Barking Dog: August 11, 2022
Kings of Harmony Quartette - Trees Are Bending
Gospel quartet that first recorded in 1943 for King Solomon Records
That’s the year that this one is from
It seems to be a version of Sinnerman, a traditional African American spiritual that’s related to the older spiritual No Hiding Place Down Here
They call it Trees Are Bending
Bessie Jones & the Georgia Sea Island Singers - Blow Gabriel
From an album of Alan Lomax recordings from the southern states from between 1959 and 1960
Bessie Jones known for spreading folk music to a wider audience in the 20th century
She was one of the most popular performers of folk music in the 60s and 70s, often appearing with the Georgia Sea Island Singers, a folk music ensemble that’s been around since the early 1900s
That one was recorded October 12, 1959 in Saint Simons, Georgia
Urges the Gabriel to blow his trumpet on the Day of Judgement;
It’s the antecedent of later spirituals on the same theme
We heard a related song before it, Trees Are Bending by the Kings of Harmony Quartette
Otis Taylor, Guy Davis - Hey Liza Jane
Taylor is a blues musician from Colorado who left the music industry in the late 70s to become an antique dealer
He started playing professionally again in the mid 90s and has now released 15 albums
Davis is a musician from New York City who grew up hearing about life in the rural south from his parents and his grandparents
He first learned about the blues at a summer camp in Vermont that was run by Pete Seeger’s brother John Seeger
He also learned to play the banjo there
Popular American song that has become a standard piece performed by brass bands and folk, bluegrass, and jazz groups
Kenichi Nagira - “Like Someone”
He’s a Japanese folksinger, actor, storyteller, and essayist, and is also an expert on traditional Japanese pubs
He was inspired by slightly earlier Japanese folk artists like Tomoya Takaishi and Wataru Takada, both of whom we’ve played before on the show
Since the late 1990s, much of his music has been influenced by bluegrass and country music
Off his 1972 album Man'nendoko
Uses the same tune as I Ain’t Got No Home in This World Anymore by Woody Guthrie, a version of which we’ll hear after this
Cisco Houston - I Ain’t Got No Home in This World Anymore
Folksinger and singer of cowboy songs born in Delaware and raised in California
This song is by Woody Guthrie
He based it on the old gospel song “Can’t Feel at Home”
It reflects more specifically the plight of those made homeless by the Dust Bowl that afflicted prairie states and provinces in the 1930s
Guthrie included it on his first album, Dust Bowl Ballads, from 1940
Nora Brown - Wild Goose Chase
She’s a 17 year-old 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
It’s a tune she got from Virgil Anderson of Kentucky, who we’ll hear later in the show
Si Kahn and 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
Pete Seeger - Sixty Percent
Seeger was a folk singer and an activist from New York who advocated for countless social causes through his music for 75 years
Off his 1960 album American History in Ballad and Song, Vol.1
It’s protest against the American farm parity program of the late 1940s, which set standards to protect against farm product prices that were either too high or too low
Bud Grant - What’s the Matter with the Mill
He was a blues musician from Thomaston, Georgia who field researcher and festival curator George Mitchell recorded in 1969
That’s a version of the Memphis Minnie song of the same name from 1930
Colter Wall - Wild Bill Hickok
From Swift Current, SK
This song is from his 2018 album Songs of the Plains
Snooks Eaglin - Rock Island Line
Eaglin an American musician who played a wide range of styles and claimed to know about 2500 songs
An American folk song possibly about the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad
Earliest known version written in 1929 by Clarence Wilson who was a member of a singing group formed by employees of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad
Benton Flippen - This World Can’t Stand Long
He was an old-time fiddler from North Carolina who performed with the Camp Creek Boys and the Smokey Valley Boys
During his career he won first place countless times at fiddle and band contests in his region, and he played shows at the Newport Folk Festival, the 1982 World’s Fair, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution
Written by Jim Anglin and first recorded in 1947 by King’s Sacred Quartette
Willie Dunn - Riel
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
This is his ballad about Louis Riel, the founder of Manitoba
Algia Mae Hinton - Out of Jail
She was a Piedmont blues musician from North Carolina who learned to play the guitar from her mother, an expert in the Piedmont fingerpicking style who often played at local parties and gatherings
She met the folklorist Glenn Hinson in 1978, who arranged for her to perform at the North Carolina Folklife Festival
She gave several concerts outside of North Carolina after that, even travelling to Europe to perform in 1998
This seems to be an African American traditional song from the late 19th century
Uncle Sinner - Old Reuben
From Winnipeg
Off his 2015 album Let the Devil In
That’s a traditional banjo tune which he specifically got from Banjo Bill Cornet
It’s related to the song we heard before that,
Harry Dean Stanton - Canción Mixteca
He was a musician from Kentucky, though he’s probably better known for his acting career, which included credits in films like Cool Hand Luke, Alien, Pretty in Pink, and Paris, Texas among many others
This is from the 2014 album Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction
Mexican folk song about homesickness written by Jose Lopez Alavez between 1912 and 1915
Stanton likely learned the song when he starred in Paris, Texas, as it appears in the film
Stanley G Triggs - The Lookout in the Sky
Born in Nelson, BC in 1928
Worked for the BC Forest Service and attended the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara
Studied folk songs and oral history and captured photos of those who he learned songs from
Later returned to school to pursue a degree in both Fine Arts and Anthropology
He wrote the tune for this song, the lyrics of which are a poem by the trapper Harold Smith
He wrote it about Bob Wallace, who was the lookout man in Duncan for the BC Forest Service for nine seasons, a position that Triggs also held for two seasons
Joan Baez - Lonesome Valley
She’s one of the best known musicians to come out of the 1960s folk revival
She performed for over 60 years before retiring in 2019, and has released over 30 albums
Mary Travers provides harmonies on that one
An old American traditional gospel folk song, dating back to its first known recording in 1927 by old-time musician David Miller
Recorded at the Newport Folk Festival in the mid 60s
Billy Connolly - Glasgow Central
Though he may be better known as a comedian and actor, he started out as a folksinger with a comedic persona in the 1960s
This one was recorded live in 1974
Gene Bluestein - Ah, Si Moi Moine Voulait Danser
He was a musician, folklorist, activist, and English professor from Minnesota
This is off his 1958 album Songs of the North Star State
This is one of many French Canadian songs that were sung in Minnesota during the period when voyageurs were travelling in the state
It was a dance tune played at trading posts, and the words describe a young woman’s attempt to get a monk to join the dance
Alan Mills and the Four Shipmates - Drunken Sailor
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
From a 1957 album of sea shanties
This song was apparently sung as a “run-away” shanty, used when bringing the sails around to catch the wind
It’s from at least the early 19th century, though likely earlier
David Laing - No Other Way
He was a geologist, singer-songwriter, and educator from New Hampshire who recorded 2 albums for Folkways records in the 1970s
His father was a novelist and his mother was the poet Dilys Laing, and he inherited his love for nature and humanity from both of them
Laing wrote songs about places that were special to him, which resulted in the album this song comes from, called Magic Mountain
He wrote this song specifically for his environmental science fiction adventure novel called Aquila
Pharis & Jason Romero - S.S. Radiant
From Horsefly, BC
Off their 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
It’s a banjo-centric album, created to highlight the sound of the banjos that Jason makes
They used the gourd banjo they call Gourdo on that one, which he built in 2019
They wrote the tune for their son Sy
Kenneth Peacock - Who is at My Window Weeping?
He was an ethnomusicologist from Toronto who was on the staff for what is now the Canadian Museum of Civilization
His projects for the museum covered practically every part of Canada, and he’s remembered for the impact his research had on the folk music revival in Canada in the mid 20th century
He collected that song while working on Newfoundland folklore, and it’s a short ballad with English roots
Tom Handle - Lullaby
From a 1979 album of Indigenous music from North America
This is a Cherokee lullaby collected in Oklahoma around 1950
The liner notes state that certain Cherokee “baby songs” are said to have been composed by the mother bear to lull her cubs to sleep
Hunters would overhear them and bring them home for their children
Andrea Verga - Farewell to Whalley Range
He’s an Italian banjo player, teacher, and producer
This tune is by the English folk musician Michael McGoldrick
Verga released his version in 2020
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Stone Walls and Steel Bars
From Toronto
This recording is from their 2021 live album, Lively Times, recorded in Vancouver
The song was originally recorded by The Stanley Brothers and written by Ray Pennington and Roy Marcus
They changed the chords from the Stanleys’ version to make it even more dark sounding
The Starlight Gospel Singers - Come Over Here, the Table is Spread
They were a rural Alabama gospel group
Field recording made by Frederic Ramsey, Jr in 1954
Traditional African American spiritual
The Wailin’ Jennys - Long Time Traveller
Folk group formed in Winnipeg in 2002
From their 2006 album Firecracker
This song was apparently one of Abraham Lincoln’s favourites
Virgil Anderson - You Been Gone So Long
He was a banjo player from Wayne County, Kentucky who was born in 1902 and played banjo from the age of 10, entertaining logging camp men with his skills
That one’s from his 1980 album On the Tennessee Line
Jean Ritchie, Doc Watson - Where Are You Going?
Jean Ritchie 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
Watson a Grammy award-winning musician from North Carolina known for his fingerstyle and flatpicking skill
Had a 60 year career, and often played with other skilled musicians like Ritchie, Clarence Ashley, and his son, Merle Watson
Related to Over the River Charlie and Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss
Originally a Scottish song, though also popular in Ireland and the US, especially Appalachian region
From at least the early 1700s
Frank Proffitt - Dan Doo
Appalachian musician who inspired musicians during the 60s folk revival to play the traditional 5-string banjo
Was known as a skilled carpenter and luthier who made and played his own banjos and dulcimers
From the 1962 album Frank Proffitt Sings Folk Songs
This is an old ballad also known as “The Wife Wrapt in Wether Skin”
Versions vary widely in everything except the plot, and they’ve been found across the British Isles and the United States
The Segura Brothers - A Mosquito Ate Up My Sweetheart
In 1928, Columbia Records put out a call for Cajun musicians to come to New Orleans for a recording session
The Segura Brothers accepted the invitation, which led to notoriety, at least among the folklorists who heard their recordings
This is a children’s tune that borrows from Acadian musical traditions
Furry Lewis - Casey Jones
American country blues artist from Memphis, Tennessee
Traditional American song about how Casey Jones and his fireman Sim Webb raced their locomotive to make up for lost time on April 30, 1900, not knowing that there was another train ahead of them on the line
Jones’s friend, Wallace Saunders, started singing the song soon after Jones’s death, to the tune of a popular song known as Jimmie Jones
Lewis recorded it in 1968 in Memphis, TN
We’ll hear 2 other versions after this
Mississippi John Hurt - Casey Jones
American country blues singer and guitarist from Avalon, Mississippi
He made a couple of recordings for OkEh Records in the late 1920s but they were commercial failures, and when OkEh Records closed shop during the Great Depression, Hurt returned to his work as a sharecropper, continuing to play music at local events
His OkEh recordings were included on the incredibly influential 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, and in 1963 a copy of Avalon Blues was discovered, which led the musicologist Dick Spottswood to find Hurt in Avalon
Hurt performed at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, which brought further attention to his music, and he toured extensively throughout the US and recorded 3 albums
Buster Keaton - Casey Jones
Silent film star Buster Keaton with his version of Casey Jones, which he performs in the 1965 documentary Buster Keaton Rides Again
Old Man Luedecke - The Mermaid
From Chester, NS
This is from his 2019 album Easy Money, and it’s a traditional sea ballad from around the 18th century that likely originated in England but is well-known across North America
Ian & Sylvia - When First Unto This Country
Married duo who recorded together from 1959 until their divorce in 1975
Every version of this song seems to come from a family called the Gants, whom the Lomaxes, a family of folklorists who collected folk music from across the United States, recorded in 1934
It was likely relatively new when they made the recording, though some have noted that it has a frontierish feel
This is from the 2019 album The Lost Tapes, a collection of professional live recordings from the early 70s that Sylvia found in her attic early in 2019 while gathering memorabilia for the National Music Centre in Calgary
Bob Connelly - The Editor’s to Blame
From his 1975 Folkways Records album Yankee Go Home: Songs of Protest Against American Imperialism
It was commissioned by Pete Seeger, and he recorded it in one day on a borrowed guitar
The day he recorded it happened to be the same day that Seeger was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee
The next day, Moses Asch, head of Folkways Records, called him up and said, “Mr. Connelly, Mo here. Have you heard the news or read the newspaper? I do not think the time is right to release an album about American imperialism.” Connelly replied, “Darn right,” but the album ended up being released after all
Kaia Kater - Fine Times at Our House
Toronto
This is from her 2016 album Nine Pin
