Saturday Morning with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – September 6, 2025

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/128/71897.html

Mike Regenstreif & Connie Kaldor (2015)

Connie Kaldor- Wide Open Spaces

Wide Open Spaces (Coyote Entertainment)

Mike Regenstreif, Bill Garrett & Sue Lothrop (2014)

Bill Garrett & Sue Lothrop- That’s How the Summer Slips Away

Red Shoes (Borealis)

Rags Rosenberg- Flower Time

Song of the Bricoleur (Coyote Gulch)

The Weavers- Gotta Travel On

Greatest Hits (Vanguard)

Mike Regenstreif & David Francey (2019)

David Francey- Far End of Summer

Maps (Laker Music)

The songs in the next set are played in memory of Chris Gage, who died on August 24 at age 71; Flaco Jimenez, who died on July 31 at age 86; Rick Scott, who died on August 1 at age 77; Tom Lehrer, who died on July 26 at age 97; Joe Hickerson, who died on August 17 at age 89; and Harvey Glatt, who died on August 20 at age 91.

Albert & Gage- Burnin’ Moonlight

Burnin’ Moonlight (MoonHouse)

Flaco Jimenez- El Perdido

San Antonio Soul (Rounder)

David Essig & Rick Scott- Tears and Laughter

Double Vision (Woodshed)

Tom Lehrer- The Folk Song Army

That Was the Year That Was (Reprise)

Joe Hickerson- I’m On My Way

Joe Hickerson with a Gathering of Friends (Folk-Legacy)

Night Sun- Harvey & Louise

One Moment of Grace (Borealis)

Shelley Posen & Mike Regenstreif on Zoom (2023)

Shelley Posen- A Mazeldikek Yor

Mazel (Well Done Music)

Shelley Posen- I’ll See You Rosh Hashana

Mazel (Well Done Music)

Rufus Wainwright & Amsterdam Sinfonietta- Who By Fire

Rufus Wainwright & Amsterdam Sinfonietta Live (BMG/Modern)

The Onlies- Roll On Buddy

You Climb the Mountain (The Onlies)

Kyle Carey- The Last Bough

The Last Bough (Americelta)

Graham Lindsey- Tune Machine

Tune Machine (Graham Lindsey)

Maggie’s Wake- Maggie’s Wake

Maggie’s Wake (Maggie’s Wake)

Mike Regenstreif & Jesse Winchester (2009)

Jesse Winchester- Nothing but a Breeze

Nothing but a Breeze (Stony Plain)

Emmylou Harris- My Songbird

Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town (Warner Bros./Rhino)

Jennifer Warnes- You Remember Me 

Shot Through the Heart (Arista)

Susie Burke- Rhumba Woman

Lucky Stars (Madrina Music)

Mike Regenstreif & Tom Paxton (2009)

Tom Paxton- No Kings Here

No Kings Here – single (Pax)

Mike Regenstreif & Mark Rubin on Zoom (2025)

Mark Rubin – Jew of Oklahoma- (Don’t Be a) Good German

Don’t Be a Good German – single (Rubinchik)

Kemp Harris- Tulsa

The America Chronicles (Righteous Mischief)

Eliza Gilkyson & Mike Regenstreif (2006)

Eliza Gilkyson- Man in the Moon

Dark Ages (Realiza)

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band- Chimes of Freedom

Land of Hope and Dreams (Columbia)

Rory Block- Down the Dirt Road Blues

Heavy on the Blues (M.C.)

Maria Muldaur- No, Papa, No!

One Hour Mama: The Blues of Victoria Spivey (NOLA Blues)

Dee Robinson- Monday Morning Blues

Dee from Decatur (Riverlark Music)

Mike Regenstreif & Brendan Nolan (2023)

Brendan Nolan- The Bodhran Song

Where Do I Go from Here (Ould Segosha Music)

Debi Smith- The Bodhran Lesson Song

Deep Tracks (Degan Music)

Christine Lavin- Drum School Dropout

Drum School Dropout (Christine Lavin)

Martha Wainwright- Far Away

Martha Wainwright: 20th Anniversary Edition (Report Card Music)

Eli West- Hearts and Bones

The Shape of a Sway (Tender & Mild)

Mary Chapin Carpenter- The Night We Never Met

Personal History (Lambent Light/Thirty Tigers)

Peter Campbell- A Little Grace

Burden of Hope (Peter Campbell)

Kate & Anna McGarrigle & Mike Regenstreif (1976) photo: Felicity Fanjoy

Kate & Anna McGarrigle- Kiss and Say Goodbye

Tell My Sister: Kate & Anna McGarrigle (Nonesuch)

Steel Rail- Kate’s Song

Coming Home (Crossties)

NEeMA- Escape

Watching You Think (Neemaste/Sony)

Perla Batalla- A Singer Must Die

A Letter to Leonard Cohen: Tribute to a Friend (Mechuda Music)

Leonard Cohen- So Long, Marianne

Songs of Leonard Cohen (Columbia/Legacy)

Nana Mouskouri- Adieu Angelina

Every Grain of Sand: Nana Mouskouri Sings Bob Dylan (Mercury)

Schmaltz & Pepper- Manischewitz Mazurka

Schmaltz & Pepper (Schmaltz & Pepper)

I’ll be hosting Saturday Morning next on October 4. I also host Stranger Songs on CKCU every Tuesday from 3:30-5 pm.

--Mike Regenstreif

Saturday Morning with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – June 14, 2025

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/128/70676.html

Mike Regenstreif & Steve Gillette (1994)

Steve Gillette- Grapes on the Vine

Best of (Compass Rose)

Ian & Sylvia- Darcy Farrow

Early Morning Rain (Vanguard)

Linda Ronstadt- A Number and a Name

Hand Sown…Home Grown (Capitol)

Steve Gillette- Back on the Street Again

Best of (Compass Rose)

Grayson Capps- Early Morning Rain

Heartbreak, Misery & Death (Royal Potato Family)

The Kennedys- Cotton Jenny

Ladies Sing Lightfoot (Sunset Blvd.)

Seldom Scene- Steel Rail Blues

Changes (Rounder)

Gordon Lightfoot- A Painter Passing Through

A Painter Passing Through (Reprise)

Payadora- Prologue

The Legend of  Carau (Payadora)

Payadora with Elbio Ferenandez & Elmer Ferrer- Gaucho de las Pampas

The Legend of Carau (Payadora)

Payadora- Remember What’s Important

The Legend of Carau (Payadora)

Payadora- The Call of the Bandoneón

The Legend of Carau (Payadora)

Lucie Blue Tremblay- No Esta Solo

So Many Wows (Maggie & Shanti Musique)

NEeMA- Running

Watching You Think (Neemaste/Sony)

Mason Daring & Jeanie Stahl- Across the Great Divide

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

Mary Chapin Carpenter- What Did You Miss

Personal History (Lambent Light/Thirty Tigers)

Eliza Gilkyson & Mike Regenstreif on Zoom (2022)

Eliza Gilkyson- Song to You

Dark Ages (Realiza)

Schmaltz & Pepper- Stirring the Pot

Schmaltz & Pepper (Schmaltz & Pepper)

Mike Regenstreif & Tim Grimm (2025)

Tim Grimm- In the U.S.A.

Bones of Trees (Vault)

Mike Regenstreif & Mark Rubin on Zoom (2025)

Mark Rubin – Jew of Oklahoma- Bear at the Door

Dispatches: Songs from a World Gone Mad (Rubinchik)

Eliza Gilkyson- Dark Ages

Dark Ages (Realiza)

Bethany & Rufus- Isn’t That So

900 Miles (Hyena)

Rodney Crowell with Emmylou Harris & Vince Gill- Dangerous Fun

Quiet About It: A Tribute to Jesse Winchester (Mailboat)

Jesse Winchester & Mike Regenstreif (2006)

Jesse Winchester- Glory to the Day

Third Down, 110 to Go (Stony Plain)

William Bell- All of Your Stories

This is Where I Live (Stax)

Tom Prasada-Rao- Maria

Beautiful You: The Songs of Tom Prasada-Rao (Tom Prasada-Rao)

Suzie Brown- I Love Missing You

Songs Worth Saving (Suzie Brown)

Nathan Sloniowski- Archie’s Good Night

The Lost Love Letter to a Small Town (Rocketchimp)

Jim Wurster- Transcendental Inclinations

Transcendental Inclinations (Y&T Music)

Muireann Bradley- Stag O Lee

I Kept These Old Blues (Decca/Verve Forecast)

Guy Davis & Mike Regenstreif (2006)

Guy Davis- Long Gone Riley Brown

The Legend of Sugarbelly (M.C.)

Dee Robinson- One Dime Blues

Dee from Decatur (Riverlark Music)

Roy Book Binder- Travelin’ Man

Goin’ Back to Tampa (Flying Fish)

Sue Foley- Freight Train

One Guitar Woman: A Tribute to the Female Pioneers of Guitar (Stony Plain) 

Dee Robinson- Washington Blues

Dee from Decatur (Riverlark Music)

Lotus Wight- Dear Old Five String

Original Works for Voice and Banjo Volume One (Lotus Wight)

Original Sloth Band- Diga Diga Do

Hustlin’ & Bustlin’ (Woodshed)

Benoît LeBlanc- Éy laba (Eh la bas)

Mô kouzin, mô kouzinn (Benoît LeBlanc)

Sheesham & Lotus & ‘Son- Leaving Home (Frankie and Johnny)

1929 (Sepiaphone)

Suzy Thompson- If I Could Stay

Suzy Sings Siebel Volume One (Suzy Thompson)

Paul Siebel- Jasper & the Miners

Jack-Knife Gypsy (Elektra)

Happy Traum- Pinto Pony

I Walk the Road Again (Roaring Stream)

Suzy Thompson- Uncle Dudley

Suzy Sings Siebel Volume One (Suzy Thompson)

Paul Siebel- Legend of the Captain’s Daughter

Jack-Knife Gypsy (Elektra)

Cassie & Maggie- Fool’s Gold

Gold and Coal (Cassie and Maggie)

Stan Rogers- The Rawdon Hills

Fogarty’s Cove (Fogarty’s Cove/Borealis)

Mike Regenstreif & Priscilla Herdman (2000)

Priscilla Herdman- Old Jack Ryan

Darkness into Light (Flying Fish)

Donald WG Lindsay- Tramps & Hawkers

Two Boats Under the Moon (Donald WG Lindsay)

Sarah Segal-Lazar- Earlier

Valleys (Sarah Segal-Lazar)

The Heart Collectors- Shenandoah

Alchymie (Spins the Gold)

Dave & Kristi- All are Welcome Here

The Chickadees (Paris Chili)

I’ll be hosting Saturday Morning next on July 12. I also host Stranger Songs on CKCU every Tuesday from 3:30-5 pm.

--Mike Regenstreif

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – May 27, 2025: “Songs of this kind should not need to be sung” with guest Mark Rubin – Jew of Oklahoma

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/595/70383.html

Theme: “Songs of this kind should not need to be sung.”

Guest: Mark Rubin – Jew of Oklahoma.

Tim Grimm- Broken Truth

Bones of Trees (Vault)

The line, “Songs such as these should not need to be sung,” comes from “Let’s Lay Down Our Drums,” a song written by Canadian songwriter Bruce Murdoch during the Vietnam War.

Bruce Murdoch- Let’s Lay Down Our Drums

33 1/3 Revolutions per Minute (Stormy Forest)

Eric Bibb- Masters of War

Migration Blues (Stony Plain)

Tom Paxton & John McCutcheon- Ukrainian Now 

Together (Appalsongs)

Artists for Action- Which Side Are You On? *

Which Side Are You On? – single (Bob Jensen)

*The Artists for Action singers and musicians are, in alphabetical order: Black Umfolosi, Ray Bonneville, Bruce Cockburn, Chris Corrigan, Guy Davis, Ani DiFranco, Maria Dunn, Adam Hill, Bob Jensen, James Keelaghan, Richard Knox, Lucy MacNeil, Tony McManus, Moulettes, Oysterband, Richard Perso, Heather Rankin, Martin Simpson, and Jon Weaver.

Ian Robb & James Stephens- God and the Orange Clown

Declining …with thanks (Fallen Angle Music)

Resistance Revival Chorus featuring Rhiannon Giddens- All You Fascists Bound to Lose

This Joy (Righteous Babe)

The next three songs punctuated my conversation with Mark Rubin – Jew of Oklahoma, recorded on May 2 via Zoom.

Mike Regenstreif & Mark Rubin on Zoom (2025)

Mark Rubin – Jew of Oklahoma- Dog Whistle

Dispatches: Songs from a World Gone Mad (Rubinchik)

Mark Rubin – Jew of Oklahoma- Blues for the Innocent

Dispatches: Songs from a World Gone Mad (Rubinchik)

Mark Rubin – Jew of Oklahoma- Goon with a Hammer (digital only bonus track)

Dispatches: Songs from a World Gone Mad (Rubinchik)

Brendan Nolan- Packing Her Bag

Beneath White Stars: Holocaust Profiles in Song (AlmondSeed Media)

Shelley Posen- Packed

Mazel (Well Done Music)

Diana Jones with Steve Earle, Richard Thompson, Peggy Seeger & Zahara Phillips- We Believe You

Song to a Refugee (Goldmine)

Liz Miller- New Normal

Love Bubble (Liz Miller)

James Talley- In These Times

Ballads, Bandits and Blues (Cimarron)

Next week: Busking.

--Mike Regenstreif

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – August 20, 2024: Murder Ballads

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/595/66460.html

Theme: Murder Ballads.

Bill Morrissey & Greg Brown- Tom Dula

Friend of Mine (Philo)

Ian & Sylvia- The Greenwood Sidie (The Cruel Mother)

Four Strong Winds (Vanguard)

Fourtold- Four Rode By

Fourtold (Appleseed)

Ian Tyson- Claude Dallas

Cowboyography (Stony Plain)

Tom Russell- El Paso

Indians Cowboys Horses Dogs (HighTone)

Dave Van Ronk- Duncan and Brady

Down in Washington Square (Smithsonian Folkways)

Saul Broudy- John Hardy

Travels with Broudy (Saul Broudy)

Rory Block- Louis Collins

Avalon: A Tribute to Mississippi John Hurt (Stony Plain)

Clarksdale Moan- Stack O’Lee

Dewittville Blues (Clarksdale Moan)

Martin Grosswendt- Delia

Pay Day! (Martin Grosswendt)

Guy Davis- Sugarbelly

The Legend of Sugarbelly (M.C.)

Bessie Smith- Send Me to the ‘Lectric Chair

Bessie Smith: The Absolutely Essential 3 CD Collection (Big3)

Victoria Spivey- Murder in the First Degree

Queen Victoria (Frank Goldy)

Mark Rubin- The Murder of Leo Frank

The Triumph of Assimilation (Rubinchik)

Marc Nerenberg- Little Sadie

Delia’s Gone: Murder Ballads & Other Songs of Love & Death (Marc Nerenberg)

Mountain City Four- Sam Hall

Mountain City Four (Omnivore)

Doc & Merle Watson- The Banks of the Ohio

Doc Watson On Stage (Vanguard)

The Kossoy Sisters- Pretty Polly

Hop On Pretty Girls (Living Folk)

Karan Casey- The Ballad of Hollis Brown

Hieroglyphs That Tell the Tale (Vertical)

Wendy Grossman- Mary Hamilton

The Last Trip Home (Riverlark) 

Next week: Walking Blues.

--Mike Regenstreif

Mark Rubin, Jew of Oklahoma – Southern Discomfort

MARK RUBIN, JEW OF OKLAHOMA

Southern Discomfort

Rubinchik Recordings

markrubin.com

Mark Rubin is an interesting – and interestingly eclectic – musician. As you can surmise from his self-identification, he grew up in Oklahoma but I first became aware of him during his long sojourn in Austin, Texas when he and Danny Barnes formed the Bad Livers, a duo that brought a fresh, punk attitude to old-time music. The Bad Livers got a lot of airplay in the early days of the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio show. Mark plays a bunch of instruments including bass, banjo, guitar, tuba, and mandolin and I’ve also enjoyed his work as sideman for many artists and as a member of several other groups covering a wide range of roots music styles and genres from country to klezmer. These days, Mark is based in New Orleans, one of the most fabled of all music meccas.

Southern Discomfort is Mark’s first solo album and it, too, covers a wide range of roots music styles and genres from country to klezmer – more than half of it original material.

For me, the most affecting part of the album are the fourth and fifth tracks, “The Murder of Leo Frank” and “Rumainyan Fancy.”

“The Murder of Leo Frank” is Mark’s powerful ballad – very effectively set to the same traditional tune as Florence Reece’s “Which Side Are You On?” – telling the story of Leo Frank, a Jewish pencil factory manager in Atlanta who was framed for the murder of Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old worker in the factory, in 1913.

After his false conviction, Frank was sentenced to death but an overwhelming campaign across the United States led the Georgia governor to commute his sentence to life in prison. But, then, Frank was kidnapped from the jail and lynched by a Ku Klux Klan mob calling itself “The Knights of Mary Phagan.” As Mark references in “The Murder of Leo Frank,” the early country musician, Fiddlin’ John Carson, wrote and performed an anti-Semitic song about the case that helped fuel the mob mentality.

The story of this case is one that I’ve been aware of since 1967 when I received the book, A Little Girl is Dead by Harry Golden, as a bar mitzvah present. Golden’s full length account of the case and its aftermath was unforgettable. Mark’s song very effectively captures the zeitgeist of the case. 

The final lines of the song – nominally addressed to fellow Jews – are “Next time you're at services/Say a Kaddish for Leo Frank." The words are a powerful lead-in to “Rumainyan Fancy,” an intense, traditional  klezmer tune played by fiddler Adam Moss with Mark on guitar. The arrangement, which builds in speed and intensity as it progresses, allows for four needed minutes of contemplation.

There’s also fun to be had on the album. The neo-jug band arrangement to “Key Chain Blues,” for example, makes it fun to listen to the narrator embrace his recent unemployment, while “Seriously (aka Too Much Weed)” is doper’s anthem with an absolutely delightful Dixieland arrangement.

The album cover art coveys the discomfort of the album title, and particularly “The Murder of Leo Frank,” with images that include the Confederate flag (which, thankfully, came down in South Carolina this week), a trio of idiotic looking Klansmen, a noose, Leo Frank, a menorah, and an African-American man with whip marks on his back.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

The Other Europeans - Splendor

THE OTHER EUROPEANS

Splendor

Kikiyon

other-europeans-band.eu

(This review is from the April 23, 2012 issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.)

The Other Europeans are 14 musicians from eight different countries in Europe and North America – eight of whom form a klezmer ensemble and six of whom comprise a lautar ensemble. Lautar is the music of Eastern European Roma (Gypsies). Some of the selections on Splendor, a splendid two-CD set recorded live at the Yiddish Summer Weimar in Germany in 2009, feature one or the other of the two ensembles, or parts thereof, while much of the album has all 14 of the musicians playing together.

The Other Europeans project has been spearheaded by pianist and accordionist Alan Bern, perhaps best known for his work as a member of Brave Old World, a band at the forefront of the creation of new Jewish music over the past couple of decades. Other members of the Klezmer Ensemble include clarinet and saxophone player Christian Dawid; Matt Darriau of the Klezmatics on kaval, piccolo, clarinet and saxophone; and Mark Rubin, who started his career as a member of the alt-country duo Bad Livers, on tuba and bass.

Among the members of the Lautar Ensemble are cimbalom player Kalman Balogh; accordionist Petar Ralchev; and trumpeter Adam Stinga.

Historically, as Walter Zev Feldman, mentions in his liner notes, Jewish and Roma musicians had little, if any, interaction in most areas of Eastern Europe except in Greater Hungary, primarily in the 18th century, and in Moldova, particularly in the province of Bessarabia, from the 18th century until the Holocaust. The music also crossed over to North America with Jewish immigrants in the late-19th and early-20th centuries but declined in both America and Moldova by the 1950s – in America due to assimilationist tendencies, and in Moldova due to the Soviet policy of creating a Moldovan ethnic music that was, as Feldman notes, “free from Jewish influence.”

The repertoire which the Other Europeans explore on Splendor – and which they perform brilliantly – is the klezmer and lautar music played in Bessarabia before the Second World War. Whether in the smaller klezmer and lautar groupings, or in the combined forces of the full ensemble, the music is compelling, exciting and beautiful.

Among my favourite selections from the klezmer repertoire are “Khaiterma,” a delightful classic which features Darriau on clarinet bouncing his notes off Rubin’s slap-bass playing; and the two-part “Klezmer Suite #1,” particularly the wild second part.

My favourite lautar selection is the two-part “Lautar Clarinet Suite #1,” which begins with a in a slow, contemplative mode before picking up steam. The piece almost seems classical.

And, of course, the tracks featuring all of the Other Europeans are a constant delight. Among the most beautiful and exciting pieces is the album-ending concert encore of “Sârba de la nord.”

The similarities and contrasts of the Jewish and Roma influences in this music are fascinating. Alan Bern has done a sensational job of tying it all together in the Other Europeans.

I'm now on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

I'm also on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif