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.
Folk-rooted and folk-branched reviews, commentaries, radio playlists and suggestions from veteran music journalist and broadcaster Mike Regenstreif.
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – October 14, 2025: The Dutchman and Other Songs of Michael Smith
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.
Tuesday, July 18, 2023
Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday August 1, 2023: Art & Artists
Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU in Ottawa on Tuesdays from 3:30 until 5 pm (Eastern time) and is also available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.
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| Mike Regenstreif & Murray McLauchlan on Zoom (2021) |
Murray McLauchlan- A Thomson Day (For Tom Thomson)
Saturday, January 14, 2023
Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday January 24, 2023: Songs of – or inspired by – the Spanish Civil War
Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU in Ottawa on Tuesdays from 3:30 until 5 pm (Eastern time) and is also available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday January 18, 2022: Songs of Leonard Cohen – The Middle Years
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/595/54885.html
Theme: Songs of Leonard Cohen – The Middle Years
This edition of Stranger Songs was inspired by the book, Leonard Cohen Untold Stories: From This Broken Hill by Michael Posner, the second of what will be three volumes of Leonard Cohen’s untold stories. From This Broken Hill covers Leonard Cohen’s life from the early-1970s until the late-1980s and the songs of Leonard Cohen on this show were written during that period.
Colleen Rennison- Why Don’t You Try
See the Sky About to Rain (Black Hen)
Holly Near- A Singer Must Die
2018 (Calico Tracks Music)
Leonard Cohen- Lover Lover Lover
New Skin for the Old Ceremony (Columbia)
Tower of Song- Chelsea House #2
In City and in Forest (Tower of Song)
Judy Collins- Take This Longing
Judy Collins Sings Leonard Cohen: Democracy (Elektra/Rhino)
Rufus Wainwright & Amsterdam Sinfonietta- Who By Fire
Rufus Wainwright & Amsterdam Sinfonietta Live (BMG/Modern)
Perla Batalla- Came So Far for Beauty
Bird on the Wire: The Songs of Leonard Cohen (Mechuda Music)
Leonard Cohen- The Window
Recent Songs (Columbia)
Emmylou Harris- Ballad of a Runaway Horse (Ballad of the Absent Mare)
Cowgirl’s Prayer (Asylum)
The Klezmer Conservatory Band- Dance Me to the End of Love
Dance Me to the End of Love (Rounder)
The Once- Coming Back to You
The Once (Borealis)
Jennifer Warnes- Night Comes On
Famous Blue Raincoat: The Songs of Leonard Cohen – 20th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
Leonard Cohen- The Captain
Various Positions (Columbia)
SONiA disappear fear- Hallelujah
By My Silence (Disappear Records)
Jamie O'Reilly & Michael Smith- Song of Bernadette
Songs of a Catholic Childhood (J. O’Reilly Productions)
Mad Pudding- First We Take Manhattan
Grand Hotel (Sliced Bread)
Leonard Cohen- I’m Your Man
I’m Your Man (Columbia)
Tom Russell- Tower of Song
Selections from Love & Fear plus bonus out-takes (HighTone)
Canadian Brass- Hallelujah
Canadiana (Linus/Canadian Brass)
Next week: London, Longing for Home.
Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif
--Mike Regenstreif
Friday, March 12, 2021
Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday March 16, 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 – Episode #6 – was prerecorded at home and can already be streamed on-demand by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/595/51230.html
Theme: Irish and Irish-inspired songs
The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem- Come By the Hills
The Bold Fenian Men (Columbia)
Moore & McGregor- The Fields of Athenry
Dream with Me (Ivernia)
Brendan Nolan- The Forty Shades of Green
Live at the Side Door (Ould Segosha)
Kirk MacGeachy & David Gossage- The Irish Rover
The Shroud of Erin (Kirk MacGeachy & David Gossage)
Doug McArthur- The Morning I Left Galway
The Horses of the Sea: A Personal Exploration of Ireland (Doug McArthur)
Maria Dunn- From Dublin with Love
Joyful Banner Blazing (Distant Whisper)
Alana & Leigh Cline- The Kerry Lassie Medley: Mother and Child/The Monaghan Twig/The Basket of Oysters/The Kerry Lassie
Alana & Leigh Cline (Scimitar)
Marty Morrissey- Kilkelly
The Ancient Ground (Marty Morrissey)
Highland Weavers- The Star of the County Down
Work O’ The Weavers (Highland Weavers)
Tim Henderson- No Irish Need Apply
Among the Best (Snake Hollow Music)
Ian & Sylvia- Little Beggarman
The Lost Tapes (Stony Plain)
Jack Hardy- Willie Goggin’s Hat
The Passing (Prime CD)
Runa- The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Live (Runa)
The Irish Rovers- The Black Velvet Band
The Best of the Irish Rovers (MCA)
Tara O'Grady- Wild Rover
Black Irish (Tara O’Grady)
Susan McKeown & Lorin Sklamberg- Oakum
Saints & Tzadiks (World Village)
The Dubliners- The Auld Triangle
Spirit of the Irish: The Ultimate Collection (Sanctuary)
The Burns Sisters- From Clare to Here
Looking Back: Our Irish American Souls (Sisters Music)
Makem & Spain- Nae Awa’ to Bide Awa’
Four Pounds a Day (New Folk)
Jamie O'Reilly & The Rogues- Cockles and Mussels
A Collection of Rogues’ Recordings (J. O’Reilly Productions)
The Pogues- Sally Maclennane
Rum, Sodomy & the Lash (WEA)
Stephen Mendel- The Parting Glass
Sing Me a Story (Stephen Mendel)
Kevin Burke's Open House- Paddy the Caffler/Glen Cottage Polka/Tolka Polka
Hoofandmouth (Green Linnet)
Next week – A Tribute to the late Bob Nesbitt, founder and director of the Ottawa Grassroots Festival: Songs by artists who performed at the Ottawa Grassroots Festival over the years.
Find me on Twitter. www.twitter.com/mikeregenstreif
And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif
--Mike Regenstreif
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
Michael Peter Smith 1941-2020
Although I’ve known for five or six weeks that this news was coming soon, I am deeply saddened today to learn that Michael Peter Smith died yesterday of colon cancer at age 78.
Let us go to the banks of the
ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zuiderzee
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me
–The chorus of “The Dutchman” by Michael Smith
I was introduced to the
songwriting of Michael Smith in 1972 when Steve Goodman led off Somebody
Else’s Troubles, his second LP, with Michael’s song, “The Dutchman.” The
song stunned me with its lyrical and melodic beauty and with how deeply the
depth of the Dutchman’s character and his dementia was compassionately revealed.
In 1973, when Steve did a four or five-night gig in Montreal, I got to spend
some time with him and he told me a little about Michael and did several more
of his great songs.
Many years later, probably sometime around the turn of this century, the
great songwriter Tom Russell and I were talking about songs and
songwriters and we both picked “The Dutchman” as an all-time favorite song. Tom
later recorded a great version of “The Dutchman” on his 2003 album, Modern
Art.
It was at some folk festival somewhere in the mid-1980s – I went to a lot
of festivals in those days – that I first met Michael and saw him perform. I do
recall that it was my late close friend Bruce Kaplan, the founder
of Flying Fish Records in Chicago, who introduced us around the time that
Michael made his first Flying Fish album. Michael was a riveting performer on
stage – then and every time I saw him.
I didn’t get many chances to spend time with Michael – maybe a half-dozen
or so times over the years – but I think of several occasions in recent years
that I so enjoyed his company and being in his audience. In 2003, Michael came
to the Champlain Valley Folk Festival in Vermont as part of Fourtold – a group he formed with Anne
Hills, Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen – where I was one of the MCs. I was thrilled to have Michael participate
in the songwriters’ workshop I hosted annually for seven years at Champlain
Valley.
In 2005, when the Folk Alliance International conference was held in Montreal, I invited several performers from the conference to perform live on my Folk Roots/Folk Branches show on CKUT and one of my most cherished radio memories is of Michael and Anne Hills singing their beautiful duet version of “The Dutchman” while I sat two or three feet away in the studio.
Our most recent in-person visit was in December 2014 when Sylvie and I
were on vacation on the Gulf Coast in Florida and Michael was doing a Sunday
afternoon concert in Tampa, about a 40-minute drive from where we were. The
concert was superb and it was great to spend some time with him before and after
the show. I treasure the photo – which I call “Michaels with Folded Arms” – that
Sylvie took during our visit that day.
Sadly, Michael’s passing comes less than six months after Barbara Barrow, his wife of 52 years and frequent singing
partner, died from complications of Parkinson’s disease.
During his final weeks in hospice, Michael was cared for by Jamie O’Reilly, his long-time agent and musical collaborator, and by Anne
Hills. On Facebook today, Jamie said Michael made this statement 13 days ago: “And
then I realized my life was totally complete and everything I asked for in my
life was there. Was there for me. And I felt so grateful. I felt so grateful. I
had a wonderful true-life adventure.”
I always include an extended feature when I host the Saturday Morning
show on CKCU in Ottawa every fourth week and on June 22, 2019 the feature was “Songs
of Michael Smith” – 15 of his songs performed by Michael and a bunch of other
artists. You can stream the show by clicking on “LISTEN NOW” at this link.
Michael left us with so many great songs and recordings. I don’t imagine that I will ever stop listening to them or stop playing them on my future radio shows. One of his songs I’ll be playing when I next host the Saturday Morning show on August 15 is “We Become Birds.”
Do you see birds on trees
How they leave to get a drink or a bite to eat
Fly away and others follow
And the whole day goes by
Birds and more birds
We become birds when we die
We fly away but we come back
We become birds when we die
When you're put here it's for a
reason
Think of all the people the Lord hasn't sent here
I'm so happy I've been given this time here
Don't want to waste my time on this earth
And the whole day goes by
Birds and more birds
We become birds when we die
We fly away but we come back
We become birds when we die
He won't hand you
A piece of paper with a map on it no sir
He'll whisper something
And at first you might not even hear
It may take time
You may make mistakes
But if you pray
He'll lead you to your direction
And the whole day goes by
Birds and more birds
We become birds when we die
We fly away but we come back
We become birds when we die
I know because sometimes I just
want to
Lift off
Go right to the mesa and
Have a feast
Eat our bread
Stand in a circle
Hear my grandmother talk about our people
Although I’ve never been one to believe in such things as reincarnation,
I do imagine that Michael Smith must now be a bird, perhaps singing on “the
banks of the ocean where the walls rise above the Zuiderzee.”
Find me on Twitter. www.twitter.com/mikeregenstreif
And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif
–Mike Regenstreif
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Saturday Morning with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Saturday June 22, 2019
| Mike Regenstreif & Michael Smith in Tampa (2014) |







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