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

Andy Cohen – Road Be Kind

ANDY COHEN

Road Be Kind

Earwig Music

andycohenmusic.net

Five years ago, reviewing an album called Built Right on the Ground by Andy Cohen, I wrote an introduction that bears repeating.

It’s probably close to 40 years since the first time I encountered Andy Cohen. I was a teenager immersed in the folk scene and he would have been in his 20s and already an accomplished traditional blues revivalist. I think I first heard him when Bruce “Utah” Phillips got me to come down and hang out in Saratoga Springs where he was a prime mover in Wildflowers, a musicians’ co-op that also included Andy. Not too long after that, I recall him showing up in Montreal to play at the Yellow Door. I sat and listened closely to Andy play three sets a night for three nights in a row.

Thinking back to those days, I’m reminded of something the young Bob Dylan said about 10 years earlier:

“I ain't that good yet. I don't carry myself yet the way that Big Joe Williams, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly and Lightnin’ Hopkins have carried themselves. I hope to be able to someday, but they're older people.”

Dylan’s point – I think – was that this kind of music is something you keep growing into, something that reflects your lifetime of experience. The truly dedicated revivalists of that period – people like the late Dave Van Ronk, the late “Philadelphia” Jerry Ricks, Paul Geremia, Roy Book Binder, Chris Smither, Martin Grosswendt, Rory Block and a few others, including Andy Cohen – have kept on getting better as they’ve gotten older. Listening to Andy now, in concert – I saw him do a house concert in Ottawa recently – or on this fine new CD, is a much deeper musical experience than it was, circa 1972, when I saw him at the Yellow Door.

I’ve repeated that review intro because it’s essentially the same thing I would want to say again now to anyone who might not know or be familiar with Andy Cohen.

Andy is best known as a traditional blues revivalist but, like many, perhaps most, of the songsters he studied and emulated – either directly or from old records – his repertoire is much broader than that and Road Be Kind – a solo recording, just Andy’s guitar and voice – also includes quite a bit of more contemporary and folk-based material. But even the most contemporary material here feels like it is right in the tradition.

Of that contemporary, folk-based material, I was quite pleased to be reminded of several songs by old friends, a couple of which – the late Luke Baldwin’s “Seldom Seen Slim” and Scott Alarik’s “Road Be Kind – I don’t think I’ve heard in decades.

“Seldom Seen Slim,” taken from Luke’s only LP, The Tattoo On My Chest, is a vivid portrait of a hermitic old desert rat, while “Road Be Kind,” an early song of Scott’s, is a lovely tribute to all the friends along the road who are vital to touring musicians’ survival and sanity.

Another song written by an old friend is “The Goodnight-Loving Trail,” by the late Bruce “Utah” Phillips, a bittersweet ode to an “old woman,” a trail cowboy too old or banged up to sit on a horse who is now the company cook. There have been many great versions of “The Goodnight-Loving Trail” over the years but none that capture the song’s heartbreak in the guitar arrangement the way Andy’s does.

Some of my other favorites include a slow, beautiful version of “Ten and Nine,” often known as “The Jute Mill Song,” a song written by Mary Brooksbank, a former Scottish mill worker and labor organizer, about the lives of women mill workers; Andy’s own “Five and Ten Cent Blues,” a tongue twister set to a snappy ragtime guitar arrangement; and “Mysterious Mose,” a great little ditty written for a Betty Boop cartoon from 1930. (Check it out on YouTube.)

There are also several fine instrumentals including a lovely, album-ending version of “Blackbird,” perhaps the prettiest melody John Lennon and Paul McCartney ever wrote for the Beatles.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Lynn Miles – Downpour

LYNN MILES
Downpour 
lynnmilesmusic.com

Mike Smith’s cover painting – a beautiful, but lonely scene of a solitary farmhouse and some telephone poles out in the middle of nowhere under a stormy sky – and the title, Downpour, set the scene for the 11 superbly crafted and beautifully arranged and performed songs on Lynn Miles’ new album. It’s a scene that suggests a certain degree of chosen isolation broken up, at times, by forces of nature and communication.

Indeed, these are songs that poetically and melodically capture human loneliness, chosen and not, conflict and conflict resolution, communication and lack-of-communication and much more.

The album opens with the stunning “More,” a series of metaphorical contrasts that suggest a spirit intent on complete experiences in everything she does. Some of my other favourites on Downpour include “My Road,” an honest song about the loneliness and the fulfillment, the joys and the sorrows of the musician’s life on the road; “Party Too Long,” a song that I think most of us who’ve reached a certain age can relate to; “Sad,” a succession of comparisons that suggest images of sadness; and “Million Brilliant,” an insightful song that kind of shows how so many of the feelings and emotions described in many of the other songs on the album are really a part of every complex human relationship – including relationships that are sustained over time. “Million Brilliant,” by the way, would be a great song for a bluegrass band looking for superior material.

Downpour is an intimate album performed by Lynn on vocals and several instruments including guitars, piano and pump organ, and just one collaborator, producer Ian Lefeuvre on harmony vocals and multi-instruments. Lynn and Ian have worked together on several of Lynn’s earlier albums and the musical chemistry between them is palpable.

I’ve a deep appreciation for almost all of Lynn’s past work and several of her albums are favourites from my music collection. Downpour, though, has quickly become my favourite Lynn Miles album (at least until her next one) – and that says a lot.

Pictured: Mike Regenstreif, Lynn Miles and Scott Alarik at the 2013 Folk Alliance International conference in Toronto.

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Scott Alarik – Revival: A Folk Music Novel

Revival: A Folk Music Novel

By Scott Alarik

Peter E. Randall Publisher

315 pages

scottalarik.com

When I first met Scott Alarik in the late-1970s, he was one of the impressive Minnesota-based folksingers who’d soon find some measure of wider recognition through their appearances on the early shows of the A Prairie Home Companion radio show.

A few years later, Scott moved to the Boston area where he continued to perform and record but became primarily known as a freelance writer covering folk music for the Boston Globe, Sing Out! and other publications. Deep Community: Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground, a collection of Scott’s folk music articles was published in 2003. Now, with Revival: A Folk Music Novel, Scott turns his attention to fiction.

The story is set in a scene that Scott knows as well as anyone: the contemporary folk music scene in Cambridge, Massachusetts (as well as the broader North American folk music scene). The main characters are Nathan Warren and Kit Palmer.

Nathan is a veteran performer whose chance at the big time was blown by a combination of music biz politics and his own self-destructiveness. Now sober, he runs a weekly open mike night at a Cambridge bar where he mentors promising young performers and gives chances to any and all who want to get up and share their songs.

The young and painfully shy Kit Palmer is one of those promising young singer-songwriters – perhaps the most promising. Nathan recognizes her talent, helps her overcome her stage fright and – despite their age and experiential differences – they fall in love.

As the story develops, Nathan teaches Kit the art of stagecraft and becomes her backup musician and producer as she begins to climb her own ladder to folk music stardom. All the while Kit’s influence revitalizes Nathan and his own music.

Among the secondary characters is Ryan Ferguson, the veteran freelance folk music critic for the major local newspaper. The paper is going through the same kind of cutbacks and restructuring the Montreal Gazette – where I used to be the freelance folk music critic – went through a few years ago, so I related strongly to the character (whose professional struggles, I’m sure, were based, in large part, on Scott’s own adventures at the Globe). Another is Joyce Warren, Nathan’s ex-wife and a star in the folk music world now based in L.A.

Scott does two things quite brilliantly in Revival. He tells a May-December love story in a way that seems fresh and vital – and he gives a superb primer on the folk music scene as it has evolved almost a half-century after the major folk music revival of the 1960s. Readers get an understanding of the hierarchy of the scene from open mikes in neighborhood bars to community-based, volunteer-driven house concerts and coffee houses, to the major folk club, concert and festival circuit. The independent recording scene, folk music radio and publications are all are part of the primer that should make this book essential reading for any aspiring performer – and for anyone who cares about the scene.

One of the things that I loved about Revival is that Scott has created characters that seem like people I know. In a note that precedes the story, Scott stresses that any similarities to real people in the characters in coincidental, but there are aspects to these characters that I recognize – or at least read into – many people I know, or have known over my years on the folk scene (which pretty much parallel Scott’s), including more than a few good friends.

Revival: A Folk Music Novel is a terrific read for anyone who likes a good story and an essential read for anyone who cares about or wants to understand today’s folk music scene.

--Mike Regenstreif