Folk

  • Stan Rogers — The End of Good Work

    Lame DogFolk

    Perhaps the closest thing I have to a religion is Stan Rogers.  The great Canadian sang with the passion and fury of an Old Testament prophet. He wrote, at times unfashionably, of the things that matter most:  home, love, fidelity, history, and the pride that comes from hard labor. If he sometimes teetered on the brink of sentimentality, one can easily forgive the flaw.  Indeed, his contribution appears all the more impressive as the years go by.

    When most of us first heard his voice, he was already dead.   He perished abroad Air Canada Flight 797 on June 2, 1983.  He was 33.  I dimly recall television coverage of the tragedy.  It did not mention his name; he was too obscure a figure, at least in America.

    From Fresh Water    , his final album of original material, was released posthumously.   Lately, I have been focusing on what it has to say about work and aging.  In “The Last Watch,” the narrator is a watchman on a steamboat slated for demolition.  Rogers’ inspiration was an actual ship, the SS Midland City, that transported cargo and passengers on the Great Lakes for over a century.  In 1955, as it proved too expensive to comply with new safety regulations, it was towed into the Bay of Tiffin and intentionally set aflame. In the song, the watchman, another “old wreck” who is about to be cast aside, is left to pray that “when men with torches come for her … angels come for me.”

    Another piece from the same collection, while understated, is even more powerful.   This time, Rogers’ immediate subject was the fisherman of Port Dover, a town on the polluted shores of Lake Erie.  The twist is that it is not a song about unemployment.   They still have their jobs; in fact, “there’s plenty of pay.”  Instead, the work has become strangely meaningless as they are restricted to catching the smallest fish exclusively for export .  Or as Rogers writes, “it’s all just a job now” (emphasis added).  Have a listen:


    In this pair of compositions, Rogers speaks to us from beyond the grave.  He shows (more…)

  • Three Views of Stagger Lee

    Lame DogFolk

    Popular culture comes in a variety of forms.  There may be a traditional version (or versions) that is handed down from generation to generation.  There may be underground variations that until recent years were not discussed in polite society.  And there may be a “prime time”  offering designed so as not to offend a broad general audience.  As a case in point, I offer “Stagger Lee” — one of the most durable American crime ballads and a celebration of badass criminal violence that predates gangsta rap by about ninety years.

    “Stagger Lee,” also known as “Stackolee” and “Stagolee,” has been recorded over four hundred times by artists from Mississippi John Hurt to Wilson Picket to, in more recent years, Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse.  It tells the story of a fight between a man named Billy Lyons and the title character — a tough-as-nails anti-hero who mercilessly shoots Billy down.  Here is a recording with a traditional feel released in 1969 by Taj Mahal.

     

    Much research has gone into tracing in the origins of the song.  In The Folk Songs of North America in the English Language, Alan Lomax referred to tales identifying Stagger Lee with the mulatto son of a Confederate cavalryman and with a “tough Memphis sport” who “sold his soul to the Devil in return for a magic Stetson hat.”  But more recent scholarship has identified the protagonist as

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  • The Berrymans — “All Because She Didn’t Eat Her Vegetables”

    Lame DogComedy, Folk

    This evening, the Dog is sharing a delightful bit of lunacy from a veteran comedy songwriting team.

    Incidentally, for those who do not know (which included me until I googled it), “Sally Ann” refers to the Salvation Army.  A bullhead is a kind of catfish. And Monona Bay is in Madison, Wisconsin — in the part of the country and the Berrymans call home and which has deeply influenced their particular brand of folk music.
     

    Lou (for Louise)  Berryman (nee Noffke) and Peter Berryman met in high school and were sweethearts in college.  Since they began recording together, they have released eighteen albums and written over two hundred songs.   Generally, Lou composes the music and Peter is responsible for the lyrics. When they perform, Lou plays the accordion and Peter plays the 12-string guitar. Perhaps their most famous piece is one you may have heard that contains the chorus: “We sit down to have a chat./ It’s F-word this and F-word that./ I can’t control how you young people talk to one another./ But I don’t want to hear you use that F-word with your mother.”

    This year, the Berrymans announced that after decades of touring the country together, they are retiring from doing so.  Who can blame them?  They are both turning seventy.

    One interesting aspect of their relationship  is that while Lou and Peter married in 1967,

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  • Linda Thompson — A Performance to Remember

    Lame DogFolk

    Try googling the name and you’ll be bombarded with references to one of Caitlyn Jenner’s ex-wives. But it’s her namesake to whom I pay tribute today.

    She was born Linda Pettier and grew up is Glasgow.  She tried her hand at acting, then switched to singing before marrying Richard Thompson in 1972.  About three years later, Richard decided to end his career and join a Sufi commune.  Linda dutifully followed but was miserable. And when she tried to take up with a new band, she was given a dressing down by the resident “sheik.” Fortunately for the world, Richard eventually left the commune and resumed recording with her.

    After six albums and three children together, Richard fell in love with another woman. Linda nevertheless accompanied him on a 1982 American tour in what she later described as a “pathetic” effort to win him back. Feelings ran so raw that at one point she hit him over the head with a coke bottle and stole a car. But their work on stage was said to be extraordinary.

    The years that followed had their share of challenges. Linda increasingly suffered from spasmodic dysphonia, a voice disorder that forced her to give up singing. They also contained rewards: enduring second marriages to other people for both Linda and Richard; the chance to see their son Teddy and daughter Kamila grow up to be respected musicians themselves; and the restoration of Linda’s ability to sing, at least sporadically, with the aid of botox injections into the vocal cords. In 2014, she, Teddy, Kamila, and Richard appeared together on an album entitled “Family.”

    But let’s return to an earlier day. On August 19, 1981, the BBC broadcast Linda and Richard performing a set of his songs, culminating with “The Dimming of the Day.” It’s been covered repeatedly and has deeply affected some of those who have covered it, including Emmy Lou Harris (who once called it “the greatest love song ever”), and Alison Krauss (who upon first attempting to sing it, broke down in the studio). I doubt, however, that this rendition by Linda, made when her marriage was falling apart, has been surpassed. What follows — at least to my gullible eyes — is a show of vulnerability seldom captured on video, held in check just enough to maintain full artistic control.

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  • Thistle in the Heart — Eric Bogle and James MacArthur

    Lame DogFolk

    Years ago, Lame Dog had the pleasure of seeing the Australian songwriter Eric Bogle in concert. Bogle performed many of his fine songs, but not the one that first made the Dog prick up his ears. That can be heard in the clip below. Bogle supplied the melody and the chorus. The remainder is credited to a poem by James MacArthur.

    I always assumed that MacArthur was a minor nineteenth century literary figure.  In fact, he died in 1981 and, as far as I know, never published a word. (more…)