Folk Roots/Folk Branches with Mike Regenstreif: Wade Hemsworth

Showing posts with label Wade Hemsworth. Show all posts

Thursday, June 23, 2022

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday June 28, 2022: The Folkways Legacy of Sam Gesser

In 1951, Samuel Gesser of Montreal – who died in 2008 at age 78 – became the Canadian distributor for Folkways Records. Early on, Sam pointed out to Moses Asch, the owner of Folkways, that there wasn’t any Canadian music in its catalog. “What are you going to do about that?” Asch asked him. Sam responded by finding Canadian folk music and folk music performers to record.

Between 1952 and 1964, Folkways released more than 100 LPs of Canadian folk music (and at least a couple of albums of Canadian poetry) produced or commissioned by Sam – all of which remain available through Smithsonian Folkways. The songs, tunes and poem on this show are drawn from just a few of those LPs.

I met Sam in the 1970s. By then, he was Montreal’s preeminent concert producer. Sam became a good friend and mentor and we’d get together over lunch a couple of times per year for decades. We also worked together on several projects over the years. I learned much from my many conversations with Sam. A tribute to Sam on the Smithsonian Folkways website is available at this link.

Alan Mills- The Squid-Jiggin’ Ground
Folk Songs of Newfoundland (Folkways)

Alan Mills- The Boys of the Island
Songs of the Maritimes: Lumberman Songs and Songs of the Sea (Folkways)
Wade Hemsworth- Peter Rambley (Peter Amberley)
Folk Songs of the Canadian North Woods (Folkways)
Ken Peacock- Lots of Fish in Bonavist’ Harbour
Songs and Ballads of Newfoundland (Folkways)
Mrs. Edward Gallagher- I’m Going to Get Married
Folk Music from Nova Scotia (Folkways)
William Paul, Martin Sack & John Knockwood- Micmac Indian War Song
Folk Music from Nova Scotia (Folkways)

Jean Carignan with Pete Seeger- Reel du Pendu/The Hangman’s Reel
Old Time Fiddle Tunes Played by Jean Carignan (Folkways)
Karen James- Le Papier D’Éping
Through Streets Broad and Narrow (Folkways)
Jacques Labrecque- Monsieur Le Curé
Folk Songs of France and French Canada (Folkways)
Hélène Baillargeon & Alan Mills- J’ai Tant Dansé
Songs of French Canada (Folkways)
Madame Beavan- Pis Ôte-Toé Donc
Songs of French Canada (Folkways)
Leonard Cohen- Les Vieux
Six Montreal Poets (Folkways)

Jean Carignan- Reel du Bon Vieux Temps
Songs and Dances of Quebec (Folkways)

O.J. Abbott- Hogan’s Lake
Lumbering Songs from the Ontario Shanties (Folkways)
Joe Kelly- Johnny Doyle
Lumbering Songs from the Ontario Shanties (Folkways)
Geraldine Sullivan- Maggie Howie
Folk Songs of Ontario (Folkways)
Lamont Tilden- The Murder of F.C. Benwell
Folk Songs of Ontario (Folkways)

William Peaychew- Cree Greeting Song (Shaking Hands Song)
Indian Music of the Canadian Plains (Folkways)
The Loewen Orchestra- The Northern Trappers Rendezvous
Songs and Ballads of Northern Saskatchewan and Northern Manitoba (Folkways)
Herbert Sills- O Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie
Folksongs of Saskatchewan (Folkways)
Anne Halderman- A Poor Lone Girl in Saskatchewan
Folksongs of Saskatchewan (Folkways)

Stanley G. Triggs- The Oda G.
Bunkhouse and Forecastle Songs of the Northwest (Folkways)
Barry Hall- Pretty Peggy O
The Virtuoso 5-String Banjo played by Barry Hall (Folkways)
Alan Mills- The Klondike Gold Rush
Canada’s Story in Song (Folkways)
Angutnak & Matee- Girl’s Game
The Eskimos of Hudson Bay (Folkways)

Paul Konoplenko-Zaporozetz- Our Ukraine
The Kozba (Folkways)
Raasche- Gey Ich Mir Shpatzirin
Jewish Folk Songs of Europe (Folkways)

Karen James- Mary-Anne
Through Streets Broad and Narrow (Folkways)
Alan Mills- Brave Wolfe
Canada’s Story in Song (Folkways)
Karen James- The Ghost Lover
Karen James (Folkways)
Wade Hemsworth- V’la l’Bon Vent
Folk Songs of the Canadian North Woods (Folkways)
Alan Mills- Un Canadien Errant
Canada’s Story in Song (Folkways)
Karen James- Captain Wedderburn’s Courtship
Karen James (Folkways)

Next week: Just Who Was It Who Wrote That Song?

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Wednesday, June 8, 2022

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday June 14, 2022: Songs of Wade Hemsworth and Songs of Bill Morrissey

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif finds connections and develops themes in various genres. The show is broadcast on CKCU in Ottawa on Tuesdays 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/595/56556.html

Theme: Songs of Wade Hemsworth (1916-2002) and Songs of Bill Morrissey (1951-2011).

Wade Hemsworth

Wade Hemsworth, who died in 2002 at age 85, was probably the first important songwriter to come out of the Canadian folk music scene. Although Wade was not very prolific – he wrote less than 20 songs – many of those songs have become classics of Canadian folk music. After serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, Wade worked as a surveyor in Northern Ontario, Quebec and Labrador and those experiences were the basis for many of his songs. He moved to Montreal in 1952 to work as a draftsman for the Canadian National Railway and began performing on the Montreal folk music scene.

Bill Morrissey

Bill Morrissey, who died in 2011 at age 59, was one of the finest songwriters of my generation of folk musicians. Bill lived in New Hampshire and many of his songs reflect life in the mill towns of that part of New England. Bill also wrote an excellent novel, Edson, about a folksinger, not unlike himself, living in one of those mill towns.

Bill Staines- The Black Fly Song
Just Play One Tune More (Folk-Legacy)
Wade Hemsworth- In the Wintertime
The Songs of Wade Hemsworth (Blackfly Music)
Dan Berggren/John Kirk/Chris Shaw with Ann Downey- Log Driver’s Waltz
North River/North Woods (Sleeping Giant)
Wade Hemsworth with the Mountain City Four- Quiet on the River
Wade Hemsworth with the Mountain City Four (Peter Weldon)

Mike Regenstreif & Bill Morrissey (2005)

Bill Morrissey- Small Town on the River
Bill Morrissey (Philo)
Mark Erelli- Handsome Molly
Milltowns (Hillbilly Pilgrim)
Lucy Kaplansky- Texas Blues
The Tide (Red House)
Bill Morrissey- Barstow
Bill Morrissey (Philo)

Art Thieme- The Shining Birch Tree (Land of the Muskeg)
On the Wilderness Road (Folk-Legacy)
Fairport Convention- Foolish You
Old, New, Borrowed, Blue (Green Linnet)
Wade Hemsworth- Song of the Old Rooster
The Songs of Wade Hemsworth (Blackfly Music)

John Gorka, Mike Regenstreif & Lucy Kaplansky (2012)

John Gorka- She’s That Kind of Mystery
Bright Side of Down (Red House)
Bill Morrissey- Ice Fishing
North (Philo)
Laurie MacAlliaster & David Glaser- Birches
The Lies the Poets Tell (Laurie MacAllister)

Kate & Anna McGarrigle & Mike Regenstreif (1976) photo: Felicity Fanjoy

Rick Fielding- Wild Goose
Lifeline (Folk-Legacy)
The Wakami Wailers- Whitewater (The Log Jam Song)
River Through the Pines (The Wakami Wailers)
Kate & Anna McGarrigle- My Mother is the Ocean Sea
CBC Variety 3 (CBC)
Wade Hemsworth with the Mountain City Four- The Story of the I’m Alone
Wade Hemsworth with the Mountain City Four (Peter Weldon)

Peter Keane- I Wonder If I’ll Ever Leave
Walkin’ Around (Flying Fish)
Cormac McCarthy- Marigold Hall
Picture Gallery Blues (Green Linnet)
Mark Erelli- Long Gone
Milltowns (Hillbilly Pilgrim)
Bill Morrissey- By the Grave of Baudelaire
Come Running (Turn and Spin Media)

Wade Hemsworth with the Mountain City Four- Our Last and Humble Home
Wade Hemsworth with the Mountain City Four (Peter Weldon)

Next week: Songs from “Porgy and Bess.”

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Thursday, March 24, 2022

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday March 29, 2022: The Art of the Long Song

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/595/55701.html

Theme: The Art of the Long Song

While most songs fall somewhere in the range of 2 to 5 minutes, the songs on this show are in the range of 6 to 15 minutes.

Garnet Rogers with Doug Long- Frankie & Johnny
Summer Lightning: Live (Snow Goose Songs)
Laura Smith- One Woman
As Long As I’m Dreaming (Borealis)

Bob Dylan- Desolation Row
Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia/Legacy)

Doug McArthur & Jeffra- Montaña de Oro
Angels of the Mission Trail (Doug McArthur & Jeffra)
Tom Russell- Gallo del Cielo
Old Songs Yet to Sing (Frontera)

Jackson Browne & Rob Wasserman- You Know the Night
Note of Hope (429)

Chaim Tannenbaum- Belfast Louis Falls in Love
Chaim Tannenbaum (StorySound)
Wade Hemsworth with the Mountain City Four- The Story of The I’m Alone
Wade Hemsworth with the Mountain City Four (Peter Weldon)

Janis Ian featuring John Cowan & Diane Schur- Better Times Will Come
The Light at the End of the Line (Rude Girl)

Kim & Reggie Harris- Tree of Life
Resurrection Day (Appleseed)

Next week: Remembering John Prine

Find me on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Friday, February 19, 2021

Stranger Songs with Mike Regenstreif – CKCU – Tuesday February 23, 2021

Today’s theme: Chanteys and Other Songs of the Sea

Leonard Cohen- fragment of The Stranger Song
Songs of Leonard Cohen (Columbia/Legacy)
Stan Rogers- Barrett’s Privateers
Between the Breaks…Live! (Fogarty’s Cove/Borealis)

Alan Mills & The Shanty Men- Haul Away Joe
Songs of the Sea (Folkways)
Pressgang Mutiny- So Early in the Morning
Across the Western Ocean (Pressgang Mutiny)
Maddy Prior & The Girls- Blow the Man Down
Bib & Tuck (Park)
Finest Kind- From Dover to Calais
For Honour & For Gain (Fallen Angle)
Chris Rawlings- North by Northwest (AKA Franklin’s Shanty)
Northern Spirits (Cooking Fat Music)

Judy Collins & Mike Regenstreif (2014)

Michael Peter Smith- Fast to the Mast
Fifteen Songs from Moby Dick (Michael Peter Smith)
Reggie Harris- Hunt the Whale
Ready to Go (Reggie Harris Music)
Judy Collins- Farewell to Tarwathie
Forever: An Anthology (Elektra)

Happy & Artie Traum, Bill Keith- Off to Sea Once More
Mud Acres: Music Among Friends (Rounder)
Kate McGarrigle, Martha Wainwright & Lily Lanken with Anna McGarrigle, Rufus & Loudon Wainwright, Chaim Tannenbaum, Dane & Sylvan Lanken- Johnny’s Gone to Hilo
The McGarrigle Hour (Hannibal)
Wade Hemsworth with The Mountain City Four- The Story of the I’m Alone
Wade Hemsworth with The Mountain City Four (Peter Weldon)

Coope, Boyes & Simpson- Sea Must Have an Ending
Coope, Boyes & Simpson (World Music Network)
Windborne- Grey Funnel Line
Recollections/Revolutions (Wand’ring Feet Records)
Cindy Mangsen- Shallow Brown
Songs of Experience (Redwing Music)
Rod MacDonald- A Sailor’s Prayer
No Commercial Traffic (Solstice)

Odetta- The Golden Vanity
Odetta Sings Folk Songs (RCA)
Dave Van Ronk- Haul On the Bowline
Down in Washington Square (Smithsonian Folkways)
Tex König- Wild Winds
Königsblende (Music Cellar)
Terri Hendrix- Mingulay Boat Song
Love You Strong: Project 5.1 (Wilory)
Bruce Springsteen- Pay Me My Money Down
We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (Columbia)

The Friends of Fiddler’s Green- When the Hauling’s Over
Old Inventions (Friends of Fiddler’s Green)
Tom Lewis- Last Shanty
Poles Apart Too (Self Propelled Music) The Johnson Girls- Goodbye, Fare You Well
The Johnson Girls (Folk-Legacy)

Ofra Harnoy- Barrett’s Privateers
On the Rock (Analekta)

Next week – The Tom Russell Tributes

Find me on Twitter. www.twitter.com/mikeregenstreif

And on Facebook. facebook.com/mikeregenstreif

--Mike Regenstreif

Monday, May 16, 2011

Kate & Anna McGarrigle -- Tell My Sister

KATE & ANNA McGARRIGLE

Tell My Sister

Nonesuch

mcgarrigles.com

Tell My Sister, assembled by producer Joe Boyd, and released to coincide with the Kate McGarrigle tribute concerts last week at Town Hall in New York City, is an essential 3-CD set that reissues the first two Kate & Anna McGarrigle albums – Kate & Anna McGarrigle and Dancer with Bruised Knees – along with 21 previously unreleased demos – many of them Kate solo – recorded between 1971 and 1974.

Aside from the fact that they are great albums, those first two Kate & Anna LPs were important to me personally as they (along with the third LP, Pronto Monto) came out during the time that I worked closely with Kate and Anna, producing concerts for them in Montreal and arranging touring concert dates for them at such venues as Convocation Hall in Toronto, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Carnegie Hall in New York City, and other places in Canada and the U.S. I wrote more about my friendship and working relationship with Kate and Anna in this article after Kate passed away last year.

The first LP, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, released in 1976, was one of the greatest folk and singer-songwriter LPs of the decade. Every one of the dozen songs – including five written by Kate and four by Anna – is a perfectly polished gem. The singing – in particular the stunning sibling harmonies – is stunning, the arrangements featuring a combination of folk music friends and some of the top studio musicians of the day are as near as you can get to being perfect.

I’ve always thought of Side 1 of the original LP – the first six songs on the CD reissue – as perhaps the most perfect of LP sides, rivalled only by Side 2 of Abbey Road by the Beatles.

The Side 1 suite begins with “Kiss and Say Goodbye,” Kate’s rock ‘n’ roll celebration of a hoped-for night, and segues into “My Town,” Anna’s sad, but gorgeous, lament for a broken heart that features some very pretty mandolin work by David Grisman (who would soon go on to revolutionize how we think about the possibilities of bluegrass instruments). Then, Kate’s “Blues in D,” patterned after the great piano-guitar duo recordings of Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell, and featuring some nifty work by Amos Garrett on acoustic guitar and Joel Tepp on clarinet, leads into Kate and Anna trading verses and adding celestial harmonies to a majestic version of “Heart Like a Wheel.” The days of the Mountain City Four, the legendary Montreal folk group of the 1960s that included Kate and Anna, are recalled with the Wade Hemsworth classic, “Foolish You,” before the side ends with a beautifully orchestrated version of “(Talk to Me of) Mendocino,” Kate’s exquisite ode to New York State, the California coast and lost love.

While Side 1 of the LP – tracks 6-12 on the CD – may have been a perfect album side, there is no fault to be found with the second side. Anna’s “Complainte pour Ste-Catherine,” co-written with Philippe Tatarcheff, and featuring some Cajun-style fiddling by Jay Ungar and Floyd Gilbeau, is one of the McGarrigles’ most enduring French-language songs. “Complainte” leads into “Tell My Sister,” Kate’s song about needing to come home alone from a bad period in her marriage to Loudon Wainwright III. Interestingly, Kate and Anna follow “Tell My Sister” with a fun version of Loudon’s “Swimming Song.” It’s followed by Anna’s “Jigsaw Puzzle of Life,” which describes the first decade of her relationship with her then-boyfriend, soon-to-be-husband Dane Lanken. Then we hear Kate’s stunning, heartbreaking performance of “Go Leave,” a song for dying relationship that she still carried some hope for, before the album ends with a joyous rendition of the Bahaman spiritual “Travelling on for Jesus.”

I’ve listened to Kate & Anna McGarrigle many hundreds of times over the past 35 years. Listening to this newly remastered version, it still sounds as fresh as it did when I first sat down with Kate in 1975 and she played the first rough mixes for me.

Dancer with Bruised Knees, released on LP in 1977, may not have been quite as good as the first album, but it wasn’t off by much. As Joe Boyd says in the Tell My Sister liner notes, “Its only problem was the album it had to follow.”

Among my favourites of Kate’s songs from Dancer are the pastoral “Southern Boys,” the lovely “Walking Song” and “Hommage à Grungie,” a tribute to an artist friend. Favourites of Anna’s include the title track, told from the point of view of an ex-dancer friend (and including a brief parody of Kate’s “Work Song”), the pretty “Naufragée du Tendre,” again co-written, like most of Kate and Anna’s French songs, with Philippe Tatartcheff, and “Kitty Come Home,” Anna’s plea to Kate to leave the scene of her broken marriage and return to Montreal. Another of my favourites is their version of Galt MacDermot and Bill Dumaresq’s “No Biscuit Blues,” a song that predates Montrealer MacDermott’s great success as the composer of the Broadway hit, Hair.

Like the first album, Dancer with Bruised Knees is an album I’ve listened to hundreds of times and it still sounds great after all these years. It’s also an album that has a few personal memories as I visited in the studio a couple of times during the recording process and listened in as Kate and Anna worked on several of the songs.

It’s the third CD in the set – demo recordings from 1971-1974 – that makes Tell My Sister essential for Kate & Anna fans that still have copies of the original LPs or CD reissues. These 21 tracks, lasting more than an hour, and including two versions each of “Heart Like a Wheel” and “(Talk to Me of) Mendocino,” are absolutely wonderful. While most of the songs would end up being recorded on later Kate & Anna albums, there are six songs, including “Annie,” a never-released gem written by Chaim Tannenbaum and sung by Kate, that have never before appeared on any of Kate and Anna’s albums.

The solo songs reveal that Kate, had she pursued a solo career, would have been at the top of the folk and singer-songwriter scene. Most of her naked solo performances are every bit as good as the versions she’d re-record in subsequent years for official albums. Some, like this version of “The Work Song,” are superior to the later recordings. The same can be said of the tracks recorded with Anna – they are also a delight to hear in these versions naked of any layered-on production.

Among the demo tracks are two songs Kate and Anna recorded in 1974 with Roma Baran on guitar and vocals: a version of Kate’s “Kiss and Say Goodbye” and “Willie Moore,” the traditional folksong. These songs remind me of the first three shows I produced for Kate and Anna in the summer of 1974 at the Golem Coffee House in Montreal. Those wonderful concerts, which they played as a trio with Roma, remain a fond memory. The three were brilliant together and I’ve always regretted that Kate, Anna and Roma didn’t continue in that trio format.

It’s also interesting to hear Anna’s “Heart Like a Wheel” as primarily a solo vehicle for Kate. Even on the later version of “Heart Like a Wheel,” which includes some harmony from Anna, it is still Kate’s performance. In later concerts, and in the version recorded for Kate & Anna McGarrigle, it was very much a shared performance.

Another fascinating performance is the 1971 version of “(Talk to Me of) Mendocino,” that includes a final verse that Kate dropped before the song became well known.

Speaking as someone who knew Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and their music, back in the day when these “good old songs were new,” I cannot recommend Tell My Sister highly enough.

--Mike Regenstreif

Monday, December 6, 2010

Kate & Anna McGarrigle -- Oddities

KATE & ANNA McGARRIGLE
Oddities
Querbeservice
mcgarrigles.com

It was always wonderful, over the years, to have new music from Kate and Anna McGarrigle. Now, less than a year after Kate’s untimely passing, it’s a particularly wonderful, albeit bittersweet, to have these new recordings to savour.

Well, not exactly new. Oddities is a collection of a dozen songs that Kate and Anna recorded for various projects, and in various circumstances, between 1973 and 1990 but never previously released, or never released in the versions included on this new CD. It’s a compilation that Anna says she and Kate had long talked about putting together but kept putting off for another year. Many of the tracks are alternate versions of songs that have been heard on other projects. And even if almost all the songs are familiar, they sound fresh and new in these previously unreleased versions.

Kate and Anna grew up singing Stephen Foster songs – “These were songs that my daddy taught me,” sang Kate in “The Work Song” – and Oddities begins with a set of four of Foster’s 19th century parlour songs.

The first two Foster songs, the sad lament, “Was My Brother in the Battle,” and the hopeful anthem, “Better Times are Coming,” both written in 1862, are alternate versions of songs recorded by Kate and Anna for Songs of the Civil War, a companion CD of songs to the Civil War documentary series that Ken Burns did for PBS about 20 years ago.

The third Foster song, “Gentle Annie,” written in 1856, was previously released by Kate and Anna in collaboration with Linda Ronstadt on The McGarrigle Hour. For as long as I knew her, which was close to 40 years, “Gentle Annie” was always one of my favourite songs to hear Kate sing. With apologies to Bob Dylan, who wrote “that nobody can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell,” nobody could sing “Gentle Annie” like Kate McGarrigle. Utah Phillips, another old friend now gone, was inspired to write his song, “Nevada Jane” after hearing Kate sing “Gentle Annie.” Anna’s harmonies on the track are, of course, sublime.

“Ah May the Red Rose,” the final Foster song, dates from 1850 and is a short, sad, beautiful song sung by Anna (with Kate supplying the sublime harmonies) that laments death and mourning.

The Foster songs are followed by two of the late Wade Hemsworth classics including, finally on CD, a version of “The Log Driver’s Waltz,” a song that the McGarrigles began singing back in the 1960s when they were part of the Mountain City Four. The song, of course, is best known from John Weldon’s animated short film featuring a different arrangement of the song (Kate’s voice begins this rendition while Anna’s begins the version in John’s film). “The Log Driver’s Waltz,” is another song that’s been one of my favourite McGarrigle performance pieces going back to the first concerts I produced for them at the Golem in Montreal in 1974 and 1975.

The other of Wade’s songs is a choral arrangement of “My Mother is the Ocean Sea,” an other-worldly sounding song that Kate and Anna also sang on a CBC broadcast recording many years ago. They also include a version of “As Fast As My Feet,” co-written by Anna and Chaim Tannenbaum, which was also on that CBC recording. It’s a zippy, infectious number that, in an era where a hook, a great melody and catchy arrangement meant something, could have been a hit single.

There are a couple of French songs in the set beginning with a live version of the traditional “A La Claire Fontaine” that was recorded at one of the Pollack Hall concerts with Kate and Anna that I produced in 1976.

The other French song is a Cajun number, “Parlez-Nous À Boire,” adapted from the repertoire of Louisiana’s legendary Balfa Brothers. It’s one of the rockingest numbers Kate and Anna have done.

“Lullaby for a Doll,” written by Kate, is a lovely song about childhood innocence, a version of which was included on ‘Til Their Eyes Shine, a 1992 collection of lullabies by various artists.

“Louis the Cat,” written by Anna and Audrey Bean, is a lament for a lost cat and is a living room demo recorded in 1973. I can’t say that I have any memory of the song from back in the day, but it’s still nice to hear after all these years.

Oddities ends with a version of “You Tell Me That I’m Falling Down,” a song written by Anna and Carol Holland that Linda Ronstadt recorded in 1975. Listening to this highly-arranged version, I think this track was probably either an album demo or outtake that didn’t get used. I remember Anna and Kate singing it at the Golem in 1975, and occasionally over the years, and always hoped they’d put it on an album; finally, here it is for us.

Oddities takes its place in a discography in which almost every album Kate and Anna recorded must be regarded as an essential recording. These are songs to warm our hearts as we head into the cold winter months.

--Mike Regenstreif

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

This week in Folk Roots/Folk Branches history (June 1-June 7)

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 (and around the world via the web for most of those years). Folk Roots/Folk Branches continued for some time as occasional features on CKUT, and is now a blog. Here’s the 40th 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.

June 2, 1994: Show theme- Remembering the Golem, the Montreal folk club I ran from 1974-1976 and 1981-1987, 20 years after I first took over.
June 1, 1995: Show theme- The legacy of Lead Belly.
June 6, 1996: Extended feature- Songs of Jesse Winchester.
June 4, 1998: Guest- David Amram.
June 3, 1999: Guest- Dar Williams.
June 7, 2001: Extended feature- A tribute to the late John Hartford.
June 6, 2002: Extended feature- Songs of Wade Hemsworth.
June 5, 2003: Guest- Brendan Nolan.
June 2, 2005: Guest- Seán Tyrrell.
June 1, 2006: Guest- Penny Lang.
June 5, 2008 (Folk Roots/Folk Branches feature): A tribute to the late Bruce “Utah” Phillips.

Pictured: Utah Phillips and Mike Regenstreif at the 2005 Champlain Valley Folk Festival.

--Mike Regenstreif

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

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