Barking Dog: September 19, 2024
LC Ulmer - Trouble No More
He was a delta blues musician and one-man band from Mississippi who played at festivals and clubs all over the States for over 50 years
This is off his 2011 album, Blues Come Yonder
The Small Glories - Time Wanders On
From Winnipeg
Cara Luft and JD Edwards
From their 2016 album Wondrous Traveler
Jerron Paxton - Things Done Changed
Contemporary Los Angeles musician whose style draws from recordings made before World War II
That’s the title track from his forthcoming album Things Done Changed, which comes out on October 18
South Memphis String Band - Old Hen
They’re a contemporary blues group consisting of Luther Dickinson of the Black Crowes, Alvin Youngblood Hart, and Jimbo Mathus of the Squirrel Nut Zippers
This is from their debut album, Home Sweet Home, from 2010
It’s a traditional American children’s song
Tony Saletan, Irene Kossoy - Don’t You Hear the Bells A-Ringing?
A married duo who recorded an album called Folksongs and Ballads in 1970
This is a hymn written by Dion De Marbelle in 1887, though it incorporates lyrics from another hymn called “The Christian’s Rest”
Robert Cage - Goodnight Irene
He was a blues musician and mechanic from Mississippi
This is from his 1998 album Can See What You’re Doing
The song was written by Black Tin Pan Alley composer Gussie Lord Davis, who was active in the 1890s
It’s best known as Lead Belly’s signature song—he learned it from his uncle Bob
Bob Dylan - Easy and Slow
This was recorded during a rehearsal for the Rolling Thunder Revue in Massachusetts in October of 1975
It’s the only recording of his version of this song, and it’s possible that the Irish writer and musician Dominic Behan wrote the verses in the 40s
Bob likely got the song from the Dubliners or the Clancy Brothers, both of whom popularized it in the 1960s
Periwinkle - The People United Can Never Be Defeated
This is from a 1981 album called The Promised Land: American Indian Songs of Lament and Protest
There’s not much else to be found about Periwinkle, though the liner notes for the album are worth checking out because they contain a lot of background on Indigenous issues in North America
Zeinab Shaath - Here We Shall Stay
Shaath was only a teenager when she began recording, and her music was some of the first in the English language to bring attention to the Palestinian struggle
This is a translation of a poem by Palestinian poet and politician Tawfiq Zayyad, which Shaath put to music
Stan Rogers - Second Effort
He was a musician from Hamilton, Ontario, whose music was largely inspired by Maritime folk music and the lives of working-class Canadians
The song was apparently commissioned in 1975 for the 1976 Montreal Olympics, and Rogers included it on his 1978 album Turnaround
This live version is from 1975
Chumbawamba - Buy Nothing Day
A British band active between 1982 and 2012 and best known for their 1997 hit “Tubthumping”
This is off their 2004 album Un
Louis Dotson - Bottle Blowing
Musician and farmer from Mississippi
Growing up, he would “talk bottle” with his friend who lived on the farm next door
They would blow air into a coke bottle half-filled with water, and follow the sounds to find each other
That’s where this tune comes from, but Dotson was also known for his “one-string guitar”, a single guitar string which he nailed to the side of his house and played with a bottleneck as a slide guitar
Gordon Lightfoot - Talkin’ Freight
This is from an EP of songs Lightfoot wrote for a Canadian National Railway promo film called Movin’, which he also appeared in
Pete Seeger - The People Are Scratching
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 1965 album God Bless the Grass
Seeger wrote the music, and the lyrics are by Ernie Marrs and Harold Martin
Bruce Cockburn - If I Had a Rocket Launcher
Singer-songwriter and guitarist from Ottawa who’s been playing professionally for over 40 years
He originally included this song on his 1984 album Stealing Fire
It was inspired by a trip Cockburn took to Guatemalan refugee camps in Mexico after dictator Efraín Ríos Montt’s counterinsurgency campaign
This is a live recording from 2008
Cecil Barfield - Lucy Mae Blues
Barfield was a blues musician and farmer from Georgia who folksong collector George Mitchell recorded in 1976
This is off a 2006 collection of those recordings
Jesse Matas - Peace River
From Manitoba
This is from his 2018 album Tamarock
Kaia Kater, Taj Mahal - Fédon
Kater is a Toronto-based artist
Taj Mahal is a Grammy-winning blues musician from New York City whose career has spanned over 50 years
This is from Kater’s album Strange Medicine, which came out in May
The song is about Grenadian revolutionary Julien Fédon, who, inspired by the Haitian Revolution, led an attempted armed insurrection against British colonists and plantation owners in the 1790s
Big Bill Broonzy - Willie May
He was an American blues singer and guitarist, and was one of the leading figures of the emerging folk revival of the 1950s
This is off an album recorded at WFMT in Chicago in 1957, with Broonzy, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee performing and Studs Terkel interviewing
Broonzy wrote the song about a woman he knew in his youth in Arkansas, and he performed the song throughout the 1950s
John Darnielle - Power in a Union
The song was written by Billy Bragg in 1986, and Darnielle recorded it in 2011 in support of protestors in Wisconsin who opposed the governor’s attempt to strip civic unions of their collective bargaining rights
Alistair Hulett - Everyone I Know
He was a folksinger from Glasgow, Scotland, known as a member of the folk punk band Roaring Jack
This is from his 1994 album In the Back Streets of Paradise
William Moore - Old Country Rock
He was a blues musician from Georgia who later worked as a barber in New Jersey
This is a recording he made for Paramount Records in 1929
Unidentified - White Folks Ain’t Jesus
This recording was made by Lawrence Gellert, a folk music collector who immigrated to New York City from Hungary as a child in the late 19th century
In the 1930s, Gellert moved to North Carolina for a time and made a series of trips around the southern States to record Black American folk music
He’s an interesting and somewhat controversial figure in folk music, because although he did collect many “authentic” recordings, he was also suspected of fabricating Black protest songs because similar songs could not be found in other folklorists’ collections
At the same time, the extent of this fabrication is unknown—while he almost undoubtedly taught performers his own protest songs and then recorded them, it’s also possible that he was able to record some of the performers’ more private songs because he lived in the south and wasn’t working for the government—as the Lomaxes were when they traveled through the States—and thus was considered more trustworthy
Regardless, his collection of blues and religious songs is considered legitimate
This song was recorded in either North Carolina or Georgia, and it’s a version of “How Long Blues,” first recorded by Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell in 1928
Sam Amidon - The Needle and the Damage Done
Contemporary folk artist from Vermont
This is off the 2011 compilation album Harvest Revisited, which was produced by Mojo Magazine and features covers of all the songs on Neil Young’s 1972 album, Harvest
Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer, Chao Tian - Glory in the Meeting House / Leader’s Glory
Fink and Marxer are a married duo that has been performing together for over 35 years
Cathy Fink is from Maryland, but began her career in the early 70s, busking and playing folk music in Canadian coffeehouses
She met Marxer, originally from Michigan, in Toronto in 1980, and they started writing songs together in 1983
Since then, they have released about 35 albums and received 14 Grammy nominations and 2 Grammy awards
Tian is a Chinese hammered dulcimer player, sound designer, and visual artist who has performed in over 30 countries and has been fostering cultural exchange between the United States and China since 2015
This is off their recent album, From China to Appalachia, which came out in August
“Glory in the Meeting House” is an old-time breakdown from the Kentucky River basin that was a popular tune to play at fiddle contests
“Leader’s Glory” is a traditional Chinese folk tune, and the musicians note that the two songs share similar melodies
Barbara Dane - Only a Pawn in Their Game
She’s a folk, jazz, and blues singer from Detroit whose voice was described by Time magazine as "pure, rich ... rare as a 20 carat diamond"
This is from a 2018 Smithsonian Folkways retrospective compilation album called Hot Jazz, Cool Blues & Hard-Hitting Songs
The song is by Bob Dylan, and Dane first heard it when Bob Dylan sat with her on a friend’s floor in Los Angeles
She recorded her version live at the Cabale in Berkeley, California in 1964
David Rovics - The Murdered and the Missing
He’s a topical singer-songwriter based in Oregon who’s been playing since the 1990s
This is from his recent album Ministry of Culture: Live at Ecosocialism 2024, which was released in July
Rovics wrote the song in June
T Dekker, Great Lake Swimmers - Song Sung Blue
They’re an Ontario band that have been performing since the early 2000s
This is from their score for a 2008 documentary, also called Song Sung Blue
The song is by Neil Diamond, who released it on his 1972 album Moods
Diamond first became interested in making music when he was 16, and attended a summer camp where Pete Seeger held a concert
He got a guitar as soon as he got home, and immediately began writing songs
Willie Dunn - Two Lullabies
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
Jimmy Lee Harris - Dark Cloud Rising
He was a musician from Alabama who worked in different jobs across the United States, but often returned back to his hometown of Phenix City, where he played in a duo with his brother Eddie
George Mitchell recorded some of his music in 1981, including this one
Willie Watson - Mole in the Ground
Watson is a New York musician who is a founding member of the band Old Crow Medicine Show
This is off his brand new self-titled album, which came out last Friday
It’s a traditional American folk song that’s been widely commercially recorded
Dyad - Run, Johnny, Run
