This will have limited regional appeal... and it's a little old...

But lookit: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2009/11/what_ever_happened_to_cheap_lo.html

I was browsing the racks at folk-legacy.com and noted that an ancient Michael Cooney record—



—included the song 'Rigs of the Time'; and I was immediately put to mind of the time when Captain Noah (a.k.a. W. Carter Merbreier) had a guest singer on his show who talked excitedly about how songs could capture the spirit and the foibles of different historical eras... and then launched into 'Rigs of the Time'...

It's of an old butcher, I must bring him in.
Charges four pence a pound, and thinks it no sin.
Puts his thumb on the scale which makes it go down,
And swears it's good weight yet it lacks half a pound.
Honesty 's all out of fashion
These are the rigs of the time, me boys,
These are the rigs of the time

...My mid-'70s brain, less full than of late, on just one hearing snagged that song and kept it, fairly well preserved in shape if not in detail, from that hour to this. Of course I had no idea who the singer was, just some middling weird guy who was really excited to be singing a song that couldn't possibly have any immediate emotional appeal to a schmuh-year-old child... it was like school, a history lesson. Still: It stuck, maybe because that singer's enthusiasm was infectious.

And that's what makes me wonder whether that singer wasn't Michael Cooney himself. This is probably lost to history (unless I contact Michael directly, which Annoying!), but it would certainly make sense for Michael to be performing on a kids' show on a local TV station in Philadelphia, which was sort of his home-away-from-home by virtue of the Philly Folk Festival, which he first attended in 1965 (the year I was born) and in which he participated until... well, way too many years ago now :(

Maybe I'll be annoying anyway and write to Michael.