This little lady from Mart, Texas wrote so many classics it's uncanny.
And still today I'm frequently surprised when I realize that a song I love was
one of Cindy's.
And actually it's unfair to pigeon hole her as only a country songwriter. Her
songs have been covered by pop, rock and jazz stars as well.
In fact she got a recording contract after pitching a song -- "Lone Star Trail"
to none other than Bing Crosby.
As a gutsy 22-year-old on a trip to Los Angeles with her parents, she walked
into Crosby's office determined to get the song to Der Bingle. And she did.
Below are several Cindy Walker songs, some well-known, some not so much. Each
one is a jewel.
Woody Guthrie's not the only one who wrote Dustbowl ballads. This is an early
song by Cindy, ritten in the 1930s when she was a teenager. Bob Wills & The
Texas Playboys recorded it in 1941.
Some of Wills' most famous songs were written by Cindy, including this one:
She wrote this singing cowboy tune for Gene Autry. I first heard the version by
The Byrds on Sweetheart of the Rodeo.
This Vietnam era recording by Jim Reeves is as moving now as it was in 1966.
This is one that was loved by doves as well as hawks. Cindy's lyrics cut to the
heart.
Ernest Tubb did "Warm Red Wine"
I recently posted a
video of Webb Pierce
doing this song, which was a hit for him the '60s. Here's a more recent version
by Ricky Skaggs.
She even wrote a song for Spike Jones, "Barstool Cowboy from Barstow."
Finally, this last song probably is my favorite Cindy Walker songs -- and one of
my favorite songs in general. I'm still partial to Ray Charles' version from
Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. But Cindy's own version is
wonderful as well.
Monday was the 87th birthday of Ilene Goldman, better known in the Free World as Rusty Warren.
She was a comedian and a nightclub singer. And even though she graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music, this brassy broad became the undisputed Queen Mother of what they used call "party records."
Or as she puts it, "I was one of the first loud-mouthed women who would admit we liked sex."
Rusty's off-color, sex-obsessed act managed to sell tons of records-- even though radio wouldn't touch albums with titles like Songs of Sin, Bottoms Up, Sin-Sational, Banned in Boston and -- her most famous -- Knockers Up!
Here is a trailer for a DVD Rusty was hawking a few years ago:
This one probably is her best-known song. Liberal talk-show host Randi Rhodes used to play it every Friday on her show.
I'm not sure why this video features a photo of busty Asian woman, but who am I to argue?
Sunday, March 19. 2017 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Leave the Capitol by The Fall
Who Will Save Rock 'n' Roll by The Dictators
You're Gonna Miss Me by Dog Sahm & Sons
Staubsauger Baby by Blind Butcher
Fate of a Gambler by Laino & Broken Seeds
What They Tell Me by Mission of Burma
I Wanted Everything by The Ramones
On Broadway by Esquerita
Trainwrecker by Scott H. Biram
Corpse on a Roof by The Blind Shake
It's Fun by Lynx Lynx
Coyote Conundrum by Kid Congo Powers & The Pink Monkeybirds
Don't Look in the Basement by The Devils
We Repel Each Other by Reigning Sound
Pony Tail and a Black Cadillac by King Automatic
Hollywood Swinging by Kool & The Gang
R.I.P. Chuck Berry 1926-2017
Hail Hail Chuck Berry!
You Can't Catch Me by Chuck Berry
Around and Around by The Animals
Too Much Monkey Business by Chuck Berry
Roll Over Beethoven by The Beatles
The Promised Land by Chuck Berry
Johnny B. Goode by Jimi Hendrix
Sweet Little Rock and Roller by Chuck Berry
Berry Rides Again by Steppenwolf
C.C. Rider by Chuck Berry with the Steve Miller Band
Carol by The Rolling Stones
You Never Can Tell by Chuck Berry
Brown Eyed Handsome Man by Jerry Lee Lewis
Havana Moon by Chuck Berry
Whatever Happened to Jesus (and Maybellene) by Terry Allen
School Days by Chuck Berry
Something's Broken in the Promised Land by Wayne Kramer CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Back before he became known mostly for his sausage, Jimmy Dean was a country / pop singer famous mostly for creating a modern legend in the form of a mysterious coal miner named Big John.
Every mornin' at the mine you could see him arrive He stood six-foot-six and weighed two-forty-five Kinda broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip And everybody knew ya didn't give no lip to big John
Released in September, 1961 at the height of country music's "faux-folksong" craze (think Marty Robbins' "El Paso," Johnny Horton's "The Battle of New Orleans," Lefty Frizzell's "Long Black Veil," Bobby Bare's "Miller's Cave," etc.) Dean became the ultimate white rapper with his hip, finger poppin' delivery on "Big Bad John." The subject of the song was a bigge-than-life Paul Bunyan / John Henry style hero who captured the nation's imagination by selflessly sacrifcing his own life to save his fellow workers in a mining disaster.
Then came the day at the bottom of the mine When a timber cracked and men started cryin' Miners were prayin' and hearts beat fast And everybody thought that they'd breathed their last, 'cept John Through the dust and the smoke of this man-made hell Walked a giant of a man that the miners knew well Grabbed a saggin' timber, gave out with a groan And like a giant oak tree he just stood there alone, big John ...
Here is Jimmy performing the song on his own TV show a couple of years after it became his biggest hit.
But Jimmy couldn't just leave Big John at the bottom of that pit. A few months later, in January, 1962, he released a sequel about Big John's long lost lover, the Cajun Queen.
All that gritty realism from the original is tossed out the window. In its place we get a bullshit tall tale that, if you told it to your grandchildren, they would immediately ask your doctors to up your meds. And they'd be right; clearly you need it.
Basically Queenie has so much magical sex appeal she has the power to raise the dead with her kiss.
Listen for yourself ...
Cracked concludes that "Jimmy Dean should have left poor John to rot alone in the mines, instead of artificially resurrecting him for the sake of a happy-dappy-sappy ending."
Maybe Jimmy agreed. In June 1962 he released a second sequel about the bastard spawn of Big John and the Cajun Queen, "Little Bitty Big John." And it was as if the magical resurrection that took place in "The Cajun Queen" never happened.
But Big John also made a gratuitous cameo appearance in another Jimmy Dean hit, "PT-109" which mythologized the World Wart II exploits of John F. Kennedy, who was president at the time. Check the very end of this song (which actually was released a couple of months before "Little Bitty Big John.")
But that's not the last we heard of Big Bad John or his woman. Dottie West released this "answer song" in 1964. It's a re-imaging of the Cajun Queen story.
Fortunately the next place the legend of Big Bad John played out in the tacky world of homophobic parody. A guy named Steve Greenberg turned the legendary coal miner into a swishy hairdresser named "Big Bruce"
Similarly, Ben Colder -- the comic persona of Sheb Wooley who was best known for the novelty tune "The Purple People Eater" -- turned the heroic coal miner into "Big Sweet John." Colder's hero not only was gay, but a hippie also well. A real knee-slapper.
A more worthy successor is Hank Penny's 1970 "Big Bad John" inspired song of racial understanding called "The Strong Black Man," who not only saves his fellow minors from a cave-in, but makes the narrator see the errors of his racist thinking.
Today is my oldest grandson's birthday. Happy birthday, Gideon!
And he shares that birthday with one of the greatest religious leaders of this era, the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart. Today he's 82 years young. Happy birthday, Reverend!
A few things to know about Rev. Jimmy in case you haven't seen the light:
He's the cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis (also a cousin of country singer Mickey Gilley.)
In the mid '80s he was a leading voice in condemning rock 'n' roll, even Christian rock, as "the voice of the Dragon," a tool of Satan.
In 1988 he made a tearful televised apology for his sins after a rival preacher who had staked out Swaggart's favorite No-Tell Motel and found him in the company of a prostitute who told investigators that Swaggart was a regular customer.
Then in 1991, a cop in Indio, Calif. pulled him over driving down the wrong side of the road. He was in an unregistered vehicle and (gasp!) not wearing a seat belt. And yes, with another prostitute.
Sunday, March. 2017 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Dizzy Miss Lizzy by The Beatles
Judgement Day by The Pretty Things
Baby Doll by The A-Bones
I Smoke Dope by The Gears
He's Making a Tape by Wild Billy Chyldish & The Musicians of the British Empire
Ded End Street by Urban Junior
Judy in Disguise by Jello Biafra & The Raunch & Soul All Stars
Pinon Lurker by The Gluey Brothers
The House of the Rising Sun by Nina Simone
You Can Count on Me by Deke Dickerson with Los Straitjackets
I Walk for Miles by Dinosaur Jr.
Teenage Thunder by The Chesterfield Kings
She Don't by Pussycat & The Dirty Johnsons
Fix That Broken Halo by The Ruiners
Go-Getter by KO & The Knockouts
Price Tag by Sleater-Kinney
Wowie Zowie by The Mothers of Invention
Arrington set Reog Doom by Arrington de Dionyso & Gal Lazer Shiloach
Witchcraft Rebellion by Old Time Relijun
Mani Malaikat by Arrington de Dionyso
Urge and Urge and Urge by Old Time Relijun
Manticore/Lion Tamer by Arrington de Dionyso & Old Time Relijun
I Create in a Broken System by Arrington de Dionyso'a Malaikat Dan Singa Arrington de Dionyso will be playing 7:30 pm Monday 7 p.m. Monday, March 13, at Fresh Santa Fe (2855-A Cooks Road; $10).
Ellegua by Dr. John
Papa Legba by Pops Staples with The Talking Heads
Legba by Malcolm McLaren
The Love We Got Ain't Worth Two Dead Flies by Swamp Dogg with Esther Phillips
Sexual Tension by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
Hey Hey by Pat Burns with Cynthia Becker CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, March 10, 2017 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
I'm Home Gettin' Hammered While She's Out Gettin' Nailed by Jesse Dayton
Long Long Time by Guy Forsyth
Piss Up a Rope by Ween
Heal Me by Sarah Shook & The Disarmers
Bus Breakdown by Dale Watson & Ray Benson
Glendale Train by New Riders of the Purple Sage
I've Got the Railroad Blues by The Delmore Brothers
When You Lose Your Monry by The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
A Certain Girl by Shinyribs
The Christian Thing by Jono Manson
Sold and Stolen by Stephanie Hatfield
Dog by The Bottle Rockets
Talk to Me Lonesome Heart by Miss Leslie & The Juke Jointers
Wild Side of Life by Charlie Feathers
Cajun Stripper by Doug Kershaw
Righteous Ways by Scott H. Biram
Hard Core Troubadour by Steve Earle
Chords of Fame by Neil Mooney
Sister Kate by Oh Lazarus
Honky Tonk Girl by Eilen Jewell
Lose That Woman Blues by Johnny Dilks
Mama Hated Diesels by Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen
Look at Us by John Prine & Morgane Stapleton
The Ballad of Jesse James by Van Morrison, Lonnie Donegan & Chris Barber
Big Iron by Marty Robbins
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence by Gene Pitney
Any Old Time by Steve Forbert
Wasteland of the Free by Iris Dement
West Texas Waltz by Butch Hancock & Jimme Dale Gilmore
Muddy Waters by Nikki Lane
What Does the Deep Sea Say by The Handsome Family
Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground by Willie Nelson
One Dyin' and a Buryin' by Roger Miller CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
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
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican March 10, 2017
Perhaps the most iconic images of folksinger Woody Guthrie are from the early 1940s, showing the celebrated Dust Bowl balladeer with a hand-painted message on his guitar: “This machine kills fascists.”
Avant-garde musician, visual artist, and all-around visionary Arrington de Dionyso doesn’t sound anything like Guthrie. But he’s channeling the spirit of the Okie bard for the current tour he’s dubbed “This Saxophone Kills Fascists.” And he’s bringing his show to New Mexico, including a Monday, March 13, performance at Fresh Santa Fe.
What kind of music does this Olympia, Washington, musician play? In a recent phone interview, de Dionyso told me he’ll be doing “protest music.” But it’s not going to sound like the music of Joan Baez or Pete Seeger or even Rage Against the Machine. Singing words that tell stories of injustice and strife in a linear, logical manner, de Dionyso said, is inadequate in a new era in which “the whole idea of objective truth can be manipulated.” Instead, he said the best way to counter this is “when you get into raw emotion connected to a spiritual place.”
He said his music on this tour is inspired by the “free jazz” movement — think Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman — of the late 1960s. It was a wild style of expressive discordant jazz that rose with the Black Liberation movement, a music that de Dionyso said became more focused on “politics and deep spiritual experiences. I’m finding that this is the most appropriate form of protest music,” he said. It’s his way to “confront the current fascist regime.”
On a personal level, part of what sparked “This Saxophone Kills Fascists” was de Dionyso’s own brush with followers of what is euphemistically known these days as the “alt-right,” which sounds so much more hip than an unpleasant label like “white nationalists.”
Late last year he was “implicated” in the so-called Pizzagate scandal because one of his murals had been on display at Comet Ping Pong in Washington, D.C. — which, according to the conspiracy clowns, is the epicenter of a child sex ring involving some of the most powerful people in the nation’s capital.
Even though that mural has long been painted over, the frothing conspiracy faithful claimed that de Dionyso’s colorful primitive art — inspired by dreams and mythology, and bursting with sexual energy — is full of symbols of pedophilia and Satanism. Some accused him of making “degenerate art” — a term the artist noted was used by the Nazi Party in Germany in its fight against modern art in the 1930s.
Arrington with the mural not loved by Pepe the Frog
“Pizzagate was a huge trigger for me,” he said. Some of the Pizzagate crusaders not only smeared him as a devil-worshipping pervert, but they also posted information about his family and pictures of his friends and in general did their best to make his life miserable.
At the height of that craziness late last year, de Dionyso posted on Facebook: “I know none of this is about me personally in even the slightest. Right now there are lines being drawn. There is a war being waged against EVERY form of free expression and I think you all know exactly what side of that line I will be standing on. Will you stand with me?”
Born in 1975 to parents who were both Methodist military chaplains, de Dionyso said his was a “100 percent non-musical” family. But it wasn’t an art-free family. His mother, he said, loved to paint and had a “folk-art style” that inspired him. Starting at the age of three or four, he began drawing pictures of dinosaurs, dragons, and wild animals his mom painted.
For de Dionyso, music came later. Beginning in junior high, when his parents moved to Spokane, he became interested in non-Western music from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. “I wanted to hear everything,” he said, which included traditional Japanese sounds, Indonesian gamelan music, and the Master Musicians of Joujouka from Morocco (who were “discovered” decades earlier by Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones).
Of course, most kids his age didn’t share this musical passion. But he found a musical community in the hardcore punk rock scene. Mosh pits seemed like an ecstatic tribal ritual to him.
After moving to Olympia in the early ’90s to attend Evergreen State College, he started a band called Old Time Relijun, which began releasing its music — frequently compared with Captain Beefheart, but less bluesy — on homemade cassette tapes. This group later released nine albums on the Olympia-based-label K Records, which was a leading light back when “alternative” rock truly was alternative. Old Time Relijun lasted well into the 21st century.
But de Dionyso took a different turn in 2009, releasing an album called Malaikat dan Singa (later the name of his backing band), on which he sang, in the Indonesian language, songs inspired by William Blake and the Zohar.
On his current tour he’ll be playing sax, bass clarinet, and an instrument of his own creation, the bromiophone, a contrabass clarinet made from PVC pipes. At most of his gigs he’ll be collaborating with local musicians. “I’ll have a drummer and maybe another saxophone player in Santa Fe,” he said.
“We have to change ourselves as artists and musicians. We have no choice. It’s a fascist takeover. But there are more of us than there are of them. We need to stop all the infighting as much as possible. All our energy needs to be put to stopping this regime,” he said.
Arrington de Dionyso in New Mexico: He's playing 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 11, in Albuquerque at CFA Downtown Studio (113 4th St., NW; $5 suggested donation); 4 p.m. Sunday, March 12, at Ennui Gallery in Taos (134 Bent St.; $5-$10 suggested donation), and 7 p.m. Monday, March 13, at Fresh Santa Fe (2855-A Cooks Road; $10).
You can find tons of de Dionyso’s music at www.arrington.bandcamp.com. Also, check his visual art at www.arringtondedionyso.bigcartel.com. Enjoy some videos. Here's Arrington rehearsing for the tour Here is Malaikat dan Singa live on the radio in 2011 Gimme dat Old Time Relijun And finally, here is a poem Arrington wrote for the tour
THIS SAXOPHONE KILLS FASCISTS
THIS SAXOPHONE GROWLS LIKE A PANTHER
THIS SAXOPHONE SCREAMS LIKE AN EAGLE
THIS SAXOPHONE CREATES IN THE FACE OF DESTRUCTION
THIS SAXOPHONE WAILS FOR THE FREEDOM OF ALL PEOPLE
THIS SAXOPHONE FLIPS THE MIDDLE FINGER
THIS SAXOPHONE IS POWERED BY THE SUN AND THE MOON
THIS SAXOPHONE REARRANGES ATOMS
THIS SAXOPHONE BRINGS DOWN THE WALLS OF JERICHO
THIS SAXOPHONE MARCHES ON WASHINGTON
THIS SAXOPHONE SOMETIMES WHISPERS
THIS SAXOPHONE SINGS WITH SEVEN VOICES
THIS SAXOPHONE SPITS FIRE IN SEVEN LANGUAGES
THIS SAXOPHONE NEUTRALIZES POISON
THIS SAXOPHONE TURNS SWORDS INTO OTHER SAXOPHONES
THIS SAXOPHONE IS A LION NOT A LAMB
THIS SAXOPHONE TURNS WATER INTO WINE
THIS SAXOPHONE TURNS OIL BACK INTO DINOSAURS
THIS SAXOPHONE IS TUNED IN TO ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN FREQUENCIES
THIS SAXOPHONE IS A COMPLETE AND TOTAL REPUDIATION OF ALL HIS LIES
THIS SAXOPHONE IS A WAR CRY FOR INDESTRUCTIBLE LIFE
THIS SAXOPHONE SEPARATES A SEA OF REEDS
THIS SAXOPHONE IS THE DARLING OF THE UNDERGROUND
THIS SAXOPHONE IS THE ESOPHAGUS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
THIS SAXOPHONE BLOWS SWEET DEFIANCE
THIS SAXOPHONE IS POSSESSED BY THUNDER
THIS SAXOPHONE FLIES LIKE A FALCON AND STINGS LIKE A SCORPION
THIS SAXOPHONE IS THE SOUND BETWEEN SOUNDS
THIS SAXOPHONE FLIPS THE SWITCH
THIS SAXOPHONE IS TOTALLY LIT
THIS SAXOPHONE CURSES AND SPITS
THIS SAXOPHONE IS THE TINCTURE OF RESISTANCE
THIS SAXOPHONE IS AN EARTHQUAKE AND A MONSOON
THIS SAXOPHONE FLOWERS IN THE CRACKED PAVEMENT OF CORRUPTION
THIS SAXOPHONE'S OTHER SAXOPHONE IS A BROOMSTICK
THIS SAXOPHONE IS AN ENERGY, NOT AN INSTRUMENT
Bruce Channel, third from right, with some band he met in England in 1962
Fifty five years ago this month, when I was in third grade, I got the measles. That's not a painful memory, I fact the main things I remember about it is the fact that I got to miss a week of school and that I became obsessed with my little transistor radio, which I believe I'd received as a Christmas gift a couple of months before.
No, it wasn't the radio itself, which was about the size of an iPhone, but thicker. It was the strange wild sounds that came out of it at night.
I wanted to know more about these singers who promised a mysterious, magical -- and sometimes a little dangerous world. I wanted to hear what other songs they'd sung and the musicians who'd inspired them, to find out where they came from. I might have been sick in bed with the lights out, but every night there was a party in my head coming in through that little ear plug attached to my radio
That was the week I became obsessed by rock 'n' roll.
And, as anyone familiar with this blog knows, that's an obsession that has lasted a lifetime. Well after the measles left me, the rock 'n' roll fever persisted.
A decade later when I first heard The Velvet Underground's "Rock n' Roll," about a little girl named Jenny who discovered a New York station and her life was saved by rock 'n' roll, I completely identified with her -- though I would have been eight years old and mine was an Oklahoma City station, WKY.
I don't know the exact date of my measles bout, but I remember the song that was number one on WKY at the time. It was "Hey Baby" by Bruce Channel, who was backed up by a harmonica player named Delbert McClinton. I can't find any WKY Top 50 (yes, 50, not 40!) lists, but according to Billboard, that song was number one nationally for three weeks beginning March 10, 1962.
Here's that song, followed by a handful of others that shaped the soul of a young, measles-stricken rocker in March of 1962.
Here's another tune that was popular in March, 1962, "Let Me In" by The Sensations. I could identify with what the singer, Yvonne Baker, was saying. I could hear the music, I could hear the party. And I demanded to be let in!
Sue Thompson was already pushing 40 when she had this hit, but she still sounded cool and sexy beyond words to my young ears
Speaking of Lou Reed, this song still is my favorite "Walk on the Wild Side."
Back then I thought the Peppermint Lounge in New York had to be the coolest place in the world thanks to Joey Dee.
I still get chills when I hear this song late at night, just like the first time I heard it on my transistor radio that week in 1962. The organ solo is downright other-dimensional!
Finally, don't you be a good neighbor to her. Or I'll send you a love letter. Straight from my heart
What can you say about a lady whose siblings are Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff?
April Winchell is an actress, comedian, voice-over artist (the voice of Baby Herman's mom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Clarabelle Cow in recent Mickey Mouse cartoons), former radio host, and, yes, daughter of famed ventriloquist Paul Winchell.
And -- best of all for Wacky Wednesday purposes -- she's a collector and disseminator of bizarre music.
For years she's maintained a website full of MP3s of crazy music -- Golden Throat celebrity covers, corporate pep songs, chicken songs, TV themes, commercial jingles, "terrifying Christian music," "Crazy Jew Rap," German covers of show tunes, ...
A woman after my own heart!
April's MP3 library has been online years before YouTube was even invented. But many of these have found their way to YouTube, which make it easier to share with you here.
Here are some of my favorites from the April Winchell collection
First there's this song of faded love. It took both Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand to sing the original, but only one Liberace to send it over the top.
If The B-52s covered "Stairway to Heaven," it would sound like The Rock Lobsters
A question I ask God every day: "What is This Thing called Amway?"
A little yodeling for Jesus by Princess Ramona
A classic Barbra stage outburst remixed ... like butter!
April says this one is "An extremely strange recording."
