Saturday Morning with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Saturday August 15, 2020

Saturday Morning is an eclectic roots-oriented program on CKCU in Ottawa heard live on Saturday mornings from 7 until 10 am (Eastern time) and then available for on-demand streaming. I am one of the four rotating hosts of Saturday Morning and base my programming on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches format I developed at CKUT in Montreal.

CKCU can be heard live at 93.1 FM in Ottawa and https://www.ckcufm.com/ on the web.

This episode of Saturday Morning was prerecorded at home and can already be streamed on-demand at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/128/48677.html

Dennis Warner- Potter’s Wheel

Pilot Me (Main Trail Productions)

In memory of John R. Lewis (1940-2020)

Sally Rogers & Claudia Schmidt- Still on the Bridge

We are Welcomed (Pragmavision)

Odetta- Freedom Trilogy: Oh Freedom, Come & Go with Me, I’m On My Way

Gonna Let It Shine (M.C.)

Kim & Reggie Harris- Eyes on the Prize

Rock of Ages (Appleseed)

In memory of Michael Smith (1941-2020). I wrote about Michael at this link.

Michael Smith- Spoon River

Love Letter on a Fish (Tales from the Tavern)

Jamie O'Reilly & Michael Smith- Sister Clarissa

Songs of a Catholic Childhood (J. O’Reilly Productions)

Anne Hills & Michael Smith- The Dutchman

Paradise Lost and Found (Red Wing)

Michael Smith- We Become Birds

Love Letter on a Fish (Tales from the Tavern)

Josie Bello- Have Purpose Live Long

Have Purpose Live Long (Josie Bello)

Graham Lindsay with The Small Glories, April Verch, Joe Phillips & Ian Foster- The Next Best Thing

The Next Best Thing (Graham Lindsay)

Ronny Cox- Silver City

Live at the Kitchen Sink (Ronny Cox)

David Bromberg Band- Take This Hammer

Big Road (Red House)

Extended Feature: Summer Songs. The next 16 songs are about summer or set during the summer.

Moore & McGregor- Summertime

Dream with Me (Ivernia)

Tom Mitchell- Nuts for Bolts

Unreleased 1976 live recording – used with permission

Steel Rail- Rain

Coming Home (Crossties)

Antonio Andrade- Steve Forbert’s Midsummer Night’s Toast

Lucky in Love (Life Shakes Records)

Chaim Tannenbaum- Brooklyn 1955

Chaim Tannenbaum (StorySound)

Kate & Anna McGarrigle- Swimming Song

Tell My Sister: Kate & Anna McGarrigle (Nonesuch)

Lisa Moscatiello- Biloxi

Second Avenue (Machine Heart)

Taj Mahal- Fishin’ Blues

The Real Thing (Columbia/Legacy)

The Barbaloots- Catfish Wish

Possum Came to Town (Anything is Possumable)

Shelley Posen- Canoeing My Troubles Away

Roseberry Road (Well Done Music)

David Francey- Blue Skies

So Say We All (Laker Music)

Nina Ricci- Donna Donna

Fare Thee Well: A Joan Baez Tribute (Nina Ricci)

Mandy Marylane- Summer Lovin’ Blues

Mandy Marylane (Y&T Music)

David Mallett- Summer of My Dreams

Midnight on the Water (North Road)

Night Sun- Summer Songs

One Moment of Grace (Borealis)

Sultans of String- Summer in Tehranto

Refuge (Sultans of String)

Arlo Guthrie & Jim Wilson featuring Vanessa Bryan- Hard Times Come Again No More

Hard Times Come Again No More – single (Rising Son)

Kronos Quartet with Sam Amidon, Brian Carpenter, Lee Knight & Aoife O'Donovan- Where Have All the Flowers Gone

Long Time Passing: Kronos Quartet & Friends Celebrate Pete Seeger (Smithsonian Folkways)

Eric Andersen- Thirsty Boots

Woodstock Under the Stars (Y&T Music)

Scott Cook- Passin’ Through

Tangle of Souls (Scott Cook)

Mary Chapin Carpenter- It’s OK to Be Sad

The Dirt and the Stars (Lambent Light/Thirty Tigers)

Lynn Miles- The Saddest Song I Ever Wrote

We’ll Look for Stars (Must Have Music)

Emma Swift- I Contain Multitudes

Blonde on the Tracks (Tiny Ghost/CRS)

Ken Tizzard & Music for Goats- One Too Many Mornings

Living the Dream: Live at the Little Pub (Ken Tizzard)

Charlie Barnett- Corrina, Corrina

All By His Own Self (Modern Songbook Records)

Kris Delmhorst- The Horses

Long Day in the Milky Way (Big Bean Music)

David Wiffen- Mr. Wiffen

David Wiffen (Fantasy)

Orit Shimoni- Strange and Beautiful Things

Strange and Beautiful Things (Orit Shimoni)

VickiKristinaBarcelona- Tango Till They’re Sore

Pawn Shop Radio (StorySound)

Don Armstrong- Hey Little Bird

Mother Don’t Give Up on Me Now (Ronstadt Record Co.)

Vincent Beaulne- Joe’s Guitar

The Voice is Mine (Blues Del Records)

I’ll be hosting Saturday Morning next on September 12 when my extended feature will be “A Hundred Floors above in the Tower of Song: A tribute to Hank Williams.”

Find me on Twitter. @MikeRegenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Michael Peter Smith 1941-2020

Although I’ve known for five or six weeks that this news was coming soon, I am deeply saddened today to learn that Michael Peter Smith died yesterday of colon cancer at age 78.

Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuiderzee
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me

–The chorus of “The Dutchman” by Michael Smith

I was introduced to the songwriting of Michael Smith in 1972 when Steve Goodman led off Somebody Else’s Troubles, his second LP, with Michael’s song, “The Dutchman.” The song stunned me with its lyrical and melodic beauty and with how deeply the depth of the Dutchman’s character and his dementia was compassionately revealed. In 1973, when Steve did a four or five-night gig in Montreal, I got to spend some time with him and he told me a little about Michael and did several more of his great songs.

Many years later, probably sometime around the turn of this century, the great songwriter Tom Russell and I were talking about songs and songwriters and we both picked “The Dutchman” as an all-time favorite song. Tom later recorded a great version of “The Dutchman” on his 2003 album, Modern Art.

It was at some folk festival somewhere in the mid-1980s – I went to a lot of festivals in those days – that I first met Michael and saw him perform. I do recall that it was my late close friend Bruce Kaplan, the founder of Flying Fish Records in Chicago, who introduced us around the time that Michael made his first Flying Fish album. Michael was a riveting performer on stage – then and every time I saw him.

I didn’t get many chances to spend time with Michael – maybe a half-dozen or so times over the years – but I think of several occasions in recent years that I so enjoyed his company and being in his audience. In 2003, Michael came to the Champlain Valley Folk Festival in Vermont as part of Fourtold – a group he formed with Anne Hills, Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen – where I was one of the MCs. I was thrilled to have Michael participate in the songwriters’ workshop I hosted annually for seven years at Champlain Valley.

In 2005, when the Folk Alliance International conference was held in Montreal, I invited several performers from the conference to perform live on my Folk Roots/Folk Branches show on CKUT and one of my most cherished radio memories is of Michael and Anne Hills singing their beautiful duet version of “The Dutchman” while I sat two or three feet away in the studio.

Our most recent in-person visit was in December 2014 when Sylvie and I were on vacation on the Gulf Coast in Florida and Michael was doing a Sunday afternoon concert in Tampa, about a 40-minute drive from where we were. The concert was superb and it was great to spend some time with him before and after the show. I treasure the photo – which I call “Michaels with Folded Arms” – that Sylvie took during our visit that day.

Sadly, Michael’s passing comes less than six months after Barbara Barrow, his wife of 52 years and frequent singing partner, died from complications of Parkinson’s disease.

During his final weeks in hospice, Michael was cared for by Jamie O’Reilly, his long-time agent and musical collaborator, and by Anne Hills. On Facebook today, Jamie said Michael made this statement 13 days ago: “And then I realized my life was totally complete and everything I asked for in my life was there. Was there for me. And I felt so grateful. I felt so grateful. I had a wonderful true-life adventure.”

I always include an extended feature when I host the Saturday Morning show on CKCU in Ottawa every fourth week and on June 22, 2019 the feature was “Songs of Michael Smith” – 15 of his songs performed by Michael and a bunch of other artists. You can stream the show by clicking on “LISTEN NOW” at this link.

Michael left us with so many great songs and recordings. I don’t imagine that I will ever stop listening to them or stop playing them on my future radio shows. One of his songs I’ll be playing when I next host the Saturday Morning show on August 15 is “We Become Birds.”

 

Do you see birds on trees
How they leave to get a drink or a bite to eat
Fly away and others follow

 

And the whole day goes by
Birds and more birds
We become birds when we die
We fly away but we come back
We become birds when we die

 

When you're put here it's for a reason
Think of all the people the Lord hasn't sent here
I'm so happy I've been given this time here
Don't want to waste my time on this earth

 

And the whole day goes by
Birds and more birds
We become birds when we die
We fly away but we come back
We become birds when we die

 

He won't hand you
A piece of paper with a map on it no sir
He'll whisper something
And at first you might not even hear
It may take time
You may make mistakes
But if you pray
He'll lead you to your direction

 

And the whole day goes by
Birds and more birds
We become birds when we die
We fly away but we come back
We become birds when we die

I know because sometimes I just want to
Lift off
Go right to the mesa and
Have a feast
Eat our bread
Stand in a circle
Hear my grandmother talk about our people

Although I’ve never been one to believe in such things as reincarnation, I do imagine that Michael Smith must now be a bird, perhaps singing on “the banks of the ocean where the walls rise above the Zuiderzee.”

Find me on Twitter. www.twitter.com/mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

–Mike Regenstreif