May 1st, 2020

This is a traditional song rewritten to address optimism for the end of a plague that has disrupted our world.
Posted in Love
April 1st, 2020

A great old Spiritual I first heard from Bob Gibson and Bob Camp. It’s been recorded by many folk groups.
Posted in Spiritual
March 1st, 2020

A Long Time Ago (AKA Noah’s Ark) is a halyard chantey, collected by Cecil Sharp on the 3rd June,1914 from Capt. Hole, of Watchet, Somerset England.
I love how Noah put the dog to work plugging up the hole and that’s why dog’s noses are cold.
Posted in Humor, Irish/british, Seafaring
February 1st, 2020

This is a traditional bluegrass song.
Posted in Humor, Mountain/southern us
January 1st, 2020

“Betty and Dupree” Is a traditional blues that has been recorded by many artists including Peter Paul and Mary. They have all registered their interpretation with BMI as a new work derived from an old one.
Bob Gibson and Bob Camp recorded this at the Gate of Horn and that live album is one of my favorites. I was there during their performance in 1961.
Posted in Blues
December 1st, 2019

“While Shepherds Watched” was composed in 1703 by Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady. The melody was taken from “Siroe,” an opera by George Frederick Handel.
This was the first paraphrased psalm allowed to be sung in the Anglican Church.
An amusing children’s parody was “While Shepherds wash their socks by night!”
Posted in Seasonal, Spiritual
November 1st, 2019

A great old traditional blues originally called “Blue Woman” recorded in a prison, sung by an 18 year old woman who was serving life for murder.
I played this on my Martin D-45.
The Byrds recorded this song in 1966 but it didn’t appear until it was released as a bonus track on the 1996 reissue of our third album “Fifth Dimension.”
Posted in Blues
October 1st, 2019

This is a hymn written in 1907 by Ada R. Habershon with music by Charles H. Gabriel. There is a later version written by the Carter family used as a funeral hymn.
I remember singing that version at the wedding ceremony of Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristofferson in Malibu – 1973
Posted in Spiritual
September 1st, 2019

Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten composed “Freight Train” as a teenager (sometime between 1906 and 1912), inspired by the sound of the trains rolling in on the tracks near her home in North Carolina.
The song has been recorded by Joan Baez, Peter Paul and Mary and countless others.
Posted in Mountain/southern us, Railroad
August 1st, 2019

This is an Appalachian courting song I learned at the Old Town School of Folk Music in 1957
Posted in Humor/games/children, Mountain/southern us