October Link Roundup
October’s over and here’s November—perhaps the least-appreciated of the months. People tend to get excited in the lead-up to Halloween season, and once November comes, you know it’s all over and it’s back to business. But if you’re lucky and the snow doesn’t fall too early, November also means a whole month of fall, which (as we all know) is the best season. Below, find some of my favourite things I came across in October, as well as some albums you can keep listening to throughout the fall.
Videos
3 Performances from Throughout Folk Music History
We played Myriam Gendron’s version of “Go Away from My Window” on October 26th. The American musician, composer, and folklorist John Jacob Niles wrote the song in 1907, based on a line in a song that he heard an African American farm worker named Objerall Jacket sing. Here Niles is performing the song in 1960, with Cisco Houston introducing him.
Cephas and Wiggins were a popular blues duo who performed together between 1976 and Cephas’ death in 2009. Here’s a video of them playing “Richmond Blues” in 1989.
Dom Flemons is a contemporary roots musician who’s sometimes called the “American Songster.” He’s known as both a (former) member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and as a solo artist, and has recorded six albums under his own name. This song is from his most recent album, Black Cowboys, from 2018.
Albums
1 Important Historical Record
Palestine Lives! Songs from the Struggle of the People of Palestine is a really important document of Palestine’s ongoing struggle for liberation. The album, from 1974, was recorded in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967, during which around 300,000 of about 1 million Palestinians were displaced from their homes in the West Bank and Gaza. We played three narratives from it on October 26th.
Note: I’ve found Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East to be a great resource for information about the genocide that Israel is currently carrying out against the people of Palestine. They’re running an email campaign to demand a ceasefire, and it’s as simple as going here, filling out your information, and pressing “Send Your Email” to send a message directly to your MP. We need to take direct action to ensure this violence does not continue.
1 New Release
The Lonesome Ace Stringband of Toronto released their first album of all-original music on October 13th, called Try to Make It Fly, and we’ve been playing tracks from it since they first started releasing singles.
3 Albums of Children’s Music
Lady Bug, Lady Bug and More Children's Songs is one of four albums that Richardson made for Folkways Records during his long career as a children’s musician. When he wasn’t touring the world, Richardson worked as a mechanic. He died in 2014 at the age of 105. We played “My Dog Pal” on October 19th.
Tina Meltzer was an American musician and music teacher who frequently performed with her husband, David. Faces: New Songs for Kids is a 1984 album of songs she composed for children; we played “Bones” on October 26th, along with a few other songs about bones.
Singer and schoolteacher Robin Christenson’s rendition of “Skin and Bones” was another bones song we played, off You Can Sing It Yourself, Vol. 2, which he recorded for Folkways Records in the late 1950s with a group of children at a summer camp.
3 Albums for Autumn
Native North America (Vol. 1) is a great compilation to just throw on and explore. Light in the Attic released it in 2016, and we’ve been playing it on Barking Dog since the show started in 2018.
Myriam Gendron released her second album, Ma délire: Songs of love, lost & found, in 2021, and it’s mostly comprised of her reinterpretations of traditional North American folk music, including a French version of “Shenandoah”; “Poor Girl Blues,” which is based on “Un Canadien errant”; and the version of John Jacob Niles’ “Go Away from My Window” that’s mentioned above.
I didn’t even know about Derry Down Derry: A Narrative Reading by Lesley Frost of Poems by Robert Frost until this month, when Dylan included it in his selection of tracks for October 26th. Lesley Frost was Robert Frost’s daughter, and aside from reading his poetry, she also talks about her childhood and her father on this album from 1961.
Articles
1 Article About a Racist Tradition
This article from the National Museum of African American History & Culture outlines the history of minstrelsy, an inherently racist tradition from which many well-known American folk songs developed. The article doesn’t go into the specifics of the relationship between minstrelsy and folk music, but it’s a great introductory piece for anyone who’s unsure exactly what a minstrel show is.
2 Articles on Important, Obscure Figures in Music & Recording History
Before Ruth Crawford Seeger married Charles Seeger and became the mother of Mike, Peggy, Barbara, and Penny (and stepmother of Pete), she was a central figure in modernist musical composition in the United States. This article talks about her creative legacy, which has long been overshadowed by her family’s name.
This article is about the sound archivist and ad man Tony Schwartz, whose recordings we play on the show very often. I didn’t know a whole lot about him prior to reading this piece, and I’m glad I know more about him now.
Thanks for stopping by! If this roundup didn’t have enough links for you, I post even more in the show notes I make on my website each week. If you want to drop me a line, you can contact me here, or email me at ckuwbarkingdog@gmail.com. Take care, and I’ll catch you here next month for another roundup!