Friday, April 16, 2010

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: BLOOD IN MEDICINE COUNTY

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 16, 2010


Former Billy Childish protégé Holly Golightly Smith continues her funky backwoods explorations on Medicine County, the third and latest album credited to Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs. The other half of this band is her longtime collaborator, Texas-born “Lawyer Dave” Drake.

Golightly, for the benefit of newcomers, was an original member of Thee Headcoatees, a garage-rock girl group that sprang from Childish’s band of the moment, Thee Headcoats, in the early 1990s. She has operated as a solo act since the mid-1990s, and she’s sung on tunes by The White Stripes, Rocket From the Crypt, Hipbone Slim & The Knee Tremblers, and others. She also did a tune in Jim Jarmusch’s 2005 movie, Broken Flowers.

Though she was born in England, Golightly now lives on a farm outside Athens, Georgia, with Lawyer Dave. This undoubtedly contributes to the rural vibe of her recent work.

This is The Brokeoffs’ third album, following Dirt Don’t Hurt (2008) and You Can’t Buy a Gun When You’re Crying (2007). It has a slightly more diverse sound than those previous records. It starts off with a twangy, exotic tune called “Forget It” that features a piercing organ. It’s not hard imagining the Cambodian/American psychedelic surf band Dengue Fever performing this one. It’s jarring but alluring.

But Holly and Dave are back on more familiar ground on the next song, “Two Left Feet.” No, it’s not the Richard Thompson song of the same name. This is a lazy, loping stomper featuring a nasty slide-guitar lick.

The next couple of tunes — the title song and “I Can’t Lose” — are fine hoedown numbers. The latter in particular is tasty. The screechy fiddle sounds as if it’s straight out of The Holy Modal Rounders. This leads to “Murder in My Mind,” a song written by British New Waver Wreckless Eric. It has a “Louie Louie”-type chord pattern that can be seen as a nod to Golightly’s garage roots. She and Lawyer Dave trade off on verses with lyrics like “One day they’ll find you hangin’ from a tree/or lyin’ in an alley with a knife stickin’ out of your spleen.”

Speaking of blood and guts, these two apparently have been listening to old Tex Ritter records. Ritter’s signature tune, “Blood on the Saddle,” appears here as a loopy waltz with Oregon singer Tom Heinl providing the frog-throated spoken-word section at the end of the tune.

The Brokeoffs also cover “Jack O’ Diamonds” (which Ritter recorded as “Rye Whiskey”). Holly and Dave do it as a sinister-sounding minor-key tune with fiddle and banjos.

While most of the tunes here are originals or traditional songs, Heinl wrote one of the most fun songs here, “Escalator.” It’s a clunky little tune about a guy, perhaps a child, who fears escalators. “Escalator, you won’t eat me/With your big rubber tongue and your shiny teeth,” Lawyer Dave sings. The narrator gets so riled up and fearful that he ends up hiding in a rack of nightgowns.

The prettiest song on Medicine County is “Dearly Departed.” The opening guitar strums remind me of the beginning of Waylon Jennings’ “Dreaming My Dreams With You.” Golightly sings it soft and somber. Somebody’s playing a church organ in the background, which gives the song an otherworldly feel.

Meanwhile, the song “Don’t Fail Me Now,” with its feedback and tortured electric guitar, sounds like it’s champing at the bit to break out into a crazy rocker. They keep it restrained, but the tension adds some dimension.

Also recommended:

* Under Construction by The Del-Lords. After 20 years or so, the mighty Del-Lords are back, with a way-too-short but very tantalizing EP.

In case you missed its original run (circa 1984-1991), this New York band was led by Scott “Top Ten” Kempner, formerly of The Dictators, and Eric “Roscoe” Ambel, an original member of Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. (In more recent years, Ambel has played guitar in Steve Earle’s band and in his own group, The Yayhoos.

Although urban, the Del-Lords did credible covers of “Folsom Prison Blues” and the best version ever of Blind Alfred Reed’s “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?”)

The boys still sound in fine form on the five songs here, from the opening rocker, “When the Drugs Kick In” — “I was right in the middle of a big idea (when the drugs kicked, when the drugs kicked in)/I forgot everything right there and then (when the drugs kicked, when the drugs kicked in) — to the last track, a pretty Kempner ballad called “All of My Life.”

My favorite here is “Me & the Lord Blues,” sung by Ambel and featuring a crazy, raunchy guitar hook. This might be seen as a modern rewrite of the Blind Alfred tune the Del-Lords did so well: “I woke up this morning, and I says to God/‘I know you’re gonna hit me if you’re gonna hit me/but do you have to hit so hard?’/No food upon my table, too much on my plate ... please tell me, Lord, it’s all a mistake.”

These songs are just enough to make a Del-Lords fan hope for a new full-fledged album.

Under Construction is available only at the Del-Lords’ Web site, www.del-lords.com.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, April 11, 2010
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@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Love Taco by Pinata Protest
Get Off the Road by The Cramps
Ride on Angel by Simon Stokes
Daddy Rolling Stone by The Blasters
Colourfast Girl by The Laundronauts
Take My Hand by The Organs
Grease Box by TAD
Would Yo Go All the Way by Frank Zappa
Little School Girl by Larry Williams

Be and Bring Me Home by Roky Erikson with Okerville River
Bury You Alive by Batusis
When the Drugs Kick In by The Del-Lords
Wig Wag by Manby's Head
Tiger Phone Card by Dengue Fever
Weeping Blues by Roscoe Gordon
Wooly Bully by Hasil Adkins

She Ain't a Child No More by Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
(It's a) Sunny Day by The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker
I Don't Want No Funky Chicken by Wiley And The Checkmates
Me and Mr. Jones by Amy Winehouse
Miss Beehive by Howard Tate
Goin' to Jump and Shout by Barrence Whitfield
Big Booty Woman by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart by J.C. Brooks & The Uptown Sound

I Still Want to be Your Baby (Take Me as I Am) by Bettye Lavette
Tricks by Andre Williams
The Trip by Donovan
The Ballad of Dwight Fry/Sun Arise by Alice Cooper
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Friday, April 09, 2010

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 9, 2010
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Honky Tonk Heroes by Billy Joe Shaver
Lonesome, Onery and Mean by Waylon Jennings
Hillbilly Blues by Ronnie Dawson
White Sands (Home of the Radar Men) by Cornell Hurd
Viva Sequin / Do Re Mi by Ry Cooder with Flaco Jimenez
Hot Dog That Made Him Mad by Wanda Jackson
His Rockin' Little Angel by Rosie Flores with Wanda Jackson
She Started Comin' Round Again by The Ex-Husbands
Try and Try Again by Billy Joe Shaver

Duck For The Oyster by Malcolm McLaren
I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive by Jerry Lee Lewis
Dr. Demon & The Robot Girl by Capt. Clegg & The Night Creatures
Look at That Moon by Carl Mann
Lawd I'm Just a Country Boy in This Great Big Freaky City by The Bottle Rockets
Real Cool Ride by The Hillbilly Hellcats
Hard Luck 'n' Old Dogs by Nancy Apple
Honky Tonk Hardwood Floor by Jess Willard
My Blackbirds Are Bluebirds Now by Sleepy Jeffers & The Jeffers Twins

Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other by Willie Nelson
Cowboy Song by Dan Reeder
Fire Down Below by The Waco Brothers
It's Just That Song by The Cramps
Up Above My Head by Maria Muldaur & Tracy Nelson
When I Move to The Sky by Sister Rosetta Tharpe
In the Pines by Delaney Davidson
Dearly Departed by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs

The Fourth Night of My Drinking by The Drive-By Truckers
Drinkin' Wine by Gene Simmons
Aw the Humanity by Rev. Horton Heat
Sweet Rosie Jones by Jim Lauderdale
Wheels by The Coal Porters
It's Been So Long by Webb Pearce
The Petrified Forest by The Handsome Family
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

Thursday, April 08, 2010

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: T.A.M.I.'s IN LOVE

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 9, 2010


The Teenage Awards Music International Show might sound like a tacky Nickelodeon special in which some Hannah Montana wannabe gets green Jell-O poured on her head. But it wasn’t. The T.A.M.I. Show, as it was known, is nothing short of one of the lost treasures of rock ’n’ roll, a live concert film that has been missing in action for nearly 45 years. Until now.

The Shout Factory has released a “Collector’s Edition” of The T.A.M.I. Show in all its black-and-white glory. And all the stars are there. Lesley Gore! Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas! And best of all ... Gerry & The Pacemakers!

And also a few others like James Brown, The Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, and The Supremes.

It was filmed live in Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in October 1964 — with Shindig/Hullabaloo-style go-go dancers and a house band featuring top L.A. studio cats, including Leon Russell and Glen Campbell — and was in theaters across the land two weeks later.

I saw this movie in a theater in late 1964 or early 1965, when it first came out. I was in sixth grade, and to cut to the chase, James Brown’s crazed performance of “Please, Please, Please” — the now famous routine in which he falls to his knees screaming like a man possessed and an aide puts a cape around his shoulders, helps him up, and tries to lead him offstage — made an imprint on my psyche that still burns.

I’ve complained for years that The T.A.M.I. Show was unavailable. Until now, it never made it to DVD — heck, it never made it to VHS — at least, not legally. According to the liner notes, the holdup apparently was the fault of The Beach Boys, who sued to get their four songs removed from copies of the film, for reasons that aren’t clear. Some performances have popped up on YouTube here and there — usually removed by the secret masters of the music industry. But not since the 1960s has T.A.M.I. been available in its entirety.

It’s almost as good as I remember it.

Even though several of the acts seem dated (Billy J. who?), it was a pretty good cross section of rock ’n’ roll in 1964. There are British Invasion groups, Motown, Southern soul, old masters, teen pop (love the hair, Lesley), California surf (though no Dick Dale-style instrumental music, which we now know as “surf”) — even a representative of what would later be called “garage music” with The Barbarians.

Music writer Don Waller makes a sociological observation in his liner notes: “At a time when — after weathering a 57-day filibuster — the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had just put an end to legal segregation, it’s worth noting that almost half the stars of The T.A.M.I. Show were then what would be politely referred to as ‘Negroes.’”

The songs by James Brown & His Famous Flames seem even stronger than they did when I was a wide-eyed kid in the movie theater. A lot of fine soul groups are on this bill. Smokey, Marvin (backed by female trio The Blossoms, including the great Darlene Love), and The Supremes all give superb performances that have held up well with the passage of time. Still, compared with Brown, the Motown acts seem so tame. I don’t think any record label made Brown go to charm school.

And The Rolling Stones, introduced by emcees Jan & Dean as “those five fellas from England,” weren’t half bad either. They’re all so fresh-faced, even Keith Richards. Mick Jagger was already strutting, and Brian Jones, playing an oval-shaped guitar, mugged shamelessly for the cameras.

Speaking of The Stones, the theme song of The T.A.M.I. Show (co-written by P.F. Sloan, whose best-known tune was “Eve of Destruction”), contains a factual error. Listing many of the performers on the show, Jan & Dean cluelessly sing, “Those bad-lookin’ guys with the moppy long hair/The Rolling Stones from Liverpool have gotta be there.”

But there were certainly some artistic problems with this show. And I’m not just talking about Jan & Dean’s corny shtick between some of the performances.

To put it bluntly, Chuck Berry, who opens the , was cheated.

After an abbreviated version of “Johnny B. Goode,” he starts in on “Maybellene,” finishing the first verse before the song is hijacked by Gerry & The Pacemakers. This clean-cut British Invasion act performs a couple of tunes until Chuck is allowed to come back with “Sweet Little Sixteen.” For the next few songs, he alternates with Gerry & The Pacemakers.

Whose brilliant idea was this?

This band wasn’t worthy of cleaning the one-way mirrors in Chuck Berry’s mansion, much less being put on equal footing with the master.

But there are unexpected gems here too. One is The Barbarians, who would later have a dumb hit with “Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?” and a cult classic with “Moulty,” a spoken song by their drummer Victor Moulton, who talks about losing his hand. The band was allowed only one song here (come on, they could have cut a couple of songs by Billy J. Kramer or Lesley Gore), and it’s not one of their best-known songs. But “Hey Little Bird” is a fine rocker. And hook or not, Moulty really was a fine drummer.

After seeing The T.A.M.I. Show again after all these years, I felt I needed to have someone put a cape around my shoulders and lead me away.


Wednesday, April 07, 2010

TWO UPCOMING SHOWS


Manby's Head, that Taos garage band I've been playing a lot on Terrell's Sound World lately, will be playing with the ever delightful Monkeyshines on Sunday April 25 down under in The Underground (the basement of Evangelos).

They were previously booked to play the week before, but a scheduling conflict caused it to be postponed. (I had announced the original date on last week's Sound World, gentle listeners, so I'm correcting that.)

Come to think of it, I played both bands on my most recent episode of The Big Enchilada.
27 Devils Shirt
Another groovy gig coming up is next Wednesday, April 14, when 27 Devils Joking plays with a San Francisco band called Triple Cobra at Corazon.

UPDATE: Looks like the cover for both shows is a mere $5. Be there!

eMUSIC APRIL


* Like Flies on Sherbert by Alex Chilton. I downloaded this the night after Alex died. I'm still coping with the concept of losing Jim Dickinson and Alex Chilton within a few months of each other. What a loss for Memphis music -- though I'm sure Memphis not only will endure but prevail.

I was a fan of the Box Tops -- "The Letter" was a hit when I was in junior high and somehow memories of the Oklahoma State Fair are tied up in that song for me. And I was a fan of lots of the bands Alex produced -- The Replacements, The Cramps, etc.

But I wasn't that huge of a Big Star fan. Their sound always seemed just a little too pretty for me.

If you agree with me on that -- and please spare me the hate mail if your don't-- this album, recorded in the late '70s, is a twisted treat. It's roots rock for the criminally insane -- mutant blues and inspirational slop. True AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called this "a front-runner for the worst album ever made." I don't care. I like it.

Chilton obviously foresaw the rise of punk-blues here. Jon Spencer, Bob Logg and half the bands on Voodoo Rhythm probably owe him a debt of gratitude. I love the lazy boogie shuffle of "My Rival" colored by Ubu-like electro-noise and "Hey! Little Child" which almost sounds like he hired The Shaggs' drummer Helen Wiggin to sit in.

The title song sounds like some Electric Light Orchestra tune being torn apart by wild dogs.

He also does a cowpunk assault on country music on songs like "Waltz Across Texas," "No More The Moon Shines On Lorena," (an old Carter Family song about slaves I suspect has roots in minstrelry) and "Alligator Man," in which Chilton sounds more like Alfred E. Neuman than Jimmie C. Newman.

But my favorite here is "Baron of Love Part II" feature a crazed Ross Johnson, Tav Falco's drummer, on a stoned rant. (This song also is available on Johnson's own compilation Make It Stop!: The Most of Ross Johnson.)

R.I.P. Alex. You rarely failed to surprise.

* His Guitar, His Sons And The Congregation Of St. Luke's Powerhouse Church Of God In Christ by Rev. Louis Overstreet. Here's some raw, rocking gospel from Arizona (!) recorded in the early '60s by Arhoolie Records' Chris Strachwitz.

Before he settled in Phoenix, Overstreet, a Louisiana native traveled throughout the South and West as a street preacher and musical evangelist. He sang playing electric guitar and bass drum, backed up by a joyful vocal group made up of his four sons . In 1961, he became pastor of the St. Luke's Powerhouse Church of God in Christ. (I don't think that particular congregation exists anymore. I found 10 other Churches of God in Christ in Phoenix, but no St. Luke's Powerhouse.)

"Powerhouse" was a fitting name. Overstreet bellowed his praises of the Lord. It's no exaggeration to say that you can hear the spirit at work, especially in the lengthy and frenzied "Holiness Dances."

This version of the album includes the original 1962 recordings, but some additional recording by Strachwitz, including several recorded at Overstreet's home in which the preacher plays acoustic guitar.


* Born Losers by The Stomachmouth. Before there was The Hives, The Stomachmouths were your favorite band --at least for garage rock fans in Sweden in the 1980s.

This is a compilation of Stomachmoth hits, plus a couple of tunes from frontman Stefan Kery's post-Stomachmouths bands, The Mongrels and The Toneblenders. (Thus the "various Artists" tag by eMusic.)

The music is good basic Fuzz & Farisa very Seedsy, very Standellish, with proper nods to The Yardbirds and "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone." My favorite tune has to be the appropriately titled "Wild Trip."

For a history of The Stomachmouths CLICK HERE


* Showtime by Ry Cooder. Here's one I remember from the mid '70s. Following his wonderful Chickenskin Music album, in which he introduced Flaco Jimenenz and Hawaiian giants Gabby Pahinui and Atta Isaacs, Cooder took to the road with The Chicken Skin Revue, a band that included Flaco and soul singers Terry Evans, Bobby King, and Eldridge King.

There's a sad, slow version of Blind Alfred Reed's "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Time and Live?" I still like The Del-Lords' stomping version the best, but this version hits from another direction. Also worthy is "Dark End of the Street" featuring Evans and Bobby King on vocals and Ry's slide guitar. And you can't go wrong with "Jesus on the Main Line," a longtime Cooder favorite.

But the reason I downloaded this is because of the ones in which Flaco and his magic accordion are spotlighted -- "Volver, Volver" (almost as good as the version by the late Chris Gaffney with Billy Bacon) and the medley of a polka called "Viva Seguin" and Woody Guthrie's "Do Re Mi." Woody surely would have appreciated his Okie migration classic being slyly transformed into an anthem for a new group of California-bound migrants also lacking in the Do-Re-Mi.

PLUS:

* Two songs featuring the team-up of The Dubliners & The Pogues. I picked up "The Rare Auld Montain Dew" and "Irish Rover," which I played on my Irish music special on Terrell's Sound World a couple of weeks ago.

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

YOU KNOW YOU'RE REALLY STARTING TO GET OLD ...

When you discover that you're a Collector's Item.

When fooling around Amazon.com a few minutes ago, I discovered they're not only selling digital copies of songs from my CD Picnic Time For Potatoheads And Best Loved Songs from Pandemonium Jukebox), but some stray copies of the CD as well.

What really surprised me was that some outfit down in Florida has a copy going for $69.24!

Yikes!

And yes, that's the CD from the '90s, not the 1981 LP, which I guess might be considered a collector's item.

Another seller, offering the Potatoheads CD for a mere $29.98, has a note saying that the CD is "out of print" and that it's a "Canada Import." Neither is true. I still have an embarrassing number of CDs here at home, so it's still "in print.". As for the other claim, the company I used to manufacture the CD was from Canada, so there's a "Made in Canada" sticker.

I''m flattered to know that anyone would think Potatoheads is worth $69.24. But if you really want the darn thing, you can find it for a lot cheaper over at CD Baby .


Sunday, April 04, 2010

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, April 4, 2010
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Peter Cottontail Take 4 by The Bubbadinos
Don't Bring Me Down by The Pretty Things
Trash Talkin' Woman by The Electric Mess
Can't Hardly Stand It by The Cramps
She's Kind of Evil by Thee Fine Lines
Sea of Blasphemy by The Black Lips
Silk of the Snow by Tight White Jeans
Let Me Know by The Saints
Pie-Ella by Hipbone Slim & The Knee-Tremblers
Pokin' Around by Mudhoney

Kat by The Vonz
Visitation by Manby's Head
Stink Bug by The Dirtbag Surfers
Pretty Conservative by Cyco Sanchez Supergroup
Get Your Kicks by The Deadly Vibes
16 Tons by Bo Diddley
Love Taco by Pinata Protest
What You Lack in Brains by Batusis
Cannibal Girls by The Hydes
My Wig Fell Off by Root Boy Slim & The Sex Change Band
Hey Rat Fink by Mr. Gasser & The Weirdos

John Lawman by Roky Erikson with Okkerville River
Not to Touch the Earth by The Doors
Hallucination Generation by The Fuzztones
Nitro by Dick Dale
Ghost of a Texas Ladies' Man by Concrete Blonde
Stack-O-Lee by Samuel L. Jackson
There Ain't No Such Thing as Good Dope by Andre Williams

New York is Killing Me by Gil-Scott-Heron
Some Unholy War by Amy Winehouse
Get It Together by J.C. Brooks & The Uptown Sound
Worm Mountain by The Flaming Lips
Never Go West by Seasick Sick
Your Mind is on Vacation by Mose Allison
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Friday, April 02, 2010

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 2, 2010
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell


101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Someone Bring Me a Flower, I'm a Robot by The Gourds
I'm Fed Up Drinking Here by The Starline Rhythm Boys
Racing The Train by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies
It Makes No Difference Now by Gov. Jimmie Davis
Wild Wild Young Men by Rose Maddox
Murder in My Mind by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs
Guv'ment by Roger Miller
Cheeseburger Deluxe by The World Famous Blue Jays
After All These Years by Mose McCormack
Hotdog by Buck Owens

Negro y Azul by Los Cuates De Sinaloa
The Wolves by Felix y Los Gatos
Chords of Fame by Neil Mooney
11 Months and 29 Days by Johnny Paycheck
Nights at the Jolly Ringo by Kris Hollis Key
Beatin' On The Bars by T.Tex Edwards & Out On Parole
Goin' Up the Country by Mike Cullison

True Love Cast Out All Evil by Roky Erikson & Okerville River
Tell Me Twice by Eleni Mandell
The Call of The Wrecking Ball by The Knitters
Way Out in the World by C.W. Stoneking
Hard Time Killing Floor by The Texas Sheiks
Dirty Dozen by Delaney Davidson
Jugband Stomp by Sunshine Skiffle Band
Prince Nez by Squirrel Nut Zippers
By and By by Asylum Street Spankers

You Got Another by Drive-By Truckers
The Dying Truckdriver by The Delmore Brothers
Dirt Nap by Trailer Bride
Slippin' Away by Jean Shepard
In the Good Old Days When Times Were Bad by Dolly Parton
Falling Sky by Martin Zellar
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: A GHOST IN THE ALLEY

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 2, 2010


The singer didn’t really sing. He spoke, sometimes almost shouted, the lyrics over a funky bass line and a funky flute.

“You will not be able to stay home, brother/You will not be able to plug in, turn on, and cop out/You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and/Skip out for beer during commercials/Because the revolution will not be televised.”

It was the dawn of the ’70s, and it was like nothing I’d ever heard before. The Black Panthers hijacking a beatnik poetry reading? H. Rap Brown fronting a soul revue? “The revolution will not be right back after a message about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people. ... The revolution will not be televised.”

After years in the shadows — 16 years since his previous studio album, Spirits, which was his first record in 12 years — Gil Scott-Heron is back with more harrowing songs on a new album called I’m New Here.

A decade after “The Revolution Will Not be Televised,” Scott-Heron would be hailed as one of the major harbingers of hip-hop. With “Televised” and songs like “Whitey on the Moon” (“A rat just bit my sister Nell, with whitey on the moon”), Scott-Heron inspired a generation of politically conscious rappers (think Public Enemy, Kool Moe Dee, and KRS-One).

He even had a string of hits that penetrated the R & B charts in the mid- to late-’70s. Some of these, like “Johannesburg,” “Winter in America,” and “Angel Dust,” could sometimes be heard on rock radio, which back then was basically as segregated as a Mississippi country club.

But despite his successes, Scott-Heron didn’t enjoy a life of ease. He spent much of the last couple of decades struggling with drug addiction and the past 10 years or so behind prison walls for drug charges.

I’m New Here, produced by Richard Russell, is harrowing. It’s mostly low-key and somber and almost like an encounter in a dark alley with a ghost. The album kicks off with an autobiographical spoken-word piece, “On Coming From a Broken Home.” It’s a touching tribute to his grandmother, who raised him in Tennessee.

“Lilly Scott was absolutely not your room-service, typecast black grandmother ... and I loved her from the absolute marrow of my bone,” Scott-Heron says over a musical backdrop that sounds like a distant interplanetary transmission of a blaxploitation movie soundtrack. “Women raised me, and I was full-grown before I knew I came from a broken home.”

But the sweet memory ends with the death of Lilly Scott — “and I was scared and hurt and shocked.” The music gets louder, the beat turns harsher, and suddenly Scott-Heron finds himself in an electronic mutation of one of Robert Johnson’s most frightening blues, “Me and the Devil.”

He actually bowdlerizes one of Johnson’s lines. Unlike the venerated bluesman, Scott-Heron doesn’t “beat my woman until I’m satisfied.” He just “sees” his woman until he’s satisfied. I bet the lessons of Lilly Scott had something to do with that little change. But the song is no less intense It’s been made, along with “Your Soul and Mine,” into a cool black-and-white video that might be described as hip-hop noir. You can find it

That’s not the only classic tune Scott-Heron transforms on this album. He takes on Bobby “Blue” Bland’s masterpiece, “I’ll Take Care of You.” Russell provides the otherworldly musical accompaniment featuring a string section on top of the electronica. And Scott-Heron’s voice, which has grown raspier through the years, sounds more like his heyday voice on this song. The old warble, almost suggesting a yodel, is back.

The title song is written by indie singer-songwriter Bill Callahan, who performs under the name Smog. Scott-Heron recites the verses and sings the choruses as a pensive acoustic guitar plays in the background.

One of the strongest selections on I’m New Here is “New York Is Killing Me.” In this original song, Scott-Heron sings a blues melody over persistent hand claps and a clacking rhythm, punctuated by bass drum. At a couple of points, the Harlem Gospel Choir comes in but disappears like a dream figment. “They got eight million people, and I didn’t have a single friend,” he sings.

The album ends with a reprise of “On Coming From a Broken Home,” this time with Scott-Heron expressing sympathy for the families of soldiers who have been killed in battle, as well as those of police, firefighters, construction workers, pilots, and truckers “who have lost their lives but not what their lives stood for.”

I’m New Here is less than 30 minutes long. But it’s one intense half hour.

BLOG BONUS:

Here's that video I mentioned above:

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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