Barking Dog: December 8, 2022
We’re kicking off this week’s show with a couple of songs from people who have birthdays this week, starting with Jean Ritchie, who would’ve been 100 today!
Jean Ritchie - Jubilee
Joan Baez said of her: “As the ‘Mother of Folk,’ Jean is a living museum of impeccably rendered songs passed down from singer to singer, influencing and inspiring generations.”
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
In 1952, she received a Fulbright scholarship to study the connections between American and British ballads, and travelled to the UK where she recorded many well-known traditional singers
She continued to perform for the rest of her life, and passed away at her home in Kentucky in 2015, at the age of 92
Standard Appalachian party song, which Ritchie learned from her father
Through Ritchie, it became a popular song during the folk revival of the 1960s, and is still often performed by roots musicians
Jon & Peter Pickow, Susie Glaze, Ken Kosek - Shady Grove
This one’s off the 2007 album Singin’ the Moon Up: The Voice of Jean Ritchie
Jon and Peter Pickow are Jean Ritchie’s sons
Jon was a singer and musician who carried on his family’s tradition, touring with Harry Belafonte, teaching workshops, and performing at festivals throughout the US and Canada
He passed away in 2020 at the age of 62
Peter is also a musician, though he’s branched out and explored soft rock music, and has also worked as an editor at a music publishing company
Susie Glaze is a singer and Broadway actress originally from Tennessee, who began performing when she was 16
Kosek is a fiddle player from New York City who’s been playing since the 1970s
Traditional Appalachian folk song likely from Kentucky, which Jean Ritchie learned from her father and popularised among revivalist folk musicians in the mid 20th century
Jean Carignan - Travelers’ Reel
Yesterday would’ve been his 106th birthday
Carignan born in Levis, Quebec
Made a member of the Order of Canada in 1974 for being “the greatest fiddler in North America”
A French Canadian reel, accompanied by piano and clogging
Bob Bovee - Which Side Are You On?
A musician from Nebraska who learned much of his music from his family, who sang and played old-time, western, and railroad songs
This one is from the 1988 album Rebel Voices: Songs of the Industrial Workers of the World
The song was written in 1931 by union activist Florence Reece, whose husband was a union organiser in Harlan County, Kentucky, a region that’s historically been the site of violent labour struggles
The New World Singers - Bizzness Ain’t Dead
Gil Turner, Happy Traum, and Bob Cohen
This is a Woody Guthrie song from about 1950, but it was rediscovered around 1963 along with a bunch of other forgotten tapes of his
The liner notes for the song mention how topical the song still was back then, and I’d say it’s still as relevant as ever today
Tomoya Takaishi - Ramblin’ Boy
Tomorrow is his 80th birthday!
He’s a Japanese folk singer who’s been active since the 1960s
While studying at Rikkyo University, he started singing folk songs that he translated from Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger recordings to earn money for school expenses
This song was written by Tom Paxton and included on his 1964 album of the same name
Takaishi translated it and included it on his 1969 album Tomoya Takaishi's Folk Songs Vol. 3
David Massengill, Mark Dann - Nothing
Massengill is a singer, songwriter, and dulcimer player from Tennessee
Dave Van Ronk once said of him, “He takes the ‘dull’ out of ‘dulcimer’”
Dann is a bass player who’s been working with musicians for over 40 years
This song is by Massengill
David Nzomo - Kenya
He’s a musician from Kenya who recorded six albums of traditional Kenyan songs for Folkways records while he was studying at Columbia University in the 1960s and 70s
This one’s off his 1970 album African Rhythms: Songs from Kenya
He wrote this song specifically to celebrate Kenya’s independence in 1963
Lyrics to “Kenya”, provided in the liner notes.
John Angaiak - I’ll Rock You to the Rhythm of the Ocean
A Yup’ik singer-songwriter born in Nightmute, Alaska in 1941
After serving in Vietnam in the US Armed Forces, he enrolled in the University of Alaska and became active in the school’s indigenous language workshop
This song comes from an album inspired by his work preserving his native language, with the first side entirely in the previously exclusively oral Yup’ik language, and the second in English
It was also included on the influential 2014 compilation album Native North America
Jim Bunkley - Jack of Diamonds
He was a musician from Talbot County, Georgia, recorded by field researcher and festival curator George Mitchell
Traditional folk song made popular by Blind Lemon Jefferson
Uncle Sinner - Jack of Diamonds
From Winnipeg
Off his 2008 album Ballads and Mental Breakdowns
George Davis - Sixteen Tons
He started playing music when he was 27 while working as a miner
He would practice on his front porch every evening, and the miners would come and stand on the railroad tracks to listen to him
That same year, his arm was seriously injured in a mining accident, and he had to reteach himself to play the guitar in a new way
In 1947, he was invited to do his first radio show, and at one time had at least three radio shows in three different towns, driving 480 km a day to record them
Davis claimed to have written this song as “Nine-to-ten tons” in the 1930s, though it’s more likely it was written by Merle Travis in the 1940s
Davis’s version does have some different lyrics, however
David Rovics - Winnipeg
He’s a musician and writer based in Oregon who’s been touring internationally since the 1990s
This is his song about the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919
Larry Penn, Darryl Holter - Willie the Scab
Penn was Wisconsin’s Labour Poet Laureate, a songwriter, toymaker, activist, and union man
Holter is a musician and historian from Minneapolis
This one is from their 1989 album Stickin’ with the Union: Songs from Wisconsin Labor History
Penn wrote the song in 1987
Pete Seeger - Homestead Strike Song
Pete Seeger was a very influential folk singer and activist who advocated for Civil Rights, environmentalism, and other social causes through his music
From his live album Singalong Sanders Theater, 1980, recorded in Cambridge, MA
This song likely dates to the 1892 steelworkers strike in Homestead, Pennsylvania
Kenji Endo - Chikatetsu no Eki e to Isogu Natsu
He was a folksinger from Japan who started playing in the late 1960s while in university
This one is off a 1993 album, the title of which translates to “If you were by my side, I wouldn't need anything”
Google Translate gives the title of this song as “Subway paintings and a rushing summer”
Eli Conley - What I’m Worth
He’s a folk musician from Virginia who writes music for “queer and trans folks, justice seekers, and anyone who doesn’t easily fit in a box.”
This one is off his 2017 album Strong and Tender
Bruce Cockburn - Mystery Walk
Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who’s been playing professionally for over 40 years
This is from his new album, Rarities, which presents 12 rarely heard recordings by Cockburn
Recorded in Toronto in 2000 for the soundtrack of the film The Man We Called Juan Carlos
Dyad - Little Birdie
From Victoria, BC
Off their 2017 album Revisionist
Popular Appalachian banjo tune
Paul Clayton - Storms on the Ocean
An American folksinger and folklorist who specialised in traditional music and collaborated with artists like Jean Ritchie and Dave Van Ronk
Clayton notes that it’s a fairly well-known song throughout the southern United States, though he couldn’t recall where he first heard it or where his version came from, and it doesn’t seem to be closely related to the similarly named song “The Storms Are on the Ocean”
Wade Hemsworth - V’la l’Bon Vent
A Canadian folksinger from Brantford, Ontario
This song was sung by the Voyageurs over 300 years ago to keep pace as they paddled and to keep spirits up during 18-hour days
The title translates to “Here Comes the Good Wind”
Ginni Clemmens - We Have the Working Tools
She was a folk musician known for working in the genres of women’s music and children’s music
This is off her 1977 children’s album We All Have a Song
She recorded this song with the third grade class at Lincoln School in Chicago
It’s adapted from the African American spiritual “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”
Stan Rogers - The Wreck of the Athens Queen
From his 1977 album Fogarty’s Cove
Howie Mitchell - Henry King
A Virginian dulcimer player who was first introduced to the instrument during the folk revival of the 1950s
This is from his 1963 self-titled album, released by Folk Legacy Records
It’s one of the Franco-English writer Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales for Children
The tune comes from an old hymn
Riley Baugus - Train on the Island
Baugus is an old-time artist and instrument builder from North Carolina who grew up singing acapella in the Regular Baptist tradition
Popular fiddle and banjo tune from the Galax region of Virginia
Baugus included it on his 2019 album Little Black Train's a Comin'
Hank Ferguson - The Wreck of the Old 97
From his 1968 album Behind These Walls
Folklorist Bruce Jackson first met Ferguson on a visit to Indiana State Penitentiary during his 15-year-long project documenting prison culture
Ferguson was an inmate nearing his release at the time, and he recorded the songs at his home in Tennessee shortly after his release
Ballad about a rail disaster which took place on September 27, 1903, during which the Southern Railway mail train derailed due to excessive speed while trying to maintain schedule
First recorded by Grayson and Whitter in the early 1920s and has since been recorded by countless well-known folk and country artists
It’s to the tune of Henry C Work’s “The Ship That Never Returned”
David Francey - St. John’s Train
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 1999 debut album Torn Screen Door
The Stanley County Cutups - Border Ride
A bluegrass group from Winnipeg that’s been playing together in some form or another for nearly 20 years
This is one from the American bluegrass duo Jim and Jesse McReynolds
The Golden Gate Quartet - What Are They Doing in Heaven Today?
They are a vocal quartet formed in Virginia by four high school students in 1934
They are still active today, but have obviously undergone several changes in membership
Recorded in New York City in November of 1938
Pat Conte - What Are They Doing in Heaven Today?
A New York musician known for his old-time string music
This is from a 1984 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 1997
It’s a hymn by Charles Albert Tindley, written in 1901
Conte’s version is strongly influenced by Washington Phillips’ 1928 recording of the song
Willie Dunn, Ron Bankley - Old Crow
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
Joined by Ron Bankley, who was an Ontario guitarist, poet, and songwriter
It’s a demo from 2002
Dave Van Ronk - Sometime
A member of the Greenwich Village folk scene in New York City, known as the “Mayor of MacDougal Street”, MacDougal Street being where practically every coffeehouse was located in New York City in the 60s
This was recorded at his last concert in October of 2001
He died in February of 2002 at the age of 65
We don’t know who wrote this song, but we do know that it’s an urban version of the “Crawdad Song”
Alan Lomax said that it was the folksong of the post-WWI period, where there was an economic boom and then an enormous bust—it was a time when many people were surviving on crawfish and were asking themselves “What’re you gonna do when the pond goes dry?” with the only answer being “Sit on the bank and watch the crawdads die”
Of course, this song is about city streets rather than crawdad holes, but the sentiment remains the same
Son House - John the Revelator
Mississippi delta blues artist who influenced Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters
He and his band were recorded for the Library of Congress by Alan Lomax in 1941 and 1942, and in 1943 he left Mississippi for New York and gave up music
In 1964, though, a group of record collectors rediscovered him and his music, and persuaded him to relearn his music
He reestablished his music career, playing in coffeehouses, at folk festivals, and on tours
He also recorded several albums
Traditional gospel song based on John of Patmos and his role as the author of the book of Revelations
Si Kahn - Brookside Strike
Kahn is a community organiser and musician from Pennsylvania who moved to the south as an activist during the Civil Rights Movement
Off his 1993 live album In My Heart
This is a song about the 1973 Brookside Mine strike in Harlan County, Kentucky, which Kahn was involved in through the United Mine Workers of America
Louisa Jo Killen - Grey Funnel Line
She was a folksinger from Tyneside, England who began performing in the late 1950s
She moved to the States in 1967 and collaborated with Pete Seeger, and later joined the Clancy Brothers
Killen came out as trans in 2010 at the age of 76, and continued to perform for several years before passing away in 2013
This one is from the 1979 compilation album Sea Music of Many Lands: The Pacific Heritage
The song was written by the English musician Cyril Tawney in 1959 about the Royal Navy
Floyd Batts - Dangerous Blues
From an album of recordings made by folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax during a trip through the southern states
He recorded Batts at Mississippi State Penitentiary, also called Parchman Farm, in September of 1959
Southern prison work farms were essentially replacements for plantations in the 20th century, as incarcerated people were forced to perform difficult physical labour under threat of violence, and as a result much of the music sung on these farms was carried over from slave traditions
This is one of those songs—a field holler that was also sung by female inmates at the prison
Hobart Smith - John Greer’s Tune
An old-time musician who was rediscovered in the 60s after performing throughout the first half of the 20th century, often with his sister Texas Gladden
This is from the 1964 album Hobart Smith of Saltville, Virginia
Smith learned his banjo style from John Greer, who lived near his family when he was growing up
This is one of the tunes he learned from him
John Showman, Chris Coole - Elzic’s Farewell
