Barking Dog: August 20, 2026
Cara Luft - My Maureen
She’s based in Winnipeg
This is from her new album My Heart Will Always Be, which came out at the end of July
Bridget St. John, Taku Hayashi - The Body Breaks
She’s an English musician who’s been playing professionally for over 50 years
Hayashi is a folk musician from Kyoto, Japan, and this is from St. John’s 2011 album Jolie Madame, recorded live in Japan in 2010
As she says, the song is by Devendra Banhart from his 2004 album Rejoicing in the Hands
Kacy & Clayton - The Downward Road
Second cousins Kacy Anderson and Clayton Linthicum from Wood Mountain, SK
From their 2013 album The Day is Past & Gone
Sufjan Stevens - Vito's Ordination Song
He’s a Grammy- and Oscar-nominated musician from Michigan who’s been playing since the 1990s
This song is from his 2003 album Michigan, and this acoustic version was included on the vinyl first pressing of the album
Vito is the name of one of Stevens’ friends, who’s a musician and a pastor at a church in Brooklyn, New York
Si Kahn - Journey Through This Life
Kahn is a community organiser and musician from Pennsylvania who moved to the south as an activist during the Civil Rights Movement
This is from his 1997 album Companion, and he dedicates it to public philosopher Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich, who coauthored a book with him in 2005 called The Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy
Rogér Fakhr - Sitting in the Sun
He’s a Lebanese musician who began performing in the 1970s and released his first album in 1977 called Fine Anyway
Only 200 copies of the album were made, and it was largely unheard until it was reissued in 2021 by Habibi Funk
Fakhr returned to the stage in 2024, performing in London and Lisbon, and he continues to write music, now based in San Francisco
John Jacob Niles - Who Killed Cock Robin?
American musician, composer, folklorist, and collector of traditional ballads
Influential figure during the folk revival of the 1960s
This is from his 1964 album John Jacob Niles Sings Folk Songs
It’s an English folk song, first published as a rhyme in 1744, though it’s likely even older than that
Niles sang a shortened version of the song with his mother during his childhood, and later collected a longer version from Beth Holcolm of Kentucky
Pete Seeger - Who Killed Davey Moore?
He was a very influential folk singer and an activist from New York who who advocated for countless social causes through his music
From his 1962 album Broadside Ballads, Vol. 2
Bob Dylan wrote it that year after the boxer Davey Moore was knocked down during a fight with Sugar Ramos in March and died of inoperable brain damage four days later
It follows a similar structure to “Who Killed Cock Robin”
Gary Shearston - It’s On
He was an Australian folksinger and priest
This is from his 1964 album Songs of Our Time
It’s a song by fellow Australian folk singer Don Henderson
Lonnie Johnson - Racketeer’s Blues
American blues and jazz singer born into a family of Louisiana musicians in 1899
Pioneer of jazz guitar and jazz violin
Recognized as the first to play an amplified violin and as one of the originators of the single-string guitar solos that are so popular in contemporary rock, blues, and jazz
He recorded this one in 1932 for OKeh Records
Big Dave McLean - Someday Baby
A blues musician from Winnipeg who’s been playing for over 50 years
It’s off McLean’s 2008 album Acoustic Blues: Got ‘Em from the Bottom, and it was first recorded as “Someday Baby Blues” by Sleepy John Estes and Hammie Nixon in 1935
Precious Bryant - Broke and Ain’t Got a Dime
She was an American musician described as one of Georgia’s great blueswomen
She was first recorded by George Mitchell in 1967, and by the mid 1980s her fanbase had grown enough for her to perform internationally
This is from her 2002 album Fool Me Good, and the song was first recorded as “One Dime Blues” by Blind Lemon Jefferson in 1927
The Camperdown Family Band - Scotty Outlaw
They’re a band based in British Columbia, and this one is from 2022
Fields Ward - Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie
Fields was a guitarist and singer from Virginia, and the nephew of Wade Ward, a well-known old-time banjo and fiddle player
This is the title track from his 1974 album
Cowboy folk song also known as “The Cowboy’s Lament” and “The Dying Cowboy”
Adaptation of a sea song called "The Sailor's Grave” which was written by Edwin Hubbell Chapin, published in 1839
Jon Bekoff, Nate Paine - Lone Prairie
Bekoff was an old-time musician and math teacher from Montreal who spent much of his adult life in the northeast United States
Paine is a protege of Bekoff’s based in New Hampshire, and they recorded this in Greenfield, Massachusetts in August of 2014
Bekoff liked to play a single tune for up to an hour, exploring the nuances of the tune’s harmony and rhythm
Tzo’kam - Women’s Honour Song
Tzo’kam are a family band who have been singing together at community events for over half a century, and they started performing and recording publicly in 1997 to share the traditional and contemporary culture of the Lil’wat people
Tzo’kam means “chickadee” and “visitors are coming” in the Stl’atl’imx language
This is off the 1998 Smithsonian Folkways compilation album Heartbeat 2: More Voices of First Nations Women
The lyrics are about giving great respect and honour to women, and it was written by mother and son Flora and Russell Wallace
Adrian Crowley, James Yorkston - Some Things Last a Long Time
Crowley is an Irish musician who began playing professionally in the 1990s
Yorkston is a Scottish musician and writer who began releasing music in the early 2000s
This is off their 2013 album My Yoke is Heavy: The Songs of Daniel Johnston
Johnston released the song in 1990
Emma Swift - I Contain Multitudes
She’s an Australian musician and radio broadcaster now based in Tennessee, and this is off her 2020 album Blonde on the Tracks, a collection of Bob Dylan covers
Dylan released the song that same year, on his album Rough and Rowdy Ways
Gordon Lightfoot - Ballad of Yarmouth Castle
This is from his first live album, recorded at Massey Hall in Toronto and released in 1969
The SS Yarmouth Castle was an American steamship that ran between Miami and Nassau, Bahamas from 1964 until it sank after a fire in November of 1965, killing 90 people
The disaster resulted in updates to the Safety of Life at Sea law, which required fire drills, safety inspections, and that vessels carrying over 50 passengers overnight must be built of non-combustible materials
Ian & Sylvia - Early Morning Rain
Ian & Sylvia performed together from 1959 until their divorce in 1975
They’re known for performing a number of songs including “Someday Soon,” “Four Strong Winds,” and this one, by Gordon Lightfoot, which they recorded in 1965
Sarah Jarosz - Simple Twist of Fate
She’s a Grammy-winning musician from Texas who released her first album in 2009
This is from her 2013 album Build Me Up from Bones
It’s a cover of Bob Dylan’s song from his 1975 album Blood on the Tracks
Carolina Chocolate Drops - Jack O’Diamonds
They were a Grammy-winning old-time stringband from North Carolina that formed in 2005
This recording is from 2010, and they learned this version from the recordings of Hobart Smith
Emmett Brand - Riding My Buggy, My Whip in My Hand
From a 1956 album of field recordings made by Frederic Ramsey Jr. in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi of older musicians he met during his travels through the southern states
Brand reckoned he was around 82 when he was recorded near Morgan Springs, Alabama in 1954
It seems to be a combination of a couple older songs, one of them being “Jack O’Diamonds,” and the liner notes state that the melody is likely related to “The Nightingale”
Dave Matthews Band - Rye Whiskey
They’re a band from Virginia, and this is a live recording made in Italy in July of 2009
“Rye Whiskey” is also known as “Way Up on Clinch Mountain” and “Jack of Diamonds”
Little Hat Jones - Cherry Street Blues
He was a Texan blues musician who got his start busking on the streets of San Antonio in the 1920s
Jones got his nickname from a construction job he worked, where he wore a hat that had a torn brim
He made this recording for OKeh Records in San Antonio, Texas in June of 1930
Rosa Lee Hill - Bullying Well
She was a Mississippi Hill Country blues musician and her father was Sid Hemphill, a renowned fife and drum bandleader, who taught her to play guitar when she was six, and by the time she was ten, she was playing local dances with him
This is a recording made by music historian George Mitchell in Senatobia, Mississippi in August of 1967
Sura Susso - Kata Keh
He’s a Griot, or storyteller and oral historian, from The Gambia who began playing the Kora and other percussion instruments at the age of four
He moved to the UK when he was seventeen to play in his brother’s band, and has been based there since, performing both as a solo act and with other artists like Habib Koite and Rokia Traore
This is from his second album, Tili Saba, from 2021
Fred Holstein - Hobo Lullaby
He was a folk musician and folk club operator from Chicago who started playing folk music after seeing Pete Seeger perform
This is from a collection of his recordings, released in 2001
The song is by Goebel Reeves, a folk singer from Texas who recorded throughout the 20s and 30s
Moes Haven - The Inarticulate Sailor’s Lament
