Saturday Morning with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Saturday January 25, 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/128/68698.html

Mike Regenstreif & Garnet Rogers (2006)

Garnet Rogers- Small Victory

The Best Times After All: Live (Snow Goose Songs)

John McCutcheon & Carrie Newcomer- Field of Stars

Field of Stars (Appalsongs)

Chris Rawlings- Deep Blue Sea

Two Sides to Your Story (Cookingfat Music)

Mike Regenstreif & Priscilla Herdman (1978)

Priscilla Herdman- The Coast of Marseilles

Forgotten Dreams (Flying Fish)

The Twangtown Paramours- A Room in Bordeaux

The Wind will Change Again (Inside Edge)

Melón Jimenez & Lara Wong- Paraná

Confluencias (Scatcat Music)

Mike Regenstreif & Jesse Winchester (2009)

Jesse Winchester- Wintry Feeling

A Touch on the Rainy Side (Stony Plain)

Mike Regenstreif, Bill Garrett & Sue Lothrop (2014)

Bill Garrett & Sue Lothrop- The Hill

Red Shoes (Borealis)

Neale Eckstein- January Thaw

Never Too Late (Neale Eckstein)

Nanci Griffith- Ten Degrees and Getting Colder

Other Voices/Other Rooms (Elektra)

Amy Speace- I Break Things

The American Dream (Windbone)

Cindy Kallet- The Poet

Ride in the Light (Sleepy Creek Music)

Boreal- Winterbirds

Winterbirds (Boreal)

Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens- Rainy Day

American Railroad (Nonesuch)

John McCutcheon- MS St. Louis

Field of Stars (Appalsongs)

Perla Batalla- The Partisan

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

The Klezmatics & Susan McKeown- Gonna Get Through This World

Wonder Wheel: Lyrics by Woody Guthrie (Jewish Music Group)

Rosalie Sorrels- Mehitabel’s Theme

Always a Lady (Green Linnet)

Peggy Lee- The Alley Cat Song

I’m a Woman: Expanded Edition (Capitol)

Phil Harris- Thomas O’Malley Cat

Disney’s Jazz Album: Big Band & Swing (Disneyland)

Eliza Gilkyson & Mike Regenstreif on Zoom (2022)

Eliza Gilkyson- Bare Necessities

Your Town Tonight (Red House)

Doug McArthur & Jeffra- Angels of the Mission Trail

Angels of the Mission Trail (Tableaux Vivants)

Eric Taylor with Nanci Griffith- Mission Door

Live at the Red Shack (Blue Ruby)

Ana Egge- Mission Bells Moan

Sharing in the Spirit (StorySound)

Rosanne Cash- Girl from the North Country

The List (Manhattan)

Ian & Sylvia- Tomorrow is a Long Time

Four Strong Winds (Vanguard)

Penny Lang & Mike Regenstreif (1976) photo: Felicity Fanjoy

Penny Lang- One Too Many Mornings

Stone + Sand + Sea + Sky (Borealis)

Moses Crouch- Banjo Blues

Earth Music (Riverlark)

The airdate for this show, January 25, is Robbie Burns Day. The next nine songs were written or collected by the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns, who was born on January 25, 1759 and died at 37 on July 21, 1796.

Jean Redpath- A Parcel of Rogues in a Nation

The Songs of Robert Burns, Volumes 1 & 2 (Philo)

Dougie MacLean- Scots Wha’ Hae

Tribute to Robert Burns, Neil Gow and Robert Tannahill (Dunkeld)

The Short Sisters- Ca’ the Yowes

Downsized (Black Socks Press)

Andrew & Casey Calhoun- A Rosebud By My Early Walk

Skeins (Waterbug)

Mike Regenstreif & Brendan Nolan (2023)

Brendan Nolan- Green Grow the Rashes O’

Familiar Brew (Ould Sagosha)

Bett Padgett- Ae Fond Kiss

Beneath Blue Water (Ceildhe’s Music)

Mallory Chipman- A Red, Red Rose

Songs to a Wild God (Tunnel Mountain)

Bobby Watt- Westlin’ Winds

Watt Next? (Glenashdale Music)

Highland Weavers- Auld Lang Syne

Going Home (Highland Weavers)

Christine Lavin featuring Robin Batteau- Mercury & Mars (Jan. 28, 1977)

Drum School Dropout (Christine Lavin)

Tom Mitchell- Sing to Me Now

Outamongum Again (Cowlick)

Laura Smith & Mike Regenstreif (2013)

Laura Smith- Gypsy Dream

As Long As I’m Dreaming (Borealis)

Christopher Kearney- Rocking Chair Ride

Christopher Kearney (Capitol)

Carol Crittenden- The Fields of Athenry

Glimmer (Carol Crittenden)

I’ll be hosting Saturday Morning next on February 22. I also host Stranger Songs on CKCU every Tuesday from 3:30-5 pm.

--Mike Regenstreif

The Short Sisters – Downsized

THE SHORT SISTERS

Downsized

Black Socks Press

ss.mapping.com

I really like what happens when three talented women singers come together in glorious harmony. Groups like the Wailin’ Jennys, the Good Lovelies, Herdman, Hills & Mangsen (Priscilla Herdman, Anne Hills, Cindy Mangsen) and the Marigolds – all of them very different in sound and repertoire – are quite wonderful with what they do with a song.

Along with the groups mentioned above, the Short Sisters are one of my all-time favorite trios of harmonizing women. They’ve been singing together since 1979, but Downsized is just their fifth album and their first since 2002 – and like its predecessors, the CD is a treat from the first song to the last. In fact, the opening paragraph I wrote 11 years ago for my Sing Out! magazine review of their previous album, Love and Transportation, is just as applicable to Downsized:

“The Short Sisters – Fay Baird, Kate Seeger and Kim Wallach – are not real sisters.  However, when their voices combine in sweet harmony on this set of traditional and contemporary songs drawn from a variety of sources, they sure do sound like siblings who have been harmonizing for a lifetime. It is also obvious that they have chosen and arranged these songs, to borrow a phrase from the late Townes Van Zandt, simply for the sake of the song and the joy of singing. When they’re not singing a cappella, the Short Sisters keep the arrangements tasteful and simple, acoustic guitars played by Kim and Kate, banjo by Fay and occasionally, some very nice harmonica work by Dean Spencer.”

The only thing I need to add is that Kate also plays autoharp on a couple of songs on the new album.

While all 16 songs in the hour-long set are delightful, a few of my favorites include “The Vikings,” a satirical tune by Jez Lowe (perhaps my very favorite British songwriter), a beautiful version “Ca’ the Yowes,” a Scottish song written or collected by Robert Burns, Kim’s “Home in Old New Jersey,” a delightfully arranged nostalgic piece about the state she grew up in, and “Tell Me Why You Like Roosevelt,” Otis Jackson’s tribute to the president who introduced the New Deal (this is the song my friend Jesse Winchester rewrote about 40 years ago to also pay tribute to the Canadian politicians whose policies allowed safe haven for Vietnam War resistors).

I was also delighted to hear the Short Sisters’ version of “Upon Finding Just One,” a terrific round written by my neighborhood pal Ann Downey, the traditional “Goin’ Down to Tampa,” and Lester Simpson’s “Twenty-Four Seven,” a labor song for these times we’re living in.

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--Mike Regenstreif

Enoch Kent – Take a Trip with Me

ENOCH KENT

Take a Trip with Me

Borealis

enochkent.ca

As I noted in Sing Out! in 2008, “Enoch Kent was an established folk singer – a colleague of Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in the Singers Club – when he moved to Canada in the 1960s. However, he didn’t record for more than three decades while working in the advertising business and singing occasionally at folk festivals and at Toronto folk clubs like Fiddler’s Green. In retirement, though, Enoch has become a prolific recording artist;” Take a Trip with Me is his sixth album since 2002.

The album title is taken from the first line of the opening track, Woody Guthrie’s “1913 Massacre,” a vivid description of a Christmas party being held for the families of Michigan copper miners at which company thugs screamed “Fire” and then locked the doors so people couldn’t get out leading to the smothering deaths of 73 panicked children on the stairs in front of the locked doors. Enoch’s version of Guthrie’s memorable song is as riveting as any I’ve ever heard.

In fact, Enoch – as on his previous releases – is never less than riveting as he explores a repertoire of traditional folk songs and contemporary compositions – his own and by others – steeped in the timelessness of traditional songs and working class life. As a singer, I’ve always thought of Enoch as being quietly powerful as he draws listeners into the compelling stories that he’s singing.

Among Enoch’s best original pieces are “The Pawnshop Window,” in which he describes many of the items for sale in a Toronto pawnshop and speculates on what the items may mean to the people who brought them to the shop or who may be buying them, and “The Murder of Ginger Goodwin,” the story of a legendary B.C. labour organizer who was murdered in 1918.

Among the other highlights are great versions of two powerful Australian songs. “Travelling Down the Castlereagh,” written by Banjo Patterson (best known for “Waltzing Matilda”) is about a farm worker who wouldn’t work with scabs, while Judy Small’s “Mothers, Daughters, Wives” is about a generation of women who saw their fathers, then husbands, and then sons, go off to successive wars – and then saw their daughters redefine their roles as women during the first wave of the modern feminist movement.

Of the traditional songs, I particularly like Enoch’s version of “Off to Sea Once More,” a ballad about a sailor forced to go to sea again after losing everything to a swindling prostitute, and “A’e Fond Kiss,” a beautiful parting song from the Robert Burns canon.

Although I’ve only highlighted half of the album’s 14 songs, I could, just as easily, have chosen any of the others to call attention to.

Enoch is also a compelling concert performer and will be in Montreal on Saturday, April 9, 8:00 pm, at Petit Campus, 57 Prince Arthur East, as part of the Wintergreen Concert Series. Call 514-524-9225 for tickets or information.

--Mike Regenstreif

This week in Folk Roots/Folk Branches history (January 19-25)

Folk Roots/Folk Branches with Mike Regenstreif was a Thursday tradition on CKUT in Montreal for nearly 14 years from February 3, 1994 until August 30, 2007. Folk Roots/Folk Branches continued as occasional features on CKUT and is now also a blog. Here’s the 21st instalment of “This week in Folk Roots/Folk Branches,” a weekly look back continuing through next August at some of the most notable guests, features and moments in Folk Roots/Folk Branches history.

January 19, 1995: Extended feature- Music of the Andes Mountains.
January 23, 1997: Extended feature: Songs of Robert Burns.
January 20, 2000: Guest- Loudon Wainwright III.
January 24, 2002: Guest- Jack Nissenson.
January 22, 2004: Guest- Sarah Harmer.
January 19, 2006: Guest- Jeff Daniels.
January 24, 2008 (Folk Roots/Folk Branches feature): Songs of Wade Hemsworth.

--Mike Regenstreif