Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday December 13, 2022: Songs of Joni Mitchell

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU in Ottawa on Tuesdays 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 recorded and can already be streamed on-demand by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/595/58616.html

Theme: Songs of Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell is one of the most influential and popular of all the artists who came out of the 1960s folk scene.

Joni Mitchell- Marcie

Archives – Volume 2: The Reprise Years (1968-1971) (Rhino)

Tom Rush- Tin Angel

The Circle Game (Elektra)

Caroline Herring- Cactus Tree

Golden Apples of the Sun (Signature Sounds)

Tigger Outlaw- Songs to Aging Children

Alice’s Restaurant soundtrack (Ryko)

Joni Mitchell- Roses Blue

Clouds (Reprise)

Pete Seeger- Both Sides Now

Young vs. Old (Columbia)

Buffy Sainte-Marie- The Circle Game

Best of the Vanguard Years (Vanguard)

Joni Mitchell- Rainy Night House

Ladies of the Canyon (Reprise)

Herbie Hancock & Leonard Cohen- The Jungle Line

River: The Joni Letters (Verve)

Judy Collins- That Song About the Midway

Portrait of an American Girl (Wildflower)

Colleen Kattau- The Last Time I Saw Richard

The Last Time I Saw Richard – single (Windlight Studios)

Joni Mitchell- For the Roses

For the Roses (Asylum)

Dave Van Ronk- Urge for Going

…and the tin pan bended, and the story ended… (Smithsonian Folkways)

Lilli Lewis- River

River – single (Louisiana Red Hot)

Herbie Hancock & Norah Jones- Court and Spark

River: The Joni Letters (Verve)

Joni Mitchell- Help Me

Court and Spark (Asylum)

Marianne Trudel & Karen Young- Cherokee Louise

Portraits: Songs of Joni Mitchell (Productions Marianne Trudel)

Terri Camilari- Magdalene Laudries

Magdalene Laundries – single (Terri Camilari)

Joni Mitchell- Little Green

Blue (Reprise)

Joni Mitchell- The Silky Veils of Ardor

Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter (Asylum)

Next week: Happy Holidays.

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Playlist: Folk Roots/Folk Branches - March 8-14, 2014

Folk Roots/Folk Branches with Mike Regenstreif is a thematic program streamed on the radio service at Roots Music Canada. – http://www.rootsmusic.ca/

A new show debuts every Saturday and repeats daily through the rest of the week.

March 8-14, 2014

Theme: Voices of Women.

Laura Smith- I Built a Boat

Everything is Moving (Borealis)

Kate McGarrigle- On My Way to Town

Tell My Sister (Nonesuch)

Caroline Herring- Traveling Shoes

Camilla (Signature Sounds)

Annie Lou- The Plaid Parade

Grandma’s Rules for Drinking (Annie Lou)

Claudia Schmidt- Nothing

New Whirled Order (Red House)

Little Birdie- Blue

Bare Bones (Little Birdie)

Eliza Gilkyson- Eliza Jane

The Nocturne Diaries (Red House)

Mary Gauthier- Mama Here, Mama Gone

The Foundling Alone (In the Black)

Anne Hills- Mother

The Things I Notice Now: Anne Hills Sings the Songs of Tom Paxton (Appleseed)

Rosalie Sorrels- Girls in Our Town

Then Came the Children (Green Linnet)

Eva Cassidy- Penny to My Name

Time After Time (Blix Street)

Priscilla Herdman- Millworker

Forgotten Dreams (Flying Fish)

Maria Dunn- Shareholder’s Reel

Piece By Piece (Distant Whisper)

Amelia Curran- Face on the News

Spectators (Six Shooter)

Lynn Miles- Party Too Long

Downpour (Lynn Miles)

Karine Polwart- Rivers Run

Threshold (W2/Borealis)

Natalie Merchant w/the Klezmatics- The Dancing Bear

Leave Your Sleep (Nonesuch)

This show can be heard at http://www.rootsmusic.ca/ on:

Saturday, March 8 – 10-11 am

Sunday, March 9 – 10-11 am

Monday, March 10 – 9-10 pm

Tuesday, March 11 – 9-10 pm

Wednesday, March 12 – 11 pm-12 am

Thursday, March 13 – 11 pm-12 am

Friday, March 14 – 11 pm-12 am.

The times listed are Eastern Time. Please adjust the schedule for whatever time zone you’re in.

Next week: Irish and Irish-inspired songs.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Caroline Herring – Camilla

CAROLINE HERRING

Camilla

Signature Sounds

carolineherring.com

Camilla, the latest album by Caroline Herring, one of the very finest singer-songwriters to emerge from the American south in the new millennium, is a beautiful, often profound, meditation on such themes as the civil rights movement, grief, and hope.

Several songs are directly inspired by events, and heroes, of the civil rights movement. “Camilla,” is inspired by the story of Marion King, an African American woman who was beaten in 1962 by police in Camilla, Georgia, in front of her children and while she was six months pregnant, when she went to the jail to visit the daughter of a friend who was a jailed civil rights demonstrator. (The Civil Rights Digital Library has a news clip of King being interviewed from her hospital bed as she recovered from her injuries at this link.)

In “White Dress,” Caroline sings from the perspective of Mae Francis Moultrie, one of the original Freedom Riders whose bus was fire bombed in Alabama on May 14, 1961. “I’m 24 years old/I won’t live this way anymore,” she sings as Moultrie, who was wearing a white dress on the bus, in reference to the Jim Crow south the Freedom Riders were determined to change. (Moultrie is seen outside the burning bus in the FBI photo at right.)

My favorite song on the album is “Traveling Shoes,” which was inspired by Eudora Welty’s 1941 short story, “A Worn Path,” about an old African American woman encountering various impediments on a Christmastime journey into town to get medicine for her sick grandson. The imagery in Welty’s story metaphorically represents the inequality of the races in the American south of that time and Caroline’s song is based on a scene in the song when the old woman asks a passerby for help in tying her shoe. The a cappella arrangement of “Traveling Shoes” features sublime harmonies from Mary Chapin Carpenter and Aoife O’Donovan. (Read "A Worn Path" at this link.)

Another favourite is “Maiden Voyage,” about a trip Herring took with her four-year-old daughter to Washington, D.C. to witness history on the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration as president of the United States; a day that saw the fulfillment for many of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land,” which Caroline tells her daughter to sing with her hand on her heart. (See a video of Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen and Tao Rodriguez-Seeger leading hundreds of thousands in singing “This Land is Your Land” at the pre-inauguration concert at this link.)

Several other songs including “Until You Go,” the tragic “Black Mountain Lullaby,” and the ultimately hopeful “Summer Song” deal with various stages of grief.

While most of these songs deal with difficult subjects, Caroline’s beautiful voice, her insightful, carefully crafted lyrics – which are often open to evolving interpretation – her superb melodies and excellent mostly-acoustic arrangements make we want to hear them again and again.

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

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

--Mike Regenstreif

Sing Out! Magazine – Spring 2010

My copy of the latest issue of Sing Out! Magazine arrived in today’s mail. It’s the Diamond Anniversary issue of the most venerable of folk music publications. I’ve been honoured to be one of the contributing writers for about half of Sing Out’s 60 years (and a subscriber for a fair bit longer). It remains an essential read for anyone interested in folk music. Congratulations to Sing Out! editor Mark Moss and everyone else connected to the magazine.

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

Beyond the Pale- Postcards
Guy Clark- Somedays the Song Writes You
Stevie Coyle- Ten in One
Caroline Herring- Golden Apples of the Sun
James Keelaghan- House of Cards
Kris Kristofferson- Closer to the Bone
Frank London & Lorin Sklamberg- Tsuker-zis
Corb Lund- Losin’ Lately Gambler
Maria Muldaur- Maria Muldaur and Her Garden of Joy
Nathan Rogers- The Gauntlet
Tom Russell- Blood and Candle Smoke

Sadly, there’s also an obituary I wrote about my old friend Kate McGarrigle.

--Mike Regenstreif

Bluegrass radio show

Sunday December 20, 2009 – 7:00-8:00 pm

I made a rare return to live radio to guest-host Bluegrass Ramblings hours on CKUT (90.3 FM in Montreal).

This program is available as a podcast (for two months) for streaming or downloading at

http://secure.ckut.ca/64/20091220.19.01-20.00.mp3

The program begins five seconds into the download.

STEVE MARTIN w/TIM O’BRIEN & EARL SCRUGGS- Daddy Played the Banjo
The Crow (Rounder)
CHARLIE HADEN featuring JACK BLACK- Old Joe Clark
Charlie Haden Family & Friends: Rambling Boy (Decca)
TONY TRISCHKA w/MICHAEL DAVES- Fox Chase
Territory (Smithsonian Folkways)
RHONDA VINCENT- Christmas Time at Home
Beautiful Star: A Christmas Collection (Rounder)

LAKE OF STEW- Darlin Starlin’
Sweet as Pie (Woodhog)
LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III- Way Up in NYC
High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project (2nd Story)
GEOFF MULDAUR & THE TEXAS SHEIKS- Poor Boy, Long Ways from Home
Geoff Muldaur & the Texas Sheiks (Tradition & Moderne)
HULL & LARSON- Santa Claus is Coming to Town
The Goose is Getting Fat (Arabica)

DOC WATSON- Slidin’ Delta
Americana Master Series: Best of the Sugar Hill Years (Sugar Hill)
CAROLINE HERRING- See See Rider
Golden Apples of the Sun (Signature Sounds)
LAURIE LEWIS & TOM ROZUM- Hot Buttered Rum
Winter’s Grace (Signature Sounds)

CHRIS COOLE- Wish We Had Our Time Again
Old Dog (Chris Coole)
SHEARWATER BLUEGRASS- Snows of December
Shearwater (Shearwater)
MARGOT LEVERETT & THE KLEZMER MOUNTAIN BOYS w/TONY TRISCHKA- Calgary Reel
2nd Avenue Square Dance (Traditional Crossroads)
JOEL MABUS- Children Go Where I Send Thee
How Like the Holly (Fossil)

SAM BUSH- Sleigh Ride
A Family Christmas (Putumayo)

--Mike Regenstreif