Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday March 1, 2022: Part 1 – Solidarity with the people of Ukraine; Part 2 – I Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans (on Mardi Gras Day).

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU in Ottawa on Tuesday afternoons from 3:30 until 5 pm (Eastern time) and is also available 24/7 for on-demand streaming.

CKCU can be heard live at 93.1 FM in Ottawa and https://www.ckcufm.com/ on the web.

This episode of Stranger Songs was prerecorded at home and can already be streamed on-demand by clicking on “Listen Now” at … https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/595/55400.html

Themes: Part 1 – Solidarity with the people of Ukraine. Part 2 – I Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans (on Mardi Gras Day).

Part 1 – Solidarity with the people of Ukraine

Paul Konoplenko- Our Ukraine
A Folksong Portrait of Canada (Mercury/Smithsonian Folkways)
The Mando Boys- Ukrainian Medley: Liturgical Music and Dance Tunes
The Mando Boys Live: Holstein Lust (Borderland Productions)

Michael Alpert & Julian Kytasty- Chernobyl
Night Songs from a Neighboring Village: Ballads of the Ukrainian & Yiddish Heartland (Oriente Musik)
Michael Alpert & Julian Kytasty- Night Songs
Night Songs from a Neighboring Village: Ballads of the Ukrainian & Yiddish Heartland (Oriente Musik)
The Malvinas- The Ukrainian Song
God Bless the Grass (Soona Songs)

Finjan- Azoi Tantzt Men Odessa (This is How We Dance in Odessa)
Dancing on Water (Rounder)

Part 2 – I Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans (on Mardi Gras Day)

Brenda Lewis- Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans
Far & Near (Brenda Lewis)
Paul Simon- Take Me to the Mardi Gras
There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (Warner Bros.)
Dr. John- Iko Iko
Dr. John’s Gumbo (Atco)
Kermit Ruffins & Irvin Mayfield featuring Dr. Michael White- Drop Me Off in New Orleans
A Beautiful World (Basin Street)

Mike Regenstreif & Marc Nerenberg (2009)

Marc Nerenberg with Noah Zacharin- On the Street Again, Revisted
On the Street Again, Revisted – single (Marc Nerenberg)
Chris Rawlings & Anne Lederman- Cindy Cindy 2.0
A Whistle, a Tune, a Song and a Dance (Cooking Fat Music)
Susan Werner- NOLA
NOLA: Susan Werner Goes to New Orleans (Sleeve Dog)
Long John Baldry- Midnight in New Orleans
The Best of the Stony Plain Years (Stony Plain)

Jennifer Warnes- I Am the Big Easy
Another Time, Another Place (BMG)
Mark Brine- Wrong Side of Bourbon St. Blues
New Blue Yodel (re:signed)
Victor Mecyssne (Victor Anthony)- Going to New Orleans
Hush Money (Sweetfish)

Larry Johnson- The Beat from Rampart Street
Fast and Funky (Blue Goose)
Little Brother Montgomery’s State Street Swingers- South Rampart St. Parade
Goodbye Mister Blues (Delmark)
David Roe- I Wish I was in New Orleans
Angel of New Orleans (David Roe)

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band & The Del McCoury Band- Milenberg Joys
American Legacies (McCoury)

Next week: Voices of Women.

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Victor Anthony – Mystery Loves Company; Those Nashville Blues

VICTOR ANTHONY

Mystery Loves Company; Those Nashville Blues

victoranthony.ca

Singer-songwriter Victor Mecyssne released three fine albums between 1995 and 2000 that I played a lot on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches radio program. I reviewed one of them in Sing Out! magazine and noted his “urbane songs and cool musical approach sure don’t fit the stereotype for someone born, and still living, in Nashville. His singing, guitar playing and arrangements are rooted in places like New York City hipster jazz joints and Mississippi Delta blues road houses and filtered through a songwriting palette that people like Randy Newman and Tom Waits have painted from.”

Victor and his wife left Nashville, immigrated to Canada and moved to Gabriola Island in B.C. in 2007 and now, 15 years after the last Victor Mecyssne album, he’s re-emerged as Victor Anthony and two excellent new CDs.

Mystery Loves Company is a fine set of mostly original songs that will surely please those who remember the Victor Mecyssne albums. Victor sings and plays guitar throughout and is joined by one or two other musicians or harmony singers on some of the songs.

Among my favorite tracks are “Boots On,” a hip cowboy song, “True Blue Baby,” a jazzy tune featuring some really nice clarinet playing by Lloyd Arntzen, and “He Walks Alone,” a portrait of a determined loner co-written by my old friend Tom Mitchell (another great singer-songwriter who hasn’t released new material in far too long).

There are also really fine versions of “Thunder Rollin ‘cross Arkansas” and “Summer Way Down South,” two vivid portraits of the South that he first recorded on Victor Mecyssne albums.

Victor became a Canadian citizen in 2014 and says the citizenship judge told the new Canadians he was swearing in that one of their responsibilities was to share their native culture with their new neighbors. That led Victor to record Those Nashville Blues, a terrific set of traditional blues and old-time country songs originating in Tennessee that now make a nice contribution to Canadian multiculturalism.

Using pretty much the same recording approach as Mystery Loves Company that features Victor solo on some tracks and with one or two other players or singers on others, he breathes new life into such venerable old songs and tunes as “Chitlin’ Cookin’ Time in Cheatham County,” “Victory Rag,” “Dry Land Blues” and “Little Willie Green from New Orleans.”

Find me on Twitter. twitter.com/@mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif