Saturday, January 9, 2016

The New Year - January 2016




Hello Everybody!

Welcome to the first official episode of the Golden Biscuit Radio Hour.

I'm Jeni Hankins, your host, from the Appalachian folk duo Jeni and Billy. My co-host — and my Dad — is Greg Hankins, the guy who played guitar and sang Puff the Magic Dragon for me when I was a kid.

We want to use this first two-hour edition to fill you in on what you can expect from the Golden Biscuit Hour.  Mostly, you can expect some really great music from English-Language folk artists spanning the globe and spanning the decades. We'll be playing original and traditional music from brand new artists and from the legends of folk. Plus, we hope to bring you plenty of artists under the radar who we think you’ll love.  Every show will have a theme: courting, murderers, labor, ghosts, sailors.

We hope you will help us select some themes for future shows — and tell us about artists whose music we need to play. Just email us with your suggestions and recommendations.

 Every show will be accompanied by a blog post like this one — basically an expanded version of what Dad and I said during the show, supplemented with photos, videos, additional information about the artists, and links that will also you to purchase their music. 

 The best way to buy music, of course, is directly from the artist, but sometimes their tour schedule doesn't include your town. Most of our links will take you to Amazon. If you click on one of our links and then buy that CD within the next few days, Amazon will reward The Golden Biscuit Hour with four percent of the purchase price out of Amazon's share, not the artist's.

Fine Sally

One of the things we really enjoy is comparing different versions of the same song or songs that are related – maybe they share a floating verse or a title. For us, that’s one of the magical aspects of the folk tradition — listening to different artists put their unique interpretation on traditional songs.

Since Dad lives in Mount Gilead, North Carolina, we’ll kick off the Golden Biscuit Hour with a song from one of my favorite ballad singers, Cas Wallin, from up in Madison County in Western North Carolina. This recording  is from the Smithsonian Folkways disc Old Love Songs & Ballads from Big Laurel, North Carolina, recorded by Peter Gotte & John Cohen and released in 1964. Here’s Cas Wallin singing Fine Sally.



We followed up Cas Wallin’s version of Fine Sally with a very different arrangement from Bellowhead, a band that has revolutionized English folk music over the past decade — and that, sadly, has announced their farewell tour.

Percussionist Pete Flood arranged this one, available on Bellowhead's recent Island Records release Revival. That's frontman Jon Boden on lead vocals, of course. An eleven piece folk band, with a horn section. For Dad, who grew up listening to Woody Guthrie at home while playing Chicago and Blood Sweat and Tears in jazz band, it just doesn't get much better.

When I was a kid we lugged Mom and Dad’s record collection – including Woody Guthrie and Blood Sweat and Tears – around a lot, since we moved many times. To me January is about starting a new adventure — and I think a lot of people feel that way – like it’s time to slough off the old skin and reinvent themselves.

New Year - New Adventure

Here are two great songs about striking out on a new path:


When First I Came to Caledonia

That version of When First I Came to Caledonia is sung by Kris Drever as part of the group Fine Friday, from their 2005 album Mowing the Machair.

Nuala Kennedy and Anna-Wendy Stevenson round out the trio. Nuala is a fine Irish singer and flute player with three solo recordings on Compass Records. Educated in Edinburgh, she draws on both Ireland and Scotland for her tunes. 

 The fiddler Anna-Wendy Stevenson is a native of Edinburgh who has solo albums and is much in demand as a session musician.  She is a lecturer in traditional music at the Lews Castle college in Benbecula, Outer Hebrides. And she has taught at the Swannanoa Gathering in North Carolina and Ohio School of the arts in the USA.

Drever is a wonderful vocalist and has recorded solo projects, as well as joint efforts with Eamonn Coyne and John McCusker. His version of When First I Came to Caledonia hews closely to the lyric of perhaps the most famous version the song, sung by Norma Waterson on the 1994 Topic Records CD Waterson:Carthy, accompanied by Martin Carthy on guitar and Eliza Carthy on fiddle.

The Caledonia in question is not, in fact, Scotland, but rather the Caledonia coal mines in Glace Bay, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia — an industry that attracted a number of immigrants from Scotland. The Number 3 at which our immigrant protagonist first finds work is one of the coal pits. According to Martin Carthy "Norma learned When First I Came to Caledonia from the estimable collection called Songs and Stories of Deep Cove, Cape Breton [by Amby Thomas]. Caledonia is the name of a pit, number three seam. Scatarie is an island abandoned by people whose fishing has dried up and is still uninhabited today. Boularderie is the name of that part of the community where all the rich people live and whence comes the woman with whom the character in the song falls blazingly in love at first sight."

If you like the song, you might want to check out Martin Simpson’s version on his 2005 release Kind Letters, John Boden’s version (with duet concertina!) on His “Folk Song A Day" album or website for February 6. There’a a wonderful version by the late Scots guitarist Tony Cuffe on his album by the same name. You can find a video on YouTube of Cuffe performing the song with fiddler Ed Pearlman for a concert in Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1998. 



Chris Wood and Andy Cutting (on melodeon) have a version that we can only find on You Tube. 



Pretty Saro

The second selection you heard about starting out in a new place has a similar theme of an unrequited but unforgettable love: Pretty Saro. 

 That audio was from an as-yet-unreleased live Jeni & Billy performance recorded at All Saints Church in Barwick-in-Elmet, England by Si McGrath of the band King Courgette. Jeni & Billy often share concerts with the Courgettes when they are on tour. Last summer (2015), McGrath approached us about working with him on his final portfolio for his Master of Recording Arts. McGrath lives in Barwick and arranged for us to record at All Saints. You can hear us performing the song on that same tour in a video by our dear friend and chief archivist in Britain, Peter Knipe, at Woodend Creative in Scarborough, Yorkshire, on June 27, 2015.


Pretty Saro has been covered by a huge number of people, but one of my favorite performances and the one that I learned from is Cas Wallin’s. We heard from Cas earlier in this edition the Golden Biscuit Hour and find his Pretty Saro on the same Folkways release as Fine Sally: Old Love Songs and Ballads. The Alan Lomax archive on YouTube includes a wonderful video of Wallin singing the song in 1982 on the front porch of the home of his sister-in-law, Dellie Chandler Norton, in Burton Cove, Sodom Laurel, Madison County, North Carolina. 

Pretty Saro was collected by a number of folksong enthusiasts in the early 1900s, included John Allen Lomax, who published the lyric in the July 1911 edition of The North Carolina Booklet, a publication of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Here’s the lyric published in 1911:

Pretty Sarah

 When I came to this country, in 1829,
I saw many lovyers, but I didn't see mine.
I looked all around me and saw I was alone,
And me a poor stranger, a long way from home.

It's not this long journey I'm dreading to go,
Nor leaving my country, nor the debts that I owe.
There's nothing to pester, nor trouble my mind,
Like leaving pretty Sarah, my darling, behind.

My love, she won't have me, as I do understand,
She wants a freeholder, and I have no land.
But I can maintain her with silver and gold,
And it's many pretty fine things my love's house can hold.

I wish I was a poet, and could write a fine hand,
I'd write my love a letter that she could understand.
I'd send it by the waters when the water overflows,
I think of pretty Sarah wherever she goes.

I wish I was a dove, and had wings and could fly,
About my love's dwelling this night I'd draw nigh.
And in her lily white arms all night I would lay,
And watch some little window for the dawning of day.

As pretty Sarah, pretty Sarah, pretty Sarah, I know,
How much I love you, I never can show.
At the foot of old Coey, on the mountain's sad brow,
I used to love you dearly--and I don't hate you now.

Sarah Songs

Saro is often a nickname for Sarah, so how about a round of Sarah songs? Flatt & Scruggs will get us started:


The last song in that set was Sara, Bob Dylan’s homage to his former wife, from the 1976 release Desire. Sara & Bob Dylan were married in 1965; the marriage ended in 1977. She is the mother of four Dylan children, including the singer-songwriter Jakob Dylan. Many believe the songs on Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks reflect the tensions in their marriage.

Before that we heard Uncle Dave Macon do Rock About My Saro Jane from the CD Go Long Mule, and Flatt & Scruggs with My Saro Jane from “Tis Sweet to be Remembered: The Essential Flatt & Scruggs.

Those Sarah songs are in honor of my sister, Sarah Hankins, and actor, director, and teacher studying for her MFA in theatrical directing at the University of North Carolina - Greensboro. We’ve gotten to spend some time with Sarah over the Holidays, and, as always, it’s a party when Sarah Hankins is down on the farm.

Here’s an unreleased song that Billy and I wrote in West Baltimore. It’s one of the first songs we wrote together. Billy wrote the melody, and it made me think of actors backstage. I wrote the lyric in honor of my sister who has spent a lot of time performing Shakespeare.

Pretty Girls in a Line - Jeni & Billy - Unreleased

If you enjoyed that song, it will be the downloadable song of the month, this month at the Golden Biscuit Club, Jeni & Billy’s online Fan Club. You can sign up here. Each month we send an unreleased song along with a story out to our fans. Subscriptions start at $1 a month and go up from there. I'll even make you a quilt for a larger pledge. Check it out!

New Year’s Resolutions

The other thing that the new year reminds me of is New Year’s resolutions. And here’s a good one from a band I sorely miss, The Reeltime Travelers:

28th of January – Craig Eastman – Pepper Peg

That last number was was Sheila Kay Adams, a fiddler, banjo player, and ballad singer from Madison County, NC doing the fiddle tune Eighth of January, followed by Cumberland Gap, followed by the Eighth of January.

The sharp-eared amongst you might have noticed that the Eighth of January is the tune that Jimmy Driftwood elected to use for his song The Battle of New Orleans. Sheila Kay's version is found on her album All the Other Fine Things.

I had the great good pleasure of taking a ballad singing class with Sheila Kay a few years back. Here’s an older video of Sheila Kay doing a song that I learned from her: Little Margaret. 

Sheila was filmed in 1982 by Alan Lomax’s crew at the home of her great-aunt, Dellie Chandler Norton, on the same front porch on which Cas Wallin sang Pretty Saro. And here’s a 2014 video of her singing one of Dad’s favorites: The Farmer’s Cursed Wife.



Before that, we had Breaking Up Christmas from Joe Newberry's album Two Hands. Newberry grew up in Missouri, one of two cradles of old time music in America. And he moved to the other – North Carolina – as a young man. His fine clawhammer banjo playing has found him a berth in a number of fine bands, including Big Medicine and A Prairie Home Companion's Jumpsteady Boys.  

 Here’s a profile of Newberry from “Our State,” a North Carolina magazine.  Newberry is an accomplished songwriter. Here’s a video of his Resurrection Day, performed on the stage of A Prairie Home companion, with Garrison Keillor and Heather Massey. 



 Or, if you prefer a little old-time, here’s a rousing clawhammer number with Bruce Molsky on fiddle, Mike Compton on mandolin, and Tom T. Ball on Bass. 




And before that, we heard the 28th of January, performed by our good friend Craig Eastman. Here’s a video of Craig doing that number. You can get Craig Eastman's records by contacting him through his website. And you can also hear Craig as a treasured member of our Big Picnic Band on our records Picnic in the Sky and Live in LA with the Big Picnic Band. 



We started that set off with Reeltime Travelers, Doing Ain’t Gwine A Drink A No More from their album Living Reeltime, Thinking Old-Time. The band, which Dad and I saw at Merlefest in 2004, consisted of Brandon Story, Heidi Andrade, Martha Scanlan, Roy Andrade, and Thomas Sneed. They were part of the Down From the Mountain tour (which highlighted music from Oh Brother Where Art Thou), the Great High Mountain Tour, played the The Grand Ole Opry and performed on the soundtrack to the movie Cold Mountain. 

 Here they are with a 2003 performance of Maybe the Last Time, a square dance with some lyrics lifted from Woody Guthrie. 

Alas, despite all that success, they disbanded in 2006. Roy Andrade and Thomas Sneed continue to perform with other artists as the New Reeltime Travellers. And Martha Scanlon — a gifted songwriter — has released three solo albums. Here are the Travellers doing her song Hallelujah. Heidi Andrade often plays with Ron Thomason.


The Country Side of Folk with Billy Kemp

When Jeni and Greg told me the theme for the first Golden Biscuit Hour show was on new beginnings in the new year, I had some immediate ideas. So following the advice of Allen Ginsberg who said, “first thought, best thought,” here are four songs starting with Bob Dylan’s New Morning from the 1970 album release of the same name. The song was written for a play called Scratch by poet Archibald MacLeish.


That was Willie Nelson singing  Across The Borderline, from his 1993 album release of the same name. The song was  written by Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, and Jim Dickinson. Willie’s version is a remake of the Freddy Fender recording that was featured on the motion picture soundtrack for The Border.

Before that was a song written and recorded by Hank Snow, I’m Moving On, an irregular twelve-bar blues that stayed in the number one position on the country Billboard singles chart for 21 weeks and 44 weeks in the top ten in 1950. I love that line, "you were flying too high for my little old sky."  I played on the Grand Ole Opry for almost a year with country singer Jeanne Pruett back in 1985, and on my first night I stood in the wings back-stage waiting to go on and chatted with Hank — and what a gentleman he was.

And before that was Bobby Bare’s recording of Detroit City written by Danny Dill and Mel Tillis. It was Bare’s first top ten hit on the Billboard Country singles chart in 1963. It was produced by Chet Atkins. I just love that guitar lick on the intro where, supposedly, Chet turned the low E string tuning machine to find the right notes as it was being played.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this country side of folk. See ya next time on the Golden Biscuit Hour.

Further West Review

That was the opening song and title track of Further West, the newest record by duo Hungrytown – Rebecca Hall and Ken Anderson. 

 This is a song and a record of highway travelers glimpsing a world zooming by them in all of its complexity, from the denizens under bridges to the beauty of a turnstile. As Hall writes, “Imperfect rhyme matters sometimes.” As a fan of slant rhymes, myself, I understand what she’s getting at. Life is not as simple as an inspirational poster or a Facebook meme. Simple slogans certainly have truth in them, but it’s difficult to bring all of life, like blood on someone’s hands, under that umbrella.

 Hungrytown - Further West - Further West

As Hall asks when describing her lean street urchin in Hard Way to Learn, my favorite Hall composition, “Tell me how your bright ideal measures up to a life so real.” Far from standing on a soapbox, Hall admits her own limitations as a passenger seat observer when she admits, “No time to rest, we head further west for someplace I’ve got to be.” This is both literally true — because Hungrytown is on tour far more than they are home — but also because that is indeed the rhythm of America, to be on the move, busy with appointments. And it’s a global trend as we all become more interconnected via the web. It’s a trend that like Hall’s imperfect rhyme is somewhat unsettling and a thing we will all be reckoning with for days to come. “Flashing, is it danger, or just another town” a line from Highway Song seems to sum up our plight rather well.

The title track, Further West, is a perfect introduction to this record, which is full of characters living on the razor’s age. And the album, in fact, ends with Hall lamenting, “Life goes on from dream to dream, nothing but troubles in between.” The record itself is like a dream where many players drift in and out revealing both plain and cloaked messages, only to vanish upon waking. Just a few among the cast of characters we meet are a family making an ill-fated winter mountain crossing, a runaway, and the protagonist of Don’t You Let Me Down who seems to echo what we all want, at least one good person to be sturdy and reliable in an ever shifting world.

In keeping with the theme of the beleaguered wanderer, Hungrytown’s stunning cover of Woody Guthrie’s Pastures of Plenty throws the plight of migrant farm workers and farmers into high relief, so that they are not merely the anonymous subject of a depression era photograph, but a flesh and blood person doing what Hall describes as “Balancing each day upon a blade of light and shade.” With many years of international touring under her belt, armed with keen powers of perception and a tremendous amount of empathy, very little escapes Hall’s notice — including other journeymen. She acknowledges us, her listeners, as fellow travelers and friends when she and Anderson whisper to us in the song Static, “I know just how it feels to think you’ve lost whatever signal you once had.”


But among the troubles, Hall knows that beauty speaks to us too, and provides a gentle and vital respite when she gives us images like a “Flock of birds high over head . . . drifting softly down, as one by one they come to set their feet upon the ground.”

Anderson, who was at the helm in Hungrytown's studio, has a deep understanding of harmony and layering that he puts to use creating soundscapes which echo everything from Simon & Garfunkel and Fairport Convention to Neko Case and The Milk Carton Kids. But the sound combinations are particularly Anderson’s — whose brain seems to be full of these layers on a constant basis. He deftly played many of the instruments on the record, plus they had a few special guests step into the studio for the gorgeous string parts which Anderson wrote and arranged. He sings harmony in a way that delicately crosses and buoys Hall’s voice which is showcased in Pastures of Plenty. Just listen for little secret sound wonders of production conjured by Anderson like the sweet “la la la’s” at the end of Highway Song. Anderson’s box of musical treasures reveals these sound gifts to you on repeat listenings.

Hall’s voice rings clearly and she soars and dives with an incredible range. I was able to excerpt all of these lyrics without even consulting the liner notes, because she sings so clearly and Anderson’s full but sympathetic production never crowds out their voices. Hall writes with an aim to communicate and sings with an aim to broadcast that communication clearly and tunefully. While her voice is widely expressive from the strident warning of Don’t Cross that Mountain to the secret whisper of the song Static, you still can hear every word.

There were many times that my hair stood on end while listening to this record —and it wasn’t my first listen, but my umpteenth. Once, during this listen, I was brought to tears. And I think that comes of listening all the way through to an honest work without any distractions in a quiet room. Listening this way is a great gift you could give to yourself. I’ve also enjoyed this album thoroughly while driving down the highway or cleaning up my sewing room. There is no filter here between you and Hungrytown – it’s a plain speaking, but also lushly orchestrated record which is a combination that is so uniquely Hall and Anderson working together, both bringing their strengths to bear on their newest work. 

 And work it is. When talking about artists like Hungrytown, I am talking about two working musicians, who make their own records, drive their own vehicle to gigs, set up their own sound, book their own shows, create their own posters, and do their own everything 98% of the time. (I think they mostly leave major car repairs to the experts.) This is quite a feat, but yet they manage to do all of this while also creating remarkable, unfussy art of the highest caliber. You know what would be great, is if you followed this link and bought this record.

After a busy holiday season and the start of the new year, it can all feel like a giant rush to get back on the horse and survey the land called “the year ahead.” But remember as Hall says in her song Sometime, "Halfway round the world they’ve flown, but now they’re coming down. We’ve all got to rest sometime." 

 Hungrytown is on tour right now heading across America, go catch a show! Good luck out there, Hungrytown!

Here is “Static” from Further West.
Starting Out Fresh

 You know, Dad, I am thinking about the New Year again and that makes me want to play some songs about people who trying to make a fresh start – a bit like the hobo who’s going to hang up his walking shoes in our song, If I Ever Get $10. I’ve always loved those characters. Let’s get started with Amber Cross’s Selma from her album You Can Come In.


The first song in that set was by Amber Cross, a great friend of mine and one of my favorite songwriters emerging from the folk and, in particular, the Western music scene today. She’s just wrapping up a new record and we can’t wait to get our hands on it. But you can’t go wrong with her record You Can Come In.

And in the middle of that trio, you heard John Prine, a writer whose songs have probably influenced me more than any other songwriter’s songs have, because Dad sang so many of his songs to me when I was a kid. I really hope we can go up and have a chat with him when we play Merlefest in April.

We ended that set with Pete Morton’s Another Train, reassuring us that, no matter how bleak things look, there is always a new beginning to be had. A powerful version of that song recorded a cappella by the Poozies has made it a standard among university a cappella ensembles. 


If you’re in a mood to shed a tear or two, you can search for Another Train on You Tube and find some touching renditions. It's a great honor for a songwriter when one of their songs becomes a part of the larger musical conversation.



Thinking about Amber Cross's CD You Can Come In, I think coming in is going to be on the mind of a lot of people in the new year – whether they can come in, whether they’ll be welcome in countries across the world when their country is broken by war, and when they are afraid for their lives and for the lives of their families.

Nerissa & Katryna Nield - Jesus was a Refugee - Unreleased

That was Nerissa & Katryna Nield, two of our favorite songwriters and performers, doing a brand new song, Jesus Was a Refugee. They recorded this song on the spur of the moment on their computer — and we’re tickled to be able to share it with you.



Before that, we heard Steve Deasy telling it like it is, with People Once Were Welcome Here.

And we opened that set with the great Cisco Houston, doing Woody Guthrie’s song Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos). Woody wrote that song after reading a newspaper article about the wreck of a plane carrying deported migrant workers back to Mexico. The crash was reported, but not the names to the victims. As Woody wrote, “they were just deportees."

Well, folks, we are just about out of time. Billy is going to be editing and putting this show together until next January if we don’t wrap things up.

We encourage you to leave a comment right here, or on Mixcloud, Facebook, or Twitter letting us know what you thought of our cloudcast and which songs you enjoyed. We’ll be back in February with songs of courting.

Credits

The Golden Biscuit Hour is produced by Jeni Hankins & Greg Hankins. It is edited, mixed, and mastered by Billy Kemp.

We use Evernote to keep our cloudcast notes in order, because "an elephant never forgets."

We use Dropbox for our record collection, to trade big files, and to keep them organized, because when Mom says the attic is full, Dropbox is there for you.

We record the Golden Biscuit Hour on our handy Zoom H2 portable recorders, because you never know where music might take you.

 None of these companies sponsor us. We just like their stuff.

Our theme song was written by and is performed by Jeni & Billy and our end credit theme song was written and composed by Billy Kemp.

And remember, if you have a song in your pocket, take it out and let it shine.
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