Salut! Live

I like Wil Maring’s comment on this video of her playing Whiskey Before Breakfast with guitarist Brad Davis and Robert Bowlin on mandolin: “Over half a million views. Not bad for a song that was only really a soundcheck to warm up on.”

That was nine years ago. It’s closing in on a cool million now.

Arkansas-born Bowlin also plays bluegrass guitar and fiddle, often in partnership with Maring on cello or guitar. She hails from rural Illinois. Texan Brad Davis plays all manner of stringed instruments. All three can sing, too.

The tune, usually played on the fiddle, is often regarded as a traditional American reel. In fact, it’s Canadian and probably goes back to the early part of the 20^th century.

Sometimes wrongly ascribed to Manitoba fiddler and composer Andy DeJarlis (he did a popular arrangement), it’s thought to have originated in the Maritime provinces under the title Spirits of the Morning. Which could be loosely translated as Whiskey Before Breakfast.

The Doggett Gap clip is fascinating, for all that it’s been colourized and, from the stilted dialogue at the beginning, was obviously staged. Is it in fact the oldest film of Appalachian music? Either way, it’s still almost 100 years old. 

Bascomb Lamar Lunsford, nicknamed “Minstrel of the Appalachians,” was a musician, folklorist and… lawyer. In 1939 he was invited to the White House by President Franklin Roosevelt to perform for King George VI. One wonders if the royal toes tapped.

Glen Campbell is best-remembered as a rather middle-of-the-road countryish pop singer with a string of hits – Rhinestone Cowboy, Wichita Lineman, Dreams of the Everyday Housewife, By the Time I Get to Phoenix, etc. – and a string of gold and platinum albums to his name.

An actor, too. He appeared in about a dozen movies including a co-starring role with John Wayne in the original 1969 production of True Grit.

Campbell was also one helluva guitarist. Here he is with country and bluegrass musician Carl Jackson doing a rip-roaring rendition of Dueling Banjos. Or maybe in this case it should be Dueling Banjo and Guitar.

The tune is best known from the 1972 film Deliverance (where it’s also banjo versus guitar), though it was used without permission from its composer, Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith.

Smith, who wrote it in 1954 as Feudin’ Banjos, sued successfully for a songwriting credit and royalties.

Campbell and Jackson, filmed in 1973, are clearly having the greatest time. Winner of the duel? I’d have to say Jackson, if only by a string.

Tom Kines was a Canadian musician, broadcaster, folklorist and song-collector.

One of the folk songs he didn’t collect but performs beautifully is The Lumber Camp Song.  Also known as Hurling Down the Pine, it can be traced back to the 1920s, though its composer is unclear.

I don’t know much about Jacques Dupuis, other than he’s a wonderful French-Canadian fiddler, guitarist and singer, specializing in traditional Quebecois folk music which has its roots in 16^th century France. I believe he has a couple of albums to his credit. Here he is busking in Quebec City:

You can’t talk about Canadian folk music without getting into the Newfoundland “kitchen party.”

You can hardly move in the Maritimes without running into music. Just about everyone sings and/or plays an instrument and they do it at the drop of a hat. A “kitchen party” is exactly that – an unceremonious get-together with music, dancing and hilarity.

I’ve experienced a couple of these, one of which in a remote Avalon peninsula “outport” went on until 4 a.m. leaving me exhausted, hoarse from singing choruses and rather the worse – or maybe it was better – for wear from all the rum I’d put away.

This is a short clip filmed somewhere on Port-au-Port Peninsula in 2017. It’s a French-Canadian tune, The Woman of the House, played by Émile Benoit, Joachim Benoit, Benjamin Benoit and Georges Chiasson. Two more Chiassons, Geneviève and Charlie, are the dancers.

Staying in Newfoundland, but a little less informal, this is The Fables, a Celtic folk/rock band from St. John’s, formed in 1997 and drawing from other well-known groups such as The Irish Descendants and The Wonderful Grand Band.

Heave Away is a sea shanty that was included in a 1904 Cecil Sharp collection. It’s been recorded (as Heave Away, My Johnny) by the likes of Ewan McColl, with A.L. Lloyd; The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem; and Tyneside’s Lou Killen.

Finally, Irish musicians in Dublin but it’s American song so I’m counting it as valid. Plus, it’s a huge amount of fun.

Backstory: As Daoirí Farrell, the bouzouki player and singer, explains, a few years ago he and Geoff Kinsella (banjo) and Robbie Walsh (bodhran) found themselves in the airport departure lounge with their flight delayed for two hours: “We would tell that everyone was a little unhappy…”

They pulled out their instruments, swung into Steve Earle’s Galway Girl “and we had the attention of everyone in the room immediately.”

Another example of folk music at its finest. For the people, with the people, by the people. We can all join in on that chorus.