I get zillions of emails from musicians, but this recent one brought a big smile to my face.
It started out.:
Hello my good friend Steve!
I'm so glad you like yourself, Steve!
And the email ended:
p.s. something good is gonna happen to Steve Terrell today!
It was from an iconoclastic musician, songwriter and artist from California I met a few years ago named Shari Elf. And no it wasn't really a personal email. It was a notice for her new album and video. But it was so Shari Elf, it brought a smile to an otherwise stressful day,
Did I mention a video?
Yes!
I met Shari Elf back in November, 2009 at a private party at Burt's Tiki Lounge in Albuquerque. Stan Ridgway, The Handsome Family and Jill Sobule were doing one of those "Roots on the Rails" gigs in which a bunch of musicians travel by train with a group of paying fans. This group was traveling between Albuquerque and Los Angeles. The night before they left all the musicians did a private gig at Burt's.
I struck up a conversation with tall blonde woman sitting next to me, who turned out to be Shari. She was a passenger on this ride. She went because she's a huge fan of The Handsome Family..
Unrelated fact: Sitting next to me on the other side was none other than Julia Sweeney, formerly of Saturday night live. She's a friend of Sobule and flew to Albuquerque for the show. It was a night of celebrities!
Shari lives near Joshua Tree, Calif. where she operates the Art Queen gallery and studio -- which looks like a center of what some call "outsider' art as well as The World Famous Crochet Museum. It's housed in a former Photo Quick building (you use to see them in shopping center parking lots all the time back in the '70s), and is a showcase for Shari's vast, colorful garage-sale crochet collection,
Shari's sweet, childlike songs are a universe unto themselves. They remind me a lot of Daniel Johnston, who she's listed as a major influence.
Here is one of my favorites from the new album by Shari with her band, The Kittens.
But she's also good at what she calls "sharioke." Or should it be "Cherioke"?
Somethng good is gonna happen to you on Wacky Wednesday, Shari.
UPDATED with a Mixcloud player for the first hour Sunday, June 21, 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 OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Slow Boy by Kim Gordon & J Mascis
Castin' My Spell by Daddy Longlegs
The Bag I'm In by Ty Segall
Steal Your Love / Do it Again by Jody Porter Interview with Jody Porter
Throw It Back by Jody Porter
Party World by Carbon/Silicon
Shoot the Freak by LoveStruck
Walking Down Lonely Street by Ty Wagner
Violent Shiver by Benjamin Booker
Mad Love by The Blue Giant Zeta Puppies
Bury You Alive by Batusis
Satan's Bride by Gregg Turner
Stab from the Past by Firesign Theatre
Bein' a Dad by Loudon Wainwright III
Who Stole the Kiska by The Polkaholics
So Far Away by Social Distortion
Fly Like a Rat by Quintron & Miss Pussycat
Elephant Stomp by Left Lane Cruiser
Ritalin by Sonic Reverends
Clip from The Further Adventures of Nick Danger by Firesign Theatre
Burying Grounds by The Sensational Nightingales
My Wonderful Councelor by The Famous Davis Sisters
Dying Under a Woman's Sword by Yol Auralong & Ros Sery Sothea
Everybody Knows by Concrete Blonde
I'm Your Man by Nick Cave
Field Commander Cohen by Leonard Cohen
Still I Dream of It by Brian Wilson CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis Like the Terrell's Sound World Facebook page
Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE
Terrell's Sound World is back on KSFR tonight with a live interview with Jody Porter, guitar slinger for the band Fountains of Wayne.
Through the magic of telephone technology, we'll talk about Jody's new solo album, Month of Mondays, which I've been playing on the show in recent weeks.
So tune in tonight, 10 pm Mountain Time at 101.1 FM, if you're in Santa Fe or Northern New Mexico or at www.ksfr.org if you're anywhere else on the planet.
Friday, June 12, 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
Long Gone Anyway by The Banditos
Dusty Bibles and Silver Spoons by The Bloodhounds
Don't You Rock Me Daddy-o by Van Morrison, Lonnie Donegan & Chris Barber
Old Joe Clark by The Dustbowl Revival
She's My Neighbor by Zeno Tornado & The Boney Google Brothers
I Want it So Bad by The Gourds
Life of a Poor Boy by Stonewall Jackson
Monterey by Paul Burch
No Longer a Sweetheart of Mine by Southern Culture on the Skids
Ronnie and Neil by Drive-by Truckers
Old Cracked Looking Glass by Tony Gilkyson
Long Black Veil by Mike Ness
Down in the Bayou by The Watzloves
18 Wheeler Fever by Scott H. Biram
A Girl Don't Have To Drink To Have Fun by The Stumbleweeds
Twenty Cigarettes by Ray Phillips
Blood Bank Blues Al Duvall
Save My Tears by Palomino Shakedown
Where's the Devil When You Need Him? by Legendary Shack Shakers
Change My Name by The Beaumonts
Memphis by Carl Newman
Goin' Down Rockin' by Whitey Morgan & The 78s
Pool Cue by Two Tons of Steel
Whiskey Drinkin' Women by Cornell Hurd
When Sinatra Played Juarez by Tom Russell
Shortnin' Bread by Guy Davis
Chocolate Jesus by Raw Death
Send Me Poppa's Fiddle by Louie Setzer
On the Banks of the Old Ponchartrain Possessed by Paul James
Dink's Song by Dave Van Ronk
Take it Down by John Hiatt CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Did a happy, snappy American standard start out as a song about
malnutrition among rural African Americans?
I'm talking about "Shortnin' Bread," that favorite of Mammy's little baby, about
a tasty treat with strange medicinal power that can heal the sick and the half
dead. This tune has been sung and recorded by some of the country's best known
musicians, black and white, representing a number of styles and genres.
In her blog
Pancocojams, dedicated to "the music, dances, and customs of African Americans and of
other people of Black descent throughout the world," Azizi Powell writes.
Although "Shortnin Bread" is now considered a light hearted children's folk
song, its beginning verses reflect the fact that Black Americans often
lacked adequate food. In contemporary versions of this song, the first verse is given as "two
little boys/laying in bed/one was sick/and the other almost dead". The
reason why the boys were in those conditions was because they were suffering
from malnutrition because of the inadequate food rations that enslaved
families were given. In this song, the doctor was called to examine the children. His
prescription was that the children be given some food. However, in
actuality, enslaved Black people rarely saw any doctors. Also, shortnin
bread and coffee were rare treats for enslaved Black people.
James Whitcomb Riley
Even so, throughout the song's history, "Shortnin' Bread" has been played as a happy
good-time tune -- often as a children's song. That's a frequent thread in blues,
hillbilly music and other types of songs sung by poor people in this country --
finding humor and ultimately hope in terrible situations.
Some argue that "Shortnin' Bread" is a true folk song, coming from slaves on
southern plantations or their immediate descendants. But some say it could have
come from the minstrel shows, in which white performers parodied blacks. (Check
out this discussion over at
Mudcat.org)
Apparently the first known written version of the song was a poem, published in
1900, by
James Whitcomb Riley, written in black dialect.
The chorus goes:
Fotch dat dough fum the kitchin-shed— Rake de coals out hot an' red— Putt on de oven an' putt on de led,— Mammy's gwineter cook som short'nin' bread
Nowhere in the poem is anything about those two little children lyin' in bed, or
the doctor who prescribes shortnin' bread for them. While Riley took credit for
the poem, it's possible that he based the various (seemingly unrelated) verses
on songs or stories he heard from folk sources (i.e. plantation workers and the
descendants of slaves).
Powell points out that several folklorists, beginning in the 1920s, documented
versions of "Shortnin' Bread" -- who do have the familiar elements of the ailing
children and the doctor.
In 1924 country singer Henry Whitter recorded a harmonica-led instrumental
medley of "Hop Out Ladies & Shortenin' Bread." Gid Tanner & His Skillet
Lickers recorded it -- including lyrics -- a couple of years later. Both J.E.
Mainer, a proto-bluegrass artist, and Sonny Terry did versions in which the
Jew's harp was prominent.
Mississippi John Hurt didn't actually record it until the early '60s, but his
timeless style sounds like it could have been recorded decades before.
The song made it's way into the city. Paul Robeson
lent his baritone to it in 1933. Nelson Eddy sang it in the 1937 film Maytime.
And Fats Waller had a lot of fun with it in 1941. (Powell points out that Waller
sang about two "Senegambians" lyin' in bed. That's a reference to a region in
West Africa, though Waller seems to be using the word to describe African
Americans in general.)
The Andrews Sisters also sang it in the '40s.
The song found new life in the 1950s.
Dave Brubeck did a drum-heavy jazz version
called "Short'nin' Bread Gone With The Wind" in 1959. And there was a new
audience in R&B and rock 'n' roll. The song mutated into "Shortnin' Bread
Rock," which sounds heavily influenced by Big Joe Turner.
Etta James did a rocking version, as did Tony Crombie & His Rockets, who recorded it in 1956. But it's tough to match the crazy energy of The
Collins kids, who sang it on this TV appearance, introduced by country great Tex
Ritter.
Several early '60s "garage" bands recording the song in the early '60s.
Paul Chaplain & The Emeralds
recorded it in 1960. There also were fine rocking renditions by
The Bell Notes,
Johnny & The Uncalled Four. But my favorite of this style was the ferocious version by The Readymen.
Their wild arrangement appears to have inspired the cover by
The Cramps on their Stay Sickalbum.
There was a do-wop version in 1962 by a group called The Blisters.
And a tasty '60s soul version by Lee Dorsey
And in the early '90s The Residents found every ounce of weirdness in the tune
and, as they love to do, turned it into something bizarre and nearly
unrecognizable.
Last week a Facebook friend of mine posted the following on her page:
Anyone have a superloud playlist of jams for me to drown out this fucking ASSHOLE doing his homework loudly on Facetime? I'm not sure where she was where a jerk using Facetime would bother her like that. But everybody can relate to the being bugged so much by some noisy fool you just want to BLAST THEM OUT!
Now this lady is in the music biz, so lots of her music nut friends, including me, began suggesting loud and obnoxious songs The thread took on a life of its own.
So I decided to put a list together including some suggestions from the thread. And thus my latest Spotify list: Music to Drive Your Neighbors Nuts. Metal Machine Music was one of the first suggestions there. Someone else suggested some Tuvan throat singing (I chose something by Huun-huur-Tu).
Another contributor offered Shooby Taylor's weird version of "Stout-Hearted Men," I know that one from Irwin Chusid's Songs in the Key of Z Vol. 2. I couldn't resist adding another classic from that album, "Cousin Mosquito" by Liberian Congresswoman Malinda Jackson Parker.
Added some Skinny Puppy, Butthole Surfers, Zappa, Residents, a song with T. Valentine being T. Valentine, some Smile-era weirdness from The Beach Boys, a sinister little Charlie Manson tune and some supreme tackiness from David Hasselhoff that will make you want to commit unspeakable crimes.
You can use this to harass your neighbors, force ousted dictators out of their sanctuaries, torture prisoners ... lots of possibilities. Hey and since it's Spotify, chances are a couple of those obnoxious ads they run will pop up. These will fit right in.
For the record, I like my neighbors. I hope I didn't play this too loud when compiling this list.
Big show coming to Santa Fe this Sunday. And it's free.
The Santa Fe Music Alliance is presenting Make Music Santa Fe 2015 at Santa Fe Railyard Plaza, featuring a boatload -- or maybe a trainload -- of Santa Fe musicians.
On the bill are a couple of siblings -- Tony Gilkyson and Eliza Gilkyson -- who lived and played here years ago but moved on to bigger towns and bigger things. Eliza has had a successful career as a singer-songwriter, while Tony has been a guitarist for Lone Justice, X, and Chuck E. Weiss' G-d Damn Liars. He's great as a solo artist too. His solo album Goodbye Guitar was near the top of my Best of 2006 list.
The show starts at 2:30 pm Sunday and goes on until 10 p.
(Full disclosure: I recently became an advisory member of the Santa Fe Musical Alliance, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering creativity and community by supporting a sustainable and vital environment for music of all genres in Santa Fe, N.M.)
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican June 12, 2015 For about a decade after the nation’s independence from France in the early 1950s, there was a great cultural bloom in Cambodia. The country was relatively prosperous. Phnom Penh, its capital, was alive and thriving. The ancient culture was strong — in fact, strong enough not to be threatened by encroaching modern Western culture.
During this time, before the war in neighboring Vietnam spilled over and eventually engulfed the land, Cambodians joyfully welcomed the outside world: motorcycles, miniskirts, and long hair. They didn’t miss out on the ’60s in Cambodia. They loved the cha cha cha from Cuba. They loved soul music and rock ’n’ roll from the U.S.A. — and from France, England, and wherever else it drifted in from.
As shown in the new documentary Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll, by John Pirozzi, this was a sweet dream that ended brutally. Communist rebels known as the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975. Led by a shadowy figure named Pol Pot, the new leaders forced mass evacuations from Phnom Pehn and other cities, and for the next four years, in their effort to build a socialist paradise, they basically turned the whole nation into a big agricultural prison camp. With grim vehemence the Khmer Rouge targeted intellectuals, professionals, artists, and, yes, musicians. They almost destroyed a nation, including its music.
Another terrible truth: Some of the biggest stars of Cambodian pop and rock — including Sinn Sisamouth, Ros Serey Sothea, Pen Ran (sometimes spelled Pan Ron), and Yol Aularong — apparently ended up in unmarked graves in the killing fields during the Khmer Rouge years. Nobody, not even their surviving family members, knows exactly when or where they died.
Although Pirozzi certainly doesn’t pull any punches about the Khmer Rouge, fortunately the documentary is not just about slaughter, repression, and horror. The first part of the film deals with the good times, the crazy music, and the amazing musicians who made it.
My name is Prince ...
During that heady golden age, Cambodia was ruled by a prince named Norodom Sihanouk. He might be the closest thing to a benevolent dictator the world has seen in modern times. You might say he governed with a velvet fist. Not only was he the man in charge, Sihanouk was an artist, a poet, a filmmaker — and a musician. He sang, and he played sax. He was a prince, and he was funky! Sihanouk composed music, including a patriotic anthem called “Phnom Penh,” which appears in the documentary and on its excellent soundtrack album, performed by members of the Royal University of Fine Arts. (The song originally appeared in Sihanouk’s mid-’60s movie, The Enchanted Forest.) Sihanouk ordered government departments to start their own orchestras. His regime sponsored singing contests around the country. The national radio station moved away from focusing on dull government propaganda to blasting cool music.
It is true Sihanouk didn’t put up with much dissent. As the film points out, he cracked down hard on Commie insurgents from the rural areas. Watching the movie, it seems Sihanouk considered these rebels not only to be traitors but party poopers as well. He adopted a policy of neutrality during the Cold War. That became harder as the fighting in Vietnam escalated next door. The drums of war would eventually drown out even the loudest Cambodian rock bands and spell doom for Cambodia’s cultural oasis, but in the meantime, the kids there rocked out to those wild American sounds brought there by tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming.
Sihanouk was overthrown by a right-wing, U.S.-backed coup in 1970. He later joined forces with the very Communist insurgents he’d once repressed. But as soon as the Khmer Rouge took power, Sihanouk basically ended up under house arrest.
I’ve been listening to Cambodian rockers like Sisamouth (who Pirozzi has described as the Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley of Cambodia) and Sothea for nearly a decade, ever since I became a fan of Dengue Fever, a California band that was sparked by Cambodian rock from this era. But until watching Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten, I didn’t know anything about their lives — except that they probably were killed by Pol Pot’s bully boys.
Despite facing some obvious limitations, Pirozzi brings these artists to life. Unfortunately, not much footage of the musicians survived the great destruction. However, the filmmaker found tons of great photos, including an amazing colorful gallery of record covers. He tracked down surviving family members — Sothea’s sister and Sisamouth’s son, Sin Chanchhaya (who died earlier this year shortly after winning the legal rights to more than 70 of his dad’s songs).
He also found some musicians who survived the Pol Pot years. There is Mol Kagnol of the band Baksey Cham Krong — the group could play surf music as well as what sounds like a twangy country ballad (the song “Full Moon”).
There is also an interview with a female singer named Sieng Vannthy, who recalls Nancy Sinatra in miniskirt and go-go boots in her star years. Vannthy, who died in 2009, tells how she avoided probable execution by lying and telling the Khmer Rouge soldiers that she was a banana vendor, not a singer.
I once wrote that Dengue Fever, by turning so many people on to long-forgotten Cambodian rock, represented “a sweet, symbolic triumph of freedom over totalitarianism; of rock ’n’ roll over the killing fields; of sex, joy, fast cars, and loud guitars over the forces of gloom and repression.” That goes triple for Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten. This story needs to be told, and this music needs to be heard.
The film opens on Friday, June 12, at The Screen.
Here's the trailer:
And here's some Cambodian rock strating with Sinn Sisamouth doing the monkey
Ros Sereysothea rocks!
On this next one by Yol Aularong, try not to think of "Pagan Baby" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Reviewing the movie Love and Mercy last week sent me on Beach Boys kick. One of my favorite songs of theirs for decades has been "Sloop John B," the tale of a miserable sea voyage that started in the Bahamas.
Released first as a single in March 1966, then included a few months later on Pet Sounds, the John B story told goes way beyond cruising to the hamburger stand in your daddy's car:
We come on the sloop John B My grandfather and me Around Nassau town we did roam Drinking all night Got into a fight Well I feel so broke up I want to go home So hoist up the John B's sail See how the mainsail sets Call for the Captain ashore Let me go home. Let me go home I wanna go home, yeah yeah Well I feel so broke up I wanna go home The first mate he got drunk And broke in the Cap'n's trunk The constable had to come and take him away Sheriff John Stone Why don't you leave me alone, yeah yeah Well I feel so broke up I wanna go home So hoist up the John B's sail See how the mainsail sets Call for the Captain ashore Let me go home, I wanna go home Why don't you let me go home I feel so broke up I wanna go home Let me go home The poor cook he caught the fits And threw away all my grits And then he took and he ate up all of my corn Let me go home Why don't they let me go home This is the worst trip I've ever been on
No, Brian Wilson didn't write this song. It was brought to him by Al Jardine, the Beach Boys' resident folkie, Jardine had picked it up from a version, titled "Wreck of the John B," by The Kingston trio.
Take a listen:
The Trio was not the only folk group that did this song. Cisco Houston recorded a version, as did The Weavers in the '50s. Country singer Johnny Cash, who also moved around folk music circles, included it under the title "I Wanna Go Home" on his 1959 album Songs From Our Soil.
But the song goes back much further. It came from the Bahamas. It was transcribed by British author Richard Le Gallienne in a 1916 issue of Harper's Monthly in an travel piece called “Coral Islands and Mangrove-Trees” We should thank Le Gallienne for introducing the song -- under the title "The John B. Sails" -- to mainstream culture. And we should try not to puke at his condescending, racist tone:
These negro songs of Nassau, though crude as to words, have a very haunting, barbaric melody, said to come straight from the African jungle, full of hypnotizing repetitions and absurd choruses, which, though they may not attract you much at first, end by getting into your blood, so that you often find yourself humming them unawares.
Thank you, great white father.
Poet Carl Sandburg collected it a decade later in his 1927 book of folk songs American Songbag.
Roger McGuinn of The Byrds, who recorded his own version a few years ago, did a little research on the song. (Click that link. McGuinn has a nice, free MP3 for you.) On his website, he quotes Sandburg:
'John T. McCutcheon, cartoonist and kindly philosopher, and his wife Eveleyn Shaw McCutcheon, mother and poet, learned to sing this song on their Treasure Island in the West Indies. They tell of it, 'Time and usage have given this song almost the dignity of a national anthem around Nassau. The weathered ribs of the historic craft lie embedded in the sand at Governor's Harbour, when an expedition, especially set up for the purpose in 1926, extracted a knee of horseflesh and a ring-bolt. These relics are now preserved and built into the Watch Tower, designed by Mr. Howard Shaw and built on our southern coast a couple of points east by north of the star Canopus.'
Nassau singer Blake Alphonso Higgs, who went by the name "Blind Blake" (but was not the American bluesman!) did a calypso version in the early 50s. Another Bahamian, guitar picker Joseph Spence recorded it in his own peculiar way, on his 1972 Arhoolie album Good Morning Mr. Walker.
Van Morrison teamed up with skiffle king Lonnie Donegan at the turn of the century to do this mighty keen rendition. Donegan had recorded a lush version of it in 1960 under the title "I Wanna Go Home." I especially like his verse about the captain being a "wicked man.'
With all the drinking, fighting and other mayhem in this songs it's a wonder that there aren't more punk rock versions. But this Italian band, Devasted, had the right idea
