Barking Dog: December 22, 2022
This Week’s Theme: Christmas Carols and Holiday Songs
I hope you’re in a festive mood today, because we’ve got classic Christmas carols and holiday songs, newer roots songs about various elements of winter, and some other things we found along the way.
Johnny Richardson - Hallelujah
He was a folksinger and mechanic from South Carolina who recorded four albums of children’s music for Folkways Records between the 50s and the 80s and performed around the world
He died in 2014 at the age of 105
From his 1977 album Sing Along, Clap Along
It’s his own song
David Francey - A Winter Song
Scottish-born Canadian folksinger who worked as a railyard worker and carpenter for 20 years before pursuing folk music at the age of 45
This is from his 2003 album Skating Rink
The Watersons - The Holly Bears a Berry
English folk group from Yorkshire, England who performed acapella traditional songs beginning in the 1960s
They were three siblings: Norma, Mike, and Elaine, and their cousin John Harrison
Song also known as “St. Day Carol”, as the first 3 verses were transcribed in the 19th century from a villager singing in St. Day, Cornwall
Stan Rogers - At Last, I’m Ready for Christmas
Born and raised in Ontario, but his music was influenced by his time spent visiting family in Nova Scotia during his childhood
This is from the posthumous compilation album From Coffee House to Concert Hall from 1999
The song was recorded live in 1982
Bruce Cockburn - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who’s been playing professionally for over 40 years
This is from his album called Christmas, from 1993
One of the oldest extant carols, from the 16th century or earlier
Heavenly Gospel Singers - When Was Jesus Born?
Gospel quartet originally from Spartanburg, SC, but which largely formed in Detroit in the 1920s
Many popular doowop groups of the 50s were musically descended from prewar groups like the Heavenly Gospel Singers
It’s a traditional African American Christmas song
Kacy & Clayton - The Cherry Tree Carol
From Wood Mountain, SK
They recorded this carol for their first album, The Day Is Past & Gone, from 2013
This ballad has been sung since at least the 15th century, and has been widely recorded in both the UK and North America
Cathy Barton, Dave Para, Ed Trickett, Paton Family - Dark December
From a 1989 album of Christmas and winter songs released by Folk Legacy Records
This song is by English songwriter Graeme Miles
Luz Morales - Magandang Pasko
This is from an album of folk songs from the Philippines from 1960, sung by the Filipino soprano Luz Morales
Lyrics:
“Merry Christmas to you!”
Is the greeting of all
Young and old, rich and poor
Are all filled with great joy;
Sweet smiles on their lips,
Happiness in their hearts,
A typical spirit
Of true kindness and love
Guitar Slim, Jelly Belly - Christmas Time Blues
Guitar Slim was a pseudonym for Alec Seward, a Piedmont blues musician from Virginia who also recorded under other names like Georgia Slim and King Blues
He moved to New York in 1924 and befriended Louis Hayes, with whom he performed under the name The Blues Servant Boys or Guitar Slim and Jelly Belly, as is the case with this recording
Hayes later became a minister in New Jersey
Seward played and recorded with Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee in the 40s and 50s, and he continued to perform at concerts and folk festivals throughout the 1960s
This was recorded around 1944 in New York City
Lead Belly - Christmas is A-Coming
Born in Louisiana in late 1880s
Went to prison for attempted murder in Texas in 1918
He won early release in 1925 by singing a song for the governor of Texas
Incarcerated again in 1930
Ethnomusicologists and folklorists John and Alan Lomax discovered him in prison while making field recordings
They delivered a petition for his release on the back of a recording of “Goodnight, Irene” to the Louisiana governor
Once he was released, he made a number of recordings and became widely known for both his blues and folk recordings
This is a children’s play song, usually sung while the children are waiting for Santa to come on Christmas Eve
Allen Ginsberg - COME BACK CHRISTMAS
He was a poet and writer from New Jersey, known as one of the leading figures in the Beat Generation
From his 1983 album First Blues, which was recorded between 1971 and 1981 and re-released in 2016 as The Last Word On First Blues
Max Parker - Evening Chimes
From a 1982 album of songs of the Spanish Civil War
Max Parker was a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a group of English-speaking international soldiers who fought for the Spanish Republic during the war, and he became a prisoner of war at San Pedro de Cardana
Mary was his wife, and she introduces this song, which is a popular Russian emigrant song that the prisoners sang during a Christmas concert
Male and Female Singers - Christmas Anthem
From a 1970 album of traditional shape-note hymns, recorded at Stewart’s Chapel in Houston, Mississippi
Shape notes are a musical notation which was designed to more easily facilitate congregational singing
This is an anthem composed by James Denson in 1844
Elizabeth Bivens - Go Tell It on the Mountain
From an album of traditional music from Union County, North Carolina, released in 1980
It’s an African American spiritual that dates back to at least 1865 and is often sung as a Christmas carol because it celebrates the birth of Jesus
John Thomas - The Twelve Days of Christmas (Welsh)
This is a version of the “Twelve Days of Christmas” sung in Welsh
It’s a field recording from Saskatchewan by John Thomas, who was born in Wales, moved to Calgary, Alberta and met his wife, and came to live with her in Bangor, Saskatchewan in 1936
He learned this version in his childhood, and it differs a bit from the English version, with "hawks a-swimming", "donkeys racing", and "roaring bulls" all listed as items the true love sends
Alan Mills - The Twelve Days of Christmas
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
From his 1957 album Christmas Songs from Many Lands
This is a cumulative song, where each verse grows longer than the last
Siggiewi flautist - The Flagelette
Off a 1964 Folkways album of folk songs from Malta
This is a traditional Christmas tune often played in Maltese churches during the holiday season
The Flagelette is an instrument similar to a flute, and it’s noted in the liner notes for the album that the instrument was “fast dying out” at the time of recording
Jack Hardy - The Wren
Hardy was a musician and playwright from New York City who was founding editor of Fast Folk Musical Magazine
From his 1984 album The Cauldron
Jean Ritchie, LaNoue Davenport, Robert Abramson - Little Bitty Baby (Children Go Where I Send Thee)
Ritchie learned traditional folksongs in the oral tradition from friends and family during her youth in Kentucky, and in adulthood moved to New York to work as a social worker, where she met folk musicians like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Alan Lomax
Davenport was a recorder player from Texas and Abramson was a musician, composer, writer, and teacher from New York
It’s a traditional African-American spiritual and a cumulative song, like the “Twelve Days of Christmas”
This song is often sung during Christmas
Alec Guinness - Christmas
Guinness was a very well-known English actor who starred in films like Oliver Twist, Lawrence of Arabia, and The Bridge on the River Kwai
This is from a 1961 album on which he reads a variety of Christian poems and prose
The poem is by the English poet John Betjeman, and it was originally published in his 1954 collection A Few Late Chrysanthemums
Larry Penn - I’m a Little Cookie
Penn was Wisconsin’s Labour Poet Laureate, a songwriter, toymaker, activist, and union man
From his 1983 album I'm A Little Cookie and Other Songs that Can Taste Just as Good
This is his own song, and on the back of the record, he thanks Pete Seeger for performing it at Carnegie Hall
Pete Seeger - Mary Had a Baby
Pete Seeger was a very influential folk singer and activist who advocated for Civil Rights, environmentalism, and other social causes through his music
From an album of traditional Christmas carols from 1967
This is an African-American carol likely from the South Carolina island of St. Helena
Male Chorus - Christmas Serenading
Off a 1980 album of music from the island of Carriacou in the Grenadines
Recorded in Hillsborough on December 23, 1970
The singers were led by Desmond Bristol, with Gordon Cayanne, Billy Lynch, two of Gordon Cayanne’s brothers, and one unnamed man
George Gerdes, Erik Frandsen - Scary Christmas
Off the final issue of Fast Folk Musical Magazine, a cooperative that was dedicated to reinvigorating the New York folk scene, and released over 100 albums between 1982 and 1998
Frandsen is a New Jersey musician and actor who consulted on the Coen Brothers’ 2013 film Inside Llewyn Davis and more recently played a small role in John Wick 2
Gerdes was a musician and actor from New York
This unusual Christmas song is to the tune of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
Paul Kaplan - I Had an Old Coat
One from a 1985 issue of Fast Folk
The songs from this album were all recorded in a single afternoon at the SpeakEasy folk music club in New York City
He’s a folk musician from Amherst, Massachusetts who’s been performing for over 50 years
He’s joined on this one by a chorus of other folk musicians, including Christine Lavin and Mark Dann
Ashley MacIsaac - Christmas Jigs and Reels
He’s a Juno-award-winning musician from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia who’s been playing since the early 1990s
He plays a right-handed fiddle left-handed, leaving it strung right-handed, which is a very unusual way to play the fiddle
This is from his 1993 album A Cape Breton Christmas
Mike, Peggy, and Penny Seeger - Bright Morning Stars Are Rising
From the 1957 album American Folk Songs for Christmas, a collection of songs from Ruth Crawford Seeger’s 1953 book of the same name
Peggy, Penny, and Mike are her children
This song is likely from Kentucky, and it was not widely known before Seeger included it in her book—it later entered into the common repertoire when folk musician Robin Christenson found it in the book and arranged it to be performed at the 1968 Fox Hollow Festival
The Wailin’ Jennys - Bright Morning Stars
Folk group formed in Winnipeg in 2002
From their 2011 album of the same name
Unspecified - Esta Navidad
A field recording made in Puerto Rico in 1956
The title translates to “This is Christmas”
Gordon Lightfoot - Song for a Winter’s Night
From his 1967 album The Way I Feel
It was written on a hot summer night in Cleveland, Ohio
Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger - Come Fill Up Your Glasses
He was a well-known British folksinger and labour activist known for his involvement in the 1960s folk revival
He and Peggy Seeger were married
She’s a member of the Seeger family - Mike and Pete Seeger were her brothers, her father was Charles Seeger, a folklorist and musicologist, and her mother was Ruth Crawford Seeger, a composer and the first woman to receive the Guggenheim Fellowship
She’s been living in the UK for over 60 years
Peggy wrote the lyrics to this song and put it to a traditional tune
Carlos Mejia Godoy - El Cristo de Palacaguina
He’s a musician and composer from Nicaragua who was a key figure in the New Song Movement in Central America in the 1970s
This is from his 1977 album El son nuestro de cada dia
Unspecified - Pinheiros Do Natal
This is a Portuguese folk song, the title of which translates to “Christmas Pine Trees”
The recording was made in the 1950s
Andrew Rowan Summers - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Was an American folk singer and Appalachian dulcimer player, credited with preserving a large amount of Appalachian music that otherwise would have gone extinct
From his 1956 album of Christmas carols
The liner notes to the album note that it was normal in Pre-Elizabethan times to find happy lyrics set to tunes in minor keys, and that it’s strange that it still seems normal that the minor mode fits the happy lyrics of this song so well
Fresh Creek Dance Band - Mama, Bake a Johnny Cake, Christmas Coming
From a 1959 album of instrumental music from the Bahamas, recorded by Samuel Charters
The album captures the sounds of the anniversary weekend of Emancipation, which is known as August Monday
This was recorded at the Fresh Creek Settlement on August 2, 1958
They were not an organised dance band–the guitarist was sailing from Nassau to Mangrove City, and his sloop had drifted into Fresh Creek on the tide that afternoon
All the other members were from other communities as well
A dance pavilion owner needed a band to play one day during the August Monday celebrations, and asked the singer, H. Brown, to bring some others to play with him
This is a traditional Bahamian Christmas song, and refers to the tradition of baking a simple cake, a johnny cake, during the Christmas holidays
Sheesham and Lotus - Icy Mountain
Contemporary old-time stringband from Wolfe Island, ON
West Virginia old-time breakdown often played on fiddle
