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.
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."
The Millers Will
The wages of greed
A dying miller, a true believer in the free maket, decides which of his three sons will inherit his mill by judging which is greediest and will do the best job of cheating the customers.
Fod!
A really silly song
This song is a load of fun from Kenton County, Kentucky. I learned it from Mike and Peggy Seeger's 'Fly Down Little Bird' album. The first couple of verses remind me of "Rattlesnake Mountain and it is darned near as silly as that song.
Jackaro
A song of love, seamanship and cross-dressing
'Jackaro' is a Kentucky mountain variation on an old ballad called 'Jack Munroe.' The song was collected in Kentucky by Loraine Wyman and Howard Brockway and in Arkansas by Max Hunter. Jean Ritchie knew it is part of her own family tradition.
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.
Swannanoa Tunnel
A mountain railroad song
The Swannanoa Tunnel was constructed in Western North Carolina by more than 1800 workers. Some 500 of them were convict laborers, mostly African-Americans, who were transported from the eastern part of the state. The work started in 1855 and took 24 years to finish. In this time countless workers lost their lives.
Statesboro Blues
A blues from Blind Willie McTell
Blind Willie McTell recorded this song in 1928 and it is probably of his own composition. A few people have revived it recently, notably Taj Mahal, Rory Block, Dave Van Ronk, Chris Smithers, the Allman Brothers and the Holy Modal Rounders, those bizarre purveyors of psychedelic old time country.
Oh Baby You Done Me Wrong
A pastor goes astray
A song recorded by Uncle Dave Macon 1925 in Nashville. Uncle Dave seems to have invented a genre, old time country calypso. Nobody else has recorded this cautionary tale of a pastor gone astray.
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.