My Favorite Albums of 2023

I haven't done this since right before I retired in late 2019, but there were so many fine albums released in 2023 I've decided to make a Top 10 list this year, even though this blog is my only platform.

Except I couldn't reduce it down to 10. So I'm giving you my Top 15. (In 2019, I only did my "Top 8" because there was still more than a month to go before in the year until I quit my job.)

So here you go, my favorites of 2023. These are listed by album title in alphabetical order. (I frequently have trouble choosing -- then sticking with -- a choice for number one.) I immediately noticed that this meant that my top three records present are in the country/bluegrass mode. So nice break there, you hillbillies. But if you aren't into country: 1) You can kiss my ass; 2) Just keep scrolling down.

By the way, all the song titles below are linked to the albums' various Bandcamp sites (except Marty Stuart's album, which isn't on Bandcamp), where you can listen to and BUY.  (Yes, students, you should actually purchase music you like!)

 Happy New Year, pendejos!

* All Bad by Nick Shoulders. One reason I was hesitant in 2019 to do a full Top 10 albums list was because I sometimes late, late in the year, stumble upon a record so magical, it becomes an instant favorite. That was certainly the case in 2019 when in late, late December I stumbled upon an album called  Okay, Crawdad by a backwoods crooner named Nick Shoulders. I discovered Crawdad too late for my final New Mexican column but just in time to include in the Nashville Scene Country Music Critics Poll,  published in January 2020. "I’ve been a fanatical fan of an Arkansas-born singer named Nick Shoulders for — at this writing — several days now," I wrote when submitting my list.

Shoulders has done two albums since then, Home on the Rage in 2021 and this one earlier this year. And yes, I'm still a fanatical fan of this nasal voiced bard of the Ozarks, who's apparently accepted Jimmie Rodgers as his personal savior. With his minimalist band, named for the album that first drew me to him, Shoulders' basic sound hasn't changed. There is still plenty of yodeling and whistling -- and some occasional mouth bow. And he keeps writing memorable tunes including the title song,  the upbeat "It's the Best?" and "Won't Fence Us In," in which Shoulders reimagines the old Bing Crosby psuedo cowboy song, with a Joni Mitchell "Big Yellow Taxi" thematic twist. 

Because Shoulders has carved a niche as a hillbilly environmentalist, he doomed any chance of being invited to perform with Kid Rock Hank Junior and Jason Aldean at the upcoming Rock the Country festival. Something tells me Nick doesn't care.   

* Altitude by Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives. I'm going to try to write this blurb without mentioning The Byrds.

Oh shit, I can't do it. 

With this record it's impossible not to recognize the impact that late-period Byrds has had on Stuart. Just listen to the opening instrumental "Lost Byrd Space Train ("Scene 1)" and it sounds as if he's non-verbally explaining how "Eight Miles High" led to Sweetheart of the Rodeo. You might even consider this a showcase of Stuart's knack of stretching the surly bonds of traditional country without once sounding as if he's abandoning his roots. 

One of my greatest joys at a Marty Stuart show was when he did the garage-punk classic "Psychotic Reaction" as an encore a couple of years ago. I was slightly disappointed he didn't include that Count Five fave on this album, but there are plenty of strong, country-fried rockers on Altitude such as  "Country Star," "Tomahawk" and especially "A Friend of Mine," which I've embedded below.

* Bluegrass Vacation by Robbie Fulks. Fulks albums frequently made my annual Top 10 lists. Even Fulks' genre exercises like his previous album with rockabilly matron Linda Gail Lewis and his latest one (in case the title didn't tip you off,  this is a bluegrass album) are full of Fulks' heart and wit and usually have moment of transcendence. And that's true of Bluegrass Vacation, where Fulks is aided by bluegrass giants like Sam Bush, Alison Brown, John Cowan, Jerry Douglas, Sierra Hull,  Tim O’Brien and Ronnie McCoury. (Mandolin man McCoury's presence here reminded me of his participation on a similar project, The Mountain by Steve Earle and The Del McCoury band in 1999.)  

My favorite tracks here are "Molly and the Old Man," a celebration of a beautiful banjo picker and her father; "Let the Old Dog In," which, like Hank Williams' "Move it On Over," concerns a husband in the doghouse; and "Longhair Bluegrass," (embedded below.) 

On this song, Robbie celebrates the bluegrass festivals his parents took him to when he was a teenager in the early '70s with "old men doin’ the buck and wing / Young gals skinny-dippin’ in the spring / While the singin’ and the fiddlin’ and the feedback filled the air / While Mom and Daddy were getting’ fried / I was sittin' there with my eyeballs wide  ..." By the end of the number, Fulks name-checks the high priests of the "new wing" of Bill Monroe's church: Norman Blake, Tony Rice,Clarence White, John Hartford, The Nitty Gritty Dirt band, Earl Scruggs and his sons and David Grisman. These are the spirits that guide this delightful album. 

* Chronicles of a Diamond by Black Pumas. This record has to be the soul album of the year, and The Black Pumas, headed by singer Eric Burton and guitarist/producer Adrian Quesada, have to be the top soul group of this era. 

And a little New Mexico True pride here, as Burton spent his childhood in Alamogordo and later attended New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. As the Las Cruces Sun News said in 2020,  Burton has "gone from performing at house parties in Las Cruces to jamming on some of the largest stages in the world ..." (Check out this video from 2014 of Burton singing the song that would become The Black Pumas' signature song. at a Cruces open mic.)

Chronicles is the studio follow-up to The Pumas' self-titled 2019 debut (another record that would have been on my top albums had I not discovered it in late November of that year after I retired, buying it at a Pumas concert in San Antonio). While mainly sticking to the same basic slow groove as the first album, Burton and Quesada stretch out a little on tracks such as the upbeat, almost poppy "Ice Cream (Pay Phone)" (embedded below); the pounding "Gemini Sun"; and "Sauvignon," which Quesada kicks off with a spaghetti western guitar and Burton sings mostly in falsetto against a psychedelic backdrop.

* Creatures of Culture by The Minks.This irresistible Nashville band was my major discovery of 2023. I caught them live at the American Music Festival in Chicago in early July, and was an instant fan. I loved their high-powered punk/pop/psych/garage sound and was captivated by the sweet, sassy vocals and big smile of singer Nikki Barber.  

Album highlights include rockers like "Motorbike" (The Minks should consider doing a medley of this song and this one!); the slow and trippy country-tinged "Sweet Treat" and "Take It Easy" (embedded below), which thankfully is NOT an Eagles cover. 

* Deano & Jo Deano is Dean Schlabowske, a singer, guitarist and songwwriter in The Waco Brothers, and Jo is Jo Walston, singer of the Meat Purveyors. The two have been married for four years -- a match made at Bloodshot Records, or probably at the annual Bloodshot party at the Yarddog Gallery in Austin during South by Southwest, where traditionally the Purvs played immediately before The Wacos.

This album is a mixture of original tunes (my favorites being "Murlene," written by Deano, sung by Jo) and Deano's "My Evil Twin") plus covers of classic honky-tonk and bluegrass songs. The basic sound reminds me mostly of late '50s / early '60s country, that fabled era when (former Santa Fe resident and personal idol) Roger Miller was writing songs like "A Man Like Me" (embedded below); The Stanley Brothers were singing tunes like "Stone Walls and Steel Bars";  and Nashville stars like Porter Wagoner were still singing Hank Williams songs like "Tennessee Border."

On this album, Deano & Jon are aided by some quality musical pals such as Robbie Fulks, who plays guitar, Mark Rubin of The Bad Livers on stand-up bass and Austin fiddler Beth Chrisman. 

Deano and Jo is nothing but a crazy fun hillbilly romp. And while I do love the latest Waco Brothers album (keep scrolling!) in my heart I love this one even more.

* Death is Forever by The Dead Brothers. Not surprisingly this Swiss band -- who called themselves a "death blues funeral trash orchestra" always had an aura of death round them. That's even more true on this record, which was recorded in 2021, shortly before the death of singer and frontman Alain Croubalian. They always did sound like a world-weary, mournful Bizarro World Salvation Army band, a typical banjo/tuba/harmonium group with gypsy jazz and New Orleans second-line overtones. But because of Croubalian's passing, this album has that extra kick, a melodic testament to the fact that death don't have no mercy in this land.

As usual, most of the songs on their final album are Croubalian originals, some of my favorites including the delicate, ethereal "500 Horses," the snazzy, jazzy "Diamond Mind," and "Whalebone," which Tom Waits would have loved to have written. And there are a handful of songs from other sources here, including the oft-covered "Wayfaring Stranger," "I Wrote a Book," written by another singer who died too soon, Blaze Foley and "Amara Terra," a "work song of the olive harvesters of the Abruzzo region" popularized by Italian pop star Domenico Modugno and transformed by The Dead Brothers into a hymn-like dirge.

So, in tribute to his life, here's a hearty "Fare Thee Well" to the Dead Brother Supreme,  Alain Croubalian: 

* Get Behind the Wheel by Eilen Jewell. Eilen is an artist who just seems to get better and better with age and continues to amaze and delight with her latest record. (Not only that, this former St. John's College student who began her performing career busking at the Santa Fe Farmers Market, put on an excellent free show on the Plaza this year, which was even stronger than her show at Tumbleroot in 2022.) 

Though my favorite Eilen album still is Gypsy (2019). Get Behind the Wheel is pure gold. From Jerry Miller's nasty guitar licks and Eilen's desperate-sounding, moaning vocals that open the album on the smoldering "Alive" through the meandering, swampy blues of "The Bitter End," this work is a winner

Embedded below is one of my Wheel favorites, "Lethal Love."

* Glory by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages. On their latest album, Barrence and band keep doing what they do best: play hard-charging, early-R&B fortified, garage/punk-informed rock 'n' roll. Though the term "party record' normally refers to X-rated comedy from the '50s and '60s -- and Barrence is no Redd Foxx or Rusty Warren -- "party record" is exactly what Glory is. I wish all the parties I get invited to were as fun as this album.

This actually is a return to form for Whitfield. His previous album, Songs from the Sun Ra Cosmos, credited to "The Barrence Whitfield Soul Savage Arkestra," was a tribute to the late jazz man/mystic who was born Herman Blount. That was a fun experiment, but I prefer his work with the actual 

Savages, propelled by guitarist, former New Mexico resident, and longtime Whitfield collaborator Peter Greenberg and sax man Tom Quartulli.

Basically every glorious Glory song is joyful romp, and any one of them would make an excellent introduction for those not acquainted with Whitfield, though if forced to choose my favorite, it would be the short, punchy  “Cape May Diamond,” (embedded below).

* Is Heaven Real? How Would I Know by Johnny Dowd. Is Johnny Dowd real? I think probably so.

The ever prolific Dowd once again offers a tasty, if curious, mix of deconstructed, often discordant rock 'n' roll, Okie humor, fascinating madness and, ever so often, terrifying tales of people on the ledge. (All this and an album cover by Mekon/Waco Brother Jon Langford.) 

Dowd's first solo album was called The Wrong Side of Memphis. The new one could be called "Return to Memphis," as it was recorded in that town, where Dowd has lived at least a couple of times in his youth. Heaven features several Memphis musicians, including singer and upright bass player Amy Lavere and her husband Will Sexton, who plays guitar on the record and produced it.  

The sound of Memphis soul definitely permeates the album, but, as is the case with most of Dowd's influences, it's a mutated, otherworldly version of the sound. Probably the most striking example is the title song, slow somber death march of a tune punctuated by eery, spook-house soprano vocalizing.

On the other end, there are some downright whimsical tunes, bouncy little numbers that sound as if they might have come from the world of British Music Hall or maybe even some obscure foreign cartoon. These include "Pillow," "LSD" and "Black and Shiny Crow" (embedded below). At least the middle section. This remarkable journey to the center of Dowd's weirdness starts out with slow Randy Newman-like piano meditation. That only blasts a few seconds. Then he goes into a cartoony section. But right past the two-minute mark, the song turns into a jazzy blues (or maybe a bluesy jazz) vamp, which goes on for six minutes. Truly inspirational!

* The Men That God Forgot by The Waco Brothers. Like creators of other favorite albums this year -- Robbie Fulks', Barrence Whitfield's and Deano & Jo's -- the Wacos are refugees from the old Bloodshot Records, the label was responsible for stretching the boundaries of the alt country scare of the '90s. Led by founding Mekon Jon Langford, who apparently starts a new band any time he has a spare moment, the Waco Brothers embodied the crazy spirit of Bloodshot. I mentioned the Yarddog SXSW parties up in the section on Deano & Jo. The Wacos almost always headlined that party  and almost always blasted the audience into a blissful state of cosmic consciousness -- or at least, drunken joy.

Although they originally billed themselves as "insurgent country," there's actually not much "country" in The Men That God Forgot -- save a couple of songs like "Blowin' My Top" and "George Walked With Jesus" (both Deano songs). Even with the presence of Tracy Dear's mandolin (which he usually plays like a rhythm guitar instead of a lead instrument like you hear in bluegrass) and Jean Cooke's fiddle, the overall sound of the Wacos in recent years has been muscular, guitar-driven roots-rock. 

But damned fine muscular, guitar-driven roots-rock.

I can't wait until the next time I see The Wacos (it's been too many years!) and hear them play some of these new songs like the title song, "The Best That Money Can Buy" and, my personal favorite, at least at the moment, "Backstage at the Boneyard" (embedded below).

* These Things Remain Unassigned by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282.The subtitle of this compilation, the San Francisco band's first release in more than 20 years, is subtitled "singles, compilation tracks, rarities & unreleased recordings." And indeed it's an odds 'n' sods collection with basically cut reminding me of the mad genius of the Fellers.  

My introduction to the Fellers was when I saw them live in the summer of 1991 at the Off Ramp which I described as "a dark little joint in an ugly part of Seattle." Yes, I was searching for "grunge" but I found something much crazier in the Fellers. When reviewing their album Lovelyville (which I purchased on cassette tape at that show) I noted the album "does not quite capture the intensity of a Thinking Fellers show." The group released many albums after Lovelyville, and while every one of them is full of inspired lunacy, they never matched the intensity I felt at that Seattle show.

 It's hard to describe their alluringly strange sound. Yeah, you can hear strains of Captain Beefheart, a smudge of Ubu, a quick snort of The Residents and echoes of The Shaggs. (They do a sweet version of "Who Are Parents," which originally appeared on a Shaggs tribute album.) You might imagine Jad Fair fronting a local high-school metal group or a Martian marching band playing Tom Waits' most incomprehensible nightmares. On These Things, besides the Shaggs cover, this album also has a couple of tracks of the Fellers playing movie music from  Rosemary's Baby (featuring sinister "la la las")  and A Fist Full of Dollars

It's only a fantasy, but I would love it if the release of this collection -- the first Thinking Fellers album in more than 20 years! -- as a sign that the band will reunite. I can dream can't I? 

* Tropical Breakdown by Pierre Omer's Swing Revue. You'd never guess by listening to this upbeat, happy, jumpy album that Pierre Omer was once a member of The Dead Brothers. But indeed, he was a 

This band has strong echoes of Django Reinhardt, as well as definite traces of the ghost of Cab Calloway and more recent purveyors of such sounds, like Dan Hicks and Squirrel Nut Zippers. Pretty much all the tracks will get your face smiling and feet moving. 

I especially recommend the album opener "Atomic Swing"; "Leslie Kong," (an ode to the great Jamaican record producer;  the slow, bluesy "L’amour a la Plage," which a bass line fans of Concrete Blonde's song "Bloodletting" should recognize;  and  the snappy "Just One Kiss" (embedded below)

* Trouble On Big Beat Street by Pere Ubu. For most of this century it's hard not to think of Pere Ubu as a noir band. Not that you'd expect to hear music from David Thomas and his fellow noisemakers in a remake of Double Indemnity or Lady in the Lake, and not that you hear riffs from the soundtracks of such movies in Ubu's music. But it's obvious from the titles of most of the albums they've released since 2006's Why I Hate Women (which, according to Thomas,  "... is based on the Jim Thompson novel that he never wrote but might have") that noir is in Thomas'' soul. 

Since Why I Hate Women, Ubu has released records called Lady from Shanghai (2013) (the title borrowed from a 1947 Rita Hayworth / Orson Wells murder flick) and The Long Goodbye (2019), which was a Raymond Chandler novel. And back in 2013 Ubu released Carnival of Souls, the title coming from a noir-influenced 1962 horror movie.

And now we've got Trouble on Big Beat Street, which isn't named for any known film or pulp story, though the cover looks, at least at first glance, as if it could have been taken from some noir handbook -- some shadowy guy in a fedora coming out of a dark alley onto a street where the cobblestones seem to be camouflage for an alligator. (I suspect this is a reference to the song "Crocodile Smile," where Thomas declares, "...like a crocodile I will smile / Maybe like an alligator / I will see you later ..."

Like a great noir story, Big Beat Street is an atmospheric, cacophonic tour, full of apprehension, dread and occasionally some weird humor. At one point we go from walking down the street obsessed with a movie in your head ("Make me better off than bled... all over the sidewalk ..." and the next thing you know, you've got gum on your shoe and strange voices are mocking you like a bunch of bratty street urchins ("Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah ...")

As strange as the music is, Ubu sounds stronger than ever, though it occurs to me that I've probably said that before more than once. Maybe Thomas and crew are just getting better with age -- though certainly not more commercial. 

Besides the ones mentioned above, my favorite songs here include the opening track  "Love is Like Gravity," (embedded below), which sounds like sad trumpets,  a scratchy guitar, a fluttering flute and Thomas' tortured voice lost in the woods and trying to call for help. "I light the fearsome night," he sings, "Oh, I like fearsome nights ..." 

Then there's "Worried Man Blues," a dreamlike trip to Clarksdale, Mississippi in which Thomas discovers a Popeye's Fried Chicken right there at the crossroads where according to legend, Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. And working in that Popeye's are Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Alan Lomax and Bob Dylan. Then he starts singing an alien version of the old hillbilly song first made famous by The Carter Family. Thomas declares "I'm worried now, but I won't be worried long."

I don't believe him.

* Zango by WITCH. By the cruelty of the English alphabet, this album last on this list. But not in my heart. And, had I listed my favorite concerts of the year, WITCH at Meow Wolf on Sept. 17 would have been at the top of the list.

I was excited a couple of years ago when I learned the documentary, We Intend To Cause Havoc, was playing in Santa Fe. Imagine the excitement on my pretty little face when I learned the band itself was coming to a small venue in Santa Fe.

For those who aren't familiar, WITCH arose in the newly independent Zambia in 1972 (!), led by a young man named Emmanuel Chanda, who went by the nickname Jagari. The nickname was inspired by the Rolling Stones resurrected from its decades of slumber, but the sound owed much more to James Brown (who performed there in 1970), rock 'n' roll and native African sounds. 

The style became known as Zamrock, and WITCH was at the top of this vibrant scene. But as the '70s resurrected from its decades of slumber, economic and political turmoil basically killed that scene. And in the '80s, AIDS claimed the lives of most of the original band members. Chanda retired from music limelight and went to work as a gemstone miner and teacher.

The 2019 documentary led to the reformation of WITCH. The film's director Gio Arlotta, introduced Chanda to the guys who'd become the new rhythm section of WITCH, bassist Jacco Gardner and drummer Nico Mauskoviç, both from The Netherlands. Chanda added more instrumentalists and singers so WITCH could be "resurrected from its decades of slumber"

Recorded at DB Studios in Lusaka, Zambia, where most of the original band made their magic, Zango

is clearly rooted in '70s Zamrock -- plenty of wah-wah guitars -- but has incorporated more modern sounds as well. WITCH pulls that off without a hitch.

Standout tracks include the opener, "By the Time You Realize," a slow groove in which Chandra raps the lyrics and is joined by female vocalists in the sing-song chorus,; "Waile," which sounds like a prime candidate for the soundtrack of a remake of Shaft in Africa; and "Avalanche of Love," (embedded below), which features lady rapper Sampa the Great (she's pretty great) and a middle section that slows down into a quiet storm.

Then there's "Message from WITCH," which closes the album. Here Chandra, over a bass-heavy backdrop, talks about the power of Zamrock: “It unites beliefs/Conquers xenophobia/It laughs at hate speech/Ends sexism/It erases homophobia/Shatters antisemitism/Embraces every race.”

That sounds like a great New Years wish to me.

For more songs from these albums check my Youtube playlist

And check this Spotify list for all the songs from these albums -- except for The Thinking Fellers compilation, for which Spotify had only a couple of tracks from previous compilations.

And if you're musically adventurous, play either of those lists on shuffle mode.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Happy Birthday, Voodoo Queen

Tomorrow, September 10, is the birthday of Marie Laveau, the Voodoo queen of New Orleans, who was active for most of the 19th Century until her death in 1881. She would have been 220 years old today.

Happy birthday, Queen Marie!

Marie, born a "free woman of color" in New Orleans, started out as a hairdresser. She also served as a nurse, tending to patients during outbreaks of yellow fever and and cholera.

But she became far more famous for her side gig of selling sold magic potions and gris gris (pouches of  herbs, stones, grave dirt and other hoodoo material), telling fortunes and giving advice to spiritual seekers of all stripes.

Marie is said to have had followers among the wealthy elite as well as by poor people. Her funeral is said to have been attended by many prominent whites. And when she died in 1881, the New Orleans Time Picayune editorialized:

All in all Marie Laveau was a most wonderful woman. Doing good for the sake of doing good alone, she obtained no reward, oft times meeting with prejudice and loathing, she was nevertheless contented and did not lag in her work. She always had the cause of the people at heart and was with them in all things. ... While God's sunshine plays around the little tomb where her remains are buried, by the side of her second husband, and her sons and daughters, Marie Laveau's name will not be forgotten in New Orleans.

And, as you'll see below, she inspired many songs.

But first, here's one of my favorite personal shaggy dog stories (or maybe more appropriately a shaggy cat story) from my hitchhiking days.

I paid a visit to that "little tomb" where God's sunshine plays back when I was 21.

It was in the summer of 1975, on my second great hitchhiking adventure. I was going down to Birmingham, Alabama (by way of Arkansas and Kansas City)  to help my friend, Julie move her stuff back to Albuquerque. I decided to stop in New Orleans for a few days. 

There's an old superstition about going to the crypt of Marie and making a red X on the crypt with a brick. For good luck. So on my last day in town I decided to do that, just to get a little good hoodoo going for the last stretch of my trip.

Not the same black cat

So I found the cemetery where she's said to be entombed -- St. Louis Cemetery #1, though some have disputed that Marie actually rests there. There I went looking for her crypt. The rows and rows of big marble crypts all looked alike to me, so I just wandered around for several minutes trying to read the inscriptions on each one. It was very frustrating.

But then I saw the black cat. 

The dang thing literally crossed my path so I decided to follow it. Was he an emissary of Marie? I followed the cat who turned a sharp corner . As I turned I almost bumped into this very tall, thin Black man in some weird, red Sgt. Pepper-like uniform.

“May I help you, sir?” he said in some kind of accent that sounded Caribbean. 

I told him I was looking for the grave of Marie LaVeau. “Right this way,” he said and led me through the graveyard maze. I wondered whether this man might be an incarnation of Baron Samedi, Voodoo loa of the dead.

Whoever he was, he showed me the way to the white marble crypt covered with red Xs. On the ground, conveniently, were lots of pieces of red pieces of bricks. My guide disappeared before I made my X and asked Marie for her blessing for my travels. 

Despite some bumps in the road, I like to think that I've traveled with that blessing ever since. 

As I later wrote in my song "The Vagabond Treasure": 

“Every highway has a demon, and buddy, I’ve met some. / But there are angels who will answer when you’re prayin’ with your thumb …”

I tried to go back to St. Louis Cemetery #1 when I was in New Orleans nearly 40 years later in 2013.

But I didn't get there until a Sunday afternoon and the graveyard was closed. I was leaving town the next day, so I couldn't return to her tomb.

And apparently, a few weeks after that trip, some idiot vandal had spray-painted the crypt, coloring it pink. Shortly thereafte,r The Archdiocese of New Orleans closed St. Louis #1 to visitors except for paid guided tours. I didn't learn of this until I returned to New Orleans in 2019. I went back to the ceremon7 on a weekday during regular business hours. 

I decided against paying for a guided tours when I saw that the tour guide was neither the tall guy the Sgt. Peppers suit nor a black cat. 

But let's get on to the music.

This song, simply known as "Marie Laveau," was recorded in the early1950s by Papa Celestine's New Orleans Band.  It was later covered by Dr. John. 

There was a spate of Marie songs in the 1970s. Holy Modal Rounders celebrated "Voodoo Queen Marie" on their 1975 album Alleged in Their Own Time. The melody here is borrowed from the old fiddle song "Colored Aristocracy" 

Also in the '70s, the  Native American band, Redbone, helped spread the legend of  the "Witch Queen of New Orleans."

And even though it doesn't really have much to do with the historic Marie, Bobby Bare's "Marie LaVeau," written by Shel Silverstein, is a hoot.

Skipping ahead to the 21st Century, the Danish metal band Volbeat (not to be confused with the alt country band from Michigan, The Volebeats) showed that the legends of Marie have spread to Scandinavia. 

And in 2013,  Tété, a Senegalese expatriate living in France, did his own haunting tribute to Marie,

Marie's tomb much like I remember it
(From Wikimedia Commons)

WACKY WEDNESDAY: The Funny Side of Foster

 

Today, January 13, 2021, is National Stephen Foster Memorial Day, honoring the great American songwriter of the mid 1800s, who died on this day by his own hand in 1864 at the age of 37.

It's also Wacky Wednesday here on Stephen W. Terrell's (Music) Web Log, so let's look at the funny side of Foster.

Foster himself indeed had his funny side. After all, he's the guy who penned lyrics like, "It rained all night the day I left / The weather it was dry." But even his most beautiful and dreamy songs have been parodied, mutated and dementized through the years. In fact, folks of My Generation -- and generations before --  probably were introduced to Foster's music via short performances of parts of his famous tunes in comedies and cartoons.

Way back in 1930, in their movie Animal Crackers, The Marx Brothers did a quick a capela performance of "My Old Kentucky Home."

None other than Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny did a version of "Oh! Susana," adapting the lyrics to fit the plot of Mr. Fudd searching for gold to help the U.S. war effort in 1942. (Check out how different Elmer looks!)

Spike Jones & His City Slickers did a full-blown version of  Foster's "Camptown Races."

And Stan Freberg rocked Foster up. My favorite part is about the "one-eyed cat peepin' at Old Dog Tray."

For an earlier tribute to Stephen Foster CLICK HERE.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Songs That Taj Taught Us

As a young music dog growing up in the 1960s, I first became acquainted with great American blues artists due to the noble efforts of British rockers like The Rolling Stones and The Animals. And later my appreciation of blues from bygone eras grew deeper -- especially country blues artists -- thanks to the noble efforts of contemporary musicians like Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, better know to the free world as Taj Mahal.

Taj is still kicking at the age of 78. And some of those old songs he recorded are immortal. Here are just a few of them.

Let's start out with this Sleepy John Estes tune called "Diving Duck Blues." (Taj's version is HERE)

The opening line of the song, "If the river was whiskey and I was a diving duck" has been used in some adaptations of another song, "Hesitation Blues," (sometimes called "If the River Was Whiskey,") which Taj also covered. This is a 1930 version of that by hillbilly giant, Charlie Poole:

Taj loved Robert Johnson and covered his song "Walkin' Blues."

This probably is my favorite Taj song ever. He got it from Henry Thomas, a Texas-born bluesman who recorded it in 1928. Before I was familiar with Taj's version of "Fishing Blues," I'd already heard The Lovin' Spoonful's stab at it. Taj's version though sounded true and authentic.

And, leaving the realm of country blues, Taj did a funky version (with Linda Tillery) of R&B titan Louis Jordan's "Beans and Cornbread."

Check out Taj versions of older songs on The Stephen W. Terrell Web Log Song Book:

Black Jack Davy

The Cuckoo

 If you enjoyed this, checkout some similar posts on this blog:

Songs That The Wheel Taught Us
Songs That Cooder Taught Us
Songs That Crumb Taught Us
Songs That Kweskin Taught Us
Songs That Leon Taught Us
Songs That Tiny Taught Us
Songs That Herman Taught Us

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Romping with The Yawpers and The Flesh Eaters

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
April 12, 2018

One of my surprise favorite albums of the past few years was Boy in the Well by a trio of Colorado roots rockers called The Yawpers. I’d heard this group’s music several times, even saw them do a live set at the annual Bloodshot Records party at the Yard Dog Gallery in Austin a year or two before the album came out. I’d considered their music OK — tolerable, interesting in spots, but nothing that really knocked my socks off.

But then sometime in the late summer of 2017, I heard a couple of cuts from Boy in the Well, and something clicked. I went back and listened to the whole album, a collection of songs that told a strange story of the bastard son of an American soldier and French farm girl in World War I.

As I wrote in this column back then, I found traces of the Legendary Shack Shakers, the Gun Club, and ZZ Top. (I could list more possible audible ingredients: Mudhoney? Wilco? The James Gang?) In any case, I never did find those socks I’d been wearing that day.

So when the new Yawpers album, Human Question, sprang forth, I was looking forward to it, and just a little afraid I would be disappointed. That fear was unjustified. If anything, I like the new one even more than Boy in the Well.

Unlike their previous album, this is no concept album with a storyline to stick to, though at least a couple of cuts seem to be dealing with singer and chief Yawpers songwriter Nate Cook’s divorce. It’s just good, raw, blues-infused music. It grabbed me and refused to let go in the opening seconds of the locomotive onslaught of “Child of Mercy,” which deals with the putrid pangs of romantic collapse. “… a child of mercy, all the shades are drawn/Flies on the wall and all the furniture’s gone,” Cook sings.

This is followed by an even more brutal romp, “Dancing on My Knees,” which sounds like it came from the border of proto-metal and garage rock. Cook spits, “In the struggle since the altar/the world has taken shape/I’ve found the words I’m looking for but they came a little late .../I’m on to greener pastures/but my neck is in the weeds/I’ve taken all the medicine, but I’ve still got your disease.”

Things get weird in the playful, psychedelic-leaning “Earn Your Heaven.” Here, at the end of a crazed, funky wah-wah guitar solo, Cook shouts — for reasons that escape me — “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the crucifixion Harry Connick Jr.!” I’m not sure whether poor Harry is the one being crucified or if he’s just providing a musical backdrop for the spectacle.

While I mostly like the Yawper’s rowdier tunes, there are a handful of slower ones that are hard-hitting. One is the soul-soaked “Carry Me,” the type of song you could imagine being covered by Solomon Burke. It starts off quietly and builds to thunder. Somewhere toward the end of that road, there’s a heartbreaking sax solo as Cook screams in the background.

This song is followed by one of the craziest rockers on the record, “Forgiveness Through Pain,” featuring Cook’s rapid-fire vocals, distorted guitar noise from lead guitarist Jesse Parmet, and Alex Koshak’s bloodthirsty drums.

Between Human Question, the Flesh Eaters’ reunion (keep reading), and the latest Mekons record (yes, I’m still slobbering over Deserted), I’d have to say rock ’n’ roll is off to a great start this year.

Now I think I’d better go buy some new socks.

Also recommended:

* I Used to Be Pretty by The Flesh Eaters. Here’s a band that rose up during the pioneer days of the great LA punk rock explosion of the early 1980s, a supergroup, really, that in some incarnations would include a who’s who of Southern California punk and roots rock.

The Flesh Eaters had a revolving door of a lineup through the years, but now frontman Chris Desjardins (known as “Chris D,” no relation to Chuck) is back with the same basic band that recorded the critically acclaimed, but still relatively obscure A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die, the group’s second album, released in the year of our Lord, 1981. Players include members of X (the band, not the brand) John Doe (bass) and D.J. Bonebrake (playing marimbas here); Dave Alvin (guitar) and Bill Bateman (drums) of The Blasters, and Steve Berlin of both Los Lobos and The Blasters (sax). Desjardins’ ex-wife and longtime Flesh Eater Julie Christensen also lends some vocals here.

So, yes, it’s a supergroup. And fittingly, the album is downright super. Desjardins — whose voice sounds as if he’s just woken up from a nightmare — and his cronies capture the spirit of the unique bluesy, noirish sounds they were making back at the dawn of the Reagan years. It’s a little more polished than A Minute to Pray, but still powerful and a little bit frightening.

There are some cover songs, including tunes we’ve previously heard by the likes of the Gun Club (another LA band frequently compared to The Flesh Eaters), The Sonics, and Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac. And there are re-recordings of a few old Flesh Eaters songs, including “Miss Muerte” and “Pony Dress.”

The best songs here are the ones where Desjardins and band get spooky and slinky like they do on “House Amid the Thickets,” where the combination of Alvin’s hard-knuckle blues guitar and Bonebrake’s marimba brings back memories of Frank Zappa’s Ruth Underwood period, and “The Youngest Profession,” on which Desjardins commands “Go crazy!” and both Alvin and Berlin do just that.

And speaking of spooky, the 13-minute “Ghost Cave Lament” is a grand finale and an instant epic. You will believe that flesh has been eaten in that cave.

Here are some videos:

First, The Yawpers



And now some Flesh Eaters ...

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Peter Case Comes to Town plus Tony Joe White's Last Album

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Nov. 9 , 2018

Peter Case 2010

The last time I saw Peter Case was in the summer of 2010 at one of Russ Gordon’s free shows at the Pajarito Mountain Ski Area. Case was touring for his album Wig, a punchy, bare-boned, blues-infused record that rocked harder than anything he’d done since his tenure with The Plimsouls in the early ’80s. (And, as far as I’m concerned, it’s still one of my favorite Case solo albums.) At the Los Alamos concert, he was backed only by longtime Santa Fe drummer Baird Banner. It was a terrific show, probably the best live Case set I’ve ever witnessed. Eight years later, I’m still jabbering on about it.

But maybe after next week, I’ll have something else to jabber about. Case is playing a show at Gig Performance Space (1808 Second St.), on Sunday, Nov. 11. (He’s also playing tonight,  Friday, Nov. 9 at The Cooperage in Albuquerque.)

So who is this guy?

Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1954, Case grew up in a nearby small town called Hamburg. Inspired by the record collections of his older sisters, he found himself playing in local rock ’n’ roll bands. His love for folk music took a quantum leap after he found a Mississippi John Hurt record in his local library. Soon he was playing in coffeehouses and on the streets of Buffalo.

By the mid-’70s, he was busking on the streets of the North Beach district of San Francisco. “That period was really the last explosion of the 1960s,” he told me in an interview in 2000. “It was great. Allen Ginsberg might walk up while you’re playing and start making up new verses.”

It was there where Case met songwriter Jack Lee. Leaving the folk scene, the two started the Nerves, one of the first California punk bands. When they split up, Case formed The Plimsouls, a roots-conscious power pop band.

Although The Plimsouls achieved national acclaim — Case’s “A Million Miles Away” became an early-’80s rock classic — Case just wasn’t satisfied. And one night in 1983, on a stage in Lubbock, it hit Case. “I longed to do the type of music I used to do,” he said. Soon after, The Plimsouls broke up and Case, at least in a metaphorical sense, was on his way back to the street corner.

Case at SXSW 1996

Case’s self-titled 1986 solo debut album and, even more so, its successor, The Man with the Blue Postmodern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Guitar, were so raw, so connected to musical, literary, and cultural undercurrents that had been repressed during the first half of the ’80s, they were downright jarring.

By the mid-’90s, Case was taking a dive into the deep end of folk music, signing to the venerated folkie label, Vanguard Records, which released Peter Case Sings Like Hell in 1993. It consisted of traditional roots songs on which he cut his proverbial teeth. Then came a string of strong records.

Case’s latest, On the Way Downtown, consists of live radio performances on FolkScene, a syndicated radio show from KPFK in Los Angeles. He played two performances there during his Vanguard years — one in 1998, the other in 2000.

The album features many of his best songs, including “Blue Distance,” “Icewater,” “Honey Child,” “Beyond the Blues,” “Still Playin’,” and the quirky “Coulda Shoulda Woulda,” which contains the immortal lyrics, “Coulda shoulda woulda stayed in school/James Brown was right/I was a fool.”

So here’s the deal: The chance to see Peter Case play in an intimate performing space like Gig is an opportunity not to be missed. Tickets to Case’s 7:30 p.m. gig are $22 in advance, $27 the day of show, at holdmyticket.com or 505-886-1251. Doors open at 7 p.m.

Also recommended:

* Bad Mouthin’ by Tony Joe White. I never got to meet Tony Joe White. But just from his deep drawl, his music straight out of the swamp, the hat, the sunglasses — I naturally assumed that the man who brought us “Polk Salad Annie” was the coolest guy alive.

And I still believe that, except for the “alive” part. American music lost a giant on Oct. 24, the day that Tony Joe died at the age of seventy-five. If Tony Joe’s death wasn’t sad enough, the swamp reaper came for him just after he’d released what would be his final album.

Bad Mouthin’ is a collection of Tony Joe literally singing the blues — blues filtered through White’s Louisiana soul and backed only by a drummer and White’s guitar.

There are several standards here that any casual fan of the blues should recognize, including Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man,” Muddy Waters’ “Baby Please Don’t Go,” and John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom” and “Heartbreak Hotel” — made famous by a man called Elvis, who did probably the second-greatest version of “Polk Salad Annie.”

And there are more obscure songs, like Charley Patton’s “Down the Dirt Road Blues” and several Tony Joe originals, including the title tune, “Cool Town Woman,” in which you can hear Hooker’s influence. “I dreamed about you baby and the dog just howled all night” may be the best line in the whole album.

But at the moment, my favorite track here is the longest: A six-minute-plus version of Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “Awful Dreams.” Like Hopkins, Tony Joe does “Awful Dreams” low and slow. But long as it is, the song never drags. “I don’t know if I’m goin’ to heaven or hell,” he moans near the end of the song.

I don’t know, but it seems to me any heaven without Tony Joe White wouldn’t be heaven at all.

It's video time!

Here's Peter Case singing one of my favorites, "Entella Hotel"





Here's a rocker, "New Old Blue Car." (Warning: long introduction. You can skip ahead to about the 1:15 mark)



And here is Tony Joe live ... about a month before he died

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: SXSW Wrap-Up

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
March 23, 2018

I just got back from the South by Southwest music festival in Austin. People are correct when they say that the festival has grown way too big, the traffic is impossible, and the parking is even worse. But despite all this, I managed to see a lot of good music.

Here are some of my favorites.

[Note: The videos embedded are not from this year's SXSW, except maybe the one for Nobunny. However that one was posted a few days before I saw Nobunny, so it's obviously not the same gig.]

* The Ghost Wolves at the 720 Club: Barely a year ago, I’d never heard of this Austin-based band. But after seeing them tear up this Red River Street dive with their unique brand of punk/blues/garage sounds, I feel like an overzealous cult member bent on spreading the word. Singer-guitarist Carley Wolf and her husband, drummer Jonathan Wolf, rock wild. Their lyrics and song titles seem to seethe with anger. And yet, somehow, listening to them only makes me grin. Indeed, I was grinning like a fool at the 720. But the cool thing was that Carley was grinning even more. The lady has an infectious smile that serves to fortify her monster guitar playing. And she doesn’t even need all six strings to make her magic. On the last several songs, Carley played an electric guitar with only one string — the low E string, I think. Pure primitive power.




* Nobunny at Hotel Vegas. I saw Wolves and I saw bunnies. If he were more famous, singer-guitarist Justin Champlin would do for shopping mall Easter bunnies what John Wayne Gacy did for clowns. And he should be more famous. Behind that ratty rabbit mask is a master of irresistible, hooky pop-punk songs.



* Shinyribs at The Dogwood. I was a huge fan of The Gourds, perhaps the greatest group to come out of Austin during the great alt-country scare of the late ’90s. I’m not sure what happened to them, but singer Kevin Russell has carried on with a new band, Shinyribs, and done quite well. In 2016, they released a fine New Orleans-flavored album called I Got Your Medicine (the band's fourth since 2010). Just recently, Shinyribs was named Best Austin Band by The Austin Chronicle.

Backed by a band that includes a sax and trumpet and two female backup singers, Russell, dressed in a loud yellow suit, did a medley of tunes including “Hey Pocky Way” and “Shotgun Willie.” At other points in the show, he started singing “Helter Skelter” during an unrelated number. And at least a couple of times, he made incongruous references to Roky Erickson’s “Cold Night for Alligators.”




*Count Vaseline at Hotel Vegas. Born Stefan Murphy, Vaseline is an Irish guy with a Beatle Bob hairdo who adopts the onstage persona of a deranged man standing on a soapbox and demanding that his crackpot warnings be heard. He started off slow. A growling guitar and ominous drums created the atmosphere as the Count went into a Jim Morrison-style vamp like some beatnik shaman. There is more than a little Mark E. Smith, the late frontman of The Fall, in Vaseline’s heady stew. He sounded like he was trying to stave off doomsday by prodding the audience to dance. Count Vaseline’s SXSW performance was much different than his recent release, Tales From the Megaplex, which is far poppier. I like that record, especially his Velvet-esque song called “Hail, Hail, John Cale” (“Lou Reed died wishing he could be John Cale ...”). But I like the weird live version of the Count even more.



* Yamantaka // Sonic Titan at Hotel Vegas. This was my major music discovery at SXSW 2018. It’s an avant-garde experimental noise group from Canada that calls its style “Noh-Wave” — a sly reference to Noh theater, a Japanese musical theater that’s been around since the 14th century. The band has two female singers, one of whom plays guitar, the other playing percussion instruments, including a large round drum and cymbals. Yamantaka did one number with serious Native American overtones. My first thought was that it sounded like Yoko Ono had produced a powwow record.




* The Waco Brothers at the Yard Dog Gallery. I’ve been going to see this band, led by Jon Langford of The Mekons, play the annual Bloodshot Records party during SXSW for more than 20 years now. I guess you could call it a ritual — a Dionysian ritual, where the frenzy becomes enlightenment — or something like that. The shows have all been high-energy, irreverent, frequently chaotic, and almost always inspiring.

This year, they played their classic songs — “See Willy Fly By,” “Red Brick Wall,” and “Plenty Tough, Union Made,” including some of their most inspired covers like George Jones’ “White Lightnin’,” Johnny Cash’s “Big River,” and Neil Young’s “Revolution Blues.” My favorite moment came after their performance of “Walking on Hell’s Roof.” In the middle of the song, Langford announced a fiddle solo from Jean Cook. However, her microphone wasn’t working, so the solo went unheard. You could tell this irked Langford. So, after the song was done and the mike problem was solved, the band decided to play that part again so Cook could have her solo heard. It was short but amazing.



* The Hickoids at Voodoo Doughnuts. This cowpunk/scuzz-country outfit is another band I make a point of seeing every time I go to SXSW. I’m pretty sure this set is the first time I’ve ever seen them during daylight hours — so now I can attest that it’s not the dark of night that makes The Hickoids maniacal. Singer Jeff Smith had an extra-long microphone cable and he used that to go out into the audience and harass — in the nicest possible way — law-abiding doughnut customers, getting in their faces, singing directly to individuals, and even going out onto Sixth Street and menacing passersby. He dragged at least one stranger into the shop, and he even sat on my lap for a few seconds.

Showbiz is a wonderful thing.




Check out my snapshots from SXSW on FLICKR

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Great American Dog Songs

As I wrote yesterday, I'm dealing with the loss of my dear old mutt, my friend and security dog, Rocco Rococo. On Wacky Wednesday I posted some great old  novelty tunes about man's best friend (plus a pretty cool houserocker by Hound Dog Taylor). Today I'm posting some classic American songs about dogs.

In 1853, Stephen Foster revealed himself to be a major dog lover with his sentimental song "Old Dog Tray."

Old dog Tray's ever faithful,
Grief cannot drive him away,
He's gentle, he is kind;
I'll never, never find
A better friend than old dog Tray.

My favorite version is by Peter Stampfel, singing here with The Bottle Caps.



Here's one that would have been appropriate for Wacky Wednesday as well as Throwback Thursday, "Quit Kickin' My Dig Around" by Gid Tanner & The Skillet Lickers.



Another old favorite is "Old Blue," which has been recorded by many folks. (The Byrds did a great cover on their album Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde. But here's an older recording by Memphis bluesman Furry Lewis.



Hank Williams knew what it was like to be in the doghouse. Here's "Move it On Over."



Even sadder than "Old Dog Tray" is "Old Shep." Hands down, the greatest version of this tearjerker is Elvis Presley's 1956 cover, I posted that on my Facebook page the day Rocco died. But the original was by Red Foley. "I cried so I scarcely could see ..."

Rocco Ralph Rococo, 2002-2017

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Eat a Hot Dog!

I had this friend named Big Norm back in college. Sometimes he misunderstood lyrics to popular songs. Sometimes I think he did it on purpose. For instance, at the dawn of the disco scourge, Big Norm thought that the spoken refrain of Van McCoy's "Do the Hustle" was "Eat a Hot dog!"

Goofy, I know. But sometimes when I'm craving a good old American frankfurter, deep in my skull I hear Van McCoy's music and Big Norm's voice telling me what to do.

And sometimes I think of some of the great American songs about hot dogs posted below. Except some of these might not actually be about food, per se.

Let's kick it off with a rockabilly classic by one Corky Jones, which was a pseudonym for the one and only Buck Owens. (Back in the '50s, Buck tried to conceal his identity as not to offend his country fans. But by the end of the 80s he re-recorded this song under his own name and made it a title song of one of hi last studio albums.)




In the mid 1920s, Butterbeans & Susie always had hot dogs on their menu.



Bessie Smith had a similar idea a few years later.



Then there was Hasil Adkins



And this song by The Detroit Cobras practically could be the theme song for the American Wiener Institute.

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Let There Be BBQ!

There was so much rain in Santa Fe last weekend, I hate to think how many would-be  BBQers were discouraged. So I'm going to try to work a little magic here and try to appease the rain gods with some great songs about barbecue.

The art of barbecue has been linked to American music since the early part of the last century.

In 1927 Louis Armstrong & The Hot Five recorded a tune called "Struttin' with some BBQ." But as the Onion A/V Club pointed out a couple of years ago, Satch's song probably wasn't about pork ribs. Cab Calloway's Jive Dictionary defines "barbecue" as "the girl friend, a beauty."

Also in 1927, one of the first musicians to sing about smoked meat was an Atlanta bluesman named Robert Lincoln, a chef in a high-class BBQ joint who recorded under the name Barbecue Bob. His very first record, recorded in 1927 was called "Barbecue Blues."

But I prefer another Barbecue Bob song recorded in the same session, "It Won't Be Long Now," credited to Barbeque Bob and Laughing Charley (Charley Hicks, Bob's older brother.)

Jas Obrecht,  editor for Guitar Player magazine for 20 years and the founding editor of Pure Guitar magazine, writes that the song "began with a spoken dialog about Bob’s job as a barbecue chef; this was pure minstrel shuck-and-jive. This was also the first record to feature Charley’s signature laughter. It was an old shtick dating back at least to George W. Johnson’s 'Laughing Song' cylinders of the 1890s, but it was a good way to get Charlie’s name out there. Near the end of the song, the brothers sang a verse in unison."

"Shuck and jive" or not, I've always loved this dialogue, how Bob tries to explain his cooking technique ("I'm makin; it good and juicy. That's the way people like it these days, you know with gravy runnin' out") before the conversation turns to their women who have left them. ("Same dog that bit you must have snapped at me ...")

And thus, barbecue forever became intertwined with the blues, with the smoke blowing over into the fields of jazz, country, rockabilly and rock 'n' roll.

So here's a Spotify playlist of BBQ songs, beginning and ending with Barbecue Bob -- and a lot in between: Satch, ZZ Top, Mojo Nixon, Lucille Bogan, Pere Ubu and more.

So hear these songs, gods of rain, and let there be some sunshine, at least for the coming weekend.

And to you, the reader: If you get the chance to grill outside Saturday or Sunday, be sure to play this then.

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Bloodhounds and Stompin', Gut-Bucket Blues

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
November 21, 2014

It doesn't sound that thrilling on paper. A band plays basic, unfettered, rocking blues — closer to gutbucket than to the smooth, tame uptown stuff — cranks it up, adds a little rockabilly sneer, and in the process of honoring ascended masters like Hound Dog Taylor and Howlin’ Wolf, also pays sly homage to The Yardbirds and maybe even the Count Five and other ’60s garage crazies.

Yes, that’s been done before. And yet, when it’s done right with plenty of spirit, there isn’t much that can beat it. This is the case with a new band called The Bloodhounds. Their debut album, Let Loose!, despite all its obvious roots in the past, is some of the freshest-sounding music I’ve heard lately.

The Hounds are a predominantly Chicano band from East L.A. — which means they’re undoubtedly getting a little tired of the obvious comparison to early-1980s Los Lobos. But the comparison is apt. Let Loose!, especially the faster songs, reminds me a lot of ... And a Time to Dance, the 1983 EP that introduced Los Lobos to the rock ’n’ roll world. None of The Bloodhounds are up to David Hidalgo’s level as a songwriter yet. But give them time. (All the songs here are originals, credited to the four band members, except one Bo Diddley song and one by Otis Redding.)

The album comes bucking out of the stall with “Indian Highway,” which has an irresistible, bluesy guitar hook that evokes Bob Dylan’s “Obviously Five Believers.” As singer Aaron “Little Rock” Piedraita belts out the lyrics and guitarist Branden Santos makes his sonic offering to the voodoo loas of rock ’n’ roll, a listener knows it’s going to be a joyful journey.

The next tune, “Wild Little Rider,” starts off slow, like a sweet Mexican song. There are even marimbas in the background. But then, the sleepy cantina explodes. It’s on this track that The Bloodhounds reveal one of their most lethal weapons, the rave-up harmonica. (Three members are listed in the credits as playing harp, so I’m not sure who is playing on this song.)

On “The Wolf,” the musicians prove that they are perfectly capable of slowing it down to a swampy groove. With Santos playing spooky Hubert Sumlin licks and Piedraita name checking various Howlin’ Wolf song titles, this sounds like “Wang Dang Doodle” for a new generation. There’s one song here that might someday end up as an advertising jingle in, say, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, or Alaska. That’s “Try a Little Reefer,” which features a cool Hammond organ.

Besides their rocking side, The Bloodhounds sometimes slip into jug-band or skiffle mode. On songs like “Dusty Bibles and Silver Spoons,” “Hey Lonnie,” and the goofball “Olderbudwiser,” the group includes instruments like washtub bass, banjo, rub board, spoons, and kazoo. It’s good fun, and I’m a jug-band fan, but with three such tunes on one album, the novelty wears a little thin.

But even with that nitpicking, Let Loose! is a dandy debut. I hope these Bloodhounds keep sniffing.

Here are some other recent punk, garage, gutbucket blues, and rock albums I’ve been enjoying:

* The Man Who Rode the Mule Around the World by John Schooley. It filled my heart with joy to see a new John Schooley album — on Voodoo Rhythm Records, no less. It’s his first since 2007’s One Man Against the World.

Hailing from Austin, Schooley is a venerated pioneer of the punk-blues one-man-band movement. On this album, he plays nearly everything: guitars — electric and otherwise — banjo, and drums, though Austin harmonica player Walter Daniels joins him on several cuts. (Daniels and Schooley have another new album together, Dead Mall Blues, which I just learned about.)

Some cuts sound like crazed blues, while others, like “Cluck Old Hen,” might be bluegrass from the Red Planet. Then there is “Poor Boy Got the K.C. Blues,” in which Schooley sounds like he’s been listening to John Fahey (though Fahey never used drums miked nearly that high).

The title song comes from a great American trouba-dour and legendary drunkard, Charlie Poole. It’s a surreal little hillbilly classic with lyrics like “Oh, she’s my daisy, she’s black-eyed and she’s crazy/The prettiest girl I thought I ever saw/Now her breath smells sweet, but I’d rather smell her feet/She’s my freckle-faced, consumptive Sara Jane.” Schooley and Daniels soup it up into an eardrum blaster, jamming like madmen until the last minute or so. It’s sheer feedback squall. Charlie Poole meets Metal Machine Music. I love it!

* Man Monkey by O Lendário Chucrobillyman & His Trash Tropical One Band Orquestra. Speaking of one-man bands, this is the new album by Chucrobillyman (real name Klaus Koti), my very favorite Brazilian one-man punk/blues assault team. According to his website, he was “born in the depths of the Amazon jungle, spent his childhood listening to the frenzied roar of the beasts of the forest” and to “old albums of songs from rock-and-roll, blues, post punk, and youthful music.” (That’s from a Google translation of the original Portuguese.)

Truly, this is my kind of youthful music from the jungle. It’s even denser, crazier, and more voodoo-fueled than The Chicken Album, his previous record from Off Label Records (a German company specializing in wild sounds from across the planet). The new album actually has just as many chicken songs (“Chicken Style,” “Chicken Groove,” and “Fried Chicken Blues”) as The Chicken Album.

The poultry-obsessed Chucrobillyman also likes jungle songs. Here we have “Midnight Jungle,” an instrumental featuring wild rhythms and animal noises, and “She Lives in the Jungle,” a spooky blues stomper.

My favorite on Man Monkey is another jungle tune called “The Trip of Kambo.” Kambo refers to a traditional shamanic medicine made from the secretions of a giant monkey frog, which has been used for thousands of years by native tribes in the Amazon. Kambo sounds downright psychedelic with this musical backdrop that reminds me of some of Louisiana hoodoo rocker C.C. Adcock or Tony Joe White’s swampier excursions.

Enjoy some videos, starting with The Bloodhounds live on Halloween



And here they are again.



Here's John Schooley live at Beer Land in Austin, where I saw him play with Walter Daniels and Ralph White a few years ago.



And here's Chucrobillyman playing "Rollercoaster Love."