Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – August 13, 2024: Kin Ya See That Sun

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU, 93.1 FM, in Ottawa on Tuesdays from 3:30 until 5 pm (Eastern time) and is also available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.

This episode of Stranger Songs was recorded and can be streamed on-demand, now or anytime, by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/595/66394.html

Theme: “Kin Ya See That Sun.”

All of these songs have something or other to do with the sun.

Terre & Maggie Roche- Kin Ya See That Sun

Kin Ya See That Sun (Earth Rock Wreckerds)

Paul Simon- Was a Sunny Day

There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (Warner Bros.)

Ana Egge- Chasing Rabbits in the Sun

Is It the Kiss (StorySound)

Jason Lang- You Are My Sunshine

Handled with Care (Famgroup/Genison Music)

Shout Sister Shout- Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying

Hit That Jive (M.C.)

Bruce Cockburn- O Sun By Day O Moon By Night

O Sun O Moon (True North)

Kate & Anna McGarrigle- Sun, Son (Shining on the Water)

Love Over and Over (Polygram)

Thelonious Monk- North of the Sunset

Solo Monk (Columbia/Legacy)

Ian & Sylvia- Every Night When the Sun Goes Down

Four Strong Winds (Vanguard)

Jackie Washington- At Sundown

Keeping Out of Mischief (Pyramid)

Misty Blues- Go Down, Sunshine

Tell Me Who You Are: A Live Tribute to Odetta (Guitar One) 

Jay McShann- On the Sunny Side of the Street

Still Jumpin’ the Blues (Stony Plain)

Diana Braithwaite & Chris Whiteley- Morning Sun

Morning Sun (Electro-Fi)

Chris Rawlings- Mr. Sunshine

Pearl Soupe (Cooking Fat Music)

The Magnolia Janes- The Sun in My Backyard

The Light Years (Be a Jane)

Miranda Hardy- Like the Sunrise

The Price of Happiness (Great Divide)

Hoyt Axton- We’ll Sing in the Sunshine

Mr. Greenback Dollar Man (Surrey)

Peter Yarrow- Weave Me the Sunshine

Peter (Warner Bros.)

John Stewart- Lost Her in the Sun

Bombs Away Dream Babies (RSO)

Linda Ronstadt- He Dark the Sun

Silk Purse (Capitol)

Katy Moffatt- Waitin’ for the Sun to Shine

Loose Diamond (HighTone)

Bonnie Koloc- Colors of the Sun

Rediscovered (Mr. Biscuit)

Pat Guadango- Warmth of the Sun

1964 (Campbell Music)

Lynn Miles- Time to Let the Sun

Fall for Beauty (True North)

Gordon Fleming- East of the Sun

According to Gordie: Gordon Fleming Anthology 1948-1990 (Just a Memory)

Next week: Murder Ballads.

--Mike Regenstreif

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday April 5, 2022: Remembering John Prine

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU in Ottawa on Tuesday afternoons from 3:30 until 5 pm (Eastern time) and is also available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.

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

This episode of Stranger Songs was prerecorded at home and can already be streamed on-demand by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/595/55771.html

Theme: Remembering John Prine (1946-2020). John died on April 7, 2020 from COVID-19 at age 73 – an early victim of the pandemic.

John Prine- Souvenirs
Souvenirs (Oh Boy)

Steve Goodman- Blue Umbrella
Jessie’s Jig & Other Favorites (Red Pajamas)
Bonnie Koloc- Clocks & Spoons
Timeless (Mr. Biscuit)
Tim Grimm- Sam Stone
Names (Wind River)
John Prine- Boundless Love
The Tree of Forgiveness (Oh Boy)

Reggie Harris- Hello In There
On Solid Ground (Reggie Harris Music)
Nanci Griffith with John Prine- Speed of the Sound of Loneliness
Other Voices/Other Rooms (Elektra)

John McCutcheon- The Night That John Prine Died
Cabin Fever: Songs from the Quarantine (Appalsongs)
Ellis Paul- Angel from Montgomery
Ellis Paul’s Traveling Medicine Show Vol. 1 (Rosella)
Leo Gillespie- Aimless Love
Leo Gillespie (Leo Gillespie)
John Prine & Iris DeMent- In Spite of Ourselves
In Spite of Ourselves (Oh Boy)

Rob Lutes- Rocky Mountain Time
Walk in the Dark (Lucky Bear)
Tim & Mollie O'Brien- Unwed Fathers
Sugar Hill Records: A Retrospective (Sugar Hill)
John Prine- Egg & Daughter Night, Lincoln Nebraska, 1967 (Crazy Bone)
The Tree of Forgiveness (Oh Boy)

Bonnie Koloc- Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone
Timeless (Mr. Biscuit)
John Prine- Please Don’t Bury Me
Souvenirs (Oh Boy)
Mark Haines & Tom Leighton- That’s the Way the World Goes Round
Hand to Hand (Borealis)
Keith Sykes & John Prine- Everybody Wants to Feel Like You
Don’t Count Us Out (Syren)
John Prine- Spanish Pipedream
Live at The Other End, December 1975 (Rhino)

Folkapotamus- I Remember Everything
We’ll Dance Again (PhatCat)
John Prine- Fish and Whistle
Souvenirs (Oh Boy)
Johnny Cash- Paradise
Personal File (Columbia/Legacy)

John Prine- When I Get to Heaven
The Tree of Forgiveness (Oh Boy)

Next week: Songs and Conversation with Eliza Gilkyson

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Bonnie Koloc – Rediscovered

BONNIE KOLOC

Rediscovered

Mr. Biscuit

bonniekoloc.com

As I noted in my review of Beginnings, a Bonnie Koloc collection of vintage – but previously unreleased – live recordings, I was first turned onto Bonnie almost four decades ago by the late Steve Goodman, one of her contemporaries on the Chicago folk club scene at the time.

Taking Steve’s enthusiastic recommendations to heart, I collected Bonnie’s 1970s recordings, all of which are now long out-of-print. On Rediscovered, Bonnie has recorded new versions of 10 songs from earlier albums, most of them from that period (and a couple from her much more recent and presumably still in-print CD, Visual Voice).

As always, Bonnie’s music falls somewhere between contemporary folk and pop music with strong elements of blues – particularly showing the influence of the classic woman blues singers of the 1920s and ‘30s – and jazz.

If anything, Bonnie’s interpretive skills have deepened and the arrangements on these 10 songs – a nicely balanced collection of five original songs and five drawn from other songwriters – are beautifully intimate featuring small groups or small groups plus strings.

Among my favorites from among Bonnie’s own songs is “Children’s Blues,” a powerful, deeply-felt commentary about the painful, often lasting effects of parental conflict on young kids. Despite not having heard the LP version in about 25 years, it’s a song I’ve never forgotten. The perfect arrangement is built on Larry Kohut’s heartbeat bass with Chris Siebold’s acoustic rhythm guitar and lead lines from John Rice on dobro and Steve Eisen on tenor sax – and, of course, Bonnie’s superb singing.

Another is “Two Black Guitars,” a heartfelt remembrance of Bonnie’s late brother Jim, also a musician, that references the Everly Brothers and ends with a coda from the Everlys hit, “Bye Bye Love.” Howard Levy’s sublime harmonica playing adds much to this and several other songs.

Among the covers, there’s a great version of Lil Green’s classic “In the Dark,” which Bonnie starts singing a cappella – her voice slipping and sliding effortlessly around the melody – before Kohut, Rice and Sibelod move in under her.

Another favourite cover is John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery,” a song that draws on an old woman’s somewhat bitter memories and feelings. It’s a song that almost demands a woman’s voice and Bonnie nails it.

I'm now on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

I'm also on Facebook. www.facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Sing Out! Magazine – Summer 2010

Sing Out! Magazine – actually the Summer issue – has finally made its way north into Canada. The cover story is about Nanci Griffith, a regularl performer at the Golem, the folk club I ran in Montreal in the 1970s and '80s. My review of The Loving Kind, Nanci’s latest album can be read by clicking here.

As usual, this issue of Sing Out! has a bunch of my CD reviews including:

The Chieftains- San Patricio
Tim Eriksen- Soul of the January Hills
Steve Gillette- The Man
Marianne Girard- Pirate Days
Robin Greenstein- Images of Women Vol. 2
Jim Guttmann- Bessarabian Breakdown
Steve Howell- Since I Saw You Last
The Huppah Project- Under the Canopy
Bonnie Koloc- Beginnings
Pokey LaFarge- Riverboat Soul
Tom Lehrer- The Tom Lehrer Collection (CD/DVD combo)
Natalie Merchant- Leave Your Sleep
Red Hot Chachkas- Beats Without Borders
Carrie Rodriguez- Love and Circumstance
Chip Taylor- Yonkers, NY
Shari Ulrich- Find Our Way
Various- Rounder Records 40th Anniversary Concert
Tom Waits- Glitter and Doom Live

I’ll have another 20 or so reviews in the Fall issue of Sing Out!

--Mike Regenstreif

Bonnie Koloc -- Beginnings

BONNIE KOLOC
Beginnings
Mr. Biscuit
bonniekoloc.com

I first met Steve Goodman back in 1973 or ’74 when he did a four-night stand at the soon-to-be-defunct Karma Coffee House in Montreal. Hanging out with him then, we talked a lot about music and it was from Steve that I first heard of Bonnie Koloc. She was one of the best singers around, he told me.

I took Steve’s advice and sought out Bonnie’s early LPs – and what she’s done since – and she’s never failed to draw me in with her gorgeous voice and intelligent folk-pop (with touches of blues and jazz) approach.

Bonnie’s first LP came out in 1971 but she was already well-established as one of top performers on the Chicago folk club scene that included such peers as Steve, John Prine and Fred Holstein. But the music on Beginnings – released for the first time more than 40 years after it was recorded – dates from two 1969 live sets recorded by Rich Warren, then the student host of a folk music show on his college’s radio station. (For many years now, Rich has been the host of the legendary Midnight Special program on WFMT in Chicago.)

Listening to Beginnings, it’s quite obvious that Bonnie was already a great singer and performer; in fact, I would say it’s more even more obvious here than on some of her early LPs with their studio polish.

The sweetly sad “Rainy Day Lady” is Bonnie’s only original among the 16-song, hour-long set mostly devoted to her superb interpretations of tunes drawn from such well-known writers as Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell as well as from local artists like Eddie Holstein and Steve Goodman (who was still completely unknown beyond the Chicago folk scene).

Among my favourites on the CD are Bonnie’s versions of Dylan’s “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (despite a couple of lyrical deviations)” and “Just Like a Woman”; Goodman’s “Song for David”; Eddie Holstein's "Victoria's Moring"; and one of the best interpretations I’ve ever heard of Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.”

She also does fine versions of such classics as Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child,” George Gershwin’s “Summertime” and Bessie Smith’s “You’ve Been a Good Old Wagon.”

Bonnie is supported throughout the album by the excellent playing of guitarist Ray Frank and bassist George Stevens. John Mathis plays flute on three songs and two others feature a guy named Bob (from the bar) on harmonica.

--Mike Regenstreif