Barking Dog: August 4, 2022
This Week’s Theme: Songs About Food
Awhile ago on Twitter, we asked listeners to suggest themes they’d like to hear us cover 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 about food”, suggested to us by our good friend Sean. Thanks Sean! Just as many of us start our days with a cup of coffee, I thought we’d start today’s show with a few songs about the drink.
Mississippi John Hurt - Coffee Blues
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
This was recorded at a 1965 concert at Oberlin College in Ohio
It’s Hurt’s own version of Charley Jordan’s song Just a Spoonful
Gordon Lightfoot - Second Cup of Coffee
Off his 1972 album Don Quixote
Jimmy Memorana - Coffee, Tea and Jam
Off a 1983 album of Inuit music from the Northwest Territories
Memorana was from Ulukhaktok on Victoria Island, though he travelled extensively around the North as a hunter, guide, and explorer, and is described by a friend as being enthusiastic, full of energy, and possessing an “ever-present sense of humour”
The lyrics translate to “First I will drink some coffee / Then I will eat a bit of biscuit / With some jam”
Bo Carter - Beans
Bo Carter was an early blues musician, born Armenter Chatmon
His brothers, Lonnie and Sam Chatmon, were also blues musicians, and Lonnie possibly plays fiddle on this one
Recorded March 26, 1934 at Texas Hotel in San Antonio, Texas
Beans Hambone, El Morrow - Beans
They were a duo who recorded 2 songs for Victor Records in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1931
Shel Silverstein - Beans Taste Fine
You might know Shel Silverstein as the author of popular children’s books like Where the Sidewalk Ends and The Giving Tree, but he was also a cartoonist, playwright, and songwriter
That song comes from an album of parody folk songs that Silverstein recorded in 1962
David Nzomo - Kavuli Tutu
He’s a musician from Kenya who recorded six albums of traditional Kenyan songs for Folkways records while he was studying at Columbia University in the 1960s and 70s
His early musical gigs were at local events like dances and wedding parties
This one’s off his 1975 album Children’s Songs from Kenya
As we’ll hear, this is a children’s song to welcome the ripening of the maize
Tom Glazer - On Top of Spaghetti
He was a folksinger and songwriter from Pennsylvania whose songs were recorded by artists like Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, Bob Dylan, and Frank Sinatra
Along with Lead Belly, Pete Seeger, Josh White, and Woody Guthrie, he was involved with the New York folk scene of the 1940s, which set the stage for the American folk revival of the 1960s
That song is a popular children’s parody of “On Top of Old Smoky,” a traditional American folk song
Glazer wrote it, and it became a hit for him in 1963
Fred Penner - Sandwiches
He’s a children’s musician and entertainer from Winnipeg who’s been performing professionally since the early 1970s
That’s possibly one of his best-known songs, from his 1980 album The Cat Came Back
Walter Ferguson - 72 Weeds
He is a Costa Rican calypso singer born in 1919 who has spent almost his whole life in Cahuita, a small fishing village
He started recording his music on tapes in the 1970s after one of his sons gave him a tape recorder, and he sold his music to travellers from around the world
Ferguson did this until the 1990s, when he retired from music
In 2018, to recover some of his lost music—since each tape was unique and he never wrote down his lyrics—one of his sons put out a call for help to find more of his tapes in preparation for his 100th birthday, which resulted in a worldwide effort and several volumes of newly discovered music
Ferguson is now 103 years old
Old Man Luedecke - A&W Song
From Chester, NS
This is from his 2012 album Tender is the Night
Joe Hickerson - Good Fish Chowder
Folk singer and songleader from Illinois
Was Librarian and Director of the Archive of Folk Song at the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress for 35 years
Known for his work as a lecturer, researcher, and performer, and for bringing the Ukrainian source and his own lyrics together to create the basis for Where Have All the Flowers Gone? along with Pete Seeger
This is by Greg Hildebrand of Boston, who combined portions of the poem Jerry Mulligan by John Ciardi with a tune by Oscar Brand (who was born in Winnipeg!)
Luz Morales - Ang Gatas At Ang Itlog (The Milk and The Eggs)
This is from an album of folk songs from the Philippines from 1960, sung by the Filipino soprano Luz Morales
This song’s title translates to The Milk and The Eggs, and it’s about foods that are good to eat
Harry McClintock - The Big Rock Candy Mountain
American singer and poet from Tennessee who’s known for writing that song
Ran away from home as a boy to join the circus
Lived an adventurous life from then on and apparently “never lost his sense of humour”
Lord Myrie, Cecil Mitchel, James Convery - Darling I’m Starving So
From a 1960 album of more rustic, non-urban Jamaican calypso music
Ritchie Calder - Food from the Jungle
Off the 1955 Folkways album Science in Our Lives, narrated by British writer Ritchie Calder, who was personally interested in the public understanding of science
We’ll hear another experimental scientific recording from Folkways Records after this
Unspecified - Stethoscope Sounds: Sounds of the Bowel
From the 1955 Folkways Records album Sounds of Medicine
The full title of that track is actually “Sounds of the Bowels - A Normal Hungry Man Smoking a Cigarette Before Dinner”, which is about as descriptive as I think we need to get
Adelaide Van Wey - Cantaloupe Vendor
From a 1956 album of street cries and creole songs
Van Wey was a classically trained musician and folksong collector from North Carolina
That’s the cry of a cantaloupe vendor that she came across in Greenville, South Carolina
Rosa Lee Hill - Pork & Beans
This song might be by Hill, or it may just be a little-known southern blues song that Hill learned from her father Sid Hemphill, the “musical patriarch of the Mississippi Hill Country” who was sought out and recorded by Alan Lomax
We’ll hear a more recent version after this
Jake Xerxes Fussell - Pork and Beans
Durham, NC artist who grew up travelling across the Southeast with his folklorist father
From his 2015 self-titled album
Sandy & Caroline Paton - Sardines and Pork and Beans
Caroline and Sandy Paton two co-founders of Folk Legacy Records, founded in Burlington, Vermont, in 1961
Also a folk duo who sang together for over 50 years
That one is included on the recent Smithsonian Folkways album The Village Out West: The Lost Tapes of Alan Oakes, which is a collection of field recordings from the 1960s California folk scene
It’s described as “ a summer camp song that has also served as a cheer”
Kenneth Peacock - Lots of Fish in Bonavist’ Harbour
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 this song while working on Newfoundland folklore, and it’s also known as “Feller from Fortune”
It’s a very popular Newfoundland party song
Frederick McQueen - Come for Your Dinner
From an album of music collected and recorded in the Bahamas in June of 1965 by Peter K Siegel and Jody Stecher
Lightnin’ Hopkins - Green Onion
Was a country blues musician from Texas who gained a broader audience with the folk revival of the 1960s after recording and performing around Texas in the 40s and 50s
His debut performance was at Carnegie Hall in October of 1960, and he shared the bill with Pete Seeger and Joan Baez
He continued to tour and record throughout the 60s and 70s, and was Houston, Texas’s poet in residence for 35 years
From a live recording at a concert during which he played his own version of Green Onions by Booker T and the MGs
Lisa LeBlanc - Kraft Dinner
LeBlanc a New Brunswick musician
From her 2012 self-titled album
Pete Seeger - Soon As We All Cook Sweet Potatoes
Seeger was a folk singer and an activist who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and peace through his music
Learned from Bess Hawes and Odetta’s version from 1956, and added a couple of his own verses
Ed Badeaux - Apples, Peaches, and Cherries
From an album called The Songs of Camp, which was recorded for Folkways at a children’s sleepaway camp in Hancock, Vermont, in 1958
You’re listening to Barking Dog on CKUW, and I’m your host Juliana Young, playing folk and roots music from around the world. Today on the show, we’re playing folk songs about food.
Clark Jones - Beans, Bacon and Gravy
He was a musician from Charlotte, North Carolina who travelled through his home state absorbing and interpreting traditional songs
This one is from his 1982 album Early American Folk Music & Songs, a botanically themed album that was inspired by the director of the North Carolina Botanical Gardens, who was one of Jones’s guitar students
The liner notes for the album say of the song, “Even though times were often hard, as depicted in this humorous ballad, man has found that to sing and laugh about his problems can bring some joy to an otherwise desperate situation”
Lewis “Big Sweet” Hairston - Shortnin’ Bread
He was a Virginia banjo player
This was recorded in 1977 and it’s a Black American folk song dating back to at least the 1890s which likely originated on plantations in the southern states
We’ll hear another recording of Hairston in just a moment
Lonnie Pitchford - Johnny Stole an Apple
American blues artist and instrument maker from Mississippi
He played acoustic and electric guitar, one string guitar, diddley bow, double bass, piano, and harmonica
That song is from the 7th album in a series called Living Country Blues USA, which comprise field recordings made of American blues artists in 1980 by two German blues enthusiasts named Axel Kustner and Siegfried Christmann
Lewis Hairston - Bile Them Cabbage Down
From a 1978 album of Non-Blues Secular Black Music
Recorded in September of 1977 in Martinsville, Virginia
This is a fiddle and banjo tune common in the United States
Walt Robertson - Bile Them Cabbage Down
He was a Seattle folksinger and actor who was very influential in the west coast folk scene in the middle of the 20th century
From his 1955 album American Northwest Ballads, a compilation of ballads from the Pacific Northwest
Fresh Creek Dance Band - Mama, Bake a Johnny Cake, Christmas Coming
From a 1959 album of instrumental music from the Bahamas, recorded by Samuel Charters
The album captures the sounds of the anniversary weekend of Emancipation, which is known as August Monday
This was recorded at the Fresh Creek Settlement on August 2, 1958
They were not an organized dance band–the guitarist was sailing from Nassau to Mangrove City, and his sloop had drifted into Fresh Creek on the tide that afternoon
All the other members were from other communities as well
A dance pavilion owner needed a band to play one day during the August Monday celebrations, and asked the singer, H. Brown, to bring some others to play with him
This is a traditional Bahamian Christmas song, and refers to the tradition of baking a simple cake, a johnny cake, during the Christmas holidays
Ella Jenkins - Let’s Not Waste the Food We Eat
An American folk singer and actress dubbed the “First Lady of the Children’s Folk Song”
This poem is from her 1992 album Come Dance by the Ocean
Bessemer Sunset Four - Ham and Eggs
They were an Alabama jubilee quartet that formed in 1925
They recorded 27 songs for Vocalion records between 1928 and 1930
That one is from November of 1928
Joe Pera - Warm Apple Night
He’s a comedian and writer from New York
That little tune is from the first season of his TV show, Joe Pera Talks With You
Well, we started the show with a few songs about coffee, and I thought it was only right to finish with some dessert songs.
Alan Mills - Trinity Cake
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
This song about a cake made with rare ingredients was written by the popular Newfoundland songwriter and poet Johnny Burke
The tune is borrowed from the comic song “Step on the Tail O’ Me Coat”
Sonny Terry - Custard Pie Blues
Terry a blind musician who lost his vision at 16, which prevented him from doing farm work and caused him to rely on music as a living
From the 1955 album Sonny Terry’s Washboard Band
The song comes from a 1939 collaboration between Terry, Blind Boy Fuller, and Bull City Red, called “Some of Your Pie”
It became part of Terry’s regular repertoire, and he recorded it around half a dozen times over the course of 30 years
This is one of many songs where foods are used as suggestive metaphor
Johnny Richardson - Chocolate Ice Cream Cone
He was a folksinger and mechanic from South Carolina who recorded four albums of children’s music for Folkways Records between the 50s and the 80s and performed around the world
He died in 2014 at the age of 105
That one is from his 1977 album Sing Along, Clap Along with Johnny Richardson
Emperor X - An Inaccurate Recipe for Apple Cobbler
Singer-songwriter from Kentucky who’s been playing professionally since the late 90s
From his 2013 album Jetzt Christmas
Sandy and Jeanie Darlington - Jello
This is off an album of songs and ballads from 1966
From the liner notes: Jell-O (US Pat. No. 2657996, Pat. Pending) is the registered trade mark for a gelatin dessert made by the General Foods Corp., White Plains, NY, USA. I wish to point out to the owners, managers, stock-holders, and employees of the General Foods Corporation that this song should not be taken as a protest against their product. In fact, I absolutely adore their gelatin dessert and urge everyone to go out and buy some right now. As for the song, it’s about something else.
Dyad - Chinquapin Pie
From Victoria, BC
Off their 2002 album Who’s Been Here Since I’ve Been Gone
An old tune made popular by Virginian banjo player Hobart Smith
