Music from Todd Snider, Dion’s classic folkrock LP “Kickin’Child,” and more on The Kingston Coffee House

WRIU Kingston Coffee House 11/18/25

By Mike Stevenson

A bittersweet show is planned for tonight’s KINGSTON COFFEE HOUSE. We’ll listen to music by Todd Snider, the much-loved Folk artist who tragically passed this week. There’ll also be more cheerful stuff from Bert Jansch’s classic “LA Turnaround”, the lovely Leyla McCalla, John Hartford, birthday-boy Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, and selections from Dion DiMucci’s unheralded folkrock classic “Kickin’ Child.”

PLAYLIST

OPEN: Coffee Time

  • Mississippi John Hurt “Coffee Blues” (Live)
  • Dion “Spoonful” (The Road I’m On: A Retrospective) 1997
  • Dion “Farewell” (m.Trad / l.Dylan) Kickin’ Child 1967

BROKEN HEARTS AND DIRTY WINDOWS

  • Todd Snider “Beer Run” (Near Truths and Hotel Rooms Live, 2003)
  • Todd Snider “Conservative Christian, Right Wing Republican, Straight White Male” (East Nashville Skyline, 2004)
  • Todd Snider “I Can’t Complain” (Near Truths and Hotel Rooms Live, 2003)
  • Todd Snider “John Prine” (Near Truths and Hotel Rooms Live, 2003)
  • John Prine “Souvenirs”
  • Franz Casseus “Lullaby” (Haitian Dances, 1954)

WISH YOU WERE HERE

  • Leyla McCalla “Money Is King” (Neville Marcano) The Capitalist Blues, 2014
  • Yael Naim & Leyla McCalla “Ima” (traditional) Older, 2016
  • Leyla McCalla “Little Parrow” (A Day For Hunting, A Day for Prey, 2004)
  • Dom La Nena & Rosemary Stanley “Wish You Were Here” (Waters/Gilmour) Ramages,2020
  • Neil Young “Til the Morning Comes (After the Gold Rush)
  • Tunde Adebimpe Unknown Legend” (N. Young) from Rachel Getting Married, Johnathan Demme, 2008
  • Lukas Nelson & Sierra Ferrell “Unknown Legend” (single, 2025)

MORE LOVE
• Tim O’Brien “More Love” (J. Hartford) A Tribute to J.Hartford: Live From Mountain Stage, 2001
• Tim O’Brien & Kathy Mattea “Gentle on My Mind” (J. Hartford)
• John Hartford “Presbyterian Guitar” Aere-o Plain, 1971
• Sam Robbins “Rosie” So Much I Still Don’t See, 2025

BERT, MONKEE MIKE & SUSAN COWSILL

  • Bert Jansch “Fresh As a Sweet Sunday Morning” (L.A. Turnaround,1974)
  • Bert Jansch “Needle of Death” (L.A. Turnaround, 1974)
  • AJ Lee & Blue Summit “I’m a Believer” (N. Diamond)
  • The Cowsills “Thinking of You” (Cocaine Drain, 2025)
  • The Continental Drifters “Meet on the Ledge” (R.Thompson) Drifted in the Beginning and the End, 2015
  • Fairport Convention “End of a Holiday” (R.Thompson) What We Did on Our Holiday, 1969

KICKIN’ CHILD
• Dion “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” (Dylan) Kickin’ Child: The Lost Album 1965
• Dion “Time In My Heart For You” (D. Dimucci) Kickin’ Child: The Lost Album 1965.
• Dion “I’m In the Mood for You” Kickin’ Child: The Lost Album 1965.
• Dion “Abraham, Martin and John” (Dick Holler) Dion, 1968

Selections from RACHEL GETTING MARRIED, 2008

  • Zafer Tawil “Wedding Waltz”
  • Zafer Tawil “Kym’s Homecoming”
  • Robyn Hitchcock “America”

OH, MY GORD
• Gordon Lightfoot “Early Morning Rain” Gord’s Gold, 1975
• Gordon Lightfoot “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” Summertime Dream, 1976
• Connie Caldor “If You Could Read My Mind” Beautiful: A Tribute to Gordon Lightfoot, 2003

BLUES RUN THE GAME: Paul Simon in London 1963–1965
• The Secret Sisters “Kathy’s Song” You Don’t Own Me Any More 2017
• Jackson C. Frank “Blues Run the Game”

Bert Jansch “Needle of Death”

Lyrics

When sadness fills your heart
And sorrow hides the longing to be free
When things go wrong each day
You fix your mind to ‘scape your misery

Your troubled young life
Had made you turn
To a needle of death

How strange, your happy words
Have ceased to bring a smile from everyone
How tears have filled the eyes
Of friends that you once had walked among

Your troubled young life
Had made you turn
To a needle of death

One grain of pure white snow
Dissolved in blood spread quickly to your brain
In peace your mind withdraws
Your death so near your soul can’t feel no pain

Your troubled young life
Had made you turn
To a needle of death

Your mother stands a’cryin’
While to the earth your body’s slowly cast
Your father stands in silence
Caressing every young dream of the past

Your troubled young life
Had made you turn
To a needle of death

Through ages, man’s desires
To free his mind, to release his very soul
Has proved to all who live
That death itself is freedom for evermore

And your troubled young life
Will make you turn
To a needle of death

Listen to legenday Bert Jansch live radio performance from 1969


Bert Jansch, the influential Scottish folk guitarist and member of Pentangle, performed on BBC Radio’s “Country Meets Folk” show, most notably a live solo session on January 25, 1969. While his solo performance was broadcast, Pentangle also appeared on the show, with a performance recorded on June 15, 1968. These broadcasts featured Jansch’s unique fingerstyle guitar and were significant appearances during the British folk revival of the 1960s