Barking Dog: September 11, 2025
Ellen Stekert - I’ll Give You Any Mountain
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 couple of years, she’s been working with the producer Ross Wylde on cleaning 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, which came out last week
She learned the song from its writer, Tracy Powers, a friend she met while in grad school at the University of Pennsylvania
This tape was made while Tracy was visiting Ellen while she was teaching at Wayne State University in Detroit
Gwenifer Raymond - One Day You’ll Lie Here But Everything Will
She’s a Welsh guitar player who plays in the American primitive style
This is from her new album Last Night I Heard the Dog Star Bark, which came out last week
The Stanley County Cutups - All Aboard
They’re a bluegrass group from Winnipeg that’s been playing together in some form or another for nearly 20 years
This is their latest release, from July
It’s a version of the song by Eugene Patrick Ellsworth, Charles Edward Stefl, and Bradley Ross Rodgers, made popular by the Del McCoury Band’s 2001 version
Kaia Kater - Paradise Fell
Contemporary Grenadian-Canadian artist based in Toronto
This song is from her 2018 album Grenades, and it’s a live recording made at the Savannah Music Festival Acoustic Music Seminar
The Big Shell Steel Band - Saturday Night
This version comes from the 1955 album Brute Force Steel Bands of Antigua
Ousmane M’Baye - Everybody Loves Saturday Night
He’s a singer and songwriter who both wrote original music and adapted songs from African folklore
From his 1975 Folkways album Songs of Senegal
This is a song that originated in British-occupied Nigeria in the 1940s when the colonial government imposed an early curfew, which resulted in protests
The curfew was lifted on Saturday night in response, and the song was written in celebration and to encourage the fight for independence
John Renbourn - Anji
John Renbourn was an English musician known as a founding member of the folk group Pentangle
This is a live recording made in Kyoto, Japan in 1978
The piece was composed by folk guitarist Davy Graham in 1961, and had been recorded by many artists including Bert Jansch and Paul Simon
Réalta, Myles McCormack, Cathy Jordan - The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Réalta are a Belfast-based group that play traditional Irish music
McCormack and Jordan are both Irish musicians who appear as guests on Réalta’s 2023 album Thing of the Earth, which is where this song comes from
The song was written by Irish poet Robert Dwyer Joyce about a rebel who sacrifices his romantic relationship to take part in the Irish Rebellion of 1798
The barley referred to in the song is a symbol of Irish resistance, as rebels would carry barley in their pockets to eat while marching
When they were killed and thrown in unmarked mass graves, the barley would grow and mark these spots where the rebels lay
Star Thistle - Green River Ice
A project from the mind of Winnipeg artist Uncle Sinner
This is from his 2021 album The Best of Star Thistle
Cisco Houston - I Ain’t Got No Home in This World Anymore
He was a folksinger and singer of cowboy songs born in Delaware and raised in California who regularly collaborated with artists like Woody Guthrie and Sonny Terry throughout the 30s and 40s
This is off his 1960 album Cisco Houston Sings Songs of the Open Road, released just a year before his death at the age of 42
This song is by 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
Tom Paxton - Fare Thee Well, Cisco
He’s a folksinger and music educator known for his involvement in the 1960s Greenwich Village folk music scene
This is from his 1964 debut album, Ramblin’ Boy, the liner notes of which say: “I only met Cisco Houston once and then too briefly to get to know him—but I liked him and I've always liked his singing. A lot of people, it seems, have written him off. Cisco Houston deserves to be remembered with affection.”
Snooks Eaglin - Remember Me
Eaglin was an American musician who played a wide range of styles and claimed to know about 2500 songs
This is a gospel song that he learned in church
Recorded in New Orleans in 1958 by Harry Oster
Lotus Wight - Thoughts and Prayers
He’s from the Kawartha Lakes region of Ontario, and he’s known as part of the group Sheesham, Lotus and Son
This is from his album Original Works for Voice and Banjo, which came out in May
Willi Carlisle - We Have Fed You All for 1000 Years
He’s a musician from Kansas, now based in Arkansas, who was raised in a musical family, and he’s been performing professionally for nearly a decade
This is from his latest album Winged Victory, which came out in June
This song comes from the Industrial Workers of the World’s Little Red Songbook, first published in 1909
The lyrics are an anonymous poem, with music by Rudolf von Liebich
Roy Bailey - More Than Enough
Bailey was an English sociologist and musician, known as a member of the group Three City Four
This comes from his 2013 album Sit Down & Sing
The song is by English singer and guitarist Robb Johnson
Bailey’s son-in-law says that during the last month of his life, Bailey largely seemed to be asleep, but during one of their last visits, Bailey opened his eyes and sang the last verse of that song
Pete Seeger - Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier
Seeger was a folk singer and activist who advocated for Civil Rights, environmental causes, and peace through his music
This is from volume four of his American Favourite Ballads album series, from 1961
It’s an American variant of a traditional Irish folk song about the sacrifices people make in times of war, and it became popular during the American Revolutionary War in the late 18th century
It’s based on the older Irish song “Siúil, a Rúin,” which has the same theme and melody
Clannad - Siúil, a Rún
They were an Irish band active between 1970 and 2024 and composed of three siblings—and later their younger sister, Enya—and their twin uncles
This is from their 1976 album Dúlamán
Their version comes from the singing of the Irish singer Elizabeth Cronin, who was recorded by the American folklorist Alan Lomax in the 1950s
Paul Clayton - Lady Franklin’s Lament
An American folksinger and folklorist who specialised in traditional music and collaborated with artists like Jean Ritchie and Dave Van Ronk
This is from his 1956 album Sailing and Whaling Songs of the 19th Century
The song is about the ill-fated 1845 voyage of Sir John Franklin and his crew, on which they intended to search for the Northwest Passage, and it’s from the perspective of a sailor dreaming about Lady Franklin talking about the loss of her husband
It was written in England at the time the search for the Expedition was going on, and first appeared in a printed broadside around 1850
It shares a lyric with “Siúil, a Rún”
Jackie Rae Daniels - Bob Dylan’s Dream
She’s a musician from Chicago, now based in Minnesota, who began playing travelling and performing across the United States when she was 18
This is from her 2022 album of songs by Bob Dylan called Dreams Don’t Decay
The song was originally included on Dylan’s 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
The melody is taken from “Lady Franklin’s Lament”
Kid Prince Moore - Bug Juice Blues
He was a Piedmont blues musician who recorded 17 songs between 1936 and 1938
This recording was made in April of 1936 in New York City
Leon Redbone - Bootleg Rum Dum Blues
Redbone moved to Canada from Cyprus with his family when he was a teenager in the 1960s, and first appeared onstage in Toronto in the 1970s
This is from the 2016 archival album Long Way from Home, which presents 18 tracks recorded for a 1972 radio broadcast at WBFO in Buffalo, New York
The song seems to be by Arthur Blake, who recorded it in 1928 for Paramount Records
The Persuasions - Positively 4th Street
They were an a cappella group from New York City that formed in 1962 and remained active until 2020
This is from their 2010 album of Bob Dylan covers called Knockin’ on Bob’s Door
Dylan released the song in 1965 as a single between Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, though it wasn’t included on an album
Raymond Souster - Flight of the Roller Coaster
From the 1958 Folkways album Six Toronto Poets
Souster was a poet from Toronto whose career spanned over 70 years
Though he is known as a poet, Souster worked as a bank vault custodian at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce for 45 years before retiring in 1984
Souster was also a founding editor of Contact magazine and Contact Press, which published books from 1952 until 1967
Bill Ballantyne - Wa Ta Mow
He’s a Cree elder, musician, and author from Saskatchewan, now based in Manitoba
This is from his second album, Encore, which seems to be from the 1980s
The title translates to “Tell Him”
The McMillan’s Camp Boys - Rank Strangers
This is from their EP The McMillan’s Camp Boys Sing Their Gospel Favourites: Live at Steeple Green, which they recorded in February in Musquodoboit Harbour in Nova Scotia
The song was written by Albert E Brumley of Missouri in 1942
Soledad Bravo - Punto y raya
She’s a Venezuelan singer who began performing in the 1960s
This is from her 1997 compilation album Cantos revolutionarios de america latina (1968-1973) (Revolutionary Songs of Latin America)
It’s her own song, the title of which translates to “The Dot and the Line,” and it’s a song of cross-border solidarity about how maps, and the borders they represent, are manmade
The last two stanzas translate to: “Walking through life you see rivers and mountains, you see jungles and deserts but neither dots nor lines, because these things do not exist but were planned so that my hunger and yours may always be separated”
Jim Page - My American Name
He’s a folksinger and activist based in Seattle, and this is off his 2003 album Collateral Damage
David Rovics - Comets of Kandahar
He’s a musician and writer based in Oregon who’s been touring internationally since the 1990s
This is from his 2013 album Everything Can Change
Rovics writes: “I borrowed the title from a beautiful instrumental by Canadian songwriter, Bruce Cockburn. He wrote some brilliant songs back in the 1980’s, including ‘If I Had A Rocket Launcher,’ ‘They Call It Democracy,’ and ‘Stolen Land.’ When I read about some of the odd things he said in reference to the Canadian occupation of Afghanistan, I was inspired to verse. Within this song, I refer to my three favorite Bruce Cockburn songs from the 80’s.”
Bruce Cockburn - Come Down Healing
Canadian singer-songwriter and skilled guitarist who’s been playing professionally for over 40 years
Recorded live in Ontario in July of 1995
It was included on the 2022 archival album Rarities, which presents 12 rarely heard recordings by Cockburn
Mama’s Broke - The Ones That I Love
They’re a duo from Nova Scotia who have been playing together for a decade
This comes from their 2022 album Narrow Line
Kim Barlow - Cruel Mother
She was born in Montreal, and raised in rural Nova Scotia, though she also spent about 2 decades living in the Yukon
This is from her 2018 album How to Let Go
This is a popular English murder ballad that dates back at least to the early 1600s
Livingstone College Male Quartet - Quartet Rehearsal
They were a vocal group from the historically Black Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina
This recording was made in New York City in 1927
It’s a barbershop quartet piece by Geoffrey O’Hara
