TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, October 2, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
It's Money That I Love by Randy Newman
Money (That's What I Want) by Jerry Lee Lewis
Brother Can You Spare a Dime by Dr. John & Odetta
Money Money Money by ThaMuseMeant
Money Like Water by kevin Coyne
Money is King by Growling Tiger
It's Money That Matters by Randy Newman

Wake Me When September Comes by Green Day
Jackie Dressed in Cobras by The New Pornographers
Your Time Has Come by Audio Slave
Two Headed Dog (Red Temple Prayer) by Roky Erickson
The Nurse by The White Stripes
Underdog by The Dirtbombs
My Baby Loves the Secret Agent by The Detroit Cobras
Dirty Water by The Standells

Didn't Know Much About Education by Otis Taylor
In My Time of Dying by Alvin Youngblood Hart
You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover by Bo Diddley
Keep Mediocrity at Bay by Van Morrison
Have You Ever Had the Blues by Howard Tate
Fef Ka Efe by Fela Kuti

If You Can't Give Me Everything by The Reigning Sound
Leslie Anne Levine by The Decemberists
Hijack by Paul Kanter & The Jefferson Starship
Ashes on the Ground by Yo La Tengo
Row Boys Row by Richard Thompson
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

GUITARS UNDER THE STARS AT VILLANUEVA

It was a night of good food, good music and good company out at the Villanueva home of my friends Steve and Sherry (formerly known as "Steve Scott & Denise DeLeon" of the late lamented radio show The Real Deal on KFUN in Las Vegas, N.M.

Memphis country singer Nancy Apple and Mark Autry -- the inspiration for Nancy's song "My Boyfriend" (which I played on The Santa Fe Opry last night) -- were there, so naturally a campfire guitar pull was on the agenda. (Pictured above are Nancy on harmonica, two Steves, and Mark. Anton is standing in the shadows. Photos by Helen.)

Nancy says she considers her annual trip to New Mexico as work rather than vacation, because she uses the time to write songs. She wrote four on Saturday and Mark says he likes three of them. I sure liked the ones she played for us last night.

She's got a new duet album with Rob McNurlin coming out pretty soon. Hopefully I'll be playing it real soon on The Opry. Nancy and Rob will be touring soon and a Santa Fe gig is a possibility.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, September 30, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Four Leaf Clover by The Old 97s
The Dishwasher's Dream by Marah
Endless War by Son Volt
I Want to Live and Love Always by Junior Brown
The Meanest Jukebox in Town by Alvin Youngblood Hart
Me and My Uncle by The Grateful Dead
Drinkin' & Cheatin' & Death by The Waco Brothers
My Own Kind of Hat by Rosie Flores

My Boyfriend by Nancy Apple
Shopping For Dresses by Steve Young
Third Rate Romance by Russell Smith
Rain Keeps A-Fallin' by Josh Lederman y Los Diablos
Goin' Up to 'Burque by Bayou Seco
Funky Butt by Mark Weber
Down in The Flood by Bob Dylan
Satisfied Mind by Jonathan Richman

Boozoo That's Who by NRBQ
Oh Black Girl by Boozoo Chavis
My Toot Toot by Fats Domino & Doug Kershaw
Half a Boy and Half a Man by Queen Ida
Malinda by BeauSoleil
Saturday Night Special by Lesa Cormier & The Sundown Playboys
Tear-Stained Letter by Jo-El Sonier
The Whole Thing Stinks by Rico Bell & The Snake Handlers
Jole Blon by Vin Bruce

I Still Believe That You're Gone by Willie Nelson
Say Goodbye by Eleni Mandell
Gabriel's Call by Hazel & Alice
Heaven by Joe West
Shelter From the Storm by Rodney Crowell with Emmylou Harris
Until the Day I Die by Steve Earle
In My Hour of Darkness by Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

PAOLO SHOW CANCELLED

The Hurricane Katrina benefit concert with Los Mocosos I posted about yesterday has been cancelled --ironically due to weather.

New Mexico Music Commission director Nancy Laughlin said Friday because of this week’s rains, the ground around Paolo Soleri was so muddy trucks couldn’t get in to unload equipment.

The Music Commission has another hurricane relief benefit featuring New Mexico performers scheduled for Oct. 7 at Albuquerque’s Kimo Theater.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: OTIS & ALVIN

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
September 30, 2005

Otis Taylor has to be the most eccentric blues stylist working today. His new album Below the Fold, is a sonic wonder and — par for the course for Taylor — an intense listen.

You know you’re going to be in for a ride in the opening stains of the first song, “Feel Like Lightning.” A plunking banjo is joined by a screaming guitar, a crazed fiddle drums and bass, as Otis shouts “Oh Yeah!” It’s a joyful one-chord acoustic cacophony -- and there’s a cello in there too.

And to illustrate Taylor’s bizarre sense of arrangements, the song “Boy Plays Mandolin” indeed features Taylor picking that instrument. But when he sings, “When I was a boy, I played, I played the mandolin …” he’s answered by Ron Miles’ cool trumpet.

And while Greg Anton’s martial drumming on “Right Side of Heaven” suggests an Otha Turner-like fife and drum number, there’s no fife to be found. Just a dangerous showdown between Miles’ trumpet and Taylor’s harmonica.

Speaking of drums, this is the first time Taylor has employed them since reviving his music career in the late ‘90s. Anton only appears on about half the songs on Below the Fold, but the addition is welcome. Drums certainly don’t make this music sound conventional.

Taylor’s songs are portraits drawn from historical injustices -- often little-known stories -- and shadowy corners of the singer’s personal history.

“Your Children Sleep Good Tonight” is about the 1914 Ludlow Massacre in which Colorado National Guard troops shot at and set fire to a tent community of striking miners, killing 11 children northwest of Trinidad. None of the Guard members were ever prosecuted. “Hey hey, Mr. Rockefeller, I know your children sleeps good tonight,” Taylor taunts. (The Rockefeller Family controlled Colorado Fuel & Iron, the major coal operator in the region.)

“Government Lied” tells the story of German soldiers in World War II shooting American soldiers. According to Taylor’s liner notes, “At the end of the war, the responsible Germans were hanged for killing the white soldiers, but the U.S. government said that the black soldiers were missing to they wouldn’t have to account for them.”

Taylor has to write the darkest “Mama” songs in all of popular music. His last record had a ditty called “Mama’s Selling Heroin.” On this CD there’s “Mama’s Got a Friend,” an autobiographical story of a boy with two mommies. He never says exactly how he feels about the situation, but the tension of music -- the repeated minor-key acoustic guitar riff, droning cello, edgy fiddle, sinister trumpet -- paints the emotional landscape as “Every time I go to school, people ask me about my sister,” Taylor moans.

Below the Fold is a powerful testament to Taylor’s strange vision of the blues. It’s an album that somehow manages to be jolting as well as hypnotic.

Also Recommended:

*Motivational Speaker by Alvin Youngblood Hart. If Otis Taylor is blues’ great eccentric, Hart is the great eclectic.

His musical interests cover a wide field of musical styles that touch on the blues. Following his 2002 effort Down in the Alley — which was basically an acoustic collection of songs by ascended masters like Charlie Patton. Skip James and Sleepy John Estes — on his latest CD the gruff-voiced Hart returns to his high-voltage electric — and far more varied — sound.

There’s a couple of tunes here that are juiced-up, fiery versions of tunes Hart had previously recorded in acoustic versions -- “Big Mama’s Door” (subtitled “Might Return” in this version) and “How Long Before I Change My Clothes.” Blues purists probably prefer the original versions, but I bet the electric versions here would make Howlin’ Wolf smile.

On several cuts on Motivational Speaker, Hart tips his hat to the psychedelic blues of Cream and Jimi Hendrix.

There’s “Stomp Dance,” which starts out with what sounds like tribal drums, soon joined by a fuzzy bass before building up to a “Crosstown Traffic” frenzy and “Shoot Me a Grin,” which sounds like an invocation to prehistoric guitar gods.

“The Worm,” (written by Paul Rodgers in his days with Free), is slow and heavy with a hint of wah-wah in the guitar. Meanwhile the six-minute “Shootout on I-55” is a frantic jam.

Hart tries straight-ahead soul -- complete with a rag-tag horn section and a female backup singer (Susan Marshall) -- with his cover of Otis Redding’s “Nobody’s Fault But Mine”

And he’s no stranger to country music. One of the greatest delights on his 1998 album Territory was a lap steel-heavy tune called “Tallacatcha,” which, though written by Hart himself, sounded like a lost treasure from the Hank Williams song book.

On Motivational Speaker Hart goes hardcore honky tonk on a Johnny Paycheck stomper called “The Meanest Jukebox in Town,” then shows his latent cosmic cowboy tendencies on a Haight Ashbury-era Doug Sahm song, “Lawd I’m Just a Country Boy in This Great Big Freaky City.” (Hart has included this one in his live repertoire for years.)

But perhaps the strongest number here is a traditional tune called “In My Time of Dying.” Hart plays it slow with dreamy guitars -- including an inspiring slide played by Audley Freed.

THE RICHARDSON BOOK: CHAPTER 2

Some of my sneak preview book review of Bill Richardson's upcoming autobiography Between Worlds got cut, I presume for space. (Here's what was published in The New Mexican Sunday.)

There were several interesting items about Richardson’s childhood and early adulthood in Between Worlds. I thought I might put the cutting-room-floor stuff in my column yesterday, but there wasn't space.

So here's some of the other parts of the book I quoted from:

* Richardson talks about his childhood in Mexico city, where he was His father — a Republican who was a friend of President Eisenhower — was very demanding and stingy with compliments — traits Richardson admits he picked up. “I admired my father enormously as I grew up, and loved him too. I only wish I’d have told him so, just once.”

* Richardson’s father made sure both his children were born on U.S. soil so there would be no doubt about their citizenship. The Richardson had been born aboard a ship.

* Moving from Mexico to Massachusetts for prep school, Richardson felt like an outsider. “Here I was, not quite thirteen, the dark-skinned boy from Mexico among a bunch of fair-skinned kids from cities like New York and Boston and Chicago and their posh suburbs. A few of the kids called me Pancho, but I didn’t take as a slur as much as a recognition of the obvious: I wasn’t one of them.” Richardson goes on to say that it wasn’t until he proved himself on the baseball field that he gained acceptance at the school.

* Richardson’s first election was president of the Delta Tau Delta at Tufts University. But there was a serious move to throw him out of office after he clamped down on marijuana use at the frat house. Richardson’s book repeats his long-standing statement that he’s never tried marijuana.

Remember, folks, as the governor's office reminded me this week, all of this is from an advance copy and is subject to change before the November publication.

KATRINA BENEFIT AT PAOLO

The state Music Commission is among the sponsors for a benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina victims scheduled Saturday at Paolo Soleri Amphitheater.


The concert will feature Los Mocosos, a San Francisco-based Latin-rock band, plus my buddies Bayou Seco and The Georgie Angel Blues Band. Also playing are Chris Dracup, Hillary Smith, Native Spirit, Jimmy Stadler, Teri Lynn Browning, Mosaic Dance Company, Moving People Dance Company, Wise Fool Circus performers, Paz and Luke Reed & Western Civilization.

Tickets are $20. Gates open at 3 p.m. All proceeds will go to the Salvation Army’s hurricane relief effort.

The Music Commission has another hurricane relief benefit scheduled for Oct. 7 at Albuquerque’s Kimo Theater.

And hey, the Music Commission has it's Web site up. Check it out. There's even a page for Commissioner Tony Orlando.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: GRUBESIC IS BACK

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New MexicanSeptember 29, 2005

The last we heard from state Sen. John Grubesic, it wasn’t pretty.

In late July he was in the news for an incident in which a neighbor had reported him for allegedly speeding and nearly hitting her children on Star Vista Road. When a sheriff’s deputy went to talk to him, Grubesic responded angrily, yelling and cursing at the officer — who captured it all on tape.

This was just a few months after another incident in which Grubesic had wrecked his sports utility vehicle and intially lied to state police about what had happened.

Grubesic has apologized for those incidents. He recently even apologized to me personally, though his worst slight to yours truly was not returning my phone calls following the last incident.

He’s purposely kept a low profile since then. Grubesic said in an interview this week that he’s been involved in counseling and Alcoholics Anonymous.

“I attempted to scurry back into my private life and ignore the insanity of politics as best I could,” Grubesic wrote in an email to selected local journalists. “However, recent events have reminded me why I decided to run for office — to be a different kind of leader, vocal, independent and unafraid.”

Said Grubesic, “I admit that I have spent the majority of my short career battling my personal demons (with varied success) and little time focusing on the evils of politics.”

The “recent events” that Grubesic says have compelled him to speak out are the upcoming special session of the Legislature — which he says will be a waste of time — and the recent kickback scandal in the State Treasurer’s Office — in which State Treasurer Robert Vigil and former treasurer Michael Montoya are facing federal extortion charges. This scandal could mean big problems for Democrats, Grubesic said.

Hot air and alligator briefcases: Grubesic said Richardson’s proposal to put $75 million toward gas tax refunds for all state taxpayers look like “ a quick fix designed to accomplish nothing more than garner good press.”

The senator said he likes an energy plan proposed by New York Gov. George Pataki, which, Grubesic said, provides tax credits for alternative vehicles and incentives for alternative fuel production.

“Oil is a finite resource,” he said. “Continued consumption is not the answer. ... Giving rebates or getting rid of the gas tax encourages people to continue to drive and consume, not conserve.”
Grubesic dismissed Richardson’s call to crack down on gasoline price gouging as “hot air.”

He recalled a previous ineffective attempt by the state to challenge the petroleum industry in the ‘90s when Congressman Tom Udall was attorney general. Udall was looking at possible gasoline price-fixing in Santa Fe. Grubesic was working for the AG then.

“I was two years out of law school, had no experience with anti-trust law and was asked to assist in the case the night before a hearing in Carlsbad,” he said. “The industry had strategically filed three separate suits in New Mexico to quash our investigatory subpoenas and all of them were in oil and gas country. When I showed up for the hearing there were 10 attorneys on the other side. They promptly crushed me and helped me pack up my cardboard box in my rental car to go back to Santa Fe, while they packed up their alligator brief cases and flew back to Houston on their private jet.

“We don’t have the people or the money to go on this wild goose chase,” Grubesic said. “Even if we could design an enforceable law and had the manpower behind it, the oil and gas industry would come up with some reason why prices are so high. These guys have been gouging us for years and are well prepared to fight this battle.”

Trouble at the Treasurer’s Office: Grubesic suggested that the speciual session is a “smokescreen” to draw attention away from the looming kickback scandal — even though the governor had been talking about a possible special session well before the FBI arrested Vigil and Montoya.

“As Democrats we should be worried,” he said “I know for a fact that there were memos and an audit lying around in various state offices that nobody dealt with or completely ignored. These activities were known about, but nobody had the guts to do anything about them. The Feds are doing it for us. Now we have lots of tough talk from the very people that sat on their hands while these guys took sacks of money out the back door.

“The only way to move forward is to acknowledge what has happened. As Democrats, let’s be honest and admit our failures and vow to fix it by doing a complete and honest investigation of how far this scandal goes, where the money is within our party, who knew what, when and why nothing was done.”

When asking where the money is, Grubesic acknowledged that he might have an idea where $50 of it went.

He is one of the three dozen Democratic candidates who received small contributions from Vigil in 2004. Others from the Santa Fe area include Sen. Phil Griego and Rep. Peter Wirth, both of whom received $50 from Vigil.

“I’ll return it or donate it to charity,” Grubesic said of his $50. “I don’t want it.”

Note: This morning, after this column appeared in the paper, Rep. Peter Wirth called to say that he returned his $50 contribution from Robert Vigil.

NO DIRECTION HOME

I found myself enjoying Martin Scorsese's docu-Dylan the past couple of nights even more than I thought I would.

I loved the concert and studio footage I'd never seen before. I loved seeing Dylan playing piano and singing "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" in a weird slow rhythm backstage somewhere with Johnny Cash. I loved seeing the interview segments with the late Dave Van Ronk. (I blame Van Ronk on my career choice. He was my first interview back in 1980.) I loved seeing Dylan and Joan Baez singing at the 1963 March on Washington. I loved hearing Baez cuss like a pro.

And I found a new respect for Dylan from the footage used of his new interviews. The man seemed thoughtful and sincere -- not the enigmatic joker of his old greet-the-press sessions.

Scorsese included lots of those old mid-60s press conferences shown in tonight's episode. Dylan looked like he was stoned half the time. And, I'm sorry to say, I was not proud of my press brethren, whose questions ranged from the pompous to the inane. One reporter wanted to know how many songwriters wrote protest songs. Dylan, in a face that wasn't even straight, answered, "136." "Exactly 136?" the newsgeek asked. Dylan could have written "Ballad of a Thin Man" about any one of these idiots.

I found myself raging when the film came to the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, when the folkies turned on Dylan for "going electric" with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Some of these dildos still are whining that Dylan betrayed them by "going commercial." Commercial! True, "Like a Rolling Stone" somehow became a major hit. But couldn't any of the Folk Nazis see how truly radical this song was? It twice as long as most pop songs of its day and Dylan's goofy nasal voice weird even for rock 'n' roll back then. And there was all this surreal imagery -- diplomats with Siamese cats, jugglers and clowns, Napoleon in Rags -- and all of it a snide celebration of a rich bitch who gets her comeuppance.

And so the folkies booed, as did their European cousins when Dylan toured with The Band the next year. It's almost as if they knew Dylan was special, but they wanted to keep him in their own little club, away from the great unwashed who aren't as hip and enlightened as them. Away from the crazy rock 'n' roll crowd. Away from grubby junior high kids in Oklahoma like me who would find hidden truths in Dylan's oracle rants (even though I wasn't quite sure who or what the "mystery tramp" was. In the end, the folkie guardians seemed as closed-minded as the conservatives they decried. Maybe they should have heeded one of the early Dylan songs they cherished so much: "You'd better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone ..."

I'm listening to the soundtrack now. I've been playing it for a few weeks now. It doesn't really follow the songs used in the movie, though it's got "Maggie's Farm" from Newport '65. Fortunately Mike Bloomfield's guitar is loud enough to drown out the pig-headed detractors.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, September, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Goin' on Down to the BBQ by Drywall
You You You! by Kevin Coyne & The Pine Valley Cosmonauts
Beautiful World by Devo
Hot Dog by The Detroit Cobras
Steal that Car by Alice Cooper
Gatorade by Heavy Trash
Something Broken in the Promised Land by Wayne Kramer
The Idiot Bastard Son by The Mothers of Invention

Treat Her Right by Los Straightjackets starring Mark Lindsay
King of the Rodeo by Kings of Leon
Already Gone by Tarbox Ramblers
Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat by Bob Dylan
The Bleeding Heart Show by The New Pornographers
Maps by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Tony Rome by Nancy Sinatra

NIGHT TRAIN TO NASHVILLE SEGMENT
Nashville Jumps by Cecil Grant
Boogie Woogie Jockey by Jimmy Sweeney
Anna by Arthur Alexander
Dr. Feel-Good by Dr. Feelgood & The Interns
Just Walkin' in the Rain by The Prisonaires
I'm Free (The Prisoner's Song) by Johnny Bragg
You Better Change by Hal & Jean
Sunny by Bobby Hebb
Just Sittin' Here Drinkin' by Christine Kittrell
Next to Me by Clyde McPhatter
She Can Rock by Little Ike

Poppy Nogood & The Phantom Band by Terry Riley
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis