Barking Dog: September 7, 2023
Connie Converse - Fare You Well
Began writing songs and performing for friends in NYC in the early 1950s, but gave up after a decade of failed attempts at a music career, and moved to Michigan to work at a university
In 1974 she wrote many letters to friends and family suggesting that she intended to start a new life somewhere else
Shortly after that she packed her things into her car and drove off, and was never seen again
Her music was widely rediscovered in 2004 when her friend Gene Deitch, who had recorded a number of her songs, played some of them on a radio show on the public radio station WNYC
In 2009 an album of 17 home recordings was released, called How Sad, How Lovely
This is from the third collection of her music that’s been released, called Musicks, which came out on August 11
Stanley Triggs - Brown Eyes
An anthropologist and photographer who worked in logging camps, construction camps, in forestry, with survey crews, and on railroad gangs in BC
He also played in coffee houses in the 1960s
“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
Sam Amidon - Fall On My Knees
Contemporary folk artist from Vermont
This is from his 2008 album All Is Well
It’s an old-time Appalachian tune
Tom Parrott - Will You Go, Lassie, Go (Wild Mountain Thyme)
Parrott is a folk singer from Washington, DC who was part of the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene
From his 1968 album Neon Princess
This is a folk song from Ireland and Scotland, and Irish musician Francis McPeake adapted it in the 1950s into the version we know today from the 1822 song “The Braes of Balquhither”
Ian & Sylvia - The Jealous Lover
Ian & Sylvia performed together from 1959 until their divorce in 1975
The song has been found on the east coasts of Canada and the United States, and it seems to be descended from an Irish ballad called “James Plumroy”
Big Bill Broonzy - Goin’ Down This Road
He was an American blues singer and guitarist, and one of the leading figures of the emerging folk revival of the 1950s
This is from the 1962 album Big Bill Broonzy Sings Folk Songs
A very well-known folk song that’s been widely recorded by many well-known roots artists like Woody Guthrie, Elizabeth Cotten, and Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley
Also known as “Lonesome Road Blues”
John Calloway - The Cuckoo Bird
This is from a 1978 album of non-blues secular African American music from Virginia
Calloway was from Henry County, Virginia, and he sang and played the banjo
While the song uses the first two stanzas of the traditional English folk song “The Cuckoo,” it’s actually a version of the popular American ballad “Ten Broek and Mollie”
It’s based on a horse race that took place on July 4, 1878 in Kentucky
Logan English - Little Brown Dog
He was a folksinger, playwright, and actor from Kentucky who’s known for his involvement in the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene
He’s remembered particularly for being the MC at the coffeehouse Gerde’s Folk City, and for recording one of the earliest albums in tribute to Woody Guthrie
This is from his 1962 album American Folk Ballads
He got this song from a collection of children’s songs collected by composer Ruth Crawford Seeger, who got it from a woman in Mississippi named Birmah H Grisson
Old Man Luedecke - Mountain Plain
From Chester, NS
This is from his album My Hands Are on Fire and Other Love Songs from 2010
Roscoe Holcomb - Hills of Mexico
Holcomb was a construction worker, coal miner, and farmer much of his life
He was first discovered by John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers playing on his front porch in Daisy, Kentucky in 1958, and became popular during the folk revival of the 1960s
The song is also known as “On the Trail of the Buffalo” and “Buffalo Skinners”
Virgil Anderson - Bed Bug Blues
He was a banjo player from Wayne County, Kentucky who was born in 1902 and played banjo from the age of 10, entertaining men in logging camps with his skills
This was recorded around 1979
The song is likely from Kentucky, and it’s one of many songs about bed bugs
Star Thistle - Starting Over
A project from the mind of Winnipeg artist Uncle Sinner
Off his debut album The Best of Star Thistle, from 2021
Matt McGinn - I’m Looking for a Job
He was a Scottish musician, actor, and writer who was a key member of the British folk revival of the 50s and 60s
This is from his 1967 album Matt McGinn Again
Walter Ferguson - Computer
He was a Costa Rican calypso singer born in 1919 who spent almost his whole life in Cahuita, a small fishing village
He started recording his music on tapes in the 1970s after one of his sons gave him a tape recorder, and he sold his music to travellers from around the world
Ferguson did this until the 1990s, when he retired from music
In 2018, to recover some of his lost music—since each tape was unique and he never wrote down his lyrics—one of his sons put out a call for help to find more of his tapes in preparation for his 100th birthday, which resulted in a worldwide effort and several volumes of newly discovered music
He did in February at the age of 103
This is from the 2003 album Dr. Bombodee
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 Lula Gal”
Leonard Cohen - The Stranger Song
This is off his first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, from 1967
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
Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan’s Dream
The song was originally included on his 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
This version was recorded live at Brandeis University in Massachusetts in 1963
The melody is taken from “Lady Franklin’s Lament”
Pharis & Jason Romero - Wild Bill Jones
Contemporary married duo from Horsefly, BC
This is off their 2013 album Long Gone Out West Blues
The origins of this song are unclear, though it was first recorded in 1924 by Eva Davis, and is a favourite among banjo players
Rosalie Hill - Rolled and Tumbled
She was a Mississippi Hill Country blues musician and a member of the family that also includes her father, Sid Hemphill, a renowned fife and drum bandleader, and Jessie Mae Hemphill, Rosa Lee’s niece, who also specialised in the Mississippi hill country blues
Sid taught her to play guitar when she was six, and by the time she was ten, she was playing local dances with him
The folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax made this recording in September of 1959
It’s a blues song first recorded in 1929
Edmund and Sadie Henneberry - The Gay Spanish Maid
Off a 1956 album of folk music from Nova Scotia, collected by the folklorist Helen Creighton
This was a popular song to sing in Nova Scotia
Edmund and his daughter Sadie were from Devil’s Island
Pearly “Grandma” Davis - It’s These Hard Times
This is from an album of old-time music from Mike Seeger’s collection
Davis was one of the few actual old-time musicians who was still coming to the Union Grove Fiddler’s Convention in the early 1960s, which is where and when Seeger met her
When he and John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers visited her and her family after one of the conventions, they 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
Recorded April 5, 1961 at her granddaughter’s house near Roaring River, NC
Eli Smith - Mad Cow Breakdown
Folk singer, banjo player and guitarist from NYC
This is from the 2006 compilation album Got the Impeach Bush/Cheney Blues
Cisco Houston - Mysteries of a Hobo’s Life
Folksinger born in Delaware and raised in California who’s known particularly for his collaborations with musicians like Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and Sonny Terry in the 30s and 40s
The lyrics of this song were written by T-Bone Slim, and the melody is taken from the song “The Girl I Left Behind Me”
Houston likely learned it from the 1930 book The Hobo’s Hornbook by George Milburn
Fraser Union - All Used Up
They’re a BC folk group that formed in 1983
This song is from their 2006 album This Old World
Bob Gibson - Mighty Day
Gibson was an influential American folk singer known particularly for his work during the folk revival of the 50s and 60s
This song is about a hurricane that swept through the Galveston, Texas area in August of 1915, killing around 400 people
Recorded live at Cornell University in 1957
The Carolinians - You Better Mind
They were a gospel group that recorded a session for Bluebird Records in Rock Hill, SC in 1938
This is a traditional American gospel song, though it’s hard to find any other concrete information about it
Rugged Little Thing - Georgia Buck
A married duo from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
From their 2020 album Live in Concert
This is an old-time Southern banjo breakdown
Sammy Walker - Shady Grove
He’s a folksinger from Georgia who recorded his first albums in the mid 1970s
This is from his 1990 album live album called In Concert
Traditional Appalachian folk song
There are many variations of this song, with at least 300 stanzas recorded by the early 21st century
Alan Mills - Ah! Si Mon Moine Voulait Danser!
Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec
Made a member of the Order of Canada in 1974 for his contributions to Canadian folklore
This was a popular song both in French-speaking regions and among the voyageurs
The title translates to “Ah, if my monk would dance!”
Malvina Reynolds - Love is Something (The Magic Penny)
Malvina Reynolds came to folk music later in her life, when she met Pete Seeger and other folk singers when she was in her 40s
She had received a doctorate from the University of California in 1938, but went back to university in the late 1950s to study music theory
She’s known particularly for writing the song “Little Boxes,” though she wrote and recorded a large catalogue of music during her career
This one is from her 1967 album Malvina Reynolds Sings the Truth
Kacy & Clayton - The Rio Grande
From Wood Mountain, SK
Duo of second cousins Kacy Anderson and Clayton Linthicum who grew up listening to and playing traditional music on their family’s ranch
From their 2016 album Strange Country
Lonesome Ace Stringband - Katy Hill
Contemporary stringband based in Toronto
From their 2014 album Old Time
This is a traditional American reel
David Francey - Banks of the Seaway
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who worked as a railyard worker and carpenter for 20 years before pursuing folk music at the age of 45
From his 2001 album Far End of Summer
Richard Williams - Tain’t But the One Thing That Grieves My Mind
This is from an album of field recordings made in Florida between 1977 and 1980, called Drop On Down in Florida
Williams wrote this song and used the song “Polk County Blues” as a foundation for it
Mance Lipscomb - So Different Blues
Texan blues artist born Beau De Glen Lipscomb
He took the nickname Mance at a young age, which was short for emancipation
Lipscomb worked as a tenant farmer in Texas most of his life, but was discovered in 1960 during the resurgence of country blues
This led to him recording an album in 1961, called Trouble in Mind, and appearing at the first Monterey Folk Festival in 1963
This is a field recording that Lipscomb made for Mack McCormick, off a compilation album of McCormick’s recordings called Playing for the Man at the Door, released by Smithsonian Folkways Records on August 4
Adam Hurt - The Wandering Boy
He’s a contemporary American banjo player who moved to the southern US 20 years ago and has placed in or won most of the major old-time banjo competitions since moving there
He also has an interest in gourd banjos, and this one is off his 2010 album of gourd banjo music, called Earth Tones
