From my personal department of compulsive research, in response to a Facebook post about questions in song titles.
Here's an idea for an (as far as I know) nonexistent album, YouTube playlist, or master's thesis, titled: "Uncertainties: The questioning songs of the Carter Family."
"Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?"
"Will The Roses Bloom In Heaven"
"Will My Mother Know Me There?"
"Why Do You Cry, Little Darling"
"Can* the Circle Be Unbroken"
"Where Shall I Be?"
"Happy Or Lonesome" (The lyric asks, "Are you still happy, I wonder, or are you lonesome too?")
Of course, some of those questions might be described as faith-based with positive answers rhetorically implied; the Carters' discography at Wikipedia doesn't always include question marks.
("Tiplista" Timmie Rogers & band... Photo from YouTube post)
https://youtu.be/Z1RCRIgiqak?si=gWcT3Jk70khYwZ4G
A decade or so after this recording, Timmie Rogers appeared singing duets with Redd Foxx on Sanford and Son, and playing that 10-string tiple -- the only time I've seen one on television.
The career retrospective in still images accompanying this YouTube video show more of his tiples, even if the amplified 10 string instrument isn't very audible over piano, drums and horns of the band in this recording.
Technical note.. I'm posting this with my phone and the Android Blogger app doesn't show me an obvious way to embed the video rather than just present a link. I'll come back with a computer later and edit this. For now, the post begins the link address simply paste it as text, and it ends below with the same link activated as an "open in a nw window' link using the app. I'm curious what the difference will be, and whether one or the other is easier to turn into an embedded video on the page.
I don't do Instagram or TikTok, so I'd been listening to Jesse Welles' songs on YouTube, Facebook and Bandcamp for some months before he made his way to the Stephen Colbert Late Show in November 2025...
He sang one song at the end of the program, "Join ICE," and another on the show's YouTube channel, "RED," for which he put on a red shirt to accompany his red Ovation guitar and the red-white-and-blue flags that served as a backdrop for both songs. I wonder how many Colbert viewers first saw Welles sing RED in a video from September's Farm Aid concert.
As someone whose earliest political education came from Phil Ochs (even via the Chad Mitchell Trio!), Pete Seeger, Utah Phillips and other topical folksingers in the 1960s and '70s, I'm finding Jesse Welles' following on social media -- and his songs -- both encouraging and a nostalgic reminder that singers can make important statements and get people listening, and a few "stars" even keep going to a healthy old age...
Heck, a couple of weeks before the Colbert show he sang both his song "No More Kings" and Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" with Joan Baez at The Fillmore in San Francisco on Nov. 4, all uploaded to Facebook by fans in the audience.
(Also preserved: Jesse leading a sing-along of John Fogerty's "Have You Ever Seen The Rain," with 84-year-old Joan dancing joyfully stage and giving Welles a kiss on the cheek at the end. "The torch has been passed," one of the comments says.)
(Here's a link to "Red" from the Colbert show, since I'm having trouble embedding a third YouTube video on this blog page. Maybe it's time to re-learning how to use the Blogger editing system on my MacBook instead of using the Blogger app on my Android phone.)
The other song I've been thinking about enough to go searching for on YouTube and elsewhere is Phil Ochs' warning to performers, "Don't Play the Chords of Fame," as recorded by Phil himself -- once with John Lennon, and by Melanie Safka at Phil's memorial concert in 1976, which I stumbled on online, then wound up spending a nice afternoon listening, remembering, and reading Phil's detailed biography at Wikipedia, among other things.
I'm wishing Jesse Welles the best as he packs for already sold-out European and Australian tour dates over the next two months. I considered rushing to get tickets for his February shows in Asheville and Knoxville, but the ticket prices and three-hour drives discouraged me, and now a week later they're sold-out and wait-listed.
I can't help noticing on his Wikipedia biography that (unlike Baez, Dylan or Ochs) his "overnight success" these past two years came when he was already over 30, although his fans on Facebook and YouTube frequently comment about "this kid," which makes me think they are closer to my age than his, closer to the generation whose young 1960s activists used to say we should "never trust anyone over 30." Fans sang him happy birthday last week at concerts in New York, so I suspect they all know he was born Nov. 22, 1992, according to Wikipedia.
As a New Yorker subscriber, I'm still waiting for one of their legendary "profiles" on this guy from Arkansas, but a search of the magazine website found the New Yorker writers already quoting his songs when taking America's cultural temperature -- probably starting a year ago in a piece about the shooting of Brian Thompson, the chief executive officer of UnitedHealthcare, which Welles had written about.
"The standout among the neo-murder balladeers is the topical folk singer Jesse Welles, whose delivery and persona takes John Prine’s craggy empathy and adds a tincture of Brian Jones’s sinister charisma. His “United Health” dispenses with Thompson’s death in record time (“The ingredients you got bake the cake that you get”) and manages a potted history of the titular company inside a single verse (“Way back in seventy and seven / Mister Richard T. Burke started buyin’ H.M.O.s. . .”). It also neatly encapsulates the economic logic of for-profit insurance: “There’s an office in a building and a person in a chair / And you paid for it all though you may be unaware / You paid for the paper, you paid for the phone / You paid for everything they need to deny you what you’re owed.”
“There’s a mutually agreed upon mediocrity between the students and the teachers and administrative faculty,” the folk singer Jesse Welles explains, in his song “College.” “You pretend to try, they’ll pretend you earned the grade.” If you want to be a doctor or an engineer, Welles sings, college might be worth it; otherwise, you might “skip the Adderall prescription,” and acquire “a YouTube subscription.”
Manhattanites got to see Welles in person last February or, if they missed that tour, to read about him in The New York Times (Feb.12, 2024; free link):
"Welles, a singer-songwriter with a shaggy, dirty-blond mane and a sandpapery voice, has risen to recent prominence posting videos to social media of himself alone in the woods near his home in northwest Arkansas, performing wryly funny, politically engaged folk songs. He’s managed to turn subjects like the war in Gaza, the rise of the weight-loss drug Ozempic and the rapaciousness of United Healthcare’s business model into viral hits on TikTok and Instagram, building an audience of more than 2 million followers on those platforms."
Personally, rather than join the crowds when he gets back to the U.S.A. for two months of already sold-out shows, I stopped by Bandcamp to buy a record and liked the note posted there that all sales proceeds to the end of the year are going to charity. Now I'm waiting for a songbook... or at least good discussion of a fan's comments that he must be using artificial intelligence to crank out so many good lyrics, which I certainly haven't finished reading online.
"... often short and satirical tunes, riding on his coarse voice and fingerpicked guitar strings, that respond to the major headlines of the week. They challenge the narratives presented to Americans by governments and corporations; they draw historical parallels and unearth underlying tensions that lead people to blame one another for institutional injustices."
Here's one more thoughtful article that "arrived after deadline," calling Jesse "A Populist for Progressives" ..
And, finally, I just noticed which of Welles' many videos has the most views on YouTube... and, surprise, it's not something he wrote -- and it's not a solo. At 3,259,494 views and rising*, it's an Oct. 31, 2024, backporch (or front porch?) video of John Fogerty's "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" -- sung by Jesse in the foreground, but swapping verses with Matt Quinn of the band Mt. Joy up on the porch. Quinn has also performed with Welles on stage. (Maybe some of those clicks are from other guitar players trying to figure out Quinn's guitar tuning, which appears to be a fourth low, baritone-style. I've got one of those myself.)
Notes:
Nov. 26 update -- *-the YouTube play statistic on that last clip rose by more than 100 people in the five minutes it took me to add it to this blogpost. Somebody else must be linking to it!
Apologies for the erratic appearance of this page... I've added links at various times using Blogger on a MacBook and with Blogger's Android app -- which caused the YouTube videos to disappear. I'm pretty rusty at this stuff.
Meanwhile, thanks to one viewer for asking if there was a way to subscribe to this blog -- something I haven't investigated adding since changing it from an academic tool to a post-retirement personal bookmark list and diary of my musical interests. If I write in it more often, maybe I'll risk trying to update its layout and incorporate an RSS feed or email subscription widget.
I shared this on Facebook this morning adding lots of links to Pages for some of the people mentioned , and leaving questions about how long the program "Let's Sing Out!" was broadcast back in the day...
I love it when serendipity brings this particular episode of Oscar Brand 's singalong folk music program from 1966 Canada to the top of my YouTube feed. It includes Maria D'Amato and Geoff Muldaur in great Jim Kweskin Jug Band numbers... the "folk revival" romance that changed her name to Maria Muldaur before her solo career started.
It's also fascinating to hear host Oscar Brand and his Canadian studio audience sing an abolitionist American Civil War song that probably has never been sung with those verses on American television... and there's more beautiful singing by Len Chandler and Bonnie Dobson, shown in the still frame that Facebook should be placing with this text has a link to the video.
I'm pretty sure that by my freshman or sophomore year in college I had records by all of these performers, but never got to see *any* of them in person or on American TV. :-(
(I caught up with a few of them at folk festivals or concerts eventually -- worth the wait, even 10 to 40 years later.)
For a bonus, hold on to the end of the recording to hear Len Chandler's tribute to topical songwriting, "If telling where it's at is out, I don't want to be in," written (with a beat) when commercial folk rock was distracting the audience from the Vietnam War and Civil Rights protests. Reminds me of what Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, Tom Paxton and more are doing to bring back topical songwriting today. Maybe they could even update Len's song?!
Footnote: Jeannie Brand-Derienzo, Oscar's daughter, wrote back to say the series was broadcast from 1963-67. I noticed that Wikipedia has a Let's Sing Out! page, which says the show began on the CTV Television Networkfrom 1963 to 1966, then moved to CBC Television until 1968, but there was no full list of performers. But that led me to a Canadian TV history website for more details: The weekly Friday night show was begun by producer Syd Banks on the commercial CTV network, moved to other nights in later seasons, and in an unusual move, the national "public broadcasting" network CBC picked it up in 1967 and also offered reruns in summer 1968.
Unfortunately the broadcasting-history.ca site also has no comprehensive list of performers. However, searching the site for Oscar Brand lists eight series that he had some part in, including a cutely named Sunday evening "Brand New Scene," produced by the same Syd Banks for CTV when his Let's Sing Out! moved to CBC. Banks also produced a Tuesday night "A-Singin'", but both of those shows which only lasted a season. Skimming the YouTube posts, I've seen at least fragments of "Let's Sing Out!" with performances by Joni Mitchell, Jimmy Driftwood, Dave Van Ronk, Simon & Garfunkel, the Simon Sisters, the Chapin Brothers, and more. Several of Joni (Anderson) Mitchell's appearances have been clipped and uploaded to YouTube, sometimes with only glimpses of other performers, like Patrick Sky and the Chapins. Here's are a couple of examples...
If there are full-length recordings of those dozens of Canadian broadcasts, they should have their own cable channel or a box of DVDs for sale today! But even having a few clips out there where folks can see it now is a joy! Come to think of it, if the ABC Hootenanny format of college campus concerts by folk-revival performers inspired "Let's Sing Out!", I count that as a positive contribution the often-maligned ABC Hootenanny show made to the universe, along with bringing the Chad Mitchell Trio, Josh White and Judy Collins, and a positive image of college campus life, to my home TV screen when I was still in high school. ❤️
I do wish Hootenanny had welcomed Pete Seeger and more of the traditional singers he had on his less widely heard "Rainbow Quest" TV show. Today, I'm happy to see Rainbow Quest has made it to YouTube too -- almost 37 hours worth, with Pete joined by old-time, bluegrass, blues, Irish and topical singers!
Hmm... I wonder how many official over age 62 "old timers" are going to show up for this event I just read about today?
I wonder if I can learn to play the fiddle in 30 days? I got my first fiddle at age 70 and did take a few lessons about 6 years ago, even though I decided an injury to my right hand made it too awkward to hold the bow, but I do still have a fiddle.
If only they had started the old-timer category at 75, I might even have a chance, but I don't know about competing about all those talented, full of get up and go 60-somethings who have been playing since childhood.
"What's on my mind?" a certain social media app asked me this morning. Honestly, for some reason, what was on my mind was the word vestibule, particularly vestibules as places worth mentioning in popular song.
When Helen Kane boop-boop-a-dooped her way toward musical stardom by singing the song "That's My Weakness Now" in 1928, she did not mention a vestibule. When Cliff Edwards, aka Ukulele Ike, recorded it a few months later, he did. And there was something in the tone of his voice that suggested more things went on in vestibules than I was aware of.
Helen Kane wasn't the first to record it. Among the others were Paul Whiteman's band with the Rhythm Boys, including a young Bing Crosby. The database doesn't list any other women singing it, though. Is it wrong?
This also made me want to go find the original sheet music to see what original verses Helen might have left out to do her boop-booping, including with the vestibule reference -- if it was in the original publication.
I guess I'm not really tempted to write a musicology master's thesis on the significance of the vestibule in popular song lyrics, if someone else hasn't done it already, or doesn't see this post and beat me to it.
But, honestly, from Sam Stept & Bud Green to Chuck Berry to Bruce Springsteen, They Might Be Giants, and Wu-Tang Clan, they've all been to the vestibule for inspiration. You could look it up! My favorite discovery was a John Prine song I had never heard!
Kane's version, says CatsPyjamas1 at youtube, <<Charted at #5 in 1928. Helen's first record release. Also #17 for Russ Morgan in 1949. With the Nat Shilkret Orchestra. Also recorded by Cliff Edwards in 1928. Written by Sam H. Stept and Bud Green. Recorded July 16, 1928. B-side is "Get Out and Get Under the Moon".>>
If you haven't guessed by now, this post is an attempt to salvage all the impulsive research that I did on Facebook this morning and post it out here where folks on the free and equal web can see it. It will probably take me a couple of visits to add all the links and lyrics here, because I started this with several apps on my smartphone and my eyes are getting tired.
I sure found out a lot about vestibules in popular song. But I'll have to edit this on my laptop to add some YouTube videos!
End of the first draft at 12:39 on Friday the 13th of June 2025, with some updating a dozen days later.
Another YouTube user has built a 30-song Frank Crumit playlist, so I'll be listening to his great old-time songs -- and for the jangly sound of the tiple! (What's a tiple?)
I think "Ukulele Lady" was the first Crumit classic I ever heard... and I think my mother sang "What Kind of Noise..." On both, it sounds like Frank and accompanists used uke, maybe a mandolin-family instrument, and other backing instruments, but I don't hear a tiple... and the image with the second video looks to be another member of the ukulele family, an eight-string "taropatch."
While this was a more general blog at first, since 2009, Boblog has been for occasional writing about music, part of trying to differentiate my web writing spaces. My other blogs are JHeroes (old-time radio's portrayal of journalists) & Other Journalism, a general-purpose writerly blog, successor to stepno.com/oldblog. When I was teaching, they all sometimes served other purposes.
I have worked for two newspapers (one full time for 11 years), several magazines, four software companies, and six colleges and universities, counting part-time, freelance and student jobs. See stepno.com.
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