Thursday, February 26, 2015

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Come All Ye Wild Young People ...

Stolen from the Murder Ballad Monday blog
When it comes to folk songs, I like 'em bloody.

You can keep your sensitive troubadours singing sweet pastoral melodies and hey nonny nonny. I like my folk songs full of senseless murder, greed, lust, betrayal and insanity.

One of my favorite Steeleye Span songs is "Edwin," which comes from their album Now We Are Six.

Not only is it a delightfully gruesome tale of young lovers vs. truly evil parents (Spoiler Alert: The truly evil parents win!) It also has a great guitar lick that I shamelessly appropriated for my own song, "Child of the Falling Star."

Basically, it's the story of young Edwin, a sailor who went off to earn some gold, returning seven years later to his true love, Emma, whose family apparently runs some inn, basically a Bed-and-Breakfast of Doom. Edwin gets a room there, but that night as he sleeps, Emma's "cruel parents" sneak in his room, chop off his head, take his gold and dump his body in the sea to send him floating back to the Lowlands Low.

Here's the song.




Besides the music and the basic story of the song, Steeleye's "Edwin" has some lines that are simply unforgettable, starting with the very first one, "Come all ye wild young people and listen to my song ..."

Then there's "Young Edwin he sat drinking till time to go to bed/ He little thought a sword that night would part his body and head ..."

And then the not-so happy ending: "And Emma broken-hearted was to Bedlam forced to go / Her shrieks were for young Edwin that plowed the lowlands low. "

But Steeleye, it turns out left out a few verses, including a key one, in which Emma tells Edwin to go stay at dad's inn for the night -- and not to tell him his true identity. She planned on meeting him there in the morning What could possibly go wrong?

A version of "Edwin" appears as "Edwin in the Lowlands Low" in The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, edited by Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L.Lloyd in 1959.

"This was an extremely widespread song in England, Scotland, Ireland and even more so in North America, where dozens of versions have been collected," the songs notes say. "... The song was also printed by everybody who was anybody in the broadside trade, but, on present evidence, only from the 1820s onwards. The plot would seem a natural for the melodrama stage or the cheap nineteenth century `shocker' novel ..."

That must be why I like it so much.

I hadn't listened to "Edwin" in a few years. But a few nights ago, listening to an iTunes mix of old Lomax field-recordings, the song "Diver Boy" by a lady named Ollie Gilbert from Timbo, Arkansas popped up.

Appearing on the collection Southern Journey Vol. 1: Voices from the American South, this was recorded in 1959. Young Emma is in this one, though the unfortunate "diver boy" is named Henry. Emma's brother, however, is named "Edward." It's the brother who helps his murderous dad here, while in Steeleye's songs it's Emma's parents.

Here's Ollie's version:



Natalie Merchant recorded a very similar version of "Diver Boy" on her 2003 album of (mostly) old folk songs The House Carpenter's Daughter.



So in the Steeleye Span song, Emma ends up shrieking in the insane asylum, while in the version done by Ollie Gilbert and Natalie Merchant, Emma  merely scolds her dad and brother. ("Oh father, you're a robber ...")

Neither tells what happens to the creepy dad and whoever helped him murder Emma's beau.

But the Mainly Norfolk website documents a 1979 recording by a singer named Peter Bellamy, in which an angry "Young Emily" threatens the old man, “Oh father, cruel father, you will die a public show .." This line is found in other versions of the song. But Bellamy includes this final verse, which I've yet to see elsewhere:

Now Young Emily's cruel father could not day or night find rest,
For the dreadful deed that he had done he therefore did confess.
He was tried and he was sentenced and he died a public show
For the murder of Young Edmund so dear who ploughed the lowlands low.

Justice at last!

Listen to Bellany's stark acoustic verssion version here:



Read more about "Edwin," "Diver Boy" or whatever you want to call it at  the excellent Murder Ballad Monday blog (on the website for the venerated Sing Out!, one of the greatest folk music publications) and at Mainly Norfolk, a "comprehensive overview of recorded traditional and contemporary English folk music". 

And what the heck. Here's a bonus throwback to an ancient time.


For more deep dives into songs, check out The Stephen W. Terrell Web Log Songbook

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

WACKY WEDNESDAY: I Lost My Harmonica, Albert!



Here's a WACKY WEDNESDAY salute to some spokes-spoofs of a generation: Some of my favorite Bob Dylan parodies of all time.

Was Simon & Garfunkel the first? Have some "A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission)"



And now a word from our sponsor ...



Here's one from this century, the amazing Dewey Cox with "Royal Jelly" (John C. Reilly from the movie Walk Hard)



And who can forget the night Bob rolled a 300 game? Emily Kaitz sure can't forget. This one stars the late Jimmy La Fave as the Bobster



It's time for my boot heels to be ramblin' ...




Sunday, February 22, 2015

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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Sunday, Feb. 22, 2015 
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. 
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time 
Host: Steve Terrell
Webcasting!
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org

Here's the playlist below

Openng Theme: Let It Out, Let it All Hang Out by The Hombres
My Ding Dong Daddy Don't Daddy No More by Joe "King" Carrasco
Jailbait by The Flamin' Groovies
Spin That Girl by  LoveStruck 
Soviet by The Grannies
Miedzynarodówka (The Internationale)  by Zuch Kazik
Why? by Johnny Dowd
Racehorse by Wild Flag
A New Wave by Sleater-Kinney
96 Tears (en Espanol) by Question Mark & The Mysterians

Celluloid Heroes by The Kinks
New Age by The Velvet Underground
Beloved Movie Star by Stan Ridgway
Tomorrow by The Fluid
I Fought the Law by The Clash

Knock Three Times by The A-Bones
Train Crash by The Molting Vultures
Come Back Bird by Manby's Head
Night of Broken Glass by Jay Reatard
Final Stretch by The Oblivians with Quintron
No Sudden Moves by Dengue Fever
Sado County Auto Show by The Cramps
Ain't it Strange by Patti Smith

Sisters of the Moon by Camper Van Beethoven
You Are What You Is by Frank Zappa
Don't You Just Know It by The Sonics
Started a Joke by The Dirtbombs
Wishlist by Pearl Jam
Irene by Pere Ubu 
Say We'll Meet Again by Lindsay Buckingham
Closing Theme: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis


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Friday, February 20, 2015

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST


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Friday, Feb. 20, 2015 
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM 
Webcasting! 
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time 
Host: Steve Terrell 
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist below:


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Thursday, February 19, 2015

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Girl Power, 1940 Style


Here's a great bunch of dames, Frances Carroll  & The Coquettes.

I stumbled across a shorter version of this 1940 Warner Brothers music short -- just the segment featuring "our charming little drummer" Viola Smith -- a couple of weeks ago when some fellow rock 'n' roll freak posted it on Facebook.

The film was directed by Roy Mack, who was responsible for a lot of music shorts in that era. Sadly, only Carroll and Smith and tapdancer Eunice Healey are identified in the Internet Movie Database. But another Coquette was Smith's sister Mildred Bartash, who played clarinet and sax,

According to a post on the  Zildjian Cymbals company's website:

From 1938 to 1941 Viola flourished in a highly acclaimed all female band that she and her sister Mildred organized, called The Coquettes. The Coquettes were so successful, and she as their drummer so popular, that Viola and her drum set graced the cover of Billboard Magazine on 24 February 1940.

So just sit back and enjoy some hot swing from this remarkable band.




And here's an interview with Viola Smith from a couple of years ago. She's still alive and 102 years old.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

WACKY WEDNESDAY: The Musical Legacy of Jackie "Teak" Lazar


Those familiar with the music of Stan Ridgway know that despite this singer's natural talent, the real secret of his success is a talent scout and big wheel by the name of Jackie "Teak" Lazar.

Not only is Jackie the brains behind Ridgway's career, at least since Ridgway's departure from Wall of Voodoo, he's also had roles in Ridgway videos and, yes even at least one guest vocal on a Ridgway  album.

Back in 2002, Jackie appeared on a hidden track on Ridgway's album Holiday in Dirt.  It was a sensitive rendering of Charlie Rich's greatest hit, "Behind Closed Doors." Some purists argued that the track should remain hidden, but I beg to differ.

In fact I bet you'll agree that no one knows what goes on behind closed doors with Jackie.

Spotify users can hear it below:



About three years after the release of Holiday in  Dirt, Ridgway released a wonder video collection of songs from that album. "Behind Closed Doors" was there, but I think another actor portrayed Jackie. (Sorry, I can't find any Youtubes of that video. (The DVD seems to be out of print, but you can buy it at Amazon at a decent price.)

But even before "Behind Closed Doors," Jackie appeared in The Drywall Incident, a music and video project involving Ridgway's band Drywall. (I can't find the video by Carlos Grasso anywhere online, but the music is wonderful and you can buy it HERE)

And Jackie starred in Ridgway's 1995 video of "Big Dumb Town."



Jimmy on the cover of Hicks'
Where's the Money?
Some say that Jackie is a distant cousin of Jimmy the Talking Dummy, who used to be part of the road crew for Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks.


Though Jackie "Teak" Lazar recordings are rare,  you can still find him singing some American classics on MP3s ((that I think originally were posted on Ridgway's website many years ago.) Three of them -- "Always on My Mind," "A Very Good Year" and "The Wayward Wind" are HERE.

Just don't believe the hideous lies and slander in the very last line in small print at the bottom of the page.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Hoppin' Horny Toads! It's the New Big Enchilada Podcast!


THE BIG ENCHILADA




Hoppin' Horny Toads! This Big Enchilada episode is bringing you some fine hillbilly sounds old and new -- honky-tonk, rockabilly, bluegrass, roadhouse boogie, cowboy songs and barroom weepers -- by a dangerous array of artists old and new.

 SUBSCRIBE TO ALL GARAGEPUNK PIRATE RADIO PODCASTS |

Here's the playlist:

(Background Music: Mississippi Muddle by Hank Penny & His Radio Cowboys)
Harper Valley PTA by Syd Straw & The Skeletons
I Dig Dangling Participles  by The Harper Valley PTA
Borrow Me Some Money by Augie Meyers
I'm Goin' Huntin' Tonight by Martha Lynn
Cowboy Song by Slackeye Slim
Drivin' Nails in My Coffin by Larry Wellborn
Don't Thrill Me No More by J.D. Wilkes & The Dirt Daubers

(Background Music: Stratosphere Boogie by Jimmy Bryant & Speedy West)
Dirt by Chuck Prophet
Semi-Truck by Commander Cody
Chickenstew by Reverse Cowgirls
The Struggle in the Puddle at the Bottom of the Bottle by Zeno Tornado & The Boney Google Brothers
Born to Boogie by Texas Martha & The House of Twang
Gear Bustin' Sort of Feller by Bobby Braddock
Brain Damage by The Austin Lounge Lizards 

(Background Music: March of the Cosmic Puppets by Clothesline Revival)
Whiskey and Cocaine by Stevie Tombstone
I Can Talk to Crows by Chipper Thompson
Texarkana Baby by Jason Ringenberg
White Lightnin' by The Waco Brothers
Twang by The Backsliders

Play it on the player below:



Sunday, February 15, 2015

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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Sunday, Feb. 15, 2015 
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. 
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time 
Host: Steve Terrell
Webcasting!
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org

Here's the playlist below

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Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

Friday, February 13, 2015

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST


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Friday, Feb. 13, 2015 
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM 
Webcasting! 
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time 
Host: Steve Terrell 
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist below:


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Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

Thursday, February 12, 2015

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: New Ones from Dowd and Slackeye

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Feb. 13, 2015

Johnny Dowd writes his songs like a sniper aims his gun. Sometimes his songs are like a captured serial killer’s confession. They’re full of regret, shame, venom, horrifying humor, and uncomfortable truths.

Dowd’s new album, That’s Your Wife on the Back of My Horse, has a title based on one of the most cocky, swaggering lines in the history of the blues, from Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s “Gangster of Love”: “The Sheriff says, ‘Is you Guitar Watson?’ in a very deep voice/I say, ‘Yes sir, brother Sheriff, and that’s your wife on the back of my horse.’ ”

This time out, Dowd played virtually all the instruments himself — exceptions are vocal contributions from Anna Coogan, who sounds so much like Dowd’s old bandmate Kim Sherwood-Caso it’s spooky; a guitar solo on “Words Are Birds” from Mike Cook; and a brief appearance by Dowd’s regular band on the end of “Teardrops.”

Dowd himself has compared the record to his first one, Wrong Side of Memphis. That late-1990s album is also mostly just Dowd on a variety of instruments. But it is more acoustic and rootsy, based in country and blues. On this new one, the music behind the lyrics is crazier than ever: low-tech electronica; rasty, distorted guitar licks; insane beats from an ancient drum machine over Dowd’s growling drawl and Coogan’s angelic melodies. It’s “New Year’s Eve in the nuthouse,” as Archie Bunker would say.

The album kicks off with the title song, Dowd reciting the lyrics that serve as a taunting invocation:
“That’s your wife on the back of my horse/That’s my hand in your pocket/Around my neck is your mother’s locket/Your sisters will dance at my wake/Your brother will blow out the candles on my birthday cake/That’s your wife on the back of my horse.”

This is followed by a funky, boastful rap, “White Dolemite,” a salute to the heroic persona of “party” record artist and blaxploitation star Rudy Ray Moore. “I live the life men dream about/Stand up, people, give me a shout,” Dowd declares, as Coogan responds, “Hot pants! He needs a spanking.”

J. Dowd
Photo by Kat Dalton
On “The Devil Don’t Bother Me,” Dowd sounds like a death-row inmate contemplating theology while awaiting injection. “An angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other/Jesus, He’s my savior, but the devil is my brother.”

And that's just one of Dowd’s characters who seem like a coiled snake about to strike. On “Nasty Mouth,” Dowd’s narrator spews harsh judgment about a woman, who, I would guess, rejected him. “I’m just trying to forget the words that came out of your nasty mouth,” he spits over ambient blips and bleeps and a dangerous fuzz guitar.

Another favorite here include “Female Jesus,” which has a bluesy, swampy groove and is about a rural Okie prostitute who, Dowd says, “satisfied my body/She purified my brain/Then she called the undertaker and put my casket on a train.” Easily the album’s most melodic track, The song “Why?” sounds like a ’60s soul ballad left in the forest to be eaten by wolves, while the upbeat “Sunglasses” could have been a summertime pop hit … on the planet Neptune. (“Boys who wear sunglasses get laid,” Coogan informs us.)

At the end of the last song, “Teardrops,” a slow, dreamy (well, nightmarish) dirge about the fall of a powerful man (“In a world of little men, I walked like a giant/If I’d have been a lawyer, God would’ve been my client”), Dowd thanks his audience and an announcer says, “The ultrascary troubadour has left the building. With your wife. On the back of his horse.”

Left the building? Well, maybe. But I bet he actually just went to the dark alley behind the building.

Where he’s waiting ...

Also recommended



Giving My Bones to the Western Lands by Slackeye Slim. Joe Frankland is another singer-songwriter who likes to explore the shadows, though his music is rooted in the country, folk, and spaghetti-western realms. Under the name Slackeye Slim, Frankland’s songs frequently are cast in an Old West setting, though his themes of sin, redemption, loneliness, desperation, and freedom are universal.

It’s been four years since his previous album, El Santo Grial: La Pistola Piadosa, which I compared to Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger. Since then, he’s moved from Montana to a ranch near Mesa, Colorado. He says he recorded this album in “dilapidated buildings” as well as on his front porch, “as hundreds of cattle grazed quietly just a few yards away.”

The body count on Giving My Bones isn’t nearly as high as it was on El Santo Grial, even though the second song, “Don Houston,” is about a guy who, for no apparent reason, shoots a stranger in the face. “Every time he pulled the trigger, it was the most beautiful thing you ever saw,” the narrator explains. “It was an art. His brush was a bullet, his paint was blood, his canvas was the earth, the rocks, the trees, and the dirt.”

Don Houston and El Santo Grial’s antihero, Drake Savage, would have a lot to talk about. Assuming they didn’t kill each other first.

But not every song on the new Slackeye album deals with crazy violence. One recurring theme here is psychological healing.

Take the sadly beautiful “I’m Going Home.” (I’ll be extremely surprised if anyone comes up with a prettier song than this one this year — or in the next decade.) Accompanied only by a banjo, a harmonica, and his stomping foot, Slackeye’s foghorn voice is perfectly suited to this tale of a lonesome journey to the nadir of his life. Riffing on lines from the old song “Hesitation Blues,” he sings, “Whiskey was the river and me, I was the duck/I lived down at the bottom and I could not get up/At first I thought I’d found it, a place where I belonged/But I had no home.”

Then, on “Cowboy Song” — a herky-jerky waltz that, with a few Balkan embellishments, could almost be a Beirut song — riding the range is the prescription that rebuilds a broken soul: “A man alone in the wilderness/That’s where his soul is born/As long as he’s singing his cowboy song.”

Keep singing, Slackeye.

You can listen to and/or name your own buying price for Giving My Bones to the Western Lands at www.slackeyeslim.bandcamp.com. But even though you can snag it for free, pay him something. Don’t be a jerk!

It's Video time!

Here's the title song from Johnny Dowd's new album



And here's a song called "Cadillac Hearse" from that album



And here are a couple of my favorite new Slackeye Slim songs





And here's a latter-day version of "Gangster of Love" by Johnny "Guitar" Watson


THROWBACK THURSDAY; Better Call ... The Ink Spots

Warning: This Throwback Thursday post might give you sudden cravings for Cinnabon

Readers who watched the opening scene of the premier episode of Better Call Saul will know what I'm talking about.

It's a black-and-white scene featuring a mustachioed Saul Goodman working at a Cinnabon shop at some Omaha mall, apparently hiding out from his recent life of sleazy lawyering and drug money laundering in Albuquerque, as depicted in Breaking Bad.

But in the background there's this song playing, taking on sinister undertones almost certainly not intended when it was recorded. And it sounds just like this:



"Address Unknown" was a 1939 hit for a popular African-American vocal group called The Ink Spots. According to the All Music Guide:

The Ink Spots played a large role in pioneering the black vocal group-harmony genre, helping to pave the way for the doo wop explosion of the '50s. The quavering high tenor of Bill Kenny presaged hundreds of street-corner leads to come, and the sweet harmonies of Charlie Fuqua, Deek Watson, and bass Hoppy Jones (who died in 1944) backed him flawlessly.

All Music notes that "Countless groups masquerading as The Ink Spots have thrived across the nation since the '50s."

I can vouch for that. Back in the early '80s I was assigned to interview the lead singer of "The Ink Spots" who were playing in Santa Fe. I talked with some old guy in his hotel room at La Fonda. I forgot his name, but it wasn't Bill, Charlie, Deek or Hoppy.

Part of the problem was due to the original members themselves. Both Charlie and Deek started rival Ink Spots groups in the early '50s.

Be  that as it may, The (real) Ink Spots made some sweet sounds during their glory years of the late '30s through the mid '40s.

And speaking of songs on recent television shows, The Ink Spots covered this Vera Lynn hit, which graced the end of The Colbert Report in December. The group recorded the song at least three times between 1941 and 1944.



Saul Goodman: Address Unknown






Wednesday, February 11, 2015

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Pre-Presidents Day Bash

Next Monday is Presidents Day. Because I don't do "Wacky Monday" on this blog, we'll just have to celebrate a little early.

Until recently I thought Presidents Day was in honor of George Washington and Abe Lincoln, both of whom were born in February.

But that's not true according to the Snopes website -- which apparently took time off from debunking 9-11 conspiracies and knocking down rumors that a little known section of Obamacare involves selling the kidneys of little white girls to Kenyan organ smugglers.

According to Snopes, the only official holiday next week is for Washington's Birthday. Technically "Presidents Day" doesn't exist. Congress never passed a law to declare it as such.

But what the heck. Why not honor, or at least lampoon, as many presidents as possible in preparation for this holiday that isn't even a holiday.

Here are a few songs to set the tone.

First a snazzy little musical history lesson from They Might Be Giants.




The next artist, known as "Mr. Beat" on Youtube, seems to have been very influenced by They Might Be Giants. Here's a song about the guy who was president when I was born.



Country Joe & The Fish give a one-fingered salute to two presidents with this one. The original version of "Superbird," which appeared on their first album Electric Music for the Mind and Body was only about LBJ. But sometime after Richard Nixon took office, Country Joe updated the tune.



This next tune is a "song-poem" about our disco-era president Jimmy Carter. It was written by Waskey Elwood Walls Jr. sung by song-poem titan Gene Marshall (Gene Merlino).








Sunday, February 08, 2015

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST


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Sunday, Feb., 2015 
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. 
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time 
Host: Steve Terrell
Webcasting!
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org

Here's the playlist below

Like the Terrell's Sound World Facebook page

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

Friday, February 06, 2015

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST


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Friday, Feb. 6, 2015 
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM 
Webcasting! 
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time 
Host: Steve Terrell 
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist below:



Like the Santa Fe Opry Facebook page 

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

Thursday, February 05, 2015

THROWBACK THURSDAY: February Made Me Shiver

I know I usually throwback to the pre-rock 'n' roll era on Throwback Thursday, but the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper -- 56 years and two days ago -- is a big one.

I was only five years old when the single engine plane carrying the three rockers went down in a snow storm over Iowa on Feb. 3, 1959. But I was a little rock 'n' roll freak even then. I loved The Coasters and I loved Buddy Holly, especially his hit "Peggy Sue." I recall hearing it played on American Bandstand. My mom told me that one of the teenage girls dancing on the show was actually Peggy Sue.

I was only five, but I was in lust!

If my memory serves, I found out about the plane crash listening to a disc jockey talk about it on the radio before playing a Buddy song. I only remember feeling incredibly sad. I'd never thought much about death before. How could someone as cool as Buddy Holly die?

I still get sad thinking about it. At least the music lives on.

If you knew...



Here's Ritchie Valens, with a weird little cameo by Chuck Berry and Alan Freed (from the movie Go, Johnny, Go! )



And here's the Bopper, J.P. Richardson, the only one of the three who hasn't had a movie made about him.



And what the hell, this is far more recent history, but Feb. 4, 2009 is the day that Erick Lee Purkhiser, aka Lux Interior of The Cramps, died. February is just a crappy month for rock 'n' roll.

Wednesday, February 04, 2015

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Full of Shaving Cream

One of the many contributions of Dr. Demento is his rescuing a comic singer called Benny Bell from the dustbin of history.

Thanks to the good doctor, who frequently played "Shaving Cream," recorded in 1946, and to a lesser extent oter songs like "Everybody Loves My Fanny," Benny Bell won a whole new generation of fans.

I don't care how many times I've heard it, these lyrics always bring a chuckle:

"I have a sad story to tell you
It may hurt your feelings a bit
Last night when I walked into my bathroom
I stepped in a big pile of ...
Shhhhh . . . aving cream
Be nice and clean. 
Shave every day and you'll always look keen."

And so forth.

For those not familiar with Bell's biggest hit, (which actually was sung not by Bell, but by a vocalist named Phil Winston aka Paul Wynn) take a listen:



Bell, born Benjamin Zamburg in 1906, (and died in 1999) was a pioneer in Jewish American comedy records.

According to his biography at the Judaica Sound Archives, (a massive collection of Jewish music) which is part of Florida Atlantic University:

Like so many others of his day who lived on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Benny Bell’s first language was Yiddish. He was drawn to the world of entertainment from an early age, already writing song lyrics and music as a teenager. The lure of show business beckoned and before long he was performing on the Vaudeville stage as Benny Bimbo. A natural comedian, Benny Bell enjoyed nothing more than making people laugh. 

Starting his own record company in the 1930’s, he became a pioneer in the field of Yiddish comedy phonograph recordings. He produced a series of party records using different names, e.g. Paul Wynn, and which were considered risqué at the time, but are really quite mild by today’s standards.

The Internet Archive has collected 31 old Benny Bell recordings. Most are from old scratchy 78s in the '40s, though some like "A Goose for My Girl," "Farewell Song" and "Turtle Song," as late as the '70s. Download any or all of these HERE or listen below.

When you listen to Track 4,  "Dopey John," go back and read my exploration of  the song "Cabbage Head" on this blog. (CLICK HERE)



And as a special bonus, here's a version of "Shaving Cream" by none other than Dave Van Rock

Sunday, February 01, 2015

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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Sunday, Feb. 1, 2015 
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. 
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time 
Host: Steve Terrell
Webcasting!
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org

Here's the playlist below


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Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

  Sunday, March 17, 2024 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM, 101.1 FM  Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Te...