Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – November 5, 2024: Addendums to Past Themes

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/595/67577.html

Theme: Addendums to Past Themes.

This is the second of two editions of Stranger Songs airing during CKCU’s 2024 Funding Drive. Your support is meaningful and essential to keeping CKCU’s diverse programming on the air for another year. You can make a donation in support of Stranger Songs and CKCU at this link. Charitable income tax receipts are issued for donations of $20 or more. Thanks for your support. https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/CKCU/p2p/fundingdrive2024/page/stranger-songs

A theme I do every year on the second Stranger Songs funding drive show is Addendums to Past Themes. More often than not, when I choose a theme for Stranger Songs, there are more possible songs to choose from than I can include – and sometimes new music that fits the theme arrives after the show has been produced. So, I’ve chosen a few of the themes from the past year for addendums.

Perla Batalla- A Thousand Kisses Deep

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

Leonard Cohen- Going Home

Old Ideas (Columbia)

Perla Batalla- Everybody Knows

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

Scottie Miller- Ah, New York

Carnival Cocoon (Scottie Miller)

Lucy Kaplansky- Love Song/New York

The Red Thread (Red House)

Amy Speace- In New York City

The American Dream (Windbone)

Shelley Posen- The Old Songs Home

The Old Songs Home (Well Done Music)

Madeleine Peyroux- I Hear Music

Careless Love: Deluxe Edition (Rounder)

The Central Park Sheiks- The People’s Key

Honeysuckle Rose (Flying Fish)

Misty Blues- Keep On Movin’ It On

I’m Too Old for Games: A Live Tribute to Odetta (Guitar One)

Eric Bibb & Odetta- ‘Tain’t Such a Much

Friends (Telarc)

Odetta- Look the World Over

Blues Everywhere I Go (M.C.) 

Bob Dylan- My Back Pages

Another Side of Bob Dylan (Columbia)

Ian & Sylvia- You Were On My Mind

Northern Journey (Vanguard)

Sam Cooke- A Change is Gonna Come

Ain’t That Good News (RCA)

Lenka Lichtenberg- Remember the Sun

Feel with Blood (Six Degrees)

Lenka Lichtenberg- After the Flood

Feel with Blood (Six Degrees)

Sid Selvidge- Pearlee

Twice Told Tales (Elektra Nonesuch)

Rosalie Sorrels- One More Next Time

If I Could Be the Rain (Folk-Legacy)

Gordon Lightfoot- Steel Rail Blues

The Original Lightfoot (EMI)

Duke Ellington- Sugar Hill Shim Sham

Ellington in Order, Volume 8 (1937) (Legacy)

Next week: Remembering Barbara Dane (1927-2024).

--Mike Regenstreif

Sid Selvidge 1943-2013

I was deeply saddened this evening to learn that Sid Selvidge, the great Memphis folk and blues artist, passed away today after a battle with cancer.

Sid had an astounding knowledge of traditional and contemporary roots music. In addition to his solo work, he played in several bands and was the executive producer of the Beale Street Caravan radio program.

I first discovered Sid in 1993 when Sing Out! magazine asked me to review an album of Sid’s called Twice Told Tales. Although he was a veteran performer by then, it was the first time I heard of him. The album, now long out-of-print blew me away – the Sing Out review is below – and it’s been a favorite of mine ever since. “Watch and Chain,” a song from Twice Told Tales was the first thing I played on the pilot edition of the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio show on January 16, 1994 on CKUT in Montreal.

I met Sid and hung out with him some when I visited Memphis in 1998 for the Folk Alliance conference. And when Folk Alliance came to Montreal in 2005, I did an astounding program of all live-in-the-studio performances with a bunch of great guests: Full Frontal Folk, Andy Cohen & Ragtime Jack Radcliffe, Natalia Zukerman, The Kennedys, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Tracy Grammer & Jim Henry, Anne Hills & Michael Smith, and Sid Selvidge. Sid played great versions of “Long Black Veil,” “Buffalo Skinners” and “Judge Bouche.”

Sid was not a prolific recording artist and when his next album, A Little Bit of Rain, came out in 2003, I eagerly reviewed it for both Sing Out and the Montreal Gazette. The Sing Out review of that one is also below.

SID SELVIDGE
Twice Told Tales
Elektra Nonesuch 

(This review appeared in Sing Out! magazine in 1993.)

Because we hear so much dross, record reviewers are always delighted to come across a terrific album.  Doubly so when the album is by an artist that we're previously unfamiliar with.  This is one such album and Sid Selvidge is one such artist.

He's no Johnny-Come-Lately though.  It turns out that Selvidge, an anthropologist by vocation and musician by avocation, has had a long history on the Memphis music scene dating back to the early 1960s when he met, befriended and learned from such blues legends as Furry Lewis, Bukka White, and the "Mississippis": John Hurt and Fred McDowell.

On about half the album, Selvidge, who acknowledges his sources, plays solo with terrific interpretations of traditional blues and folk songs.  On the rest he delves into close-to-the-roots gospel, blues, swing and rock and roll with subdued backing by four or five other musicians.  Three of the 13 songs are from Selvidge's own pen.

On occasion, most notably on Mississipi Fred McDowell's version of "Watch and Chain" and on the traditional western ballad "Buffalo Skinners," Selvidge achieves a powerful intensity that is downright scary.  Elsewhere, he does a playful, swingtime version of the classic Hank Williams hit "Lovesick Blues," that sounds like he's having a lot of fun.  On "Tell Me Why You Like Roosevelt," Selvidge seems to have absorbed what made early-Sam Cooke such a great gospel singer and on "Since I Met You Baby," he shows his facility as a band leader on a more jazzy-than-delta kind of blues.  This album merits a strong recommendation. –Mike Regenstreif

SID SELVIDGE
A Little Bit of Rain
Archer

(This review appeared in Sing Out! magazine in 2003.)

A decade ago, Sing Out! asked me to review Twice Told Tales by Sid Selvidge, a Memphis-based artist that I was not previously familiar with.  It was a great album, one that I’ve returned to often over the years.  Finally, 10 years later, Selvidge, now the executive producer of the syndicated Beale Street Caravan radio program, has done a follow-up.  Beginning with a sweet version of Fred Neil’s title song, and ending with “Arkansas Girl,” a lovely country waltz and the only Selvidge original, the CD is a seamless blend of blues, traditional country, folk music, rhythm and blues and rock ‘n’ roll in settings that range from solo voice and guitar to a cooking full band with horn section and backup vocalists.  There are few performers with the musical vocabulary to so convincingly sound like he’s at home with all of these different styles.

One of my favorite tracks is “Swannanoa Tunnel,” a haunting Appalachian song associated with traditional artists Roscoe Holcomb and Bascom Lamar Lunsford that Selvidge performs solo with just his guitar.  Interestingly, he points out that Lunsford is the great uncle of his daughter-in-law.  He also does a nice version of “Hobo Bill,” a song recorded more than 70 years ago by Jimmie Rodgers.  Selvidge is particularly adept at the blues and offers a fine arrangement of “Mama You Don’t Mean Me No Good,” that’s halfway between urban sophisticate and down home jug band.  His version of “Long Tall Mama” recalls Big Bill Broonzy’s early Chicago period.  Lets hope that Selvidge’s next record won’t take another decade.  –Mike Regenstreif

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

This week in Folk Roots/Folk Branches history (February 23-March 1)

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 a blog. Here’s the 26th 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.

February 27, 1997: Guests- Sam Gesser; Steve Fruitman.
February 25, 1999: Guest- Corky Siegel.
March 1, 2001: Extended feature- Seal Maiden: A Celtic Musical by Karan Casey.
February 26, 2004: Black History Month feature- Blues in the Mississippi Night, recorded by Alan Lomax on March 2, 1947, with Memphis Slim, Big Bill Broonzy and Sonny Boy Williamson.
February 24, 2005: All live music show with guests- Full Frontal Folk; Andy Cohen & Ragtime Jack Radcliffe; Natalia Zukerman; Sid Selvidge; The Kennedys; Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer; Tracy Grammer with Jim Henry; Anne Hills & Michael Smith.
February 23, 2006: Show theme- A pre-Mardi Gras Celebration of New Orleans.
March 1, 2007: Guests- Dave Clarke & Ellen Shizgal of Steel Rail.

--Mike Regenstreif