OK, enough of this Auld Lang Syne crap! As this year goes down the tubes of eternity, let's get down down with some New Year's blues with some of the great blues artists from the last century.
Let's kick it off with Blind Lemon Jefferson and this song from the late 1920s.
Lightnin' Hopkins did this jaunty little jumper in the early 1950s
Back in 1962 Roosevelt Sykes sang about his troubles keeping New Year's resolutions.
Also in the early '60s Lonnie Johnson had some New Year's blues
This 1935 recording features Mary Harris on vocals, Charley Jordan on guitar and Petey Wheatstraw (William Bunch) on piano.
The new year is nearly upon us, so it's important to remember that there's more than one way to tip a cup of kindness with "Auld Lang Syne."
For instance, there's the Japanese one-man band way.
Here is another street musician, this one from Texas. "Folkie Kay" doesn't normally dress this way. She was wearing a costume that she says was "made for a production of Shakespeare's play Richard III at the University of Texas in the early 50s." Listen close and you'll hear a kazoo in the background.
Then there's this guy, performing what Dangerous Minds calls a "David Lynchian" version of Auld Lang Syne" on a theremin.
There's the slasher-movie/serial-killer way ...
And finally, here's how you do it if you're a cigarette-smoking cartoon lamb working for an Christian e-card company ...
For more on Auld Lang Syne CLICK HERE Happy New Year!
I believe that Gene Autry was America's greatest singing cowboy.
I realize that Roy Rogers fans would dispute that. But one thing that's not debatable is that Autry was America's greatest singing Christmas cowboy. He could claim that title just for writing the following holiday hit (performed in 1953 in this video.)
But Autry also wrote this song, which he sang in the 1949 movie "The Cowboy and The Indians," in which Autry helps the Navajos, including Jay Silverheels (who also played Tonto in The Lone Ranger) against an an evil trading post operator. The movie poster says, "Autry Blasts Pale Face Renegades."
And while Autry didn't write this next song, he was the first to record it, back in 1950
The idea of Santa Claus in Outer Space has been a twisted sub genre of popular
Christmas music for decades now. It's not known exactly when Santa Claus began
his space traveling. But The Lennon Sisters with Lawrence Welk's Little Band
were singing about it by the late 1950s.
A disco-era Tiny Tim gave us a a Yuletide outer space tune. It rocketed to
instant obscurity.
This next one is featured on my new
Big Enchilada Christmas Special. It's by Bobby Helm, best known for "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree."
(Hat tip to my brother Jack)
Finally, here's the thrilling climax of
Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, (I just realized that the title of
that movie is itself a spoiler!) which ends in the classic Christmas song,
"Hooray for Santa Claus."
And for all sorts of wacky Christmas songs, check out my
Christmas Specials
at The Big Enchilada Podcast.
Sunday, December 20, 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
Repo Man by Iggy Pop
Buy Before You Die by Figures of Light
Hillbilly with Knife Skills by The Grannies
Don't Be Angry by Nick Curran & The Nitelifes
Mr. Good Enough by JJ & The Real Jerks
The Claw by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
I Got Your Number by The Sonics
Funeral by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Smell of Incense by Southwest FOB
So Much in Love by The Persuassions
Dig That Crazy Santa Claus by The Brian Setzer Orchestra
Party World by Carbon/Silicon
Hey Darling by Sleater-Kinney
The 99s by Dead Moon
Hey Santa Claus by The Chesterfield Kings
Still Sober After All These Beers by The Bad Lovers
Get Away by Miriam
I Wish You Would by Tom Jones
Just Let Me Know by Any Dirty Party
Christmas in Jail by The Youngsters
Christmas Island by Leon Redbone
Land of 1,000 Dances by Jello Biafra & The Raunch and Soul All Stars
People Look Away by Death
Tomboy by Acid Baby Jesus
Santa Came Home Drunk by Clyde Lasley & The Cadillac Baby Specials
Sock it to Me Santa by Bob Seeger & The Last Heard
Merry Christmas, dear friends out there in Podland ! It's time once again to courageously wage the War on Christmas with another Big Enchilada Christmas Special. Once again we'll revel in the magic and madness of the season and jingle your bells with some festive rock 'n' roll and beyond.
(Background Music: It Came Upo a Midnight Clear by Beausoleil)
Captain Santa Claus and His Reindeer Space Patrol by Bobby Helms
Hanukkah O Hanukkah / Carol O' The Bells by Unhung Heroes
Hang Your Balls on the Christmas Tree by Kay Martin & Her Body Guards
It's Christmas Time Ebeneezer by The Len Price 3
Christmas in Jail by The Mighty Soul Deacons
The Boner (Christmas version) by Santa Geil and His Red Nosed Pimps
(Background Music: Sleigh Ride by Squirrel Nut Zippers)
Friday, November , 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
Captain Santa Claus and His Reindeer Space Patrol by Bobby Helms
Six Bullets for Christmas by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies
Why Don't You Love Me Like You Used to Do by Tom Jones
C'Mon a My House by The Satellites
Hands Off My Whiskey by Kady Bow
Satan and the Saint by The Malpass Brothers
40 Miles to Vegas by Southern Culture on the Skids
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican December 18, 2015
When I first heard about a tribute album in the works for Ted Hawkins, my reaction was, “About damn time!” And when I heard Cold and Bitter Tears: The Songs of Ted Hawkins, my two-word summation was, “Well done.”
Unfortunately, your reaction while reading this might be “Ted who?” So I guess I better give my Ted talk.
Hawkins was a busker — a street musician who did some of his best work singing for tips at Venice Beach. He was born in Mississippi, spent too much time in jail, and had a voice that sounded like a grittier version of Sam Cooke’s. He was discovered and rediscovered a couple of times by show-biz heavies. And he died just months after the release of his first major-label album.
If you believe in signs from the universe, consider this: He died in 1995 on New Year’s Day. Died on New Year’s Day, like Hank Williams and Townes Van Zandt.
Cold and Bitter Tears is mostly populated by alt-country singers, many of them from Texas. Like most tribute albums, most of the songs don’t compare — and shouldn’t be compared — with the original versions. But there are some real gems here.
Gruff-voiced Jon Dee Graham captures the spirit of “Strange Conversation,” while Sunny Sweeney, who I’d never heard before, makes you wonder why “Happy Hour” didn’t hit the country charts. And Shinyribs (Kev Russell of The Gourds) turns “Who Got My Natural Comb?” into a crazy soul rave-up.
Mary Gauthier nails “Sorry You’re Sick,” complete with slinky, swampy guitar. The refrain of this tune, “What do you want from the liquor store/Something sour or something sweet?” is jarring. After promising to do whatever it takes to heal a seriously ailing lover, the answer can be found at a liquor store? But as Gauthier recently told the Los Angeles Times, “There is nothing to me as heartbreaking or compelling as one addict’s compassion for another who is dying of addiction.”
The finest track on this tribute is sung by Hawkins himself.
Judging by the tape hiss, “Great New Year” is from some long-lost homemade recording. It starts off as a typical nostalgic holiday tune, with the singer fantasizing about his family gathering around and the children opening presents just like the old days. But reality starts revealing itself with the singer confessing that this family scene probably won’t happen, and probably didn’t happen even in the good old days. Hawkins wonders if his kids even remember him and sings, “I was cruel, mean and selfish/I didn’t show no fatherly love./Now they’re all with their mother/Giving her all the love.”
It stings. Just like Hawkins’ best tunes.
Here's a video of Shnyribs, Sunny Sweeney, Tim Easton and Randy Weeks doing a live version of a Hawkins song.
And here's Ted himself teaching some European buskers how to busk better
Also recommended: * Brennen Leigh Sings Lefty Frizzell. I’m most familiar with Texas songbird Brennen Leigh by way of a couple of duet albums with male singers — 2014’s excellent Before the World Was Made, which she performed with Noel McKay, and Holdin’ Our Own and Other Country Gold Duets, which she made in 2007 with Austin country crooner Jesse Dayton.
On her new album, Leigh has a silent partner, the late William Orville Frizzell, better known as “Lefty.”
She’s hardly the first to pay homage to this country music titan. Merle Haggard did a tribute album, as did Willie Nelson. This might be the first by a woman, however.
And if you’re familiar with her albums with McKay and Dayton, it should be no surprise that she stuck to a good, clean honky-tonk sound, which suits her sweet, sexy voice as much as it suits Frizzell’s songs.
Leigh covers many of the lofty Lefty’s best-known songs — “Saginaw, Michigan,” “Mom and Dad’s Waltz,” etc. But my favorites are the lesser-known nuggets from the Lefty catalogue, songs like “Run ’Em Off,” “My Baby Is a Tramp,” and “What You Gonna Do, Leroy?”
Interesting fact: Lefty Frizzell served some time in New Mexico. At the age of nineteen he wrote one of his greatest songs, the first song on the Leigh tribute, “I Love You A Thousand Ways,” in 1947, while locked up in the Roswell jail on a statutory rape charge.
“The song was a plaintive apology to his wife, Alice, for his misdeeds,” musician Deke Dickerson wrote in his liner notes for a Frizzell box set on the Bear Family label
And, according to Dickerson, Lefty landed in the pokey only eight days after the fabled UFO crash near Roswell.
This is a live New Orleans concert by former Dead Kennedys frontman Biafra that reportedly was done on a dare.
Teaming up with a rootsy but raucous band (including a horn section), the West Coast punk lord blasts his way through a bunch of Big Easy R & B classics including “Ooh-Poo-Pah-Doo,” “Mother-in-Law” and “Working in a Coal Mine.”
Jello puts his stamp on Rockin’ Sidney’s zydeco anthem, “(Don’t Mess With) My Toot Toot,” does an intense version of “House of the Rising Sun,” and pays tribute to the late Alex Chilton, a New Orleans resident, with “Bangkok.”
My favorites include a properly spooky, near-13-minute version of Dr. John’s hoodoo-soaked masterpiece “I Walk on Guilded Splinters” and a wild romp through “Judy in Disguise (With Glasses),” originally done by John Fred & His Playboy Band.
The whole album is downright insane. And I can’t get enough of it.
Elizabeth Cook does a countrified take on the Kennedys’ signature “Too Drunk to Fuck.” It’s a beautiful thing.
And in another salute to a West Coast punk band, banjo picker Al Scorch does a crazy version of Black Flag's “Six Pack."
There also are songs by Texas honky-tonker Dale Watson, Banditos, Bobby Bare Jr. and a creditable cover of The Pogues’ “If I Should Fall from the Grace of God” by Deer Tick.
The compilation is available as seven 7-inch vinyl records or as digital downloads.
When Leon Redbone released his first album On the Track in 1975, it was
as if he walked out of a time warp from some haunted vaudeville theater. With
his natty white suit, Panama hat and ever-present sunglasses, he looked the part
of a traveling songster from some forgotten era.
And his music seemed familiar, yet, with his sometimes mumbled baritone vocals,
somehow other worldly. He played old blues, jazz, a little country (he was
especially fond of Jimmie Rodgers, an ocassional folk song like "Polly Wolly
Doodle," English music hall tunes, 1920s crooner's material.
His arrangements were subtle, never cutesy. Every time I'd hear a Leon song on
the radio, (yes, for awhile there in the mid '70s they'd actually play him on
the rock stations -- probably because Bob Dylan had said nice things about him
in Rolling Stone.
Earlier this year his website announced that Leon was retiring from recording
and performing due to health reasons. So this might be a good time to pay
tribute to him by taking a look and listen to some of the wonderful songs that I
first heard through him.
Let's start with the title cut of one of Leon's early albums,
Champagne Charlie. The song goes back to the mid 1800s, during the
English music hall era. A singer named George Leybourne wrote the words while
one Alfred Lee wrote the melody. But my favorite version was recorded by
bluesman Blind Blake in 1932.
Here is another Redbone signature tune, which Fats Waller made famous in the 1930s:
This is a Leon favorite, "My Walking Stick," written by Irving Berlin
and recorded by Ethel Merman in 1938:
Here's the title song of Leon's Christmas album, This early version is by
The Andrews Sisters with the Guy Lombardo Orchestra.
And while we're at it, merry Christmas from Leon and Dr. John!
Here's some Yuletide cheer from some of our friends in the animal kingdom.
For this first one I'll give a hat tip to my friend Chuck who recently posted this on Facebook. It may be the scariest Christmas song I've ever heard, (You can learn more about about the album HERE)
I think this one is fake. But the horn section is pretty good.
