Barking Dog: August 14, 2025
We kicked the show off with some birthdays:
Willie Dunn - Honey On Fire
He was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
He would’ve been 84 today
This is off his 2004 album Son of the Sun
Steve Martin - John Henry
He turns 80 today!
He’s played the banjo since he was young, and has often incorporated his musical interests into his comedy routine
Since the 2000s, he’s turned more towards his music career, and he’s toured with a number of bluegrass artists, including Earl Scruggs
This is from his 1981 album The Steve Martin Brothers, which features his standup comedy on one side and his banjo playing on the other
It’s one of many tunes related to the folk hero John Henry, an African American railroad worker on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad who raced a steam drill in the late 1800s and won, but died shortly after
Maddy Prior - Honest Work
It’s her 78th birthday today
She’s an English singer best known as lead vocalist of Steeleye Span, and as half of the duo Silly Sisters
This is from her 1998 album Flesh and Blood, and it’s a song by Todd Rundgren
David Crosby - Drive out to the Desert
He would’ve been 84 today
He was an American musician best known as a member of the groups the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash, though he also recorded as a solo artist throughout his career
This is from his 2016 album Lighthouse
Ellen Stekert - On the Rim of the World
Stekert is a folklorist, musician, and scholar from New York (now based in Minnesota) who began her career in Greenwich Village in the 1950s
In the last year or so, she’s been working with the producer Ross Wylde on cleaned up archival recordings, and with writer Christopher Bahn on a website where they share music, writing, and photography from her archives
This is her latest release, from July
As she says, the song is by Malvina Reynolds, and Stekert recorded it at her home in 1980
Barbara Lynch - Worry No More
She’s an artist from Ontario and this is off her album where did you go, which came out in March
It uses some of the lyrics from the traditional gospel song “Ain’t No Grave”
The Silver Sardines - Muddy Water
They’re an alt-folk band from Montreal, and this is from their forthcoming EP Little Man, What Now?, which was written on a journey through western Europe on early 2024
They call this song “a tribute to the impurity of life”
The New Golden Ring - The Rolling Hills of the Border
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
As Sandy Paton, Golden Ring member and founder of Folk-Legacy Records explained, “the "Golden Ring" has never been an established group of specific individuals; it has always been more a concept, an approach to informal, non-competitive music-making by a gathering of friends, often solo performers in their own right, who simply enjoy singing and playing together"
The New Golden Ring were the second incarnation of the group, comprised of more than 25 musicians
This is off the 1971 album Five Days of Singing, Vol. 1
This one is led by Joe Hickerson, who also plays guitar, with George Armstrong as bagpipe chanter
The song is by Scottish singer Matt McGinn
Red Tail Ring - Yarrow
They’re a contemporary Michigan duo that have been performing together since 2009
That one’s off their 2016 album Fall Away Blues
It’s a traditional ballad from the Anglo-Scottish border that has many variants
Vic Chesnutt - Rank Stranger
He was a singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia who released 17 albums over the course of his career
This song was written by Albert E Brumley of Missouri in 1942
Chesnutt’s version is from the soundtrack to the 2003 film The Slaughter Rule
Gary Green - You’re Just as Guilty
Musician from Tennessee
From his 1977 album Gary Green, Vol. 1: These Six Strings Neutralize the Tools of Oppression
Bob Dylan - Let Me Die in My Footsteps
Dylan wrote this song in 1962 while experiencing the constant threat of nuclear attack during the height of the cold war between Russia and the United States
The government ran civil defence drills during this time, ordering citizens to go into subway tunnels or local bomb shelters when they heard the alarm
Many felt the possibility of surviving a nuclear attack was near zero, and that governments implying otherwise was intentionally misleading
Dylan protested at New York City Hall with hundreds of other people during one of these drills in 1961 and refused to go underground
This was recorded at the Finjan Club in Montreal in 1962
Jim Page - I’d Rather Be Dancing
He’s a folksinger and activist based in Seattle, and this is off his 2006 album Head Full Of Pictures
He writes: “Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli Military bulldozer in 2003, while trying to defend the house of a Palestinian family. ‘I’d rather be dancing to Pat Benatar’ comes from one of her emails to her parents.”
Charlie Panigoniak - Lorna
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, about his wife
Rolf Cahn - Where Are You Going?
He was a musician, martial arts teacher, and social activist who was born in Germany but fled to the states with his family when Hitler gained power
In his liner notes, Cahn writes: “‘Where Are You Going’ needs no explanation. The song was written a few years ago by Malvina Reynolds. Would I were as profound.”
John Dee Holeman - I Don’t Care Where You Go
He was a Piedmont blues artist from North Carolina who was also a skilled buckdancer in his youth
This is from his 1992 album North Carolina Piedmont Blues, recorded live in Paris
It’s a Muddy Waters song
Star Thistle - Bigger Than Me
A project from the mind of Winnipeg artist Uncle Sinner
This is a demo of the song, which later appeared on his 2021 album The Best of Star Thistle
Djelimady Tounkara - Sigui
He’s a Malian musician who grew up in a musical family and learned to play the djembe drum and ngoni as a child
He moved to Bamako, the capital of Mali, as a young adult, and became the rhythm guitarist for the national orchestra
This is from his 2002 album of the same name
Devendra Banhart - Queen Bee
He’s an American musician and artist who began his career in the early 2000s as a main figure in the “freak folk” movement
This one is off his 2004 album Cripple Crow
Skip James - Cypress Grove Blues
James was from Bentonia, Mississippi
He first recorded for Paramount in 1931, but his recordings did not sell well due to the Great Depression, and he faded into obscurity until the 1960s, when his music was rediscovered by blues fans, and he appeared at folk and blues festivals across the US, recorded several albums, and performed at concerts
This was recorded in Grafton, Wisconsin in 1931
It’s his own song
Vassar Clements - Cypress Grove
He was a Grammy-winning American musician who’s known for creating a style of music known as “Hillbilly Jazz,” which combines bluegrass and jazz
This is from his last album, Livin’ With the Blues, from 2004
Corey Harris - Cypress Grove
Harris a contemporary American blues and reggae musician from Virginia, known for helping to revive the acoustic blues in the 1990s
This is from his 2003 album Mississippi to Mali
Jimmy “Duck” Holmes - Cypress Grove
Jimmy “Duck” Holmes is the last living member of the original Bentonia School, a style of blues which is defined by its preference for minor tunings and its shared repertoire of songs
He learned to play from Henry Stuckey, whose music was never recorded despite the fact he may have been the originator of the Bentonia blues style
Holmes began the Bentonia Blues Festival with his mother Mary Holmes in 1972, and it still takes place every year
He also owns the Blue Front Cafe in Bentonia, which is the oldest remaining juke joint in the state of Mississippi, and he can often be found playing there
This is from his 2019 album of the same name
Margaret Avison - Our Working Day May Be Menaced
From the 1958 Folkways album Six Toronto Poets
Avison was a poet from Ontario who worked day jobs including as a librarian, editor, and social worker, choosing jobs that left her free time to write
During her career, she received a Guggenheim fellowship, won two Governor General’s Awards, and became an Officer of the Order of Canada for her contributions to Canadian literature
Dent-de-Lion - Turlutte
This is off the 1999 Smithsonian-Folkways album Mademoiselle, Voulez-Vous Danser?: Franco-American Music from the New England Borderlands
It’s a collection of songs from French-Canadians who immigrated to the northern States and became Franco-Americans
“Turlutte” is the French word for “mouth music,” “diddling,” or “chin music,” a technique used to make music for dances when no instrument is available
This particular tune comes from a fiddler named André Alain from just outside of Quebec City
Ruth Moody, Joey Landreth - The Spell of the Lilac Bloom
She was born in Australia but grew up in Winnipeg, and she’s a member of the Wailin’ Jennys
Landreth is a guitarist and singer from Winnipeg, best-known as a member of The Bros. Landreth, a duo he formed with his brother David
This one is from May of last year, recorded live in Nashville, Tennessee
Carla Sciaky - Snosti E Dobra Dotsna Sedela
She’s a musician from Colorado, and this is from her 1992 album Spin the Weaver’s Song, a collection of shearing, spinning, and weaving songs from around the world
It’s a traditional Bulgarian song about a bride who stays up late weaving gifts for her groom’s family members
Stanley Triggs - Pretty Words and Poetry
A musician from BC who played in coffeehouses in the 1960s
He wrote this song while working on a tugboat for a tow of logs from Port Neville
Tom Paley - Girl on the Greenbriar Shore
He was an American musician known as a member of the New Lost City Ramblers in the 1950s and 60s and as a solo musician
This is from the 1957 album Courtin’s A Pleasure and Other Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians, which Paley recorded with Jean Ritchie and Oscar Brand
The Carter Family popularized this song through their 1941 recording, though it appears to be a traditional ballad
Daniel Hecht - Confluence of the Rivers
He’s an author, environmentalist, and musician who’s been playing music since the 1960s
This is from his 1980 album Willow
Jake Xerxes Fussell - Jurassic Park Theme
Richard Brautigan - I Lie Here in a Strange Girl's Apartment
