Saturday Morning with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Saturday June 20, 2020

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 be streamed on-demand at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/128/48118.html

Mike Glick- If You’re Not Outraged (You Are Not Listening)

Alternative Facts & Other White Lies (Generations Music)

Willie Dunn- I Pity the Country

Metallic (Aural Tradition)

Eliza Gilkyson- My Heart Aches

2020 (Red House)

Reggie Harris- The Times They are A-Changin’

Ready to Go (Reggie Harris Music)

Sam Cooke- A Change is Gonna Come

The Man and His Music (RCA)

Dion featuring Paul Simon- Song for Sam Cooke (Here in America)

Blues with Friends (KTBA)

Steel Rail- Argyle Street

Coming Home (Crossties)

Stan Rogers- Barrett’s Privateers

Between the Breaks…Live! (Fogarty’s Cove/Borealis)

John McCutcheon- Front Line

Cabin Fever: Songs from the Quarantine (Appalsongs)

Orit Shimoni- Delicate Times

Strange and Beautiful Things (Orit Shimoni)

Judy Collins & The Global Virtual Choir- Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace – single (Rhino)

Saro Lynch-Thomason & Sam Gleaves- The Border

I Have Known Women: Songs by Si Kahn Celebrating Women’s Lives and Struggles (Strictly Country)

Sultans of String featuring Yasmin Levy- Asi Soy (This is Me)

Refuge (Sultans of String)

Julian Taylor- The Ridge

The Ridge (Howling Turtle)

Dakota Dave Hull- Cannonball Blues

This Earthly Life (Arabica)

Extended feature: Songs of Richard Thompson. The next 14 songs were written by Richard Thompson.

Photo: Pamela Littky

Linda Ronstadt- King of Bohemia

The Zozo Sisters: Adieu False Heart (Vanguard)

Bill Garrett- How Will I Ever Be Simple Again

Seems to Me (Borealis) 

Richard & Linda Thompson- For Shame of Doing Wrong

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

Ann Savoy & Linda Ronstadt- Burns’ Supper

The Zozo Sisters: Adieu False Heart (Vanguard)

Martin Grosswendt- Down Where the Drunkards Roll

Pay Day! (Martin Grosswendt) 

Linda McRae- Dimming of the Day

Going to the Well (42 RPM)

Richard Thompson- Beeswing

Acoustic Classics (Beeswing)

Lucy Kaplansky- When I Get to the Border

The Tide (Red House)

Kate Campbell- From Galway to Graceland

The K.O.A. Tapes (Vol.1) (Large River Music)

The Kennedys- Wall of Death

River of Fallen Stars (Green Linnet)

Richard Thompson- Pharaoh

Acoustic Classics II (Beeswing)

Red Molly- 1952 Vincent Black Lightning

The Red Album (Red Molly)

Dori Freeman- I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight

Letters Never Read (Blue Hens Music)

Richard Thompson & Danny Thompson- Sweetheart on the Barricade

Industry (Hannibal)

Perla Batalla featuring Bill Gable- Dance Me to the End of Love

Bird on the Wire: The Songs of Leonard Cohen (Mechuda Music)

Leonard Cohen- It’s Torn

Thanks for the Dance (Columbia/Legacy)

Marshall Chapman- Tower of Song

Songs I Can’t Live Without (Tallgirl)

VickiKristinaBarcelona- Cold Cold Ground

Pawn Shop Radio (StorySound)

Missy Burgess with The Blue Train- Yesterday is Here

Live (Missy Burgess)

Don Armstrong- Break by the River

Mother Don’t Give Up on Me Now (Ronstadt Record Co.)

Doug McArthur- Heavy Horses on the Highway

The Horses of the Sea: A Personal Exploration of Ireland (dougimac.com)

Jenny Reynolds- Any Kind of Angel

Any Kind of Angel (Jenny Reynolds)

Steel Rail- Kate’s Song

Coming Home (Crossties)

Kate McGarrigle- (Talk to Me of) Mendocino

Tell My Sister (Nonesuch)

Pink Martini with Rufus Wainwright & The Von Trapps- Kitty Come Home

Get Happy (Audiogram)

John McCutcheon- The Night John Prine Died

Cabin Fever: Songs from the Quarantine (Appalsongs)

John Prine- Boundless Love

The Tree of Forgiveness (Oh Boy)

Wynton Marsalis- Muskrat Ramble

Bolden: Music from the Original Soundtrack (Blue Engine)

I’ll be hosting Saturday Morning next on July 18.

Find me on Twitter. @MikeRegenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Loudon Wainwright III – Years in the Making

LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III

Years in the Making

StorySound Records

lw3.com

storysoundrecords.com

As I’ve noted before, I’ve known Loudon Wainwright III for a long time. I first met – and heard – him when he was married to my friend, the late Kate McGarrigle, in the early-to-mid-1970s. After the marriage broke up, I’d occasionally see him at folk festivals, at Kate’s when he’d come up to Montreal to see their children – Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright – and booked him for a couple of concerts at the Golem when he’d come to town for those visits. In 2000, we sat down and did an extensive and very candid interview on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio show. Most recently, in 2015, we had a nice visit in Clearwater, Florida after a concert he did while Sylvie and I were on vacation there.

Years in the Making is “a comprehensive 2-CD audiobiography” of 45 years’ worth of outtakes, live recordings, radio performances and demos that comes beautifully packaged in a 64-page hardcover book featuring a lifetime’s memorabilia – from Loudon’s birth certificate to the cover page of his will. Among those making cameo appearances on some of the tracks are Kate, ex-partner Suzzy Roche, sister Sloan Wainwright, long-time collaborator Chaim Tannenbaum, Steve Goodman, and all four of his kids – Rufus, Martha, Lucy Wainwright Roche and Lexie Kelly Wainwright.

The songs are sequenced in seven thematic groupings beginning with “Folk.” This set includes some traditional songs, Woody Guthrie’s “Philadelphia Lawyer,” and “Love Gifts,” a Loudenesque parody of “I Gave My Love a Cherry.” My favorite tracks in this section are a sweet version of Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Going Nowhere,” recorded at home in 1974 with Kate on harmony vocals, and a duet with Chaim on “Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms” from 2008 that I presume is an outtake from High Wide & Handsome, Loudon’s terrific Charlie Poole tribute.

The second section is “Rocking Out,” with most of the tracks dating from the 1970s after Loudon had a commercial hit with “Dead Skunk” (which is not on this album) and he went on the road with rock bands. But the best track in this section is “Cardboard Boxes,” a 1993 live cut about moving with just Loudon on guitar and lead vocals, Chaim on banjo and harmony vocals and David Mansfield on mandolin.

“Kids,” the final section on the first CD begins with a 1986 home recording of “Birthday Poem/Happy Birthday/Animal Song” on which children Rufus, 13, Martha, 10, and Lucy, 4, wish their father a happy 40th birthday. Lexie, Loudon’s youngest child, appears later in this section in a 1999 home recording singing his “Ballad of Famous & Harper,” a precious song about a pair of pet cats. More serious fare includes a 2003 live version of “Your Mother & I,” a song from the ‘80s in which Loudon tries to explain her parents’ breakup to his young daughter (Lucy).

The second CD begins with “Love Hurts,” six songs about love and/or lost love. The finest entry in this section is “Rowena,” which he based on courting letters written by his grandfather to his grandmother in 1918.

A section called “Miscellany” is grab-bag of tracks highlighted by a beautiful version of “Down Where the Drunkards Roll,” one of Richard Thompson’s most stunning songs. Greg Leisz’s pedal steel work on this track is lonesome and lovely; and by “Meet the Wainwrights,” that features Loudon with Lucy, Suzzy, Martha, Rufus and Sloan singing about their relationships with him.

Mike Regenstreif & Loudon Wainwright III (2015)

A short section called “Hollywood,” includes a snippet of an interview with Liza Minelli, in which she remembers “little Loudon, the kid next door,” her childhood neighbor, as well as “Hollywood Hopeful,” a 1975 song describing Loudon’s attempt to break in as an actor, and “Valley Morning,” a song he wrote from Judd Apatow’s film “Knocked Up.”

The final section, “The Big Picture,” kicks off with the hilarious “God’s Got a Shit List,” which you probably won’t be hearing in the radio anytime soon, and finishes with the equally hilarious and equally radio-inappropriate “Birthday Boy,” an a cappella song on which Loudon celebrates his birthday and himself.

Years in the Making might not be the best introduction for someone hearing Loudon for the first time. But it’s a terrific addition to his discography for those of us who have listened to and enjoyed his work over the past (almost) five decades (or parts thereof).

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif