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.
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.
Roll Down the Line
Miners, prisoners, exploitation: this story has everything
You'll find some good notes on the song and the struggle on Folklorist.org
Shoutin' in Jerusalem
An old spiritual
This is one of those great spirituals from the slave times. It is often speculated that the songs were encoded messages. Were they really singing about the after-life or about liberation in this life? "Keep your lamps trimmed and burnin'" we're going to "Steal Away" then we'll "shout in Jerusalem - just like John."
Henry Lee
A very old murder ballad learned from Peggy Seeger
"Henry Lee" is Child #68. Pretty much the whole story you will hear in this rendition is contained in other variations, "Love Henry", "Earl Richard", “The Proud Girl.” And bits of the plot, scraps of lyrics and roughly related ideas cross fertilized still more songs like "Lady Margaret" and "Lost Henry."
Buckey Jim
Here is a lullaby from the Southern Appalachians
I couldn't do better than Alan and John Lomax to describe this song:
Utah Carroll
A very sad and sentimental cowboy story
'Utah Carroll' joins 'Little Joe the Wrangler' and 'When the Works all Done this Fall' in the long tradition of cowboy tear-jerkers. So get your hankies out pardners.
Dog and Gun
She hunts and captures her prey.
'Dog and Gun' also known as 'The Golden Glove' comes to us via the folk tradition from English broadsides. I learned the ballad from a recording by Bradley Kincaid that was part of Harry Smith's collection.'
Deep Blue Sea
Sailor lost at sea
This song was recorded by a few folksingers in the 1960's such as Pete Seeger, Odetta, Chad Mitchel and the Weavers. I'm especially fond of Odetta's performance. I heard her sing it when I must have been thirteen years old and it has stayed with me ever since.
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.
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.
Backwater Blues - 1
Uncle Dave's flood song
This 'Backwater Blues' was recorded for Vocalion Records by Uncle Dave Macon and Sam McGee on May 11, 1929 in New York City. This is just after flooding in the Mississippi River valley covered 27,000 miles to a depth of 30 feet. It affected 630,000 many of whom were forced to live in relief camps for log periods.