Saturday Morning with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Saturday January 30, 2021

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/128/50641.html

 

Missy Burgess with The Blue Train- Blue Dog Man
Live (Missy Burgess)

In memory of Tony Rice (1951-2020).

J.D. Crowe & The New South- Summer Wages
J.D. Crowe & The New South (Rounder)
The David Grisman Quintet- Swing 51
The David Grisman Quintet (Kaleidescope)
Tony Rice- Home from the Forest
Tony Rice Sings Gordon Lightfoot (Rounder)

Andy Cohen- Uncle Stinky
Small But Mighty (Earwig)
Marc Nerenberg- Leave Behind My Bones: Three Birds and Me
Little Birdie: Birds, Beasts & Banjo Blues (Marc Nerenberg)
Rick Fines- Laundry on the Line
Solar Powered Too (Rick Fines)
Christine Lavin- My Sister Mary & My Mother
On My Way to Hooterville (Christine Lavin)

Happy & Artie Traum- Love Song to a Girl in an Old Photograph
Double-Back (Capitol)
Huxtable, Christensen & Hood- Oldest of Friends
Wallflowers (Philo)
Tom Mitchell- When Nobody’s Looking
Old Cloth (Yabut Music)
Kim Wallach- Settle In (Chatter of the Finches)
Chatter of the Finches (Black Socks Press)

Bill Staines- Rompin’ Rovin’ Days
Journey Home (Red House)
Penny Lang- Come Across to You
Gather Honey (Borealis)
Bruce Murdoch- Fool Like Me
Bruce Murdoch (Radio Canada International)
Bill Staines- River
Going to the West (Red House)

Extended Feature – A salute to Borealis Records. The next 16 songs are drawn from a small sampling of albums released by Borealis Records over a 25-year period from 1995 to 2020.

Gathering Sparks- Bringing in the Light
All That’s Real (Borealis)
Jon Brooks- Todos Caminamos Por Este Caminito
No One Travels Alone (Borealis)
Shari Ulrich- Canada
Back to Shore (Borealis)
Jayme Stone’s Lomax Project- Lazy John
Jayme Stone’s Lomax Project (Borealis)

Ron Hynes- Get Back Change
Get Back Change (Borealis)
Paul Mills- Stubbs Stomp
The Other Side of the Glass (Borealis)
James Keelaghan- Safe Home
House of Cards (Borealis)
Mighty Popo- Gakondo
Gakondo (Borealis)

Grit Laskin- A Few Simple Words
A Few Simple Words (Borealis)
Bill Garrett & Sue Lothrop- The Hill
Red Shoes (Borealis)
Braden Gates- Lipstick on a Coffee Cup
Kitchen Days (Borealis)
Laura Smith- On the Road to Glory
As Long As I’m Dreaming (Borealis)

Michael Jerome Browne- If Memphis Don’t Kill Me
The Road is Dark (Borealis)
Ken Whiteley- Hands On That Guitar
Ken Whiteley and the Beulah Band (Borealis)
Jackie Washington- You Meet the Nicest People in Your Dreams
The World of Jackie Washington (Borealis)
Beyond the Pale- Ruckus in Ralja
Ruckus (Borealis)

Ana Egge- This Time
This Time – single (StorySound)
The Afro-Métis Nation (featuring Russ Kelley)- We Need a Lot More Love
Constitution (The Afro-Métis Nation)
Len Seligman- Love is the Answer
Our Time Now (Emerging Light Music)
Maria Dunn- Love Carries Me
Joyful Banner Blazing (Distant Whisper)

Tret Fure- Far Too Fast
Stone by Stone (Tomboy girl Records)
Crowes Pasture- Quarantine
Quarantine – single (Crowes Pasture)
Mike Glick- The Bear (COVID Blues)
The Bear (COVID Blues) – single (Mike Glick)
Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer- Hold Each Other Up
Hold Each Other Up – single (Community Music)

SONiA disappear fear- Best Part of Kissing You
Small House No Secrets Composer’s Cut (Disappear)
Katy Moffatt- Whistlin’ in the Dark
Chrysalis (Sunset Blvd. Records)
Tom Russell- St. Olav’s Gate
Old Songs Yet to Sing (Frontera)
Ball and Chain & The Wreckers- Infinite Blue
Surrender (Ball and Chain)

Don Armstrong- Going to Paris
Mother Don’t Give Up on Me Now (Ronstadt Record Co.)
Kat Goldman- Letter from Paris
Gypsy Girl (Kat Goldman)
Nikki Matheson- It’s Still Raining in Paris
Invisible Angel (Nikki Matheson)

Hoyle Osborne- Rum and Soda
Panazon (Ripple)

Announcement: I have a new weekly show on CKCU called Stranger Songs that will debut on Tuesday, February 9 from 3:30 until 5 pm. Expect an eclectic, roots-based show that will often revolve around a specific theme. Like all CKCU shows, Stranger Songs will be available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.

I’ll be hosting Saturday Morning next on February 27.

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

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

The Friends of Fiddler’s Green – Old Inventions

THE FRIENDS OF FIDDLER’S GREEN

Old Inventions

Friends of Fiddler’s Green

ianrobb.com

Back in the 1970s, my occasional trips to Toronto would often include a night spent at Fiddler’s Green, a British-style folk club in a building behind the YMCA on – if I recall correctly – Eglinton Avenue. There would usually be a featured performer for the evening and a bunch of other folks doing short sets – among them, usually, at least some of the members of the Friends of Fiddler’s Green, a group of singers and musicians made up of the club’s directors and some of their friends.

I’d also often see the Friends playing at Mariposa and other folk festivals and on their occasional trips to Montreal. I remember them playing once or twice at the Yellow Door, a folk club that I helped Chuck Baker run in the early-1970s, and once or twice at the Golem, the folk club that I ran in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

While the Fiddler’s Green folk club folded decades ago – sometime in the ‘80s, I think – the Friends of Fiddler’s Green have endured and are still going strong 44 years after first coming together back in 1971.

Why their longevity? My guess is that it’s because the Friends of Fiddler’s Greem has never been a professional band in the sense that it provided the livelihood of the members. They were and remain amateurs in the best (and most professional) sense of the word. They’ve continued to come together over the years for the sheer joy of singing and playing music together.

They’ve also survived personnel changes as a few have left the group over the years and others have joined. Sadly, a couple of the Friends – David Parry and Tam Kearney – have passed away.

The Friends have not been prolific recording artists. Their first album, This Side of the Ocean, was released as an LP in 1981 (and reissued on CD in 1997 augmented with an extra half-hour of concert recordings from back in the day). Their second, The Road to Mandalay, came out in 1994.

More than 20 years later, Old Inventions is their third album as a group and it finds them in fine form running through a repertoire of folk, music hall and contemporary songs and tunes.

The current Friends – most of whom have played on all three albums – include Ian Bell, the newest member, on banjo, guitar, concertina, pipes, trombone and bass; Alistair Brown on concertina, button accordion and harmonica; Grit Laskin on guitar, mandolin and bones; Jeff McClintock on piano; Ian Robb on several kinds of concertinas; and Laurence Stevenson on fiddle. Most also sing lead vocals occasionally and all sing harmonies and choruses.

The album begins with a couple of songs that are quite typical of a Friends of Fiddler’s Green performance. Alistair takes the lead vocal on “Twelve and Tanner a Bottle,” Will Fyfe’s humorous 1920 complaint about the rising price of whiskey before Ian Robb leads the group on a slightly less familiar version of the familiar traditional folksong “All Around My Hat.”

With nary a weak track among the 14 songs and instrumental medleys, a couple of my other favorites include a banjo-driven version of the chantey “Roll the Woodpile Down,” featuring a lead vocal by Ian Bell; the ensemble version of the celebratory pub song “Doon In the Wee Room,” sung as a tribute to Tam Kearney who passed away in 2013.

Two exceptional original songs speak to types of inspiration. Grit’s “If You Want to Change the World,” is about the dedication and perseverance required to make social progress and effect change while Ian Robb’s “The Reason Why,” is about the right and wrong reasons for singing and making music.

My very favorite song, though, is the poignantly beautiful version of John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s “In My Life,” sung by Grit as a memorial for friends who have passed on. In the liner notes, Grit talks about our mutual friend, the late Rick Fielding, and I’ve no doubt he was also thinking of David and Tam as he sang the song.

The Friends of Fiddler’s Green will be performing several concerts in Ontario to celebrate the release of Old Inventions.

Owen Sound – Sunday, August 23, 1 pm, during the Summerfolk Festival.

Ottawa – Friday, September 11, 8 pm, at the Westboro Masonic Hall.

Toronto – Saturday, September 12, 8:30 pm, at Hugh’s Room.

London – Sunday, September 13, 7:30 pm, at Chaucer’s Pub (presented by Cuckoo’s Nest Folk Club).

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif