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.
When the Works All Done this Fall
Another cowboy tear-jerker. Get your hankie out pard.
I heard this tear-jerker a aan old 78 by Vernon Dalhard. Dalhart, born Marion Slaughter in Jefferson,Texas, was a hit in the 20's with 'Wreck of the Old 97'/ He event sang light opera when he moved to New York. But early in life he punched cattle around the Texas towns of Vernon and Dalhart. Hmm.
Rivers of Texas
A Texas love song and geography lesson.
A favorite with Texas songsters, the song's history is a little murky. It is always attributed as "traditional" although to my ear it doesn't sound like a real traditional ballad. It is not strictly a ballad, not much narrative story, and it does not borrow any verses from other songs.
Luis Pulido
A cowboy shoot-out in old Mexico
Nobody plays Mexican songs on the Banjo! Well except Pete Seeger (Cielito Lindo). But he played everything from Bach (Ode do Joy) to Flamenco (Quince Brigada) on the banjo.
Hard Times in the Mill
A labor song from cotton mills
Here's a song of struggle in the cotton mills in the 1890's. It comes to us from the singing of Lessie Croker, a knitting mill worker from Columbia South Carolina, by way of Pete Seeger's "American Industrial Ballads" on Folkways Records. It was recorded by Pete, Hedy West and Joe Glazer in the 1960's.
Buckey Jim
Here is a lullaby from the Southern Appalachians
I couldn't do better than Alan and John Lomax to describe this song:
Who Killed Cock Robin
The birds hold a memorial
This version comes from the singing of Edith Harmon in a field recording made near Maryville, Tennessee in 1939. The original porem has origins in the 14th century or earlier. There is plenty of speculation about symbolic meanings or political significance. I just loved its haunting melody.
Wild About My Lovin'
A jug-band blues
A song from Jim Jackson of Hernando, Mississippi who performed and recorded in the 1920's and 30's either solo or with such artists as Gus Cannon, Furry Lewis, Will Shade, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Jim left us a legacy of songs like Grizzly Bear, Hesitation Blues, Kansas City Blues, Old Dog Blue and this one.
Tighten on the Backband
A song of plowing and country life
Sam Hinton put this song together from bits of mule and ox driver shouts and work songs. Sam was an East Texas songster who left home to become an aquatic biologist. As devoted to his academic career as he was, Sam kept on singing and recording throughout his life and left us some wonderful material.
Jay Gould's Daughter
A railroad song.
Here's one version of a classic railroad song. I got it from Pete Seeger. It has been around in many other variations such as Charlie Poole's "Milwaukee Blues" recorded in the twenties.
John Henry
Story of the steel driving man
If there is one single best known and best loved American folksong it is surely John Henry.
Down in the Valley
A favorite American ballad
Down in the Valley is one of the best known, best loved and one of the most authentically traditional of American folk songs. My parents sang it to me as a lullaby. There's another nice variant of this song on the site. See Little Willie's My Darlin'