Barking Dog: August 25, 2022
This Week’s Theme: Songs Under 2 Minutes
Last week on Twitter, we ran a poll asking listeners to vote on the theme they’d like to hear us cover next on the show. If you have any suggestions of your own, head over to @barkingdogckuw on Twitter and let me know! This week’s theme is “songs under 2 minutes”, suggested to us by former program director and friend of the show, Sam Doucet. Thanks Sam!
Gaither Carlton - Apple Blossom
Was an American old-time fiddle & banjo player from North Carolina
This is a traditional old-time reel from the US
John Davis, Willis Proctor, Georgia Sea Island Singers - Join the Band
Recorded by the folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax on St. Simons Island, Georgia in October of 1959
A folk music ensemble that’s been around since the early 1900s
Taj Mahal - I’m Running and I’m Happy
Grammy-award-winning musician from New York City with a career spanning over 50 years
This is from his soundtrack for the 1972 film Sounder
Roscoe Holcomb - Knife Guitar
Was a construction worker, coal miner, and farmer much of his life
He was an older artist who became popular during the folk revival, though wasn’t known at all before then - though he was born in 1912, he was first discovered by John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers playing on his front porch in Daisy, Kentucky in 1958
That one’s from the 2003 Folkways album An Untamed Sense of Control
It was recorded in NYC in 1964, and it’s his own composition
David Francey - Torn Screen Door
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who worked manual labour jobs for 20 years before pursuing folk music at the age of 45
This is the title song from his first album, from 1999
Dyad - Farewell to Old Bedford
From Victoria, BC
Off their 2002 album Who’s Been Here Since I’ve Been Gone
Earliest recorded version of this song was collected by folklorist Frank Warner in Beech Mountain, NC in 1951
It’s possible that it’s a reworked version of an older ballad, especially since it contains so few verses
Willie John Strong, Harrison Ross, Joe Brown - I Moaned and I Moaned
From an album of field recordings of Black music in Alabama
Recorded near Livingston, Alabama in 1955
The liner notes call it “an example of the organised, rehearsed group singing which has become popular in relatively recent years. Singing of this kind is heard nowadays in many churches as well as in purely secular settings”
Joseph Spence - Won’t That Be a Happy Time?
Joseph Spence was a Bahamian musician known for vocalizing and humming while playing guitar, and he influenced artists like Taj Mahal, The Grateful Dead, and John Renbourn, who recorded versions of his gospel arrangements
This track was included on the 2021 Smithsonian Folkways album Encore: Unheard Recordings of Bahamian Guitar and Singing
It’s a hymn that came from a hymnal called Harmony Heaven, which was popular in the Bahamas
It was sung at Spence’s funeral service in 1984
Larry Penn - Flamingos
Penn was Wisconsin’s Labour Poet Laureate, a songwriter, truck driver, toymaker, activist, and union man
From his 1983 album I'm A Little Cookie and Other Songs that Can Taste Just as Good
Harrison Kennedy, Nico Heilijgers - Recipe for Loving
Harrison Kennedy a Hamilton artist with a career in blues and roots music spanning over 50 years
From his 2005 album Voice + Story
Heilijgers is a Dutch musician, painter, and photographer who provides bass for that one
Wheeler Bailey, Preston Fulp - Never Let the Deal Go Down
Fulp was a North Carolina artist who worked in sawmills for much of his life, playing music on weekends and at special events in the community
Bailey was a blues musician who was only ever recorded during this one session at the University of Tennessee in Rural Hall, North Carolina, in 1937
This song’s history hard to trace because it’s essentially a floating lyrics song, with verses taken from many different sources, though we know it’s likely African American in origin
Green Paschal - Your Close Friend
He was a musician from Georgia who began playing music in the 1950s, when he was in his 30s or 40s
Recorded in Talbottom, Georgia in 1969 by the field researcher and festival curator George Mitchell
This song is by Reverend EW Clayborn
Ian & Sylvia - V'la l'Bon Vent
Ian and Sylvia Tyson from Toronto
This song was sung by the Voyageurs over 300 years ago to keep pace as they paddled and to keep spirits up during 18 hour days
The title translates to “Here Comes the Good Wind”
Lisa LeBlanc - Dead Man’s Flats
A New Brunswick musician
I assume this is named after the hamlet in Alberta called Dead Man’s Flats
Fiver - Sacco & Vanzetti
Stage name of Toronto-based artist Simone Schmidt
This is off their new album "Soundtrack to A More Radiant Sphere: The Joe Wallace Mixtape"
It was commissioned for the recent documentary "A More Radiant Sphere," which tells the story of Joe Wallace, a Canadian communist, political prisoner and poet who was largely ignored within the country but admired in Eastern Europe and Russia
George Henry Bussey - Looking for My Woman
He was a woodworker from Georgia who came from a musical family, yet didn’t start playing the guitar until he was 18
Field researcher and festival curator George Mitchell recorded him in Waverly Hall, Georgia, in 1969
Morley Loon - Amendo Na Nooch
He was a Cree musician and actor from Mistissini, Quebec
This one’s from his debut album, Northland, My Land, from 1981
Title translates to Friendship-Kinship
Captain Fraser Holmes - I’ll Get a Soldier for a Shilling
Off a 1955 album of Songs from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, which 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 was a tune heard on the march back from the grave after a soldier’s funeral
The Foc’sle Singers - Leave Her Johnny
From a 1959 album of foc’sle songs and shanties sung by sailors at work on ships
That one is led by Dave Van Ronk, but we also heard Paul Clayton, Bob Brill, Roger Abrahams, and Bob Yellin
Alan Mills and the Four Shipmates - Leave Her, Johnny, Leave Her
Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec
Known for popularising 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 his 1957 album Songs of the Sea
This song was usually sung during the last few tasks before leaving the ship after a rough voyage
It seems that this song is a modern form of an older farewell shanty called Across the Western Ocean, which originated around 1850 during the peak of Irish immigration to North America
Frank Proffitt - Bonnie James Campbell
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
A ballad that’s rarely found in the oral tradition in either the UK or North America in recent years
Proffitt learned the ballad from his father, and said that it was quite widely known in his part of the mountains as a fiddle tune, though the words were rarely sung because musicians played the tune so quickly
Angelo Dornan - When I Wake in the Morning
Folksinger from New Brunswick who lived most of his life in Alberta
Retired to his birthplace in his 60s, where researcher Helen Creighton collected about 135 traditional songs from him in the 1950s for use in her book of New Brunswick music
He could only remember two verses of this song when Creighton collected it
Bessie Jones - Sometimes
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 at colleges, festivals, and political events
She recorded that song in 1960
That version is credited to her
Etta Baker, Cora Phillips - Baby I’ll Be True to You
Baker a blues guitarist and singer from North Carolina
Began playing the guitar at age 3
Phillips was her sister, and they recorded an album called Carolina Breakdown in 2006, which is where that one is from
It’s related to the song Baby, Let Me Follow You Down
Cyndee Peters, Eric Bibb - Sightseeing
He’s an American musician who grew up around well-known musicians like Peter Seeger, Paul Robeson, and Bob Dylan, because his father, Leon Bibb, was a musical theatre singer who was part of the 1960s New York folk scene
He moved to Sweden in the 1970s, and has lived there since
Peters is an American-Swedish musician and author who was born in North Carolina and lived in Sweden for many years before moving back to the US a decade ago
They released an album together in 1978 called Olikalikadant (oh-leeka-leeka-daunt), which translates directly as “Different the Same”
Bibb wrote this song
Johnny Brown - That’s All Right
Off an album of field recordings made in Florida of African American traditional music between 1977 and 1980
Brown was a blind musician from Alabama who spent much of his life traveling around the southern US, playing on street corners and in clubs
That’s All Right is a traditional gospel song that’s likely a simplification of an older spiritual
Stanley Triggs - Pretty Words and Poetry
A musician from BC who played in coffeehouses in the 1960s
He wrote that song while working on a tugboat for a tow of logs from Port Neville
Old Man Luedecke - Hate What I Say
From Chester, NS
Off his 2015 album Domestic Eccentric
Mike Seeger - Honeycutt’s Holler
Mike was a folklorist and musician who co-founded the New Lost City Ramblers in the 1950s
From his 2003 album True Vine
This is a field holler that the liner notes describe as “part yodel, part song”
It comes from western North Carolina, from the singer Sam Honeycutt
Delta Hicks - Man of Constant Sorrow
A Tennessee ballad singer who contributed over 400 songs to the Library of Congress Archive of Folk Culture along with her husband, Dee
This ballad was first published by Dick Burnett of Kentucky in 1913, though it likely came from a much older traditional tune
Tom Angus MacDonald - Moladh Na Lanndaidh (In Praise of Islay)
Off the same album of Cape Breton music we heard one from earlier in the show
That is a well-known Gaelic song that tells of the beauty of Islay, an island of the Inner Hebrides
Kenneth Faulkner, Edmund Henneberry - Rafferty’s Calls and Reels
Off a 1956 album of folk music from Nova Scotia, collected by the folklorist Helen Creighton
A field recording from Devil’s Island, Nova Scotia
It was a favourite dance tune in the area, with the time kept with the feet, as was the standard practice
Faulkner plays the fiddle, and Henneberry calls the dance figures
Wade Hemsworth - The Franklin Expedition
A respected Canadian folksinger from Brantford, Ontario
Only wrote about 20 songs during his career, though many of them, such as The Black Fly Song, The Logdriver’s Waltz, and The Wild Goose are so ingrained in Canadian culture that people consider them traditional Canadian folk songs at this point
Song about the ill-fated voyage of Sir John Franklin and his crew, on which they intended to search for the Northwest Passage
Mississippi John Hurt - Walking the Floor Over You
American country blues singer and guitarist from Avalon, Mississippi
He made a couple of recordings for OkEh Records in the late 1920s, but 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 the musicologist Dick Spottswood located 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
Recorded in July, 1963 for the Library of Congress in Washington, DC
Seems to be his version of Ernest Tubbs’ country song of the same name
Uncle Sinner - Pearline
From Winnipeg
This is a song by Son House, a Mississippi delta blues artist who influenced Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters
Uncle Sinner includes it on his 2008 album Ballads and Mental Breakdowns
Blind Boy Grunt - Talking Devil
Bob Dylan
Recorded for Broadside Magazine in 1963
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Solly’s Little Favourite
From Toronto
Off their 2018 album When the Sun Comes Up
An adaptation of Emory Bailey’s tune of the same name
Bob Gibson - Song Fragments of Mature Advice
Was an influential American folk singer known particularly for his work during the folk revival of the 50s and 60s
Recorded this live at Cornell University in 1957
Pete Seeger - Hayseed Like Me
Even if you don’t know his music, you’ve likely heard his name--he was a very influential folk singer and an activist who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and peace through his music
This is from his 1956 album of American Industrial Ballads
It’s from the 1890s
It uses the tune of Rosin the Beau, and it was a popular campaign song for the People’s Party, which had a lasting effect through legislation that benefited farmers and labourers
Cathy Fink - Paddy on the Railroad
Cathy Fink is from Maryland, but began her career in the early 70s, busking and playing folk music in Canadian coffeehouses
She’s known for playing as a duo with her wife, Marcy Marxer, who she met in Toronto in 1980
Together, they have released about 35 albums and received 14 Grammy nominations and 2 Grammy awards
From her 1992 album Banjo Haiku
There were many songs about “Paddy” in the English-speaking seafaring trade after the Irish potato famines of the 1830s and 40s and the political upheaval and poverty in the country led to waves of mass migration to factories and mills in England and North America
This was a chantey used when pumping out the bilges and weighing anchor, and it also became popular along the canals and railways in the United States, which were built with Irish labour
That’s an instrumental version of the song
Dink Roberts - High Sheriff
From an album of black banjo music from North Carolina and Virginia
Not a widespread song
As the liner notes state, “Seldom seen as a friend by Black country people, the sheriff appears here as a threat”
Roberts sings the song to the tune of “Georgie Buck,” though some use the tune of “Old Grey Mare”
Willie Dunn - Rattling Along the Freight Train (to the Spirit Land)
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
From the 2021 anthology of Dunn’s music called Creation Never Sleeps, Creation Never Dies
Georgia Fife & Drum Band - Buck Dance
An African American musical tradition, mainly popular in the southern states, which arose from pre-Civil War military fife and drum bands, the country blues, and remnants of African music that had persisted in Black musical traditions
Recorded in Waverly Hall, GA 1969 by George Mitchell
Bob Bentley, Charlie Blake, Hammer Clarence Banks, Harold Vosburg - Travelin’ to That New Buryin’ Ground
A field recording of a quartet of prisoners at Reid State Farm in Boykin, SC, made on December 19, 1934 by folklorists and ethnomusicologists John and Alan Lomax and the folk musician Lead Belly
We know about as much about the people who sung this song as we do about the song itself
The liner notes for this recording and the liner notes state that “most sources estimate this variation is as old as it is uncommon, with sparse documentation in the form of transcriptions dating back to the nineteenth century”
Most variations of the song can be found in Virginia and the Carolinas
Robert C Paul - The Backwoodsman
From an album of Saskatchewan songs collected by Barbara Cass-Beggs and released in 1963
This one was recorded in Toronto for Cass-Beggs by the folklorist Edith Fowke in 1958
Paul had lived in MacDowell, a small town near Prince Albert, and learned that song from a man named Billy Smith
The song had been collected across the north-eastern states and Ontario, though the liner notes state that the Saskatchewan version might be the farthest west it had been found
Uncle John Patterson - Stagolee Was a Bully
A Georgia banjo picker who started playing at age 3, won his first banjo contest at age 14, and defended his title of champion at every convention thereafter
He also worked as a mechanic at Lockheed for 20 years, and invented a tool for injecting hydraulic fluid into B 57s, which apparently saved the company $350,000 a year
And we often hear about these incredibly talented, often rural, recording artists who worked day jobs for decades while playing music on the side
Always reminds me how new the mainstream concept of a “music career” is
Well-known American ballad about the murder of Billy Lyons by "Stag" Lee Shelton in St. Louis, Missouri at Christmas, 1895
Song first published in 1911
Rosalie Sorrels - The Wreck of the Number Nine
Very interesting figure in the folk revival
She started out in folk as a folksinger and collector of folk songs, and left her husband in the 1960s to travel across America with her five children, establishing herself as a performer and making connections with other folk musicians, writers, and artists
She died in June 2017 but is remembered for her storytelling abilities
Song written by Carson Robison in 1927
Unusual that we know who its author is and that it is not based on a real train wreck
The Golden Gate Quartet - When They Ring the Golden Bells
They are a vocal quartet formed in Virginia by four high school students in 1934
They are still active today, but have obviously undergone multiple changes in membership
They recorded that song on August 10, 1938, and it was written by Dion De Marbelle in 1887
Ella Jenkins, David Melchiorre, Frank Schneider - What’s Your Trade?
An American folk singer and actress dubbed the “First Lady of the Children’s Folk Song”
From her 1999 album Ella Jenkins and a Union of Friends Pulling Together
Jenkins wrote this little rhyme to teach children about paying people a fair price for their work
Dirk Powell, John Herrmann, Tim O’Brien - Lonesome John
Powell is a Grammy award-winning musician from Ohio who’s considered one of the leading experts on traditional Appalachian fiddle and banjo styles
O’Brien is a Grammy-award-winning musician from West Virginia who’s been playing professionally for almost 50 years, and has performed both as a solo act and with his band Hot Rise
Herrmann is a banjo player who learned directly from the clawhammer masters Fred Cockerham, Kyle Creed, and Tommy Jarrell
He was also part of the Upstate New York old-time avant garde of the 1970s, and is apparently known as the Father of Old-Time in Japan
From their 1998 album Songs from the Mountain
That’s a traditional tune first recorded by Henry Whitter in 1925
Karen James - Morning Dew
A folksinger who grew up in England, Spain, and France, and moved to Canada as a teenager
A Newfoundland folksong
Group of School Children - Chariot Jubilee
Field recording
Some time between 1934-1947
Snooks Eaglin - The Lonesome Road 2
Eaglin an American musician who played a wide range of styles and claimed to know about 2500 songs
An alternate take of the song that was recorded in New Orleans in March of 1958, but not released until 2005
Jessie Mae Hemphill - I Want to Be Ready
She was a musician from Mississippi who came from a musical family that included her grandfather, Sid Hemphill, a fife and drum bandleader whose band she played in, and her aunt, Rosa Lee Hill, another blues musician who we’ve played on the show before
That’s a traditional spiritual
Jimmie Strothers & Joe Lee - I’ll Go On
He was a Virginian musician active in the 30s and 40s
He performed in medicine shows and made a living as a musician after being blinded in a mine explosion
In 1936, he made recordings of thirteen of his songs while imprisoned for killing his wife
He performs this song with his fellow inmate Joe Lee
Sebastian McKenzie - Hunting Song
Off an album of Algonquin music from 1972
Martin McManus - The Falling of the Pine
From an album of field recordings from lumbering camps in Ontario, collected by Edith Fowke and released in 1961
McManus from Peterborough
This is just a fragment of the song, which is about the oldest lumbering song known
Fowke was not able to find a complete form of the song
Jean Carignan - Blacksmith’s Reel
Hobart Smith - Last Chance
Sheesham and Lotus - Alcoholic Blues
George Davis - The Death of the Blue Eagle
Bill Cornett - Sweet Willie
Martin Young and Corbett Grigsby - Rocky Island
Sid Hemphill, Lucius Smith - Devil’s Dream
Charlie Everidge - Wave the Ocean
Charles Barnett - Moses Was a Servant of the Lord
Nimrod Workman - Coal Black Mining Blues
Horace Sprott - Buck Dance
