Wednesday, January 21, 2015

WACKY WEDNESDAY: A Popeye Serenade

On this Wacky Wednesday, I'm going to pay musical tribute to one of my childhood heroes, Popeye the Sailor Man.

I first became acquainted with Popeye through TV in the late 1950s or early '60s. If my memory serves me well, one of the stations in Oklahoma City had an afternoon slot where they ran Popeye cartoons weekday afternoons.

I didn't know -- or care -- at the time, but Popeye had been around a lot longer than TV. He was around even before he was an animated cartton. He first appeared as a character in a comic strip called Thimble Theater by  Elzie Crisler Segar. That was Jan. 17, 1929 -- 86 years ago last Saturday.

The spinach-chomping sailor became so popular that in 1931, Billy Murray, a well-known singer of his era, recorded a novelty tune with Al Dollar & His Ten Cent Band.



This was two years before Popeye became the subject of animated cartoons. Along with  Olive Oyl and Bluto, he first appeared in a 1934 Betty Boop cartoon by Max  Fleischer, for my money the greatest of all the animated cartoonists.

Fleischer Studios cranked out 90 cartoons between 1934 and 1942. (They showed a few of these ever so often when I was watching Popeye on the tube as a kid. But most of the ones I saw were the vastly inferior ones made by Famous Studios and King Features Syndicate

Music always seemed to play a big part in the cartoons. Here's Popeye's version of one of my favorite songs, "The Man on the Flying Trapeze."




Just for historic weirdness, here's Woody Guthrie & The Almanac Singers singing one of Popeye's favorites



And here is Popeye's theme song from the live-action Popeye movie from 1980, directed by Robert Altman and starring Robin Williams. (Despite the fact that I love Altman, Williams and Popeye, the movie was pretty crappy. But this little scene is cool.)

Sunday, January 18, 2015

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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Sunday, January 18, 2015 
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. 
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time 
Host: Steve Terrell
Webcasting!
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org

Here's the playlist below
Check out some of my recently archived radio shows at Radio Free America
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Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

Friday, January 16, 2015

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST


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Friday, January 16, 2015 
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM 
Webcasting! 
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time 
Host: Steve Terrell 
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist below:



Check out some of my recently archived radio shows at Radio Free America
Like the Santa Fe Opry Facebook page 

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

Thursday, January 15, 2015

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Swamp Dogg Made Me Do It

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
Jan. 16, 2015

With humor, grace, and funk — not to mention just enough weirdness to keep it interesting — Jerry Williams Jr., better known as Swamp Dogg, has not only released his best album in years but done it in an amazingly timely fashion.

The irascible Swamp Dogg spends much of the provocatively titled The White Man Made Me Do It singing, and frequently talking, about race relations — past and present — in these United States. And as anyone who has read a newspaper or watched more than five minutes of news in the last couple of months knows, race relations have been a major topic of national discussion because of the police killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner on Staten Island — and the decisions of grand juries in those communities not to indict the killers.

Swamp doesn’t specifically mention either of those controversies on this album, which was recorded before either grand-jury decision. “I have a tendency to be a wee bit clairvoyant,” the singer said in a recent interview in the Glendale News-Press when asked about that.

Swamp Dogg at Ponderosa Stomp
New Orleans 2013
It’s not hard to figure where he stands on the issue of race. Mr. Dogg tackled this subject in his albums since he was a swamp pup in the early ’70s. On the new album, in a song called “Light a Candle … Ring a Bell,” he declares, “America’s sick, and it needs a doctor quick.”

And to those who argue that American racism is a thing of the past, this album has a song titled “Prejudice Is Alive and Well.” Here he sings, “Tell my children why their schools are so poor/Tell my children why colleges are closing their doors/Tell my people why they can’t get a job/To feed their children, it’s either welfare or rob.” (Swamp Dogg also takes aim at the representatives in Washington, D.C., on the tune, singing, “Congress fights worse than the Crips and the Bloods/They act like they’re on hardcore drugs.”

In the title song, which kicks off the album, he deals with the lingering effects of slavery. “I used to sit on the rooftop and read by moonlight/While the master was in my shack screwing my wife,” he sings. (That line was the inspiration for the album cover.)

But Swamp’s purpose isn’t self-pity. He contends that racial injustices and personal humiliations were the impetus that fueled many descendants of slaves to excel. “When you get right down to it, my hat’s off to the white man/’Cause the white man, he made me do it/I had to break free, so I could be me.” And in the spoken-word part of the song, he names and discusses African-American role models — scientists, inventors, artists, business leaders, and a female aviator, who received her aviation license before Amelia Earhart. “And she didn’t get lost,” Swamp Dogg says.

Not all of the songs deal with America’s racial problems. There are several that are about gender relations. You probably can guess what “Lying Lying Lying Woman” entails. “Bitch started acting like Frankenstein,” he growls at one point, but on “I’m So Happy” and “Hey Renae,” he sings about marital bliss.

There are several covers of R & B and soul classics like “You Send Me,” “Your Cash Ain’t Nothin’ but Trash,” and, my favorite, Leiber and Stoller’s “Smokey Joe’s CafĂ©.” And he invokes the memory of perhaps the greatest rock ’n’ souler of all time, Sylvester Stewart, aka Sly Stone. “Where Is Sly” is not only a wonderful ode to the man but a plea for him to get back in the game. While I appreciate this sentiment, Stone has made umpteen comeback attempts through the years, including a 2009 album called I’m Back! Family and Friends, which featured mostly rerecordings and remixes of old material.

In addition to the contents of its lyrics, a major asset of The White Man Made Me Do It is Swamp Dogg’s band. Among the players is David Kearney, better known as Guitar Shorty, a veteran blues-slinger who has played numerous times in Santa Fe. Shorty gives the album an earthier and definitely more bluesy feel than many of Swamp’s recent efforts have.

Swamp Dogg, or, rather Jerry Williams, is seventy-two years old, and I can testify that he’s still a dynamite performer. I saw him in New Orleans a little more than a year ago, and White Man shows he’s still got a lot to say.

You gotta watch this video:




Also noted:

* While No One Was Looking: Toasting 20 Years of Bloodshot Records. For the past two decades, Bloodshot, an independent seat-of-the-pants “insurgent country” outfit from Chicago, has been among my very favorite record labels.

Its stable has at various times included Alejandro Escovedo, Neko Case, Robbie Fulks, Andre Williams, the Old 97’s, Wayne Hancock, the Bottle Rockets, the Dex Romweber Duo, Scott H. Biram, Graham Parker, and, since the very beginning, the wonderful, wascally Waco Brothers.

So yes, I definitely toast Bloodshot Records’ owners, Rob Miller and Nan Warshaw, all the above artists, and many more who have made crazy music there.

Unfortunately, I have to say that this compilation is something of a disappointment. The idea behind it is good — having various bands and singers, mostly those not affiliated with the label, cover songs by Bloodshot artists. There are some famous, or at least relatively famous, artists here — Mike Watt, Superchunk, Ted Leo, The Minus 5, and Carolyn Mark — though most are pretty obscure.

And there are some wonderful tracks. Chuck Prophet’s version of Andre Williams’ “Dirt” is fun, while Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band’s “St. Nick on the Fourth in a Fervor,” a song by Ha Ha Tonka, makes me wonder why the Rev. wasn’t on Bloodshot to begin with. The Handsome Family nails the Bottle Rockets’ “1000 Dollar Car.” I hope Possessed by Paul James adds Murder by Death’s “I Came Around” to his live shows. And while I still like the original better, Andrew Bird and Nora O’Connor do a fine version of Fulks’ “I’ll Trade You Money for Wine.”

But way too many songs on this collection lack the crazy energy and wild spirit that made Bloodshot what it is. There are lots of soft singer-songwriter and wimpy alt-rock renderings here. Most of these aren’t bad — they’re just unremarkable.

My advice: Celebrate Bloodshot’s anniversary by spending the dough you would have on While No One Was Looking on some classic Bloodshot albums by the Wacos, the Meat Purveyors, or Trailer Bride. Other good investments include last year’s Born Raised & Live From Flint, by Whitey Morgan and the 78’s, as well as fairly recent releases from the Dex Romweber Duo, Biram, and Lydia Loveless. You’ll be happy you did.

Here's one of the better tunes on this collection:

R.I.P. KIM FOWLEY



Kim Fowley died today. He was 75.

Fowley was the long, tall pasty-skinned rock 'n' roll producer and performer whose weird vision delighted confused and terrified rock 'n' roll and L.A. pop for decades.

In recent years he was best known as the ruthless Svengali who created The Runaways. He's also responsible for the 1960 rock novelty "Alley Oop," recorded under the name of The Hollywood Argyles.

He also wrote songs for and/or produced records by Gene Vincent, The Byrds, The Beach Boys, The Mothers of Invention, Warren Zevon, The Germs and, brace yourself Bridget , , , Helen Reddy!

Here's his story from the L.A. Times' Pop & Hiss blog.

I've written before in this very blog about my one encounter with Fowley, In my 3-10-2010 post I wrote about meeting him ...

... at one of the first South by Southwest festivals I attended back in the mid 90s. He was in the Austin Convention Center wearing a fairly psychedelic coat of many colors and was in the company of a sexy young singer he claimed to be "The Next Janis Joplin." (I listened to her cassette tape when I got back home. She was not the next Janis Joplin.) I don't even remember how our conversation started, but he was pitching this singer to me so intently you'd have thought I was some major producer. A film crew approached us and Fowley focused his pitch on the camera. Fowley ranted, the Next Janis Joplin slinked around looking sexy. I decided, what the hell, I held up the tape with a stern expression, nodding my head, as if I were the muscle in the entourage. I don't know where that camera crew was from, but what I'd give to have that footage!

But let's give Kim the last word. Here are a few videos of some of his own tunes.

This one goes back to the psychedelic '60s


This one is from his 1968 album Outrageous.


And here's something more recent.



Here's a Fowley primer on Spotify


Expect to hear some Fowley music on Sunday's Terrell's Sound World, 10 p.m. Mountain Time on KSFR.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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