Barking Dog: September 4, 2025
Joe Hickerson - Won’t You Come and Sing for Me
Hickerson passed away on August 17th at the age of 89
He was a folk singer, songleader, and folklorist from Illinois, and served as Librarian and Director of the Archive of Folk Song at the Library of Congress for 35 years
He’s known for his work as a lecturer, researcher, and performer, and he will always remain a favourite musician here at Barking Dog
This is from his 1976 album Drive Dull Care Away, Vol. 2
The song is by Hazel Dickens
Ryan McNally - Handsome Molly
McNally is Yukon-based multi-instrumentalist who gravitates towards traditional blues, jazz, and old-time music
This is from the forthcoming compilation album Big Turnips Vol. 3, a collection of recordings made by Dylan Jewers of Big Turnip Records of roots music from across Canada and one group from Louisiana, which is set to be released in early 2026
It’s an Appalachian love song, though it’s possible it has its roots in older English ballads
The Silver Sardines - Two Angels
They’re an alt-folk band from Montreal, and this is from their new EP Little Man, What Now?, which was written on a journey through western Europe in early 2024
Ellen Stekert - Shugo
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 cleaned 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, a song she learned from the lumberjack Ezra “Fuzzy” Barhight in 1956 while she was working on her PhD thesis
She later recorded an album of songs she learned from Barhight for Folkways Records, though this song was not among them—the recording we’ll hear was made about 10 years later
Stekert writes that the song “probably has vaudeville or music hall origins,” and that Barhight learned it from a pamphlet sold at a traveling circus
Willie Watson - Sad Song
Watson is a New York musician who is a founding member of the band Old Crow Medicine Show
This is a new one from the recently released deluxe edition of his 2024 self-titled solo album
He recorded it live at Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, New York
Kaki King - Playing the Vein
She’s a guitarist from Georgia who began playing the instrument at the age of four and released her first album in 2003
This one is off her new EP Stop Sometime, which came out on August 22
Old Man Luedecke - First Day of Fall
From Chester, NS
This is from his 2018 album One Night Only! Live at the Chester Playhouse
Rufus Kasey - Coo Coo Bird
Kasey was a banjo player from Virginia who began playing at the age of 8
This is a field recording made in Roanoke, Virginia in 1984
The song contains elements of the traditional English folk song of the same name, as well as snippets of other traditional songs
Kevin Coyne - The Long Arm of the Law
He was an English musician, writer, and filmmaker who began performing in the late 1960s while working as psychiatric nurse and drug counsellor, an experience that deeply impacted his lyrical composition
This is from the 1994 compilation album Elvira: Songs from the Archives 1979-83
Cordelia’s Dad - The Dying Californian
Folk and alt rock band from Northampton, Massachusetts active between 1987 and 1998
This is from their 1995 album Comet
This American hymn is based on a letter that told of a New Englander’s death at sea while on the way to California during the time of the Gold Rush, and it first appeared in print in 1854
Dillard Chandler - Rain and Snow
He was an Appalachian folksinger from North Carolina who knew hundreds of traditional ballads from his region
He was described by other locals as a “mysterious man" who "didn't live in one specific place, but would just show up from time to time”
This is a field recording made by John Cohen in 1967 for his documentary about Chandler called The End of an Old Song, which was later released as an album in 1975
“Rain and Snow” is a folk song and murder ballad from North Carolina
It possibly relates the story of a murder that occurred in Madison County, NC in the late 19th century
Sam Amidon - Rain and Snow
Amidon is a contemporary folk artist from Vermont, now based in England
This is from his 2010 album I See the Sign
Fred Penner - Garbage
He’s a children’s musician and entertainer from Winnipeg who’s been performing professionally since the early 1970s
The song is by California songwriter Bill Steele, who said of it: “Most topical songs quickly become outdated; it’s unfortunate that this one hasn’t”
It was popularized by Pete Seeger in 1977
Malvina Reynolds - Like the Miller Grinds the Wheat
She’s known particularly for writing the song “Little Boxes,” though she wrote and recorded a large catalogue of music during her career
This is a live recording that was previously unreleased until its inclusion on the 2021 compilation album Little Boxes and Other Handmade Songs
Phil Ochs - I’ll Be There
He was an American protest singer who grew up all over the United States, but moved to New York City in 1962 to establish himself as a folksinger in the Greenwich Village folk scene
This comes from the 1986 album A Toast to Those Who Are Gone, which is a compilation of previously unreleased material recorded in the 1960s
Walt Robertson - What You Gonna Do?
He was a Seattle folksinger and actor who was very influential in the west coast folk scene in the middle of the 20th century
This comes from his 1959 album Walt Robertson Sings American Folk Songs
The song is also known as “Sometime,” and it seems to have come both from traditional material and from a theatrical piece from 1939 called John Henry, in which Josh White performed
Algia Mae Hinton - Whatcha Gonna Do When Your Good Girl Turns You Down?
She was a Piedmont blues musician from North Carolina who learned to play the guitar from her mother, an expert in the Piedmont fingerpicking style who often played at local parties and gatherings
She met the folklorist Glenn Hinson in 1978, who arranged for her to perform at the North Carolina Folklife Festival
She gave several concerts outside of North Carolina after that, even travelling to Europe to perform in 1998
This is from her 1999 album Honey Babe
Emmanuel Wood - Lighthouse
This is from the 1977 album I'm Old But I'm Awfully Tough: Traditional Music of the Ozark Region, a collection of field recordings made in Missouri and Arkansas between 1975 and 1976 by members of the Missouri Friends of the Folk Arts
Wood was from Missouri, and he would host an old-time music gathering every weekend in the town of Ozark for over 25 years
He learned this song from Art Galbraith of Springfield, Missouri, and it’s a common tune in the midwest
Kevin Morby - Random Rules
He’s a Kansas-based musician who’s been performing since 2008
This is from Lagniappe Sessions, Vol. 2, a collection of recordings from the series of the same name, released on the weekly Aquarium Drunkard radio show
The song is by David Berman of Silver Jews, released on their 1998 album American Water
Bob Dylan - Love Minus Zero / No Limit
This is off the 1971 live album The Concert for Bangladesh, organized by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar and recorded at Madison Square Garden in August of that year to fundraise and raise awareness of the plight of refugees from the Bangladesh Liberation War, the ethnic cleansing of Bengalis, and the 1970 Bhola cyclone
Dylan originally released the song on his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home
Kaigal-ool Khovalyg, Anatoli Kuular, Sayan Bapa - Chiraa-Xor (Yellow Trotter)
This is from the 1999 album Tuva, Among the Spirits: Sound, Music, and Nature in Sakha and Tuva
It was recorded between 1995 and 1998 “on horseback, in creek beds, caves, canyons, and grasslands”
Tuva is a Russian republic in southern Siberia, and Tuvans are a traditionally nomadic ethnic group indigenous to Tuva, China, and Mongolia
The performers on this track are three of the four members of the Tuvan ensemble Huun-Huur-Tu
The song is about a horse that escaped a landowner’s plot to drive it over a cliff
Clyde “Kindy” Sproat - Kaulana Nā Pua (Famous Are the Flowers)
Sproat was a renowned musician, storyteller, and song keeper from North Kohala, Hawaii
This is from a 1996 album of songs and stories from Hawai‘i, recorded live at the Honolulu Academy of Arts in 1993
This song was written by Ellen W Pendergast in 1893 as a tribute to the last Hawaiian monarch, Queen Lili-uokalani
Chris While, Kellie While - Mississippi
They’re an English mother-daughter duo who have performed both as solo acts and in groups including the Albion Band
This is from their 2006 album Too Few Songs
It’s a song by Bob Dylan, first recorded by Sheryl Crow in 1998
Richard Inman - Rex’s Blues
He’s a folk and country artist from Winnipeg
This is a song by Townes Van Zandt
Inman recorded it in 2021
Theodore Roethke - Give Way, Ye Gates
He was a highly influential poet from Michigan who won two National Book Awards for Poetry and two Pulitzer Prizes over the course of his career
This is from his 1962 album Words for the Wind, which he recorded for Folkways Records a year before his death
Christy Moore - Lyra McKee
He’s an Irish folk musician who’s known as a founding member of the band Planxty as well as a solo artist
He’s been performing since 1969, and this one is off his latest album, A Terrible Beauty, which came out last year
Lyra McKee was a journalist from Northern Ireland who was shot while observing rioting in Derry in 2019
Police raided homes to seize weapons before commemorative parades for the Easter Rising took place the following weekend, and violence broke out in response to this police action, which included a gunman firing several shots towards them, one of which hit and later killed McKee
The killing was attributed to the New Irish Republican Army, a violent splinter group of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and two men were later charged with her murder
Leon Rosselson - Just Like Animals
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 from his 1995 album Intruders
Bruce Cockburn - Put It In Your Heart
Canadian singer-songwriter and skilled guitarist who’s been playing professionally for over 40 years
This version is from Cockburn’s 2009 live album Slice O’ Life
It’s originally from his 2003 album You’ve Never Seen Everything
Shorty Bob Parker - Tired of Being Drug Around
He was a blues pianist who recorded several sides for Decca Records in South Carolina in the 1930s
This one was recorded in 1938, with Kid Prince Moore on guitar
Howie Mitchell - The Terrier Pup
Mitchell was a Virginian folk musician best known as a dulcimer player, who was first introduced to the instrument during the folk revival of the 1950s, though he plays the guitar on this recording
This is from his 1963 self-titled album, and the song came from his own family tradition
Kim Barlow - Little Sadie
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
It’s a 20th century American folk ballad also known as “Bad Lee Brown” and “Penitentiary Blues”
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Elk River Blues
