Barking Dog: February 6, 2025
Sam Amidon - Never
Amidon is a contemporary folk artist from Vermont, now based in England
This is from his new album Salt River, which came out on January 24
Kate & Anna McGarrigle - Goin’ Back to Harlan
It’s Kate’s birthday today, and she would’ve been 79!
They’re sisters who learned piano from village nuns when living in the Laurentian mountains as children
They started writing and performing their own songs in Montreal in 1960s
This is from the first series of the Transatlantic Sessions, a series of collaborative live performances by folk and roots artists from both sides of the North Atlantic that began in 1995
The Wailin’ Jennys - Trick Rider
Folk group formed in Winnipeg in 2002
This is from a 2007 compilation album of lullabies written by singer-songwriters
This one is by Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip, who was born 61 years ago today
Ronnie Hawkins - Fare Thee Well
He was a musician from Arkansas who spent much of his life in Canada after finding an audience there in the late 1950s, where he met the members of his band The Hawks, who later split from Hawkins to form The Band
This is from Hawkins’ third album Folk Ballads of Ronnie Hawkins
This song is a traditional African American folk song also commonly known as “Dink’s Song,” because it was originally recorded by a woman named Dink in 1909
Fatu’ana - Nonofo Avau Ita Kera Nei
This is from a 1998 album of field recordings from the island nation of Vanuatu, 2900 kilometres north of New Zealand
It specifically focuses on the island of West Futuna on the southeastern edge of the archipelago
This is a performance by the string band Fatu’ana, and the only song of theirs on the album that’s performed in the Futunan language rather than in Bislama, the pidgin English language used in Vanuatu
It’s a song of affection
Pharis & Jason Romero - A Passing Glimpse
Married duo from Horsefly, BC
From their 2011 album of the same name
Aguinaldo Hooker - So Them Bad Minded
From a 1957 Folkways album of music from the Caribbean
It’s a calypso tune recorded on the small, English-speaking island of San Andrés, and it’s about gossips who criticize everyone they see
David Rovics - Deport the Billionaires
He’s a topical singer-songwriter based in Oregon who’s been playing since the 1990s
This is a brand new one, released last Thursday
Pete Seeger - This is a Land
Seeger was a folk singer and an activist from New York who advocated for countless social causes through his music for 75 years
This is off his 1974 experimental album Banks of Marble, recorded on an eight-track tape recorder
The lyrics are by Dutch poet and minister Jacob Steendam, with music adapted by Seeger from a hymn
Peg Leg Howell - Turtle Dove Blues
He was a blues musician from Georgia who who began playing music after staying up all night and teaching himself to play guitar in 1909 when he was 21
He had to quit farm work when he was injured in an argument and lost his leg in 1916, and in 1923, he began working as a full-time musician in Atlanta
Howell began his recording career in 1926, but the Great Depression effectively ended it until 1963, when the folklorist George Mitchell learned of his location and made recordings of ten of his songs, which were released in 1964
This recording was made for Columbia Records in October of 1929, the same week that the stock market crashed
Ernest Stoneman - The Fate of Talmadge Osborne
Ernest Stoneman was one of the most prominent country musicians during the genre’s first decade, and was raised by his father and three musically inclined cousins, who taught him the instrumental and vocal traditions of Blue Ridge mountain culture
This appears to be his own ballad, which warns listeners to walk carefully when in the presence of trains
Stoneman knew Osborne, and remembered that he used to hop freight trains while drunk, which was likely the reason for his death
Released 1927
Patrick Sky - You’re Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond
Patrick Sky was a musician from Georgia who was involved in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 60s
Later in his life, he became an expert in building and playing Irish pipes with his wife Cathy
This is a live recording made in San Francisco in 1964
Sky attributes the song to Blind Willie Johnson, though it’s also considered a traditional blues song
Alphabetical Four - Have You Heard About the World Coming to an End?
NYC Jubilee gospel quartet that recorded between 1938 and 1943
This one was recorded in New York City in 1941
Morija Training College Choir - Methaka, emang (Friends stand up)
This is a song by Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa, a composer from Lesotho (luh·soo·too) who published his first collection of compositions in 1935, which included this song
The choir recorded it in 1937, and it’s about young people saying goodbye to one another before they seek work elsewhere
The Wakami Wailers - A Shantyman’s Life
They’re a band that formed in 1981 when four employees at Wakami Lake Provincial Park, near Chapleau, Ontario, started playing Canadian folk music together
They have continued playing since then, and have released four albums
This is off their 1985 album The Last of the White Pine Loggers
“Shanty man” was an old term for lumberjacks
The song was apparently composed by George W. Stace of La Crosse Valley, Wisconsin
Kek Lang - Blowin’ in the Wind
They’re a Hungarian Romani band whose name means “blue flame”
This is off the 2013 album From Another World: A Tribute to Bob Dylan, which is a collection of interpretations of Dylan’s songs from around the world
Dylan included the song on his 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
The Weather Station - Came So Easy
Toronto
Fronted by Tamara Lindeman
This is from the 2011 album All of It Was Mine, but this is a live version recorded in North Carolina in 2012
Joan O’Bryant - Life is a Toil
Kansas folksinger and folklorist who taught folklore and English at the University of Wichita
This is off her 1958 album American Ballads and Folksongs
Song also known as “The Housekeeper’s Lament” and “Housekeeper’s Tragedy”
May have been an Irish ballad
Was found in diaries of early settlers in the midwest
Blind Lemon Jefferson - Broke and Hungry
Called the Father of Texas Blues, and he one of the first musicians to record solo voice and blues guitar
He recorded this one in Chicago in 1926 for Paramount Records
It’s the first recording of “Broke and Hungry” also known as “Ragged and Dirty,” an old blues song from the southern United States
William Brown - Ragged and Dirty
Little is known about Brown—the folklorist Alan Lomax made some recordings of him in Arkansas in 1942, including this one, which uses the same first verse as Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Broke and Hungry”
John Byrd, Washboard Walter - Wasn’t It Sad About Lemon
Byrd was a blues musician from Mississippi who recorded in the 1920s and 30s after moving to Kentucky
The name “Washboard Walter” may refer to Walter Taylor, with whom Byrd played in a band in Louisville
Recorded for Paramount Records in Wisconsin in 1930
It refers to Blind Lemon Jefferson, who died in late 1929
Alan Mills - Cod Liver Oil
Mills a Canadian folk singer, writer, and actor from Lachine, Quebec known for popularizing Canadian folk music
Made a member of the Order of Canada in 1974 for his contributions to Canadian folklore
This is from the 1961 album Songs, Fiddle Tunes and a Folktale from Canada
Mills adapted the song from a 19th century music hall song that was especially popular in Newfoundland and Ontario
Unspecified - Byelorussia SSR Folksong
This is off the 1960 Folkways album Folk Music of the USSR
It’s a Moscow radio recording of two women singing a Belarusian tune to the rhythm of a balalaika
Big Bill Broonzy - They Can’t Do That
He was an American blues singer and guitarist, and was one of the leading figures of the emerging folk revival of the 1950s
He recorded this one in New York City in 1930 under the pseudonym Sammy Sampson
The Fretless, Ruth Moody - Retrograde
Moody is from Winnipeg, and a founding member of the Wailin’ Jennys
The Fretless are a Juno-winning folk group from Toronto that’ve been active since 2011
This one is a folky cover of a James Blake song, from 2021
Art Bouman - Back up Home
He’s a Halifax-based banjo player who’s interested in reclaiming the banjo as a traditional instrument of the African diaspora and highlighting the Black banjo players whose work has historically been overlooked
This is from his new album Simple Songs For Trying Times
It’s his own song, set to the tune of Furry Lewis’s “Going to Brownsville”
Willie Dunn - William Shakespeare: Sonnet 33 and 55 / Friendship Dance
Was a Mi’kmaq musician, film director, and politician from Montreal
This is off his 1980 album The Pacific
James “Son” Thomas, Cleveland “Broomman” Jones - Rock Me, Mama
He was a Delta blues musician from Mississippi, and he was also a gravedigger and sculptor
Thomas became better known after William Ferris included him in the films he made for the Center for Southern Folklore in the 1970s
He’s also known for making sculptures from the clay he dug up on the banks of the Yazoo River, many of which were skulls that contained real human teeth, reflecting his philosophy that "we all end up in the clay"
Jones was a delta blues musician from Mississippi who, as his nickname might suggest, played the broom as an instrument and played at folk festivals around the world
This is a field recording made by German blues enthusiasts Siegfried Christmann and Axel Küstner in Mississippi in 1980
The Hopkins Brothers - Groesbeck Blues
This is a recording that Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records made of Lightnin’ Hopkins and his brothers Joel and John Henry in Waxahachie, Texas in 1964
The day of the recording was the first time Joel and Lightnin’ had seen John Henry in some time after losing track of him for several years
Townes Van Zandt - Buckskin Stallion Blues
He was a musician from Texas, known mainly for his own compositions, though he recorded many traditional songs as well
Off a 1995 album of recordings from the radio show Mountain Stage’s live shows
He included the song on his 1987 album At My Window
Sheesham and Lotus - Jake Leg Wobble
From Wolfe Island, Ontario
Yusuf / Cat Stevens - Maybe You’re Right
