Saturday Morning with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Saturday July 13, 2024

Saturday Morning is an eclectic roots-oriented program on CKCU, 93.1 FM, in Ottawa on Saturday mornings from 7 until 10 am (Eastern time) and available for on-demand streaming anytime. I am one of the four rotating hosts of the Saturday Morning show. 

This episode of Saturday Morning was recorded and can be streamed on-demand, now or anytime, by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/128/65969.html

Geoff Bartley- July

Interstates (Magic Crow)

Lui Collins- The Wildflower Song

The Seasons Project: Summer (Christine Lavin)

Robin Batteau- How Can You Love Me

The Seasons Project: Summer (Christine Lavin)

Tina Ross- Summers Like These

The Seasons Project: Summer (Christine Lavin)

Cosy Sheridan- Here Comes the Rain

The Seasons Project: Summer (Christine Lavin)

Kami Thompson- The Solitary Traveller

Linda Thompson: Proxy Music (StorySound)

Lynne Hanson- Just a Little Bit

Just a Poet (Lynne Hanson)

Terre Roche- The Man Who Can’t

Inner Adult (Terre Roche)

Michael Jerling- I Talk to Dead People

Halfway Home (Fool’s Hill Music)

Teresina Huxtable- First and Only Tango

Wallflowers (Philo)

Sonya Cohen & Penny Seeger Cohen- Oh, Blue

You’ve Been a Friend to Me (Smithsonian Folkways)

Sonya Cohen & Peggy Seeger- A Squirrel is a Pretty Thing

You’ve Been a Friend to Me (Smithsonian Folkways)

Sonya Cohen & Pete Seeger- When I was Most Beautiful

You’ve Been a Friend to Me (Smithsonian Folkways)

Last Forever- Hide and Seek

You’ve Been a Friend to Me (Smithsonian Folkways)

Sonya Cohen  Cramer & Elizabeth Mitchell- You’ve Been a Friend to Me

You’ve Been a Friend to Me (Smithsonian Folkways)

Tim Isberg- Better Times Ahead

Prairie Fire (Tim Isberg Music)

Lynn Miles- Night Owl

tumbleWeedyWorld (True North)

David Francey- Daughter

The Breath Between (Laker Music) 

Kathleen Edwards- Options Open

Dogs and Alcohol (Dualtone)

Ian Tamblyn- That Boxcar in Algoma

Scenes Through a Mirror (North Track)

Keith Glass Band- Can’t Blame Me

Different World (Stump)

Ruth Moody- Wanderer

Wanderer (Blue Muse/True North)

Adam Karch- My Birmingham

Some Awkward Country Ahead (Adam Karch)

Martha Wainwright- Or Nothing at All

Linda Thompson: Proxy Music (StorySound)

Ken Tizzard & Music for Goats- Barstools and Broken Hearts

The DAGG Sessions (Ken Tizzard)

Miranda Hardy- The Price of Happiness

The Price of Happiness (Great Divide)

Ian Robb & James Stephens- Charming Molly

Declining …with thanks (Fallen Angle Music)

Finest Kind- Blue Mountain

Lost in a Song (Fallen Angle Music)

Shelley Posen- The Old Songs Home

The Old Songs Home (Well Done Music)

Jubal Lee Young- Jig

Wild Birds Warble (7Bridges Entertainment)

The Roches- Hammond Song

Where Do I Come From: Selected Songs (StorySound)

Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Rufus & Martha Wainwright, Loudon Wainwright III & Chaim Tannenbaum- Schooldays

The McGarrigle Hour (Hannibal)

Waterson:Carthy- Rackabello

Common Tongue (Topic)

The Copper Family- Come Write Me Down, Ye Powers Above

The Ultimate Guide to English Folk (Arc)

Richard & Linda Thompson- For Shame of Doing Wrong

Dreams Fly Away: A History of Linda Thompson (Hannibal)

Teddy Thompson- Those Damn Roches

Linda Thompson: Proxy Music (StorySound)

Mason Daring & Jeanie Stahl- Pack Up Your Sorrows

Recordings Celebrating 50 Years of a Musical Partnership (Mason Daring & Jeanie Stahl) 

Rory Block- Like a Rolling Stone

Positively 4th Street: A Tribute to Bob Dylan (Stony Plain)

Erin Ash Sullivan- Goat on a Stone Wall

Signposts and Marks (Erin Ash Sullivan)

Enzo Garcia- I Wanna Hold You

Calicoustic (Recaredo)

Deb Seymour- Sometimes You Gotta Wear Boots

Sometimes You Gotta Wear Boots (Herkimer Productions)

Ish Theilheimer & Friends- The Wilno Chicken

The Wilno Chicken and Other Songs for My Community (Ish Theilheimer)

Leonard Cohen- Story of Isaac

Songs from a Room (Columbia/Legacy)

Art of Time Ensemble featuring Sarah Harmer- Dance Me to the End of Love

Songs of Leonard Cohen Live (Art of Time Recordings)

Two of a Kind- We Give Thanks in Hard Times

Let the Light In (Magillicutty Music)

I’ll be hosting Saturday Morning next on August 10. I also host Stranger Songs on CKCU every Tuesday from 3:30-5 pm.

--Mike Regenstreif

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – February 20, 2024: Songs of Chuck Berry

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/595/63977.html

Theme: Songs of Chuck Berry (1926-2017)

Chuck Berry, who died in 2017 at the age of 90, was an influential guitar player, singer and songwriter and one of the founding and foundational figures of rock ‘n’ roll. Berry was a St. Louis blues musician who signed with Chess Records in Chicago and began releasing singles in 1955 and LPs in 1957. It wasn’t long before he was one of the early stars of rock ‘n’ roll.

Chuck Berry- Rock and Roll Music

Best of the Chess Years (Not Now Music)

The Beatles- Roll Over Beethoven

With The Beatles (Parlophone)

The Rolling Stones- Carol

The Rolling Stones (Decca)

Mollie O'Brien- Brown Eyed Handsome Man

Big Red Sun (Sugar Hill)

Ken Hamm- Maybellene

Live ’05 (North Track)

Chuck Berry- Beautiful Delilah

Best of the Chess Years (Not Now Music)

Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks- Forty Days

The EP Collection (See for Miles)

The Band- Promised Land

Moondog Matinee (Capitol)

Linda Ronstadt- Back in the U.S.A.

Living in the U.S.A. (Asylum)

Chuck Berry- Sweet Little Sixteen

Best of the Chess Years (Not Now Music)

Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band- Memphis, Tennessee

Jug Band Music (Vanguard)

Geoff & Maria Muldaur- Havana Moon

Sweet Potatoes (Omnivore)

Geoff Muldaur & Amos Garrett- La Juanda

Geoff Muldaur & Amos Garrett (Flying Fish)

George Benson- How You’ve Changed

Walking to New Orleans: Remembering Chuck Berry and Fats Domino (Provogue)

The Stephen Barry Band- You Can’t Catch Me

Happy Man (Bros)

Tom Rush- Too Much Monkey Business

Tom Rush/Take a Little Walk with Me (BGO)

Emmylou Harris- (You Never Can Tell) C’est La Vie

Luxury Liner (Warner Bros./Rhino)

Dion- Johnny B. Goode

Born in the Bronx (Dance House)

Chuck Berry- Bye Bye Johnny

Best of the Chess Years (Not Now Music)

Jim Byrnes- Nadine

St. Louis Times (Black Hen Music)

Ry Cooder- 13 Question Method

Get Rhythm (Warner Bros.)

Ann Rabson- School Days

Struttin’ My Stuff (M.C.)

Jerry Lee Lewis- Little Queenie

Jerry Rocks (Bear Family)

Chuck Berry- Let It Rock

Best of the Chess Years (Not Now Music)

Chris Smither- Tulane

Another Way to Find You (Flying Fish)

Geoff Bartley- No Money Down

Hear That Wind Howl (Waterbug)

Gerry & The Pacemakers- Reelin’ and Rockin’

The EP Collection (See for Miles)

Chuck Berry- Downbound Train

Best of the Chess Years (Not Now Music)

Chuck Berry- Berry Pickin’

Best of the Chess Years (Not Now Music)

Next week: “Take the ‘A’ Train”: A Tribute to Duke Ellington.

--Mike Regenstreif

Saturday Morning with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Saturday June 18, 2022

Saturday Morning is an eclectic roots-oriented program on CKCU in Ottawa heard on Saturday mornings from 7 until 10 am (Eastern time) and available for on-demand streaming anytime. 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/128/56601.html

Mike Regenstreif & Maria Dunn (2017)

Maria Dunn- Heart in Hand
Joyful Banner Blazing (Distant Whisper)

Tom Paxton, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer- Pete’s Shoulders (The Power of Song)
All New (Community Music)
Noel Paul Stookey- Not That Kind of Music
Just Causes (Neworld Multimedia)
Reggie Harris- High Over the Hudson
On Solid Ground (Reggie Harris Music)
Pete Seeger with Arlo Guthrie & Shenendoah- Precious Friend You Will Be There
Precious Friend (Warner Bros.)

Conklin Céilí Band- Augustus and Catherine
A Three Legged Stool (Conklin Céilí Band)
Bill Gallaher & Jake Galbraith- The Hold Up
The Last Battle: The Best of Bill Gallaher & Jake Galbraith (Theatre Erebus)

Geoff Bartley- Bird with a Broken Wing
Keep Your Eyes on the Road (Magic Crow)
Jack Williams- We’re All Alike
A Tickle in My Soul (Wind River)
Mollie O'Brien & Rich Moore- Central Square
Love Runner (Remington Road)

Bill Garrett & Sue Lothrop- Red Shoes
Red Shoes (Borealis)
Bruce Murdoch- I Sit and Count the Stars
Matters of the Heart (Bruce Murdoch)
Ronney Abramson- The Best Friend I’ve Ever Known
Stowaway (Castor Island Music)

Diana Jones- Crossing Borders
Crossing Borders – single (Diana Jones)
Lenka Lichtenberg- Utíkej, utíkej ?lov??e/Run, run, you little human
Thieves of Dreams (Six Degrees)
Tom Paxton, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer- To the Ones Who Gave It All
All New (Community Music)

Tom Russell & Mike Regenstreif (2005)

Corb Lund- Blue Wing
Songs My Friends Wrote (New West)
Nanci Griffith- St. Olav’s Gate (Tom Russell)
The Last of the True Believers (Philo)
Tom Russell- The Sparrow of Swansea (For Dylan Thomas)
Folk Hotel (Frontera)
The Wardens- Sold Out at the Ironwood
Sold Out at the Ironwood (The Wardens)

Deirdre McCalla- I Do Not Walk This Path Alone
Endless Grace (MaidenRock)
Reggie Harris- Hickory Hill
Ready to Go (Reggie Harris Music)
Theresa Thomason, Henrique Eisenmann & Paul Winter- Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Paul Winter Consort: Concert in the Barn (Living Music)
Catherine Russell- Juneteenth Jamboree/Royal Garden Blues
Cat (World Village)

Mama's Broke- Just Pick One
Narrow Line (Free Dirt)
Hilary Hawke with Reed Stutz- Crossing the River
Lilygild (Hilary Hawke)
Kim Beggs- Down By the River
Steel and Wool (Out of a Paper Bag Productions)
Steve Lundquist- Appalachian Style
My Life in Song (Steve Lundquist)

Edie Carey- The Cypress and the Oak
The Veil (Edie Carey)

Ken Whiteley- Long Time Travelling
Long Time Travelling (Ken Whiteley)
Marianne Flemming- Small Hope Bay
Across the Hemisphere (Marianne Flemming Music)
Barney Bentall- Cody Road
Cosmic Dreamer (True North)

Tom Paxton, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer- Guild D25
All New (Community Music)
Peter Lehndorff- Reunion
Don’t Be Discouraged (Peter Lehndorff)
John Gorka- Arroyo Seco
True in Time (Red House)
Eliza Gilkyson- The Hill Behind This Town
Songs From the River Wind (Howlin’ Dog)

Lucy Kaplansky- Independence Day
Last Days of Summer (Lucyricky)
Amy Speace- Blues for Joy
Tuscon (Windbone)
Amanda Rheaume- The Spaces In Between
The Spaces In Between (Ishkõdé)

Judy Collins & Mike Regenstreif (2014)

Judy Collins- Pacing the Cage
Portrait of an American Girl (Wildflower)
Durham County Poets- What We Got Going On
Out of the Woods (Durham County Poets)
Lynne Hanson- Hundred Mile Wind
Ice Cream in November (Panda Cave)

Mitch Greenhill- The Places Where Friends Used to Be
Mitchology (Mitch Greenhill)

I’ll be hosting Saturday Morning next on July 16. I also host Stranger Songs on CKCU every Tuesday from 3:30-5 pm.

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Tom Paxton – Redemption Road

TOM PAXTON

Redemption Road

Pax Records

tompaxton.com

About five years ago, when Sing Out! magazine was celebrating its 60th anniversary, I was among the people asked to contribute to a year-long symposium that talked about how folk music came to be important in our lives. I related an anecdote which I’ve repeated before and will again now.

In 1968 or ’69, when I was 14, or maybe just turned 15, I heard there was going to be a big folk concert at McGill University in Montreal and decided to go. It was a bunch of local performers – including Jesse Winchester, Bruce Murdoch and Penny Lang – doing short sets in the first half, and a headliner from New York in the second. When I got there, I discovered it was a “blanket concert”: thousands of McGill students – four, five, six and more years older than me – sitting on blankets on the floor of a huge gym. It was pretty full and I had no blanket so I sat on a long bench that lined the back of the gym wall. Between the local performers’ sets, I had an interesting conversation with a man in his early 30s sitting next to me. He obviously knew a lot about folk music and gave me some great suggestions on records to look for. When the intermission was announced, he said he enjoyed talking with me and left.

After the break, the MC, Tex König, introduced “one of the greatest of the Greenwich Village folksingers: Tom Paxton!” The man I’d been talking to all night walked on stage and did an amazing hour-long set that I still vividly remember more than 45 years later.

That was the “it moment” for me. I started to listen to every record and read every folk music book I could find. I subscribed to Sing Out!, went to coffeehouses and concerts, and was soon a part of the action – hanging out, learning some guitar, putting on concerts, running folk clubs, volunteering at folk festivals and writing articles and reviews. It became a way of life – and still is.

So, Tom Paxton, who, some years later, became a good friend, and who I’ve had the pleasure of working with a bunch of times in different contexts over the years, had a lot to do with drawing me into the folk music life.

Tom was one of the greatest singer-songwriters of the 1960s – in fact, Dave Van Ronk once told me that Tom was the first Greenwich Village folksinger, before Bob Dylan, who worked hard and consistently at songwriting – and remains one of the greatest singer-songwriters today.

Tom – who is now 77 and has announced he’ll soon retire from the road – is about to release Redemption Road, another in the series of albums he’s released over the past half-century on which the songs – even when addressing contemporary social issues – all quickly feel like old friends. There are songs that will make you smile, some that might bring a tear to the eye, and more than a few that will make you think and remember (even if your memories might not be the same as Tom’s or Tom’s characters).

The album opens with a pair of light-hearted songs. “Virginia Morning” is an up tempo celebration of the end of winter, a beautiful spring day and the state in which Tom has made his home in recent years. It’s followed by “Susie Most of All,” a fun, bouncy tune filled with delightfully nonsensical rhymes that kind of reminds me of Mississippi John Hurt meets “Green, Green Rocky Road.”

The fun continues later in the album with “Skeeters’ll Gitcha,” a duet with John Prine, and “The Battle of the Sexes,” which wittily traces the eternal battle from the Garden of Eden up until today.

Among the songs that kindle memories are “Time to Spare,” a look back at youthful idealism that gets tempered by the realities of responsibilities; “Central Square,” an ode to the great love of one’s youth who got away; and “The Mayor of Macdougal Street,” a fond remembrance of Tom’s close friend – and mine, too – Dave Van Ronk.

In “The Losing Part,” Tom sings from the vantage point of age about the changes and loss that come with it. Although Tom apparently wrote the song several years ago, it takes on even deeper meaning thinking of Midge Paxton, Tom’s wife of more than 50 years, who passed away last year. I always so enjoyed Midge’s company when she came up to Montreal or to a folk festival with Tom.

Even when the stories they tell are the stuff of fiction, I’ve always thought that Midge inspired Tom’s love songs. “Ireland” on this album tells a beautiful story of falling in love so many years ago and whether or not the story being told in it is about Tom and Midge, or is fiction from Tom’s imagination, or perhaps some combination thereof, I clearly picture her as I listen to Tom sing.

I hear “Come On, Holy,” co-written by Tom and Jon Vezner, as a prayer for healing and for finding comfort with loved ones, friends and strangers.

“If the Poor Don’t Matter” is vintage Paxton topical songwriting that expresses compassion and common cause with the poor. Although the song would have been relevant at any time in the past century, Tom brings a very contemporary feel to the song with a hip hop feel to part of the song (which, honestly, is not far removed from the talking blues form used by Woody Guthrie in the 1940s and by songwriters like Tom, Dylan and Phil Ochs in the 1960s).

Tom grew up in Oklahoma and has written any number of songs over the years – among them “Deep Fork River Blues,” “Along the Verdigris” and “My Oklahoma Lullaby” – inspired by the state. Here he gives us “Buffalo Dreams,” which vividly recalls the people and the open plains of the state.

The penultimate song is the title track, “Redemption Road,” a beautiful song from the perspective of age and a life well lived. Tom’s lyrics are a perfect complement to the melody written as a guitar instrumental called “Redemption” by Geoff Bartley, another mutual friend of many decades. Janis Ian sings lovely harmonies on the song.

Mike Regenstreif & Tom Paxton

The album ends with the Irish folksong “The Parting Glass,” traditionally sung as an end-of-the-evening farewell. It seems a perfect choice with Tom’s impending retirement from the road and also as a nod to the traditional folk music that inspired the young Tom Paxton to spend a lifetime adding so much richness to the traditions.

The album was produced by Jim Rooney, always a great producer for primarily acoustic recording sessions, and features some of the fine Nashville musicians who frequent Jim’s Nashville productions, as well as contributions from Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer and Geoff Bartley, who have often collaborated with Tom on stage over the years.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Geoff Bartley -- Blackbirds in the Pie

GEOFF BARTLEY
Blackbirds in the Pie
Geoff Bartley
geoffbartley.com

Geoff Bartley has been a mainstay of the Boston folk and blues scene for about four decades and I’ve enjoyed his singing, playing and songwriting since the first time I encountered him – circa 1973 – at a benefit concert there.

Blackbirds in the Pie includes a number of examples of Geoff’s always-excellent acoustic blues work including fine versions of such classics as Reverend Gary Davis’ “Candy Man,” featuring some delicious-sounding fingerpicking; the Bessie Smith classic “Send Me to the ‘Lectric Chair,” featuring some nifty clarinet playing by Billy Novick, one of my all-time favourite horn players; and “Backwater Blues” that’s filtered through both Ma Rainey and Lightnin’ Hopkins.

From the folk canon, Geoff does beautiful jobs on “Central Square,” a previously unrecorded Tom Paxton song, that nostaligically recalls a found and lost love, and on Malvina Reynolds’ classic, “God Bless the Grass.”

Geoff’s also a fine songwriter and shines on such tunes as “Bozos on the Road No. 2,” a jazzy and very funny remake of an earlier tune that he sets from the P.O.V. of a gas-guzzling, cell phone-talking driver of a big SUV; “The Song of Imaginary Gifts,” a list of imaginary gifts for a special person that really boil down to love, the best gift of all; “Redemption,” a slow, beautiful, slide guitar instrumental played on a resonator guitar; and “Lemonade Redux,” a ragtime guitar instrumental that I think would make my late friend, Dave Van Ronk, smile.

From Geoff’s first-rate – mostly solo – interpretations of folk and blues standards, to his own fine songs and instrumentals, Blackbirds in the Pie is an engaging set by an always worthy artist.

--Mike Regenstreif