Barking Dog: September 3, 2026
Bruce Cockburn - Fare Thee Well
Singer-songwriter and guitarist from Ottawa who’s been playing professionally for over 40 years
This one came out on August 18
It’s a single from his forthcoming album The Blood of Others, which releases in October
It’s a collection of songs written by other people that he “found sticking to the edges of [his] musical landscape”
The title of the album comes from the name of a novel by Simone de Beauvoir
Cockburn first heard the song from Fred Neil, and later performed it with the McGarrigle sisters at Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday concert
The song was originally recorded from a woman named Dink on the banks of the Brazos River in Texas by John Lomax in 1909
Ellen Stekert - Starfish
Stekert is a folklorist, musician, and scholar from New York (now based in Minnesota) who began her career in Greenwich Village in the 1950s
Over the last few 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 from her latest release, All My Friends: A Queer Folk Songbook
Willie Watson - Saint Stephen’s End
Watson is a New York musician who was a founding member of the band Old Crow Medicine Show
This is from the forthcoming album Felice County Fair, a tribute to the New York band the Felice Brothers
They released the song on their 2008 self-titled album
John Prine - All for the Love of a Girl
Prine was one of the most influential songwriters of his generation
He died in April of 2020 from COVID, but he’s remembered for his social commentary and his unique style of singing
This is a new single from the forthcoming album Found Dogs, a collection of demos and recordings from the sessions for Prine’s 1995 album Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings
It’s a song by Johnny Horton, who first released it in 1953
Jake Xerxes Fussell - Boll Weevil
Fussell is a North Carolina artist who was raised in an artistic family and apprenticed with the blues musician Precious Bryant from a young age
This is a new single from his upcoming album The Old Beloved Path, out on September 18
It’s a traditional American folk song that’s been widely recorded, and Fussell draws from recordings by Charley Patton and Blind Willie McTell, though he strung together lyrics from several versions to create a stronger narrative
Carsie Blanton, The Burning Hell - Weary Arms
She’s a musician originally from Virginia, now based in New Jersey who released her first album in 2005
The Burning Hell are a rural PEI-based band whose members are Ariel Sharratt and Mathias Kom
This is off their recent collaborative album Everything is Great, which came out in April
They recorded it in Kinvara, Ireland in November of 2025
Uncle Sinner - The Cuckoo
From Winnipeg
This is a demo from his 2014 album A Pocketful of Glass Eyes
It’s a traditional English folk song, though it’s also popular in the US, Canada, Scotland, and Ireland
Rachid Makhlouf - Most of the Time
He’s a musician from Algeria, and this recording is from 2019
It’s a version of Bob Dylan’s song, who recorded it for his 1989 album Oh Mercy
John Gorka - I Think of You
He’s a musician from New Jersey who began performing in the 1980s and is associated with the New Folk Movement of the 1990s
This is a recording from 2021, though he also recorded the song for his 2008 album So Dark You See
The song is by Utah Phillips
Pat Foster, Dick Weissman - Talking Centralia
Foster was a musician and poet from the Pacific Northwest, and Weissman is a musician, author, and teacher from Pennsylvania
This is off their 1957 album Documentary Talking Blues, and it’s one of three songs written by Woody Guthrie after the Centralia mine explosion in Centralia, Illinois, in 1947, in which 111 miners were killed
Woody Guthrie - Goodbye Centralia
Guthrie was an influential folk musician who’s known for his songs about the Okie migrants who travelled west during the Great Depression in search of work
This is a live recording from a concert Guthrie gave in Newark, New Jersey in 1949
The recording was made on a cheap wire recorder, and a significant amount of restoration was required before the concert could be released as an album, but when it was released in 2008, it received the Grammy for Best Historical Album
The song is also known as “Dying Miner”
Moes Haven - Centralia
They’re a band formed by Matt Farley and Tom Scalzo while they were studying at Providence College in Rhode Island in the 1990s
In 2006, they completed a project where they recorded one album every day
Farley is also known for cult-classic films including Magic Spot, Freaky Farley, and Adventures in Cruben Country, all of which we at Barking Dog recommend, and Scalzo often appears as an actor in those films
This is from the 2013 compilation album Songs from Deep in the Vault (1996-2010)
Gregoire Maret, Romain Collin, Bill Frisell - Re: Stacks
Frisell is an American composer, arranger, and guitarist
Maret is a jazz harmonica player originally from Switzerland and now based in New York, and Collin is a French pianist and composer
This is off their 2020 Grammy-nominated album Americana, a collection of originals and covers that all fall under the broad umbrella of “Americana” music
It’s a song by Bon Iver, from his 2007 album For Emma, Forever Ago
Kyoko Ikeda - Boat on the River
She’s a musician and photographer from Japan who records all the instruments for her recordings, and often covers Beatles songs
This is her 2021 cover of Styx’s song from their 1979 album Cornerstone
The Camperdown Family Band - Instinct
They’re a band based in British Columbia, and this is from their 2022 album The Camperdown Family Band Vol. 1
James Earl Jones - Paul Robeson HUAC Hearing
Robeson was a singer, actor, lawyer, activist, and football player from New Jersey who was part of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City during the 1920s, and became well known as a stage actor and singer in both the United States and Europe
In June of 1956, he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee
HUAC was a US government committee formed in the late 1930s to investigate Americans allegedly involved in subversive activities
Its hearings led to many public figures being blacklisted from working, including many folksingers
After the hearing, his work was removed from public distribution and he was maligned in the American press, though he was able to perform for European audiences via the transatlantic telephone cable, and; once he was granted a new passport in 1958 after a travel ban that had lasted almost a decade, he left the United States for Europe and remained there for several years
We’ll hear Robeson’s full testimony from that day, as interpreted by actor James Earl Jones
Phil Ochs - Another Country
Ochs was an American protest singer who grew up all over the United States, but moved to New York City in 1962 to establish himself in the Greenwich Village folk scene
This is from a 1989 collection of recordings made for Broadside Magazine between 1962 and 1964
He wrote the song after the assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers in Mississippi in 1963
Vera Johnson - The Bald Eagle
She was a musician and author from Vancouver who began playing music in 1949, when she was in her late 20s
This is from her 1974 album of the same name
She wrote this song the day after the US Atomic Energy Commission detonated a five-megaton nuclear device underground on the Aleutian island of Amchitka, which had served as a wildlife sanctuary
Jeremy Corbyn - If I Must Die
He’s a British politician and activist who previously served as leader of the Labour Party before co-founding Your Party, a socialist political party, in July of 2025
This is his reading of Palestinian poet and professor of English literature Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I Must Die,” from April of 2025
Alareer and six member of his family were killed in an Israeli airstrike in December of 2023
The Men of No Property - The Wee White Turban
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
The tune for this song comes from the popular rebel song “The Broad Black Brimmer,” and the liner notes state that it’s a “light-hearted dig at the kind of Irish Rebel song which seems to have more sentiment than politics,” but that at the same time, it “relates the class struggles of another people to our own”
It should be noted that although this song is sympathetic to the Palestinian struggle, the accurate term for the traditional Palestinian head covering is “keffiyeh” rather than “turban”
Jay Brady Highstool Prophets - Joe McDonnell
They’re a five-piece folk group from Cavan, Ireland, and this is a live recording released in June
It’s a song by Irish group the Wolfe Tones, who released it in 1983
Joe McDonnell was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who died in 1981 following the Irish hunger strike, a protest undertaken by Irish prisoners in Northern Ireland during the Troubles in an effort to gain rights including the right to wear one’s own clothes, the right not to do prison work, and the right to one visit, one letter, and one parcel per week
McDonnell died in July of 1981 at the age of 29 after 61 days on strike
Guy Carawan, Candie Carawan - The Trail of Tears
Guy Carawan was a folk musician and musicologist from California, and Candie is his wife, a singer, author, and activist
They often performed together, and also helped popularize the song “We Shall Overcome” during the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s
This comes from their 1990 album Tree of Life
It’s a song by Pat and Victoria Garvey
David Campbell - Grandfathers
He’s a Guyanese-Canadian musician based in Vancouver who began playing professionally in the 1960s
This is from his 1977 album Pretty Brown
Laura Baird - Love Song from the Earth to the Moon
She’s a multi-instrumentalist from New Jersey known for her work with her sister Meg as the Baird Sisters, and with guitarist Glenn Jones
This is off her 2017 debut album I Wish I Were a Sparrow, and it’s her own song
John Samson Fellows - Don’t Let Your Friends Become Landlords
He’s a Winnipeg musician, artist, and community worker who’s known as a member of the bands The Weakerthans and Propagandhi, and as a solo artist
Zachary Lucky - Jasper
He’s a musician from Saskatchewan, and this is a live recording from his album The Lost River Sessions, which came out in February
Buna Hicks, Rosa Presnell - Where the Sun Will Never Go Down
From a 1965 album of songs from Beech Mountain, NC, where the descendents of the southern Appalachians’ first settlers lived
Buna Hicks was about 74 when this recording was made--she wasn’t completely sure, as the family bible in which her date of birth was recorded was lost--and she said “I can make a noise on just about anything - guitar, banjo, or fiddle - but I don't play none of 'em well.”
Rosa was her daughter
This is a hymn that dates to the early 19th century
Preeper Rhaye MacKay - Fare Thee Well
They’re a New Brunswick-based trio formed by Jessica Rhaye, Bill Preeper, Sandy MacKay
This is the first single from their album Blackberry Lane, which comes out in October
Howard Zinn - War is a Class Phenomenon
