Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday June 1, 2021

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/595/52165.html

Theme: The Third Stranger Songs Fantasy Concert, a whole show of music recorded live in concert. We will have a “Stranger Songs Fantasy Concert” on our first show of every month until it’s safe for us to return to live music in person.

Josh White, Jr..- Say a Prayer for a Stranger
Live at the Raven Gallery (Silverwolf)

Ronny Cox- Hot Water Cornbread
Live at the Kitchen Sink (Ronny Cox)
Kate & Edith- Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor
Live at Kelso Hall (Kate & Edith)
Corin Raymond & The Sundowners- Postcard from Winnipeg
Paper Nickels (Local Rascals)

Rosalie Sorrels & Mike Regenstreif (1993)

Diana Jones- Better Times Will Come
Live in Concert (Proper)
Judy Collins- Four Strong Winds
Living (Elektra)
Rosalie Sorrels- Then Came the Children
Then Came the Children (Green Linnet)

Perla Batalla- Bird On a Wire
Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man (Verve Forecast)
Leonard Cohen- Suzanne
Live in London (Columbia)

Noel Paul Stookey- Not That Kind of Music
Just Causes (Neworld)
Pete Seeger- L’Internationale
Singalong, Sanders Theatre, 1980 (Smithsonian Folkways)
Bruce Springsteen with The Sessions Band- When the Saints Go Marching In
Live in Dublin (Columbia)
Hans Theessink & Blue Groove- I Shall Not Be Moved
Live (Minor Music)

Guy Clark- Dublin Blues
Songs and Stories (Dualtone)
Bonnie Dobson- Bonnie’s Blues
At Folk City (Prestige)
Missy Burgess- Time
Missy Burgess with The Blue Train Live (Missy Burgess)

The Band- The Weight
Stage Fright: 50th Anniversary Edition [Live at the Royal Albert Hall, June 1971] (Capitol)
Wynton Marsalis Septut featuring The Blind Boys of Alabama- The Last Time
United We Swing: Best of the Lincoln Center Galas (Blue Engine)

Stephane Grappelli & David Grisman- Swing 42
Live (Warner Bros.)

Next week – Thinking About Elvis

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

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Lowell Levinger – Get Together: Banana Recalls Youngbloods Classics

LOWELL LEVINGER

Get Together: Banana Recalls Youngbloods Classics

Grandpa Raccoon

lowelllevinger.com

Back when I was in high school – 1967-1971 – the Youngbloods were one of my favorite rock bands. I had most of the original LPs back in the day and I still occasionally revisit some of the CD reissues. I loved the way they integrated folk roots and occasionally jazz influences and acoustic and electric instrumentation into their music and I also greatly appreciated how they seamlessly drew on their own original songs, songs drawn from other writers, and some from traditional folk, jug band and blues sources.

The Youngbloods broke up around 1972 or so and now 40+ years later, on Get Together: Banana Recalls Youngbloods Classics, band member Lowell Levinger – aka Banana – pays tribute to his old band with a dozen songs and tunes that have remained part of his repertoire over the past four decades. That so much of the material holds up so well is a tribute both to how strong the songs were to begin with, to how Banana has matured as an interpreter, and to the really nice arrangements featuring collaborations with the likes of fellow-Youngblood Jesse Colin Young, David Grisman, Ry Cooder, Darol Anger, Duke Robillard and others on various tracks.

Among my favorite tracks are “Grizzly Bear,” a great old country blues song first recorded in 1928 by Jim Jackson; Jesse Colin Young’s haunting “Darkness, Darkness”; the bluegrass version of Banana’s “Hippie from Olema,” a great parody of Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee”; Robin Remailly’s “Euphoria,” a song the Youngbloods, no doubt, picked up from the Holy Modal Rounders (this version features some wild singing and fiddling from Rounder Peter Stampfel); the traditional “Stagger Lee” with some additional verses by Banana; Jesse Colin Young’s bouncy “Sugar Babe”; and, of course, Dino Valenti’s anthemic “Get Together,” the song for which the Youngbloods are most remembered.

Get Together: Banana Recalls Youngbloods Classics is a lot of fun to listen to as we, too, recall those Youngbloods classics.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Playlist: Folk Roots/Folk Branches - April 5-11, 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.

April 5-11 2014

Theme: The folk roots of jazz and the jazz branches of folk.

Catherine Russell & Mike Regenstreif

Louis Armstrong & Velma Middleton- Hesitating Blues

Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy (Columbia/Legacy)

Preservation Hall Jazz Band- Careless Love

St. Peter & 57th Street (Rounder)

Lauren Sheehan- I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate

The Light Still Burns (Wilson River)

Catherine Russell- You Got to Swing and Sway

Bring It Back (Jazz Village)

Goeff Muldaur's Futuristic Ensemble w/Martha Wainwright- There Ain’t No Sweet Man that’s Worth the Salt of My Tears

Private Astronomy: A Vision of the Music of Bix Beiderbecke (Edge)

Butch Thompson & Pat Donohue- Evenin’

Vicksburg Blues (Red House)

Martin, Bogan & Armstrong- If You’se a Viper

Martin, Bogan & Armstrong (Flying Fish)

Jackie Washington- Save the Bones for Henry Jones

Midnight Choo Choo (Borealis)

Ken Whiteley- I Want to Be Happy

Another Day’s Journey (Borealis)

The Good Lovelies- Heebie Jeebies

Live at Revolution (Six Shooter)

Arlo Guthrie- St. Louis Tickle

Here Come the Kids (Rising Son)

Charlie Haden & Hank Jones- Down By the Riverside

Come Sunday (EmArcy)

Boxcar Boys- Freight Train

Rye Whiskey (Fedora Upside Down)

David Grisman- E.M.D.

The David Grisman Quintet (Kaleidescope)

Mike Regenstreif & David Amram (Photo: Ron Petronko)

Dave Van Ronk- Jelly Jelly

Down in Washington Square: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection (Smithsonian Folkways)

Paul Asbell w/Howard Levy- Goodbye Pork Pie Hat

From Adamant to Atchafalaya (Busy Hands)

Sneezy Waters- Solitude

Sneezy Waters (Sneezy Waters)

David Amram w/Ramblin' Jack Elliott & Odetta- Home on the Range

At Home/Around the World (Flying Fish)

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

Saturday, April 5 – 10-11 am

Sunday, April 6 – 10-11 am

Monday, April 7 – 9-10 pm

Tuesday, April 8 – 9-10 pm

Wednesday, April 9 – 11 pm-12 am

Thursday, April 10 – 11 pm-12 am

Friday, April 11 – 11 pm-12 am.

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

Next week: Bible stories.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Joan Baez in Kitchener, Montreal and Ottawa this week

Ottawa is folk music central this coming weekend as it hosts the annual Ontario Council of Folk Festivals  (OCFF) conference. I’m going to step out of the conference for a couple of hours on Saturday evening for the Joan Baez concert, five blocks away at the National Arts Centre.

Half a century after a still-teenaged Joan took the 1959 Newport Folk Festival by storm, she remains a great performer. The last time I saw her perform – 2003 in Burlington, Vermont – Joan was remarkable.

According to Joan’s website, her band includes three great acoustic musicians: John Doyle, the great Celtic guitarist; Dirk Powell, an incredible multi-instrumentalist who’s one of the most innovative of today’s old-time and Cajun musicians (I’ve hosted folk festival workshops a couple of times with Dirk, see the photo in the post below, and he is truly amazing – when Linda Ronstadt was a guest on Folk Roots/Folk Branches, she raved about Dirk’s playing on the Zozo Sisters CD she’d just released with Ann Savoy); and virtuoso bassist Todd Phillips, whose work, 30 years ago, with the original David Grisman Quintet redefined the possibilities in acoustic music.

Addendum (October 13): As noted, the above information about who is in Joan's band was found on her official website. However, I'm now given to understand that Dirk Powell will be the only musician with her. -MR

Joan’s three Canadian dates this week are:

Wednesday, October 16 – Centre in the Square, Kitchener, Ontario
Friday, October 15 – St. Denis Theatre, Montreal, Quebec
Saturday, October 16 – National Arts Centre, Ottawa, Ontario.

Here’s a CD review I wrote for the September 4, 2008 issue of the Montreal Gazette.

JOAN BAEZ
Day After Tomorrow
Razor & Tie

Almost 50 years into her recording career, Joan Baez teams with producer Steve Earle and a select group of acoustic musicians for one of her strongest albums in three decades. Although these songs – by such writers as Earle, Eliza Gilkyson, Tom Waits and Diana Jones – are all of recent vintage, each has a timeless quality to it. Waits’s title track, for example, written from the perspective of a soldier returning home, dates from the current Iraqi War. But it could have come from any other war time. The most beautiful song is Gilkyson’s "Rose of Sharon," an adaptation of the biblical "Song of Solomon." Baez’s voice, though lower than it was in her youth, is a remarkable instrument still capable of great beauty and power.

-Mike Regenstreif

Pictured: Joan Baez and Mike Regenstreif backstage at the Flynn Theatre, Burlington, VT. (October 12, 2003)

--Mike Regenstreif

Mark O'Connor, Chris Thile, Frank Vignola, Bryan Sutton, Jon Burr, Byron House -- Jam Session

MARK O’CONNOR, CHRIS THILE, FRANK VIGNOLA, BRYAN SUTTON, JON BURR, BYRON HOUSE
Jam Session
OMAC
markoconnor.com

Although this 71-minute CD is called Jam Session, its nine tracks were actually recorded with three different combinations of musicians at several live sets between 2000 and 2004. And, although the six musicians seem to have equal billing on the CD cover, violinist Mark O’Connor is the only musician common to all nine tunes. He is also the composer of six of them and co-writer – with Sam Bush – of another.

O’Connor started as a child prodigy on guitar and, as a young man, spent several years playing with David Grisman in his groundbreaking, genre-blending, instrumental quintet of bluegrass virtuosos who essentially created a new kind of acoustic music inspired by both jazz – particularly the hot swing of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli – and bluegrass. As a violinist, O’Connor plays classical, jazz and bluegrass at virtuosic levels. He is an amazing player and you can be sure that the musicians surrounding him on these tracks are more than up to the task of playing on these Grismanesque sessions.

Five of the tunes were recorded in 2002 and feature O’Connor with mandolinist Chris Thile (who was also a child prodigy), guitarist Bryan Sutton and bassist Byron House. There are some amazing bluegrass-based exchanges on tunes like “Granny White Special” and the traditional “Don’t let Your Deal Go Down.” But this combo also combines bluegrass with gypsy jazz on “Macedonia,” swings like Reinhardt and Grappelli on “Swingin’ on the ‘Ville” and brings a Brazilian feel to “Soft Gyrations.”

Two tracks – “Gypsy Fantastic” and “Pickles on the Elbow” – with guitarist Frank Vignola (a Reinhardt specialist) and bassist Jon Burr swing like crazy with all kinds of hot playing.

The two finale tracks combining O’Connor with Thile, Vignola, Sutton and Burr were recorded in 2004 and include “In the Cluster Blues,” a slow, intense blues jam that is riveting through 16 minutes, and “Minor Swing,” a Grappelli-Reinhardt classic that seems to start off in just-noodlin’ mode but soon catches fire.

--Mike Regenstreif

This week in Folk Roots/Folk Branches history (November 3-9)

Folk Roots/Folk Branches with Mike Regenstreif was a Thursday tradition on CKUT in Montreal for nearly 14 years from February 3, 1994 until August 30, 2007. Folk Roots/Folk Branches continued as occasional features on CKUT and is now also a blog. Here’s the 10th instalment of “This week in Folk Roots/Folk Branches,” a weekly look back continuing through next August at some of the most notable guests, features and moments in Folk Roots/Folk Branches history.

November 3, 1994: Special edition- The Songs of Bob Dylan.
November 9, 1995: Extended feature- David Grisman.
November 6, 1997: Special edition- 25 Years of concerts produced by Mike Regenstreif.
November 5, 1998: Guest- Erin Corday.
November 4, 1999: Guests- Guy Davis; Ray Bonneville.
November 9, 2000: Guest- Eric Andersen.
November 8, 2001: Guest- Penny Lang.
November 7, 2002: Guest- Rob Lutes.
November 6, 2003: Guests- Blackie & the Rodeo Kings.
November 4, 2004: Guests- Laura Risk; Michael Jerome Browne.
November 3, 2005: Guest- Thomas Hellman.
November 8, 2007 (Folk Roots/Folk Branches feature): Train songs.

Pictured: Eric Andersen and me in the CKUT studio during Folk Roots/Folk Branches on November 9, 2000.

--Mike Regenstreif