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.
The Horse with a Union Label
Even the broncos support the union
Here's a cowboy song by Mike Stratton and Saul Aarons from the People's Songbook.
Hares on the Mountain
A jolly old English girl chasing song
I've heard many variations of this favorite old English folksong this one comes from the singing of Tim Hart with Steeleye Span. I was most saddened to hear of Tim's death in 2009 from cancer. He was a year younger than me.
Weevily Wheat
Charlie he's a good old man
This song shares verses with other play party songs from the Southern Appalachians. According to the North Carolina Folklore Society, the song descends to us from the Jacobite rebellion and "Charlie" refers to Bonny Prince Charlie. Sounds like some folklorist getting carried away to me,
Home Dearie Home
A song of seas and sweeties
Peggy Seeger gathered these verses together from the old "sailor/bar maid" tradition that gave us "Hame Dearie Hame";
Oh, Watch the Stars
A finger picking treatment of a song from the Georgia Sea Islands
Watch the Stars is a song from St. Helena Island, South Carolina that was published in Ruth Crawford Seeger's "American Folk Songs for Christmas" and recorded by the Seeger sisters on the Folkways album of the same name.
Lord Bateman
A love ballad
This ballad is Child Ballad #53 (Lord Beichan). And, yes, it is long. As I've said before these old ballads are what people had for radio and TV back in the way-back-yander. So settle in for a story not a quick ditty.
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.
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.
Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss
a banjo dance number
Pretty Little Miss, aka Pretty Little Pink, is one of the standard country dance songs that's been around as long as anyone can remember. Every old southern banjo player plays and everyone dances. So please dance.
The Drovers Dream
A sheep drover's night visitation
This amusing little ditty and zoology lesson is another Australian bush ballad that I learned from the singing of A. L. Lloyd. It is one of many variants. The song likely derives from a poem appearing in The Kadina and Walleroo Times in 1889, called 'Visions of a Night Watch sent in by "C. J. 0. S" of New South Wales.
Choucoune
A song from Haiti
This Haitian song started as a poem written by Oswald Durand in 1883. He wrote the poem while jailed for criticizing political leaders in Cap-Haitien. Inspired by a lovely bird that lit on his cell window he was reminded of a girl whom he had met and admired. You may recognize the melody as 'Yellow Bird'