THROWBACK THURSDAY: Rest in Peace Jean Ritchie

Jean Ritchie, an important figure in the New York folk revival -- and one of the sweetest voices ever captured on tape --  died Monday at the age of  92.

She one of 14 children in her family in Viper, Kentucky. Her dad let her play his dulcimer when she was seven years old. Now she's credited with reviving interest in that instrument.

Yes, Ritchie was a Kentucky farm girl. But she was no rustic bumpkin. She graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1946 with a degree in social work. She moved to New York City in the late '40s to work at  at the Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side.

There, according to her obituary in the New York Times, "she routinely calmed the urban street children in her care with songs from the Cumberlands, which, with their haunting modal melodies and tales of simple pastimes, were so alien as to stun her young charges."

She became a regular on the Greenwich Village coffee house scene, did radio appearances with Oscar Brown and eventually was recorded by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress.

Here's an appreciation by fellow Kentuckian Walter Tunis, a music writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader. 

I've put together a Spotify playlist featuring about 35 minutes of her music.

Enjoy.

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Hot Smokin' Cigarette Songs

I don't smoke cigarettes and I never did.

But in the days before smoking bans, cigarettes -- made their smokey mark on various strands of American popular song.

Country singers poke fun at their addictive qualities. Sometimes their used as a metaphor of loneliness or a symptom of an empty, sinful life.

Listen to all of these tunes and you'll be coughing and hacking by the end of this blog post.

xxx

First let's start with the song that inspired this week's theme. A couple of weeks ago my old pal Mark asked me if I remembered a song that referred to a cigarette as something that had "fire on one end a fool on the other." I didn't recall this but went searching through cig songs to try to find it. Mark found it before I did, a novelty tune called "Cigareets & Whuskey and Wild, Wild Women." Mark found a good version by Ramblin; Jack Elliott. But I decided to use this goofy one by a group called Red Ingle & The Natural Seven. I never realized before that The Hombres lifted Ingle's introduction for the introduction to their own 1967 hit "Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out)."



I don't think hokum bluesman Bo Carter actually was singing about tobacco products in this 1936 love song, "Cigarette Blues."



One of the most famous country tunes about cigarettes was this talking song by Tex Williams, which he co-wrote with Merle Travis -- "Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette."



Here's a sad and sultry one called "Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray" by Patsy Cline.



Tiny Tim (you've read about him recently) reached back to 1898 to find a song defending nicotine addiction with "Sly Cigarette," performed here with Brave Combo.



Speaking of sly, Robbie Fulks paid tribute to his boyhood home, the great state of North Carolina in his song, "Cigarette State."



I'm not sure where Ry Cooder found "Fool for a Cigarette," but it appeared on his album Paradise and Lunch as a medley with J.B. Lenoir's "Feelin' Good."



If  "Cigarettes and Coffee" were what powered Otis Redding, then they should be mandatory.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, May, 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

OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
The Snake by Johnny Rivers

Shake Me by Motobunny

The Claw by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages

Glow in the Dark by Lovestruck

Walkin' with the Beast by Gun Club
Parts Unknown by Kid Congo Powers with Lydia Lunch
Who'd You Like to Love You by Li'l Wally

Wine Wine Wine by Bobby Fuller Four
Bad Bad Woman by The Molting Vultures
Red Rose by Lisa Doll & Rock 'n' Roll Romance
Local Dive by Lawn Chair Kings
I Got Eyes For You by The Gories
Dirty Hands by Black Lips
Zombie Island by Jonny Manak & The Depressives
Elephant Stomp by Left Lane Cruiser
I'm Insane by T-Model Ford
The Lord is Coming Back by Reverend Beat-Man & The Un-Believers

GOSPEL SET

Don't Drive Your Children Away by Isaac Freeman & The Bluebloods
I Want Two Wings by Rev. Utah Smith
God's New Building by Little Midget & The Morning Stars
I Am Willing to Run All the Way by B.B. King
Feel Like Holdin' On by Valerie Mathis
Let Me Lean On You by Christian All Stars of Akron, Ohio
Help Me by Lula Collins
Something Within Me by Jubilee Hummingbirds featuring Rev. E.L. Whitaker
By and By by Katie Jackson with The Campbell Brothers
I'm a Soldier by The Original Blind Boys of Mississippi
What He's Done for Me by The Famous Davis Sisters

Sweeping Exit by Jody Porter
Drowning Man by Stan Ridgway
Fannin Street by Tom Waits
Innocent When You Dream by Kazik Strazewski
Surf's Up by Brian Wilson
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

UPDATED with Mixcloud player for Slackeye Slim segment

Friday, May 29, 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:

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens

The Omninous Anthropophageous Slackeye Slim by The Misery Jackals
Slackeye Slim Live Set
Cowboy Song
Where the Wind Will Let Me Go
Vengeance Be Thy Name
Looks Like I Killed Again (from album)
Don't Touch My Horse
Introducing Drake Savage (from album)

Honky Tonk Maniac from Mars by Jason Ringenberg
Take Me to the Fires by The Waco Brothers
Nashville Casualty and Life by Kinky Friedman
The Love-in by Ben Colder
Me and The Whiskey by Whitey Morgan
I Can't Hold Myself in Line by Frontier Circus
North to Alaska by Johnny Horton

Marie Laveau by Bobby Bare
Weather Woman by The Gourds
Chick Singer, Badass Rocker by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Born to Boogie by Texas Marty & The House of Twang
Be My Ball and Chain by Brennen Leigh & Noel McKay
Cool Rockin' Loretta by Joe Ely
Two Dollar Bill by Paula Rhae McDonald

In My Arms Once Again by Slim Cessna's Auto Club
Some of Shelly's Blues by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Cheater's World by Amy Allison & The Maudlins
Feeling Mortal by Kris Kristofferson
Drinkin' Thing by Gary Stewart
I've Got a Tender Heart by Merle Haggard
The Selfishness in Man by George Jones
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Updated: Here's the first hour -- with the Slackeye Slim set -- via Mixcloud

Santa Fe Opry 5-29-2015 Featuring a live set by Slackeye Slim by Steve Terrell on Mixcloud

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SLACKEYE SLIM LIVE ON THE SANTA FE OPRY

The mysterious Slackeye Slim will play LIVE on the Santa Fe Opry tonight, Friday, May 29 on KSFR.

The show starts at 10 p.m. Mr. Slim will go on 10 or 15 minutes after that.

Slackeye, known in the mundane world as Joe Frankland is responsible for at least three albums -- Texas Whore Pleaser, El Santo Grial: La Pistola Piadosa, and, his most recent effort, Giving My Bones to the Western Lands. (Follow the links to my reviews of the last two.)

Basically his albums are the musical equivalent to dark, troubling western movies, wild tales full of harsh landscape, desperate anti-heroes. Sometimes the songs are full of savage violence. Sometimes they're just soul-searching reflections by men with broken hearts (to sneak in a Hank Williams reference.) And many of his melodies are nothing short of gorgeous.

Slackeye's originally from Ohio, but like the troubled transients he sings about, Slackeye has knocked around the west these past few years, living in Montana, Colorado and now New Mexico.

So tune in tomorrow night and hear Slackeye Slim's songs and stories. You can listen live on KSFR's website, or, if you live in  northern New Mexico and parts of Albuquerque, at 101.1 FM.

I have one listener down there who tells me he sometimes drives out to the West Mesa to listen to my show on his car radio.

Tonight would be a great night to do that.

You can listen -- and buy (what a radical idea!) Slackeye Slim's most recent works HERE.

And meanwhile, here's one of his real purdy songs: