About LaRena LeBarr Clark – Ian Bell LaRena Clark was a folksinger in every sense of the word. She absorbed a huge repertoire of traditional and (once) popular songs from her parents and neighbours. She wrote her own songs about the things and places tha...
J.R. Birchall was an English con man who murdered another young Englishman named Frederick Benwell near Gobles Ontario in 1889. (The whole sordid but complicated story is too long to be told here but can be found in one of the links below.) His trial was ...
From her 1980 lp "Canadian Folk Sound with LaRena" The earliest known printed broadsides of this song go back to the 1880s. It's a "returned lover song". Sailor meets girl on the Banks of Inverness who is still faithful to her true love Willie. He sugge...
This is a Canadian version of a popular broadside ballad that is still sung all over the UK and Ireland. It was collected here from the singing of LaRena Clark. The song is probably referring to the British / French engagements in Egypt between 1798 and 1...
From LaRena's 1979 lp "Canada At The Turn of The Sod" This is a fragmentary Ontario mutation of an old Irish music hall song called Doran's Ass. I've put the original up as well, by way of comparison. LaRena learned this from her father. There's not much ...
