Newest Songs
Hell Bound Train
A cautionary tale of damnation and redemption
You know about the train that was "bound for glory". Well, this train was going the other way on the opposite track.
Jolly Roving Tar
A sea song from Newfoundland
I found this jolly sea song from Newfoundland on one of the old 'American Folksay' albums produced on Stinson records by Moses Asch, performed by Frank Warner.
No Peas No Rice
A Bahamian jazz song
A Bahamian song recorded in the 1930s by big band leaders such as Mart Brit and Count Basie and in the Bahamas by Blind Blake Alfonso Higgs.
Thorneymore Woods
A song of the noble poacher, and mean gamekeepers
An English poaching ballad as performed by Louis Killen.
La Bruja
Vampire story from Vera Cruz, Mexico. Boo!
La Bruja is a song and traditional dance in the Huapango tradition from the state of Vera Cruz. The dance usually involves a number of women with lighted candles on their heads.
The Devil and Bailiff McGlynn
The devil takes his due
What a fine old Irish tale. But it derives from a history that is not so jolly - the mass evictions and house levelings that took place during the Irish famine of the mid-nineteenth century. No wonder the mother in the story cries "May the devil take that awful Bailiff!".
Spotted Cow
A naughty little English folk song
Here is a traditional English song, at least I think so, I heard it from Steel Eye Span, that parcel of rogues who brought fuzz-tone electric guitar to English folk music.
Italian Carol
A christmas song from Italy
An Italian carol adapted by Pete Seeger from an old tradition in Naples in which shepherds come down from the Calabrian mountains for a festive stay in that city during the Christmas celebration.
Wild Women Don't Have No Blues
A blues for strong women
This song was recorded by Ida Cox in 1924, Ida was one of great, if lesser known, female blues singers in the era of Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Sippie Wallace.
Mean Old Bedbug Blues
A blues from Bessie Smith
Each of these are classic blues performance in their own right and provide an interesting contrast between country blues and early jazz band styles. I always favored Bessie's rendition. I think her slower tempo with piano and guitar accompaniment captured the true creepiness of bedbugs.
Uncle Joe Gimme Mo
Calypso from Trinidad
This great Trinidadian Calypso song comes from an early recording by Wilmuth Houdini. I love the way these Calypsonians took "uncle joe and his old ban-jo", a common stereotype in minstrel shows, and transformed him into a rock star.
Monsieur Banjo
A creole song for kids
This children's song in Louisiana Creole. My version is an adaptation of Pete Seeger's English language version on 'American Favorite Ballads' and a French language version from the Magnolia Sisters on their delightful children's album 'Lapin Lapin'
Featured Songs
Hopalong Peter
An old time banjo song
This was recorded by J.E. Mainer's Mountaineers in the 1930's. I learned it from the NLCR.
Rise When the Rooster Crow
A minstrel era song from Uncle Dave Macon
This song was recorded by Uncle Dave Macon in 1926. My version also draws a rendition by Art Rosenbaum on his "The Art of the Mountain Banjo." I liked the way Art combined Uncle Daves' three-finger style but shifted to a hard driving clawhammer/frail in the last part.
Stawberry Roan
A bronc ridin' story
This cowboy song is not traditional, strictly speaking. It was written by cowboy poet Curley Fletcher and published in his "Songs of the Sage" in 1936. But it is about as authentic as you can get and has long been a favorite among working cowboys.
Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms
An old time string band song
A Bluegrass standard. usually played at breakneck speed. But I prefer a more laid back old time country treatment. I first heard it from the New Lost City Ramblers who played a varsion that came from the singing and playing of Buster Carter and Preston Young - recorded in 1927.
Billy Barlow
A hunting song for kids
For great traditional childrens songs look fror records by various folks named Seeger - 'American Folk Songs for Children' (Mike and Peggy) and 'Animal Folk Songs for Children' (Mike, Peggy, Penny and Barbara), adapted from Ruth Crawford Seeger's two song books by the same names. Here is one from the collection.
Canción Mixteca
A sweet song was by José López Alavez of Oaxaca, Mexico, 1912.
This short and very sweet song was written by José López Alavez of Oaxaca, Mexico in 1912. Though by some accounts it has traditional origins. It has been a favorite of mine since I heard it from our local Tejano crooner Freddie Fender.
Long John
Running away from the chain gang
The story of Long John Green stands next to John Henry as another great African American folk legend. John Lomax tells the story in his liner notes to 'John A. Lomax Jr. Sings American Folksongs':
Poor Little Turtle Dove
A mountain love song
This song came to me from Mike and Peggy Seeger who got it from a recording of Bascom Lamar Lunsford in 1929. I added a couple of verses from a late 18th-century ballad 'The True Lover's Farewell' collected by Cecil Sharp, and adapted by Stephen Sedley in his book The Seeds of Love.
No Es Culpa Mía
A tejano song of heartbreak
It has been said that the language of love can only be sung. And nobody understood this better than the great Mexican and Tejano singers like Lydia Mendoza.
Willie the Weeper
A jazz tune about the perils of opium smoking
"Willie" is a New Orleans jazz band standard dating back before the turn of the century (nineteenth). There are hundreds of verses and almost as many variations of the tune. I learned this one from a ten-inch record album by Shep Ginandes called "Songs of Delinquency."
Duncan and Brady
Another bad man murder ballad
A "bad man murder ballad" in the mold of Staggolee, Frankie and Johnny, or Ella Speed. The earliest known recording was by a white string band, Wilmer Watts & Lonely Eagles, in 1929 but it has its roots in the African American tradition.
Riley and Spencer
A drinking song of the South
Unlike most of the country songs I sing there are no early recordings of 'Riley and Spencer.' This one comes to us from some more recent traditional singers such as Tommy Jarrell and Betsy Rutherford. Betsy said that she learned "Riley and Spencer" from her relative Fields Ward, who wrote it.