 the 1920s and she first, she grew up in Algeas, Louisiana and went to Memphis and played on the streets and she had three different musical partners, all of whom relationships with, whether she was really married to all three of them, a little bit of a discrepancy. But this first song is called Too Late and it was a song that she wrote with her second musical partner. His name was Kansas City Joe McCoy. His people had great names. If you're my bed, you love me, it's hangin' on the lawn. Still you try and give me, I made it go too late. This next song was by another blues woman. Well, she recorded this song, this is really a traditional song, but this woman was from Europe. Her name was Joanne Kelly and she was an incredible guitar player and singer. When I first heard her, I was totally blown away. I always tried to hope to sound like her someday, but that never really happened. I'm still Mary Lou and she recorded and toured with Mississippi Fred McDowell. Like only in her 40s, it was such a shame. This is called Easy Street. I'm cousin Emmy and she was from Kentucky. She was the first woman to win the Kentucky Fiddlers Convention in 1936. From there she went on to be on live radio in the 40s in St. Louis. She was quite the hot sketch. There's a wonderful video of her that you can check out if you're interested from Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest show. So this is one of her songs. It's called Graveyard. Believe it or not, I think it's kind of a fun, happy song. I guess that's me. So this next woman in music that I'd like to present is her name was, she was an incredible songwriter, a banjo player. She was born in North Carolina and she wrote some absolutely beautiful songs that have been covered by a number of bluegrass bands other folks. This song is called I've Endored. A set together too after she does her musician, singer, songwriter. Her name was Jean Richie and she was from Viper, Kentucky. Her folks emigrated here. There was Scotch Iris and they were ballad singers in the oral tradition in Kentucky. So she grew up like that. She was a dulcimer player and a singer and a songwriter and so she sort of bridged this gap between the oral traditional music and modern folk music. So this is, this is not a song she wrote. She was a songwriter but she recorded this song and it's an old traditional called Shady Grove and you're welcome to sing along if you'd like. Thank you so much. Next up will be Robin O'Haren. Thank you. So we've been wanting to do this for a long time and you know both Mary Lou and I do blues in the schools and historical performances and we just feel it's really important to talk about the people that created the songs and the music and especially in blues anyway women didn't get the recognition that they deserved but so I'm starting with going back in time and moving my way forward here and this is a dulcimer tune. So dulcimers are from Appalachia. This is a mountain dulcimer in case you guys didn't know and she was playing one also. We're going to do a couple together and they were invented in America. They're one of the instruments that is indigenous to our country and initially they were played with a feather and a stick and they do the courting with the stick and strum with the feather and my cats ate all the feathers so it might dog ate the stick. But the first song sounded kind of like this. Grab my horn and I'll say thank you. Sometimes it seems like I'm standing still until I and each step near. Sometimes my friend misunderstand me because I hear the sound Just as sure as a dulcimer and I have. I'd like to do one more dulcimer tune. These were handed down in an oral tradition a lot of times from mother to daughter and this one's called Come to the Mountain and it has a part that you could help me sing. Do you guys like to sing? Okay. I know my sister does. So the little refrain goes. And our spirits shall be as one at China's bright as the sun and our spirits shall be as one and China's bright as the sun. Want to try it? I see a head nod. And our spirits shall be as one at China's bright as the sun. One more time. Ready? And our spirits shall be as one at China's the sun. Come to the mountain. We can sing together. Time flying by as light as a feather and our spirits shall be as one as the sun. Mountain time flying by oh my can't you count oh and our spirits shall as a sun as a sun sounds lovely. Come to the mountain. We can sing together. Time flying by as light as a feather and when the moon is high above the mountain birds flying by oh my can't you count oh and our spirits as a sun. One more time. And our spirits as a sun. This is one of my favorite Bessie Smith songs and she was one of the biggest African American stars of the 1920s. She was popular with both white and black people and she sold a lot of records and she wrote a lot of great songs. She recorded with a lot of famous people like Louis Armstrong and she's just amazing musician. So this is Weeping Willow Blues. Me and my chauffeur blues was recorded by the Jefferson Airplane on their first debut album and she was really popular. A lot of bands in the 60s recorded her stuff. Let's see. This next tune is by Sippy Wallace and she was born 11-1 in Houston in 1898 and she died exactly 88 years later on the same day. That's just a crazy fact. But she was a blues singer and then she turned to gospel and rejected the devil's music and came out of her sanctified retirement in the 60s and toured with Bonnie Raitt in the 70s and appeared in festivals all across America. She wrote a bunch of tunes also. She might be a highbrow changes clothes three times a day don't advertise you unplug this guitar play guitar much and a fan built me this guitar with the smallest guitar neck in the world and it's it's the third guitar he built it's called a round robin is a national steel radio tone bend away 2005 guitar that five guys at national steel built and I've sent it back three times for them to make adjustments and it's a great company they started in the 20s and invented resonator guitars and yeah so if you want to know more about resonators ask me later I wanted to do this is so moving into the 60s Malvina Reynolds has any wrote a lot of great songs and very political activist kind of person and she wrote this one called the minor's lament and I wanted to sing you I mean I think it had like 15 verses but I'm not going to do that I'm going to give you the cliff notes version to tell his occupation I have two more songs for you guys and then Mary Lou's going to come up and we're going to have some fun together so of course women in American music I had to include myself this is a tune that I wrote called redemption road inspired partly by blind willie johnson who's one of my guitar heroes claim to write these songs so it's negotiable but um there's a great video on youtube of sister rosetta tharp who was the godmother of rock and roll and played incredible blues and played circles around every guy she ever played with um she did this concert in england in this railroad station outside and it was amazing she's on one side of the tracks and she's got a guitar player and a bass player and on the other side of the tracks are all these white people in furs and coats sitting very properly while she's belting out this song trouble in mind sun's gonna shine on my back door someday give him a piece of someday thank you so much thank you is mary lou we're just going to do a few tunes together that we felt were important to american music and women in american music and uh want to thank you guys for coming out hope you are enjoying it we won't be a whole lot longer we should be done by 9 30 oh i'm gonna unplug the resonator and plug it back into the other guitar so this song is um called wildwood flower and um the carter family consisted of uh navel carter sarah and ap carter and they um they sort of were the the first folk music of um they came from virginia and um so this is one of the songs that we're going to do are theirs every guitar player learns this song at some point of course we're not playing it on guitar next tune it started life as a spiritual i think it's a traditional tune and sister rosetta tharp did a killer version which is not the version that we're doing but i like our version this train don't carry no gamblers this train this train don't cause this train no sharp shooters no midnight rain don't carry no gamblers this train this train she's bound for glory well this train then you got to be holy in this train she's bound for glory this train she carried my this train she carried my sister and my brother this train she carried my there's no crap shooters no midnight ramblers this train don't carry no just a few more songs for you guys are you good with that i heard was this low mumble i'm not sure what that meant speak now or forever hold your peace yeah yeah so this is in a traditional blues song but um a woman named sarah martin uh first recorded this with her jug band and she was a classic blues singer from the 20s um saying uh with lots of famous people including fat swaller and her own jug band and so forth but um i first heard this song um maria mildauer recorded this song one of her old blues cds uh it's called sweet love and old soul and singing the songs in our last tune much you've been a wonderful it's always such a pleasure to be at st john's coffee house you guys are awesome thank you so much thank you charlie thank you john for great sound thank you for being a one to have an email list and cds out back if anyone's interested and thank you to our sound man okay i'm sorry i didn't hear you i always sound the best one that's a big one let's squeeze it up yeah you want to squeeze it come on out do you need a chair what how about oh okay that's a cool technique okay nothing like putting them on a spot this is a song that you have never heard before it'll be fine this life is oh thank you so much robin o'harron so this is also a song that uh every guitar player learns it's uh elizabeth cotton tune she invented her own style of picking which was the precursor to travis strums and all the other finger style guitar playing that came after her so please feel free to sing along