Saturday Morning with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Saturday January 1, 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/128/54724.html

Jennifer Cutting’s Ocean Orchestra & Windborne- The Turning Year: A New Year’s Toast
The Turning Year: Pandemic Sessions Unplugged (SunSign)

Joe Newberry & April Verch- First Day of the Year
On This Christmas Day (Slab Town)
Dean Friedman- New Lang Syne
Songs for Grownups (Real Life)
Herdman, Hills & Mangsen- At the Turning of the Year
At the Turning of the Year (Hand & Heart Music)

Ian Robb & James Stephens- Fare Thee Well Dearest Nancy
Declining …with thanks (Fallen Angle)
Bruce Cockburn- One Day I Walk
Greatest Hits (1970-2020) (True North)

Soweto Gospel Choir- Khumbaya
Blessed (Shanachie)

Mike Regenstreif & Scott Alarik (2013)

Scott Alarik- Border of Sorrows
-30- (Scott Alarik)
Michael Nesmith- Joanne
Infinite Tuesday: Autobiographical Riffs, The Music (Rhino)
J.D. Crowe & The New South- You Are What I Am
J.D. Crowe and The New South (Rounder)
Susie Burke & David Surette- Healing In This Night
Sometimes In the Evening (Madrina Music)

June Tabor- Hard Love
Angel Tiger (Cooking Vinyl)
Bob Franke- For Real
The Other Evening in Chicago (Waterbug)
Garnet Rogers- Hallelujah! The Great Storm is Over
Speaking Softly in the Dark (Snow Goose Songs)

The Confabulation- Mary Sue
Tunnels and Visions (Woodhead Music)

Danny Marks- Man on the Radio
Man on the Radio – single (Danny Marks)
Bruce Cockburn- Musical Friends
Greatest Hits (1970-2020) (True North)
Debi Smith- Forever Young
Then and Now (Degan Music)

Corey Harris- Twelve Gates to the City
The Insurrection Blues (M.C.)
Mr. O’Muck- Rev. Davis’ Maple Leaf Rag
Home Field Recordings: The Ancient Blues of Mr. O’Muck (Muck-O-Phone)
Reverend Gary Davis- I Will Do My Last Singing In This Land
Live at Newport (Vanguard)
Anya Hinkle- I Belong to the Band
Eden and Her Borderlands (Organic)

Mary Chapin Carpenter- John Doe No. 24
One Night Lonely (Lambent Light)
Last Forever- John Doe #24
Trainfare Home (StorySound)

Over the Moon- Darcy Farrow
Chinook Waltz (Borealis)
Linda Ronstadt & The Stone Poneys- Back on the Street Again
Evergreen Vol. 2 (Capitol)
Ian & Sylvia- Molly and Tenbrooks
Play One More (Vanguard)
Steve Gillette- Grapes on the Vine
The Ways of the World (Compass Rose)

Mike Regenstreif & Shawna Caspi (2015)

Shawna Caspi- Hold the Light
Hurricane Coming (Shawna Caspi)
Rhonda Vincent- I Ain’t Been Nowhere
Music is What I See (Upper Management Music)

Dave Clarke- Prairie Lullaby
The Healing Garden (Crossties)

Orit Shimoni- America
Lorem Ipsum (Orit Shimoni)
Corey Harris- Insurrection Blues (Chickens Come Home to Roost)
The Insurrection Blues (M.C.)
Guy Davis- Welcome to My World
Be Ready When I Call You (M.C.)
Ian Robb & James Stephens- God and The Orange Clown
Declining …with thanks (Fallen Angle Music)

Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris- Sisters of Mercy
Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions (Asylum)
Roberta Flack- Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye
First Take: 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Atlantic)
Perla Batalla- Bird on the Wire
Bird on the Wire: The Songs of Leonard Cohen (Mechuda Music)
Leonard Cohen with Cantor Gideon Zelermyer & The Shaar Hashomayim Choir- You Want It Darker
You Want It Darker (Columbia)

Mike Regenstreif & Bruce Cockburn (2017)

Judy Henske- Blues Chase Up a Rabbit
The Elektra Albums (Ace)
Steve Howell & The Mighty Men- Bad Luck Blues
Good as I Been to You (Out of the Past)
The Dave Brubeck Quartet featuring Jimmy Rushing- Evenin’
Brubeck & Rushing (Columbia)
Aretha Franklin- Today I Sing the Blues
Aretha (Columbia)
Bruce Cockburn & Kathryn Moses- Mama Just Wants to Barrelhouse All Night Long
Greatest Hits (1970-2020) (True North)

The Dave Brubeck Quartet- Unsquare Dance
Time Further Out (Columbia/Legacy)

I’ll be hosting Saturday Morning next on January 29. I also host Stranger Songs on CKCU every Tuesday from 3:30-5 pm.

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Ottawa Folklore Centre benefit concert – July 31

For almost four decades, the Ottawa Folklore Centre, a modest folk-rooted and folk-branched music, musical instrument, and music instruction emporium run by Arthur McGregor has been at the heart and soul of Ottawa’s folk music scene.

The past year, though, as Arthur explained to Ottawa Citizen music critic Lynn Saxberg, has been tough and the Folklore Centre, which has helped so many professional and amateur musicians over the years needs some help.

So Borealis Records, the Canadian folk music record label, has organized a benefit concert for Thursday, July 31, 7:30 pm, featuring some of the finest folk artists in the area: Lynn Miles, Sneezy Waters, James Keelaghan, Terry Tufts & Kathryn Briggs, and Finest Kind with James Stephens.

Originally scheduled to take place at the Sunnyside Wesleyan Church, Folks for the Folklore Centre has been moved to the larger Southminster United Church just down Bank Street from the Folklore Centre at the corner of Aylmer.

It promises to be one of the great folk music events of the year in Ottawa.

Arthur McGregor performing at the 2013 Ottawa Folk Festival.

Tickets are $25 and are available in person at the Folklore Centre (1111 Bank Street), by phone at 613-730-2887 or online at this link.

I wish I could be there but I’ll be out of town that night. So I’m going to show my support by buying a couple of virtual tickets at this link.

Supporting the Ottawa Folklore Centre is a most worthy cause for folk music lovers.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Ottawa concerts: Ron Hynes, Finest Kind

There are a couple of concerts coming up here in Ottawa that I’m really looking forward to.

Ron Hynes is performing Wednesday, February 29, 8:00 pm, at Irene’s Pub (885 Bank Street; 613-230-4474).

As I noted in my review of Stealing Genius, his most recent album, Ron “is, without question, one of Canada’s greatest singer-songwriters – a writer whose genius can be found in decades worth of great songs.”

Ron is also a great performer and Irene’s is the smallest venue I’ve ever seen him in – so it should be a treat to hear him in such an intimate setting.

Pictured: Ron Hynes and Mike Regenstreif at the 2007 Branches & Roots Festival in Ormstown, Quebec.

In a concert I can walk to, Finest Kind will be performing Saturday, March 10, 7:30 pm, at St. Martin’s Anglican Church (2120 Prince Charles Road). Information and tickets are available at this link.

Finest Kind (Ann Downey, Shelley Posen, Ian Robb), whose repertoire ranges from traditional British, Canadian and American folk songs to contemporary songs mostly arranged in glorious three-part harmonies, are fabulous whether singing a cappella or accompanying themselves on such instruments as guitar, banjo, bass and concertina.

Pictured: James Stephens, Finest Kind (Ian Robb, Ann Downey, Shelley Posen) Tao Rodriguez-Seeger and Mike Regenstreif at the 2009 Ottawa Folk Festival.

Here is my review of For Honour & For Gain, Finest Kind’s most recent album, from the November, December 2010, January 2011 issue of Sing Out!

FINEST KIND

For Honour & For Gain

Fallen Angle 09

On their fifth CD, Finest Kind – the Ottawa-based trio of Ian Robb, Shelley Posen and Ann Downey – continue to offer superbly arranged versions of traditional and traditionally-oriented contemporary songs from Great Britain, the United States and Canada, including two written by Shelley. Half of the 18 songs are sung a cappella and half feature instrumental arrangements featuring Finest Kind and a cast of several guest musicians.

My favorite a cappella track is “John Barleycorn Deconstructed,” Shelley’s brilliant parody of the British folksong “John Barleycorn – which they recorded on their previous CD, Silks & Spices, released in 2003 – in which they explain, line by line, how and why they arranged the song. Not only is it hilarious, but it gives us an understanding into the work that an accomplished ensemble like Finest Kind puts into their arrangements.

Other highlights among the unaccompanied songs are “Bay of Biscay,” in which the sleeping Mary is visited by the ghost of her long lost lover, and “From Dover to Calais,” a modern shanty written by Toronto songwriter Howard Kaplan.

There are also lots of gems among the songs with instrumental back-up. Favorites include the shanty-meets-Cajun arrangement of “Bully in the Alley” featuring Ian’s lead vocal, Shelley and Ann’s harmonies, the fiddle of co-producer James Stephens and Jody Benjamin’s triangle; the Appalachian folksong, “Short Life of Trouble,” featuring Ann on lead vocal and banjo; “Lowlands Low,” a variant of “The Golden Vanity” that Shelley, a folklorist by trade, collected in the Ottawa Valley; and a beautiful, poignant version of Utah Phillips’ “He Comes Like Rain (Like Wind He Goes).”

If I have one minor quibble with this album, it’s that Ann is too seldom heard as lead vocalist (not that I have any problem listening to Ian or Shelley’s leads). ---Mike Regenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif