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.
Ramblin Gambler
A very Texas version of this song. From Alan Lomax.
Alan Lomax performed this song on his Texas Folk Songs album, featuing Guy Carawan's banjo playing and John Cole's harmonica.
Young Collins
A strange old ballad learned from Peggy Seeger
Here's another spooky and strange old English ballad (Child 85). Fair Ellen it seems is an enchantress. And poor Young Collins dies after making love to her. As everyone knows this is likely to happen to young men who play around with supernatural women. Didn’t your mother tell you not to frolic with them fairy folk?
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.
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.
Since I Laid my Burden Down
A spiritual
This old African-American spiritual is well known especially in the Mississippi delta country. I have taken bits of lyric, tune and inspiration from the performances of Mississippi John Hurt, Furry Lewis, Mississippi Fred McDowel, Roy Acuff, and Odetta.
Jenny Jenkins
A children's song about fashion
Jenny Jenkins is a very well known children's song from the mountains. It is especially associated with Vermont where it was collected and recorded by Mrs. Alice Brown, July 24, 1930, in Bethel, Vermont, from the singing of Mrs. Susan Chase, as learned from her aunt when a little girl.
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.
NRA Blues
A song about the New Deal
Back in the days of the depression, the NRA was the 'National Recovery Administration' not the rifle association. NRA was a new deal program founded to bring business, government and labor together. Although it seemed a visionary idea at the time it did not completely please labor or business.
One Misty Moisty Morning
A jolly wedding song
This song comes from a seventeenth century broadside "The Wiltshire Wedding betwixt Daniel Doo well and Doll the Dairy Maid, with the Consent of her Old Father Leather-Coat, and her dear and tender Mother Plod-well." The tune is shared with another mischievous ditty , "The Friar and the Nun."
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.
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.