2011
They released their first album together in 2021, which combines American and Chinese folk music
This is a medley of Appalachian and Chinese tunes
Victor Jara - Angelita Huenumán
He 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
This is from his 1970 album Canto Libre
It’s a tribute to self-taught Mapuche weaver Angelita Huenumán, who was known for her blankets and rugs
Réalta - The Longford Weaver
Réalta are a Belfast-based group that play traditional Irish music
This is from their 2016 album Clear Skies
The song is also known as “Nancy Whisky” and “The Calton Weaver,” and it was popular in England and Scotland, but possibly originated in Ireland
It first appeared in the early 1900s
Joni Mitchell - Nancy Whiskey
Mitchell recorded this at the Saskatoon radio station CFQC in 1963
Margaret Christl, Ian Robb, Grit Laskin - The Weaver
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
They got this song from Edith Fowke’s recording of OJ Abbott of Hull, Quebec
Vera Monaghan (Mrs. Jack Keating) - The Weaver
A field recording made by the folklorist Edith Fowke for her 1958 album Folk Songs of Ontario
Monaghan lived near Ormsby, fifty miles from Peterborough
She learned this song from her father, which is largely known as “The Nightingale” or “One Morning in May”, though in this version the man who charms the lady is a weaver instead of a soldier
This version is likely of Irish origin
Lead Belly - Billy the Weaver
Lead Belly was a folk and blues musician from Louisiana who was incarcerated in Texas twice in the early 20th century, and met the folksong collectors John and Alan Lomax while they were making field recordings of inmates
Once he was released, he became widely known for both his blues and folk recordings
This recording was made in Connecticut in 1935
Loman D Cansler - Will the Weaver
He was a musician, high school counsellor, and folksong collector from Missouri who learned over 1000 songs during his life
This is from his 1973 album Folksongs of the Midwest
He learned the song from Mrs. Gertrude McKee of Peoria County, Illinois in 1955
The song is a British ballad from at least 1790
Singers from Skir Dhu - La La Lò, La Luadhadh (With Water, With Milling)
Off the 1955 album Songs from Cape Breton Island
Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, has historically been populated by Scottish Gaelic-speaking communities
The performers on this album were members of the last generation of Scots in Canada to hear and speak Gaelic from birth
This song was recorded at a milling frolic in Skir Dhu, a community on the north coast of Cape Breton
It’s both for and about milling, also known as waulking or fulling, which is the process of felting woven woollen fabric by wetting and agitating it to create a denser, warmer cloth
The lyrics mean, “Tartan cloth with water, with milling / Prepare; pull the roll about; thicken / Cloth with water, with milling”
Joe Hickerson - Woad
He’s a folk singer and songleader from Illinois who was Librarian and Director of the Archive of Folk Song at the Library of Congress for 35 years
Hickerson says “For those unacquainted with the mysteries of ancient colouration, Woad refers to a brassicaceous plant and to the bluish-purple dye derived therefrom, which was used by ancient Britons at the time of Julius Caesar for ritualistic purposes”
The blue chemical extracted from woad’s leaves is the same as that found in indigo, though it is a much lower concentration, and indigo largely replaced woad following the discovery of the sea route to India in the late 15th century, which allowed mass import of the plant
Lori Holland - Can Ye Sew Cushions
She’s an American folk singer who was part of the urban folk revival of the 50s and 60s, and she recorded two albums of Scottish and Irish folk songs for Folkways Records
This is from her 1958 album Scottish Folksongs for Women
It’s a lullaby from at least the 17th century
Titus Seeteenak - Woman Sewing
This is from the 2001 compilation album Authentic Inuit Songs
The song was composed by his adoptive mother, who was his grandmother’s sister, and she wrote it while living in Qairnniq, Corbett Inlet, in Nunavut
The notes state that Inuit women used to compete at sewing
His adoptive mother once made a caribou outfit in one night, and the notes explain that the song is an expression of modesty, as it talks about her inability to sew even though she was an excellent seamstress
Fred Penner - Grandma’s Quilt
He’s a children’s musician and entertainer from Winnipeg who’s been performing professionally since the early 1970s
This is from his 2014 album Where In the World
Angus Allan Gillis - Athol Brose / Lady Muir MacKenzie / Jenny Dang the Weaver
This is a recording from Cape Breton from 1935
Serious Bizness - 100% Cotton Dust
