Saturday Morning with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Saturday December 5, 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/128/49975.html

 

Sara Thomsen & Paula Pedersen- Winter Wind
Winter Wanderings (Sara Thomsen & Paula Pedersen)

Clancy Brothers with Louis Killen- Girl from the North Country
Save the Land! (Audio Fidelity)
Boreal- Snow Falls Down
Snow Falls Down – single (Boreal)
Lynn Miles- Last Night
Winter (Lynn Miles)
Judy Collins & Jonas Fjeld with Chatham County Line- River
Winter Stories (Wildflower/Cleopatra)

Joni Mitchell-A Melody in Your Name
Archives – Volume 1: The Early Years 1963-1967 (Rhino)
Joni Mitchell- Carnival in Kenora
Archives – Volume 1: The Early Years 1963-1967 (Rhino)
Bob Franke- Hard Love
The Other Evening in Chicago (Waterbug)
Steel Rail- Darkest Night
Coming Home (Crossties)
Katy Moffatt- Mother of Pearl
Chrysalis (Sunset Blvd. Records)

Murray McLauchlan- I Live On a White Cloud
I Live On a White Cloud – single (Murray McLauchlan)
Leyla McCalla- Song for a Dark Girl
Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes (Smithsonian Folkways)
Marc Nerenberg- Hear the Sirens in the Night: A Topical Blues
Little Birdie: Birds, Beasts & Banjo Blues (Marc Nerenberg)
Dan Hill- What About Black Lives?
What About Black Lives? – single (Sunandsky/ADA/Warner)

Extended feature – Songs of Ewan MacColl. The next 14 songs were written by Ewan MacColl (1915-1989), one of the most influential figures in the British folk revival.

Bonnie Dobson- The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
Philadelphia Folk Festival 40th Anniversary (Sliced Bread)
Swing & Tears- Dirty Old Town
Swing & Tears (Swing & Tears)
Short Sisters- Schoolday’s Over
A Little Gracefulness (Black Socks Press)
Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger- Ballad of Accounting
Black and White: The Definitive Collection (Cooking Vinyl)
James Keelaghan- Sweet Thames Flow Softly
A Few Simple Verses (Jericho Beach Music)

Eliza Carthy- Thirty-Foot Trailer
Joy of Living: A Tribute to Ewan MacColl (Compass)
Norma Waterson- Moving On Song
Joy of Living: A Tribute to Ewan MacColl (Compass)
Martin Carthy- I’m Champion at Keeping ‘Em Rolling
Joy of Living: A Tribute to Ewan MacColl (Compass)
Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger- The Driver’s Song
Black and White: The Definitive Collection (Cooking Vinyl)

Sean Gagnier- Shoals of Herring
Circle Harbor (Sean Gagnier)
Windborne- The Terror Time
Recollections/Revolutions (Wand’ring Feet Records)
Chaim Tannenbaum- My Old Man
Joy of Living: A Tribute to Ewan MacColl (Compass)
Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger- Nobody Knew She was There
Black and White: The Definitive Collection (Cooking Vinyl)
Garnet Rogers- The Joy of Living
At a High Window (Snow Goose Songs)

Doc & Merle Watson- Below Freezing
Songs Doc Didn’t Sing (FLI Records)

Christine Lavin- On My Way to Hooterville (pt. 3)
On My Way to Hooterville (Christine Lavin)
Suzzy Roche & Lucy Wainwright Roche- Little
I Can Still Hear You (StorySound)

Andy Cohen- Step It Up and Go
Tryin’ to Get Home (Earwig)
Etta Baker- Railroad Bill
One-Dime Blues (Rounder)
Last Forever- Louis Collins/Spike Driver Blues
Trainfare Home (StorySound)
Mississippi John Hurt- My Creole Belle
Live (Vanguard)
Andy Cohen- Talkin’ Casey
Tryin’ to Get Home (Earwig)
Rahsaan Roland Kirk- Make Me a Pallet on the Floor
Boogie Woogie String Along for Real (Warner Bros.)

Rosalie Sorrels- Feather Ben
Travelin’ Lady Rides Again (Green Linnet)
Tom Mitchell- Old Cloth
Old Cloth (Yabut Music)
Braden Gates- Song for the Line Cook
Kitchen Days (Borealis)
Rodney Rice- Walk Across Texas
Same Shirt, Different Day (Moody Spring Music)
Jimmy LaFave- Rt. 66 One More Time
Highway Angels…Full Moon Rain (Night Tribe Music)

Ofra Harnoy- She’s Like the Swallow
On the Rock (Analekta)

I’ll be hosting Saturday Morning next on January 2, 2021.

Find me on Twitter. @MikeRegenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Various Artists – Joy of Living: A Tribute to Ewan MacColl

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Joy of Living: A Tribute to Ewan MacColl

Compass Records

compassrecords.com

ewanmaccoll.co.uk

Last month, I attended a Friends of Fiddler’s Green concert in Ottawa to launch their new album, Old Inventions, and Ian Robb introduced his song, “The Reason Why,” with an anecdote about the first time he sang, as a floor singer, at the Singers Club in London when he was a teenager.

After Ian sang, he was approached by Ewan MacColl (1915-1989), the legendary British folksinger, songwriter and activist who ran the Singers Club with life partner Peggy Seeger. MacColl asked Ian why he sang whatever song it was that he had just performed. The lesson Ian took from the encounter was that a singer (or songwriter) should always have some sort of convincing reason for investing themselves in a song.

Although I never had an opportunity to see MacColl perform live, I have listened to many of his recordings, have had conversations about him with Peggy, and have no doubt that there was always a reason why for every song he ever sang or wrote.

To mark the centennial of his birth, his children with Peggy – Neill, Calum and Kitty MacColl – have assembled Joy of Living: A Tribute to Ewan MacColl, an outstanding, 2-CD collection of 21 of MacColl’s songs performed by an eclectic array of singers from both sides of the Atlantic – some of whom I’ve known personally for many years, others whose own music I’ve listened to over the years, and a few of whom I’ve heard for the first time on this album. And each of them leaves absolutely no doubt as to their reason why.

One of the things I’ve always admired about MacColl’s songwriting is the way he could write, authentically, from others’ perspectives as shown on this album by such songs as Martin Carthy’s version of “I’m Champion at Keeping ‘Em Rolling,” written from the perspective of a British truck driver; Seth Lakeman’s version of “The Shoals of Herring,” written from the perspective of a fisherman; and Marry Waterson’s version “The Exile Song,” written from the perspective of an Irish laborer who had to travel far from home to earn his living.

But the songs of MacColl’s written from others’ perspectives that have always moved me most are those about the Romany travelling people – also known as Gypsies, a term now considered to be derisive. Among those songs included here are poignant versions of “Thirty-Foot Trailer” by Eliza Carthy, “Freeborn Man” by Paul Brady, “Moving On Song” by Norma Waterson and “The Terror Time” by Karine Polwart.

Some of the other highlights here include a beautiful version of “Sweet Thames, Flow Softly,” mainly credited to Rufus & Martha Wainwright, but which equally belongs to their half-sister, Lucy Wainwright Roche, and cousin, Lily Lanken; Montreal singer Chaim Tannenbaum’s exquisite version of “My Old Man,” a song in which MacColl both recalls his father and offers advice to his son; Steve Earle’s version of “Dirty Old Town,” MacColl’s portrait of Salford, the town of his birth; and the finale, a sweet interpretation of “The Joy of Living,” an end-of-life celebration of life and farewell to loved ones sung by David Gray.

And, of course, no tribute to Ewan MacColl would be complete without a version of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” his love song for Peggy which has become a standard recorded by countless folk and pop artists. It’s convincingly performed here by Paul Buchanan.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

The Pogues – The Very Best of the Pogues

THE POGUES
The Very Best of the Pogues
Shout! Factory 
pogues.com

When they burst on the scene in 1984 – 29 years ago – with their first LP, Red Roses for Me, the Pogues were something special playing traditional Irish folksongs, and some in-the-tradition contemporary material, with an attack that was equal parts Clancy Brothers and the Clash. By the second album, Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, a year later, their original material, good enough that much of it could be mistaken for traditional, was dominant.

The Pogues in their prime were a great band fronted by Shane McGowan, an inspired singer and songwriter, with a seeming predilection for self-destruction and unpredictability that meant their star shone all too briefly before flaming out.

The 18 songs included on The Very Best of the Pogues are drawn from all of the albums the Pogues released between 1984 and 1995 and provide a great introduction to the band. Most of the tracks feature McGowan but other Pogues take several lead vocals – including Spider Stacy on his “Tuesday Morning,” from Waiting for Herb, one of a couple of albums the Pogues released after McGowan burned out.

Among the highlights are such exceptional McGowan songs as the rousing “If I Should Fall from Grace with God,” “Sally MacLennane,” whose drunken main character seems like it could have been inspired by the author, and “Body of an American,” as great a song about an Irish wake as I’ve ever heard.

Of course, “Fairytale of New York,” McGowan’s fabulous duet with the late Kirsty MacColl, one of the best Christmas season songs ever, is included, as is their compelling version of Ewan MacColl’s “Dirty Old Town.”

Listening to these songs, I'm reminded how great the Pogues were in those days. The songs are as fresh and as vital now as they were back in the day – in fact, thanks to remastering, they sound better than ever.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Mike Seeger & Peggy Seeger – Fly Down Little Bird

MIKE SEEGER & PEGGY SEEGER

Fly Down Little Bird

Appleseed

mikeseeger.info

peggyseeger.com

Siblings Mike Seeger (1933-2009) and Peggy Seeger (born 1935) came from one of the most important American musical families. Their parents were the pioneering musicologist Charles Seeger and the composer Ruth Crawford Seeger – both of whom became deeply involved with traditional folk music in the 1930s; their older half-brother is legendary folksinger Pete Seeger.

Both Mike and Peggy have had long, important careers in folk music. Mike was a traditionally-based solo singer and multi-instrumentalist, a member of the New Lost City Ramblers, a folklorist and collector, and a collaborator with countless artists ranging from Jean Ritchie to Bob Dylan. Peggy is a singer of both traditional and contemporary songs, an important songwriter, and was, for many years, the musical (and life) partner of the late Ewan MacColl, one of Great Britain’s most important and influential folksingers.

Growing up in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, surrounded by traditional music and musicians, Mike and Peggy were each other’s first musical collaborators. Although they collaborated on a few occasions over the years, their musical careers – and bases-of-operation – diverged over the decades. But they still always looked forward to making music together and less than a year before Mike passed away from a fast-moving cancer, they recorded this set of traditional folksongs they remembered from their youth.

The album opens with Mike and Peggy’s a cappella sibling harmonies on “Old Bangum,” an old ballad about a hunter and a wild boar, the kind of animal whose accomplishments are purely the province of tales and ballads. Their singing sure sounds like it comes from a lifetime of familial harmonizing.

Save for “Red River Jig,” a Canadian fiddle tune and the album’s lone instrumental, the songs are all rooted in Southern Appalachian song traditions. They include versions – great performances all – of such familiar songs as “Cindy,” “The Dodger Song,” “My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains” and “Little Birdie.” Mike and Peggy know just how to communicate the essence of these songs so that they seems as relevant now as they did 60 or more years ago when they first sang them, or in the lost times and places in which they were first sung in the kitchens and on the front porches of the rural South. 

In addition to their singing, both Mike and Peggy play instruments that vary from song to song. Mike is heard on banjo, harmonica, banjo-guitar, fiddle, Hawaiian guitar, cello-banjo, guitar and mandolin. Peggy variously plays guitar, piano, banjo and dulcimer. A bassist, Leo Lorenzoni, who plays on just one song, is the album’s only other musician.

I’ve always enjoyed both Mike and Peggy in their individual musical pursuits – this collaboration, though, is something very special. I know Peggy. I’ve written about her often and she was my guest on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio program a couple of times during her visits to Montreal. I also knew Mike a little bit and got to work with him several times over the years at folk festivals. I wish I’d had opportunities to hear them sing together in person.

--Mike Regenstreif

Enoch Kent – Take a Trip with Me

ENOCH KENT

Take a Trip with Me

Borealis

enochkent.ca

As I noted in Sing Out! in 2008, “Enoch Kent was an established folk singer – a colleague of Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in the Singers Club – when he moved to Canada in the 1960s. However, he didn’t record for more than three decades while working in the advertising business and singing occasionally at folk festivals and at Toronto folk clubs like Fiddler’s Green. In retirement, though, Enoch has become a prolific recording artist;” Take a Trip with Me is his sixth album since 2002.

The album title is taken from the first line of the opening track, Woody Guthrie’s “1913 Massacre,” a vivid description of a Christmas party being held for the families of Michigan copper miners at which company thugs screamed “Fire” and then locked the doors so people couldn’t get out leading to the smothering deaths of 73 panicked children on the stairs in front of the locked doors. Enoch’s version of Guthrie’s memorable song is as riveting as any I’ve ever heard.

In fact, Enoch – as on his previous releases – is never less than riveting as he explores a repertoire of traditional folk songs and contemporary compositions – his own and by others – steeped in the timelessness of traditional songs and working class life. As a singer, I’ve always thought of Enoch as being quietly powerful as he draws listeners into the compelling stories that he’s singing.

Among Enoch’s best original pieces are “The Pawnshop Window,” in which he describes many of the items for sale in a Toronto pawnshop and speculates on what the items may mean to the people who brought them to the shop or who may be buying them, and “The Murder of Ginger Goodwin,” the story of a legendary B.C. labour organizer who was murdered in 1918.

Among the other highlights are great versions of two powerful Australian songs. “Travelling Down the Castlereagh,” written by Banjo Patterson (best known for “Waltzing Matilda”) is about a farm worker who wouldn’t work with scabs, while Judy Small’s “Mothers, Daughters, Wives” is about a generation of women who saw their fathers, then husbands, and then sons, go off to successive wars – and then saw their daughters redefine their roles as women during the first wave of the modern feminist movement.

Of the traditional songs, I particularly like Enoch’s version of “Off to Sea Once More,” a ballad about a sailor forced to go to sea again after losing everything to a swindling prostitute, and “A’e Fond Kiss,” a beautiful parting song from the Robert Burns canon.

Although I’ve only highlighted half of the album’s 14 songs, I could, just as easily, have chosen any of the others to call attention to.

Enoch is also a compelling concert performer and will be in Montreal on Saturday, April 9, 8:00 pm, at Petit Campus, 57 Prince Arthur East, as part of the Wintergreen Concert Series. Call 514-524-9225 for tickets or information.

--Mike Regenstreif

Peggy Seeger is coming to Montreal

Peggy Seeger, a legendary member of a legendary folk music family, life and musical partner to the late Ewan MacColl, and a familiar voice on Folk Roots/Folk Branches – she was a guest on the show twice – is returning to Montreal to open this season’s Wintergreen Concert Series on Friday, September 11, 8:00 pm, at Petit Campus, 57 Prince Arthur East. Call Hello Darlin’ Productions at 514-524-9225 to reserve tickets.

This is a concert not to be missed by anyone interested in traditional folk music or in finely-crafted, insightful, passionate and compelling songwriting that’s informed by traditional music.

Here are some reviews of Peggy’s recordings, beginning with her latest album, that I’ve written over the past 15 or so years for Sing Out! Magazine.

PEGGY SEEGER
Bring Me Home
Appleseed

Bring me Home is the final installment in a trilogy of albums – the first two were Heading for Home and Love Calls Me Home – mostly devoted to traditional songs that Peggy heard growing up as the daughter of famed musicologist Charles Seeger and composer Ruth Crawford Seeger, and as the sister and half-sister of Mike, older by two years, and Pete, 16 years her senior.

The album begins with a powerful, a cappella rendition of “Peacock Street,” Aunt Molly Jackson’s first-person account of a poor and homeless person driven to stealing from a rich man in order to survive. Next, Peggy brings out the banjo for a version of “Hang Me,” featuring strong harmonies by sons Calum and Neill MacColl. She introduces her guitar playing with the familiar “Wagoner’s Lad,” and later plays concertina on a lovely version of “O the Wind and Rain.”

Among the other highlights are a gorgeous version of “Dink’s Song,” the bluesy lament collected in Texas a century ago by John Lomax, and banjo-driven versions of “Roving Gambler” and “Little Birdie.” I think the latter, in particular, shows the influence of brother Mike.

As on the two previous CDs in the trilogy, Peggy includes a title song from her own pen. “Bring Me Home” is a tribute to the loved ones with whom she’s made music over the course of her life, to the various homes in which she’s made that music, and to the songs themselves. Among those to whom she refers, beginning with infancy and carrying through to today, are her parents, her brothers, her husband, the late Ewan MacColl, and more recent partner, Irene Pyper-Scott. Singing about how their memories always bring her home is a lovely way to end both this CD and the three-CD trilogy.

--Mike Regenstreif


PEGGY SEEGER
Love Calls Me Home
Appleseed

Love Calls Me Home is the second of a three-album trilogy that Peggy Seeger is releasing of primarily traditional folksongs. I say primarily because she does include a couple of her own, traditionally-oriented, songs in the program. Many of these songs, like “Careless Love,” “Logan County Jail,” and “Who Killed Cock Robin?” are ones that she’s probably known or sung for many decades and she brings to them the weight of her performer’s experience. Among Peggy’s collaborators here are Irene Pyper-Scott, with whom she has worked extensively in recent years, and her children Calum, Neill and Kitty MacColl, who have, no doubt like their mother, lived with this music all of their lives. The cover photo of Peggy playing harmonica as a young child is priceless.

--Mike Regenstreif


PEGGY SEEGER
Period Pieces
Tradition

On Period Pieces, Peggy Seeger gathers together 17 topical songs written and recorded over several decades that deal with such issues as violence against women, the disappeared of Chile during the Pinochet regime and the struggle against nuclear arms. Some, like a new version of her classic "I'm Gonna Be An Engineer," were recorded especially for this CD, others were gathered from recorded archives. While some of these songs may seem dated in that they deal with issues (e.g. apartheid in South Africa) that have passed from the headlines, they are an important reminder of struggles that should not be forgotten any time soon.

--Mike Regenstreif


PEGGY SEEGER
Classic Peggy Seeger
Fellside


PEGGY SEEGER
An Odd Collection
Rounder

These two new 70-plus minute CDs contrast two sides of Peggy Seeger's artistry. Classic Peggy Seeger is an assortment of traditional folk songs drawn from four Topic LPs recorded between 1958 and 1964 while the newly-recorded An Odd Collection showcases Peggy as a mature and masterful singer-songwriter.

Peggy, in her twenties when the songs on Classic Peggy Seeger were recorded, grew up in one of the most famous of folk music families and was an accomplished singer and multi-instrumentalist who moved effortlessly from banjo to guitar and other stringed instruments. The material on this disc concentrates on American versions of songs from the Anglo-ballad tradition and includes wonderful versions of "The Lady of Carlisle," "The Cruel War Is Raging" and "Come All Ye Fair and Tender Maidens." There are also several cuts like "Cumberland Gap" and a medley that includes "Shady Grove" that showcase her skill at old-timey music. Peggy's adaptation of an 1895 poem, "Englewood Mine," to a traditional tune, presages Peggy's commitment to political folk music.

Peggy performs solo on the 1958 and 1962 recordings. The 1964 sessions, which comprise the last third of the CD, feature accompaniment from and several duets with, Tom Paley, an original member -- with Peggy's brother Mike -- of the New Lost City Ramblers. Although the recordings on Classic Peggy Seeger are between three and four decades old, they sound remarkably fresh and vital.

On the exceptional An Odd Collection, Peggy offers up 18 original songs -- and one spoken word performance -- that reveal her to be a perspicacious commentator on both personal and political issues and a gifted composer, lyricist and singer. Among other topics, Peggy sings about the environment, the drudgery of housework, women's reproductive rights and the toll of unemployment.

While I'd be hard pressed to come up with a weak song in this bunch, I will call attention to a few of the best. "It's A Free World," is a hilarious tale of a woman's direct action in reforming an unrepentant smoker from imposing his toxins on everybody else. Unfortunately the song is but a fantasy; it's a delightful one though. "Old Friend" is a moving tribute to the late Ralph Rinzler on which Peggy's guitar and voice are backed up by the autoharp and harmonies of her brother Mike. In the anthemic "If You Want A Better Life," Peggy calls both for union solidarity and for union members to insure that their unions do not forget what they're there for. "Emily" is a moving ballad about a battered woman, her abuser and the safety that she found in a women's shelter.

A couple of songs speak directly to Peggy's own family life. "On This Very Day" celebrates the common date on which she met her husband and partner – the late Ewan MacColl – and on which their son got married 38 years later. "Lost" lays bare the emotions that Peggy felt at MacColl's death.

--Mike Regenstreif