Barking Dog: September 12, 2024
Jerron Paxton - What’s Gonna Become of Me
Contemporary Los Angeles musician whose style draws from recordings made before World War II
This is the first single from his forthcoming album Things Done Changed, which comes out on October 18
It’s his own song that uses some traditional lyrics
Jake Xerxes Fussell - One Morning in May
He’s a musician from Georgia
This is from his latest album, When I’m Called, which came out on July 12
It’s a traditional English folk song that’s been collected throughout the UK and North America
Willie Dunn - Old Crow’s Great Idea
Dunn was a Mi’kmaq musician and film director from Montreal, known for songs like “I Pity the Country” and “Son of the Sun”
This is off the recent Light in the Attic reissue of his 2004 album Son of the Sun
Unknown - Sikalela Izwe Lakithi (We Protest for Our Land)
This is off the 1965 album This Land is Mine: South African Freedom Songs
The songs on the album were composed in the 1950s in support of the South African Liberation Movement
The description of this song reads: “We are crying for our land which was grabbed away from us. The song also urges all the African tribes, Zulus, Xhosas, Sothos to unite”
Angelo Dornan - Pretty Susan
Folksinger from New Brunswick who lived most of his life in Alberta
He 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
This is from an album of lumber and river songs from the Miramichi Folk Festival in Newcastle, NB
It’s the Canadian version of an Irish ballad
“Grandma” Pearly Davis - May I Sleep in Your Barn Tonight, Mister
This is from a 1962 album recorded by Mike Seeger and Lisa Chiera in 1961 at the 37th Old Time Fiddler’s Convention at Union Grove in North Carolina
When Seeger visited Davis and her family after one of the conventions, he learned that she didn’t trust electricity, and therefore didn’t have it, and also saw that she had two prominent pictures on her mantlepiece: one of the first recorded rural fiddler, Fiddling John Carson, and one of Elvis Presley
She’s accompanied on this one by her granddaughter
Réalta - Mulroy Bay
Réalta are a Belfast-based group that play traditional Irish music
This is from their 2023 album Thing of the Earth
The song was possibly composed by Hugh Friel, who was a teacher at Kerrykeel school on the shores of Mulroy Bay
The Men of No Property - The Banks of Mulroy Bay
This is from the 1977 Folkways album Ireland: The Final Struggle
The Men of No Property were Belfast-born college students who took part in protests and marches in Northern Ireland in 1969 during the Northern Ireland civil rights campaign
This is a ballad commemorating the ambush murder of Lord Leitrim, an infamous landlord, in 1898, after he had ordered the eviction of any tenant who failed to pay their rent on time
The liner notes for the album state, “It is no surprise that the men who did the deed were never caught. The rash of local ballads which commemorated the event were scarcely laments"
Kaleidoscope - Banjo
Kaleidoscope was a psychedelic folk band from California that was mainly active between 1966 and 1970
This one is from their third album, Incredible! Kaleidoscope from 1969
It’s a piece by David Lindley, who was one of the band’s main members
Gordon Lightfoot - Bossman
This is from his first live album, recorded at Massey Hall in Toronto and released in 1969
It’s originally off his 1968 album Did She Mention My Name?
Leon Rosselson - Where Are the Barricades?
Rosselson is a musician and children’s book writer from England who first became widely known in the 1960s by performing his satirical songs on the BBC show That Was the Week That Was
This is the title track from his 2016 album, which Rosselson deemed his final recording
He wrote the song in 2008 during the global financial crisis
Grupo de Experimentación Sonora - Su Nombre, Ho Chi Minh (Your Name, Ho Chi Minh)
From a 1971 album of songs written, arranged, performed, and produced in Cuba by the Experimental Sound Collective of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Arts and Industries
The lyrics are by poet Félix Pita Rodríguez, who was born in 1909 and was a member of the pre-Revolutionary poetry movement of the 20s and 30s, and the music is by Pablo Milanés, who was born in 1943 and is known as a founder of the post-revolutionary Cuban nueva trova musical movement
Unknown - Una na kysa (Rabbit Song)
From a 1982 album of music by the Arawak, the Kalinago, and the Warao people of Guyana
The lyrics of the song relate the story of a rabbit son crying because he is hungry, and his mother arriving with potatoes on her head
The unidentified man who performs the song accompanies himself on a homemade 3-string banjo
Horton Barker - Hop, Old Rabbit, Hop
He was an Appalachian traditional singer from Tennessee who learned the majority of his songs from the School for the Deaf and Blind in Staunton, Virginia
Sandy Paton, a founder of Folk Legacy Records, recorded him in 1961 for the album Traditional Singer, which is where this song is from
This was a popular song throughout the southern United States
Pete Seeger - Mister Rabbit
Seeger was a folk singer and an activist from New York who advocated for countless social causes through his music for 75 years
This is from his album of animal songs Birds, Beasts, Bugs and Fishes (Little and Big)
It’s a traditional African American folk song
Uncle Sinner - Trouble of This World
From Winnipeg
His version of the traditional gospel song often known as “Soon I Will Be Done” or “No More Weeping and Wailing”
It’s off his 2020 album of the same name
Gregory Corso - How Not to Die
He was a poet from New York City who’s known as a member of the Beat Generation
This is off a 1988 album of his poetry
The Jubilee Gospel Team - These Bones Goin’ Rise Again
They were a gospel group from Virginia that recorded in the late 1920s
This is a traditional African American spiritual about Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden
Southern Fife and Drum Corps - Jim and John
From an album of Alan Lomax recordings from the southern states from between 1959 and 1960
A Mississippi fife and drum band formed by Ed Young on fife, his brother Lonnie Young Sr. on bass drum, and his nephew, Lonnie Jr., on snare drum
William Major James, Viola James, and Elisha Franklin also perform on this one
It was recorded at the home of Ed Young in September of 1959
Dyad - Roustabout
From Victoria, BC
From their album Who’s Been Here Since I’ve Been Gone from 2002
This song is essentially “Hop High My Lulu Gal,” which is a traditional American song
Jean Carignan and Friends - Les fraises et les framboises / Le festin de campagne / Ah! Si mon moine voulait danser
Carignan born in Levis, Quebec
Made a member of the Order of Canada in 1974 as “the greatest fiddler in North America”
He’s joined by Gerard Delorier, Madame Richard, Aldor Morin, and Edgar Morin singing and Bob Hill on guitar
This is a medley of three well-known French-Canadian response songs
Bruce Cockburn - It Won’t Be Long
Canadian singer-songwriter and skilled guitarist who’s been playing professionally for over 40 years
From his 1974 album Salt, Sun and Time
Roscoe Holcomb - I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow
Was a construction worker, coal miner, and farmer much of his life
He was an older artist who became popular during the folk revival of the 1960s, and didn’t have a music career 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
This is from a 2003 Folkways collection of his music called An Untamed Sense of Control
He recorded this song in New York City in 1961, though he was hesitant to record it because he had learned it from Ralph Stanley’s recording of the song
He had learned all the other songs he recorded from somebody in person
Bob Dylan - Man of Constant Sorrow
This ballad was first published by Dick Burnett of Kentucky in 1913, though it likely came from a much older traditional tune
This version was recorded in May of 1961 in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Pete Seeger - Teacher’s Blues
This is off his 1958 album Gazette, which is a collection of topical songs
This song was composed by a professor at Cornell University in 1947, who organised a quartet known as the “Slipshod Four”
Lucy Barnes, Brady “Doc” Barnes - Walk with Me
From an album of traditional music from northern Georgia, recorded by the folklorist and artist Art Rosenbaum and released in 1984
This one was recorded in Athens in August of 1983
The Barnes had a repertoire of several hundred spirituals, and would often sing them late into the night at their home with other singers
They learned this song from Deacon Olsby of Madison, Georgia
James “Son” Thomas - Four Women Blues
He was a Delta blues musician from Mississippi, and he was also a gravedigger and sculptor
Thomas became better known after William Ferris included him in the films he made for the Center for Southern Folklore in the 1970s
He’s also known for making sculptures from the clay he dug up on the banks of the Yazoo River, many of which were skulls that contained real human teeth, reflecting his philosophy that "we all end up in the clay"
He died in 1993 but his son Pat continues to play his father’s music
Gianni Marcucci travelled from Italy to the United States five times during the 70s and 80s to document blues music
He found Thomas in Leland, Mississippi, and recorded this track at his home in August of 1978
Rich Amerson, Earthy Anne Coleman - Death Have Mercy
From an album of African American folk music from Alabama that folklorist Harold Courlander recorded in 1950 as an attempt to counter the mid-20th century stereotypes of African American music
Amerson was from Livingston, Alabama and worked as a farmer, lumberjack, track-liner, storm pit builder, well taster, and lay preacher during his life
Courlander describes him as “a true story teller and bard, of a kind that has become exceedingly rare in modern society”
We hear his older sister, Earthy Anne Coleman, on this recording, too
Harry Manx, Sydney Lyric Quartet - Death Have Mercy
He’s a Canadian musician known for combining folk, blues, and Hindustani classical music
This is from his 2017 album Faith Lift
Ferron - Never Your Own
She’s a musician from BC
From her 2009 album Boulder
Cara Luft - The Blacksmiths
From Winnipeg
Off her 2003 album Tempting the Storm
A traditional English folk song first collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams in Herefordshire in 1909
David Francey - Blue Water
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who worked as a railyard worker and carpenter for 20 years before pursuing folk music at the age of 45
He’s now been performing professionally for over 20 years
From his 1999 album Torn Screen Door
Stanley Triggs - Brown Eyes
He’s a folksinger, photographer, and anthropologist from BC
“Brown Eyes” is a popular song likely of Irish origin
That’s a rural version that Triggs learned in Salmo, BC
It was common there and in other parts of the Kootenays
Henry Thomas - Bull Doze Blues
American country-blues musician born 1874
His style was an early example of Texas blues guitar and he influenced artists like Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, and Canned Heat
The flute-like instrument you hear on this recording (and really any other Thomas song) is quills, a folk instrument made from cane reeds
This was recorded in 1928 for Vocalion Records
The Lapsey Band - Going up the Country, Don’t You Want to Go
This is from an album of Black country brass band music from Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi from 1955
Brass music has a long history in the United States, and Black brass bands started popping up just after Emancipation in 1863
Their repertoire came from church and secular songs, often songs that they had sung before blowing them through horns, and they learned all their songs by ear
By all indications, this tradition of country brass music formed a necessary ingredient of the dance music that evolved into jazz in New Orleans
Recorded May of 1954 near Scotts Station, Alabama
This is their version of “Bull Doze Blues”
