Friday, April 14, 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
Wild Bill Jones by Acie Cargill
Nails in the Pine by Poor Boy's Soul
Help Me Joe by Dale Watson
See Willy Fly By by The Waco Brothers
Strange Heart by Banditos
3 Pecker Goat by Jesse Dayton
Cajun Moon by Phoebe Legere
Cajun Stripper by Doug Kershaw
Eb Tit Fille by Jo-el Sonnier
I Got Your Medicine by Shinyribs
Kick in the Head by New Riders of the Purple Sage
Crazy as a Junebug by Paula Rhae McDonald
Botched Execution by Shovels & Rope
Cornbread and Butterbeans by Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
Only You by NRBQ
Only You by Carl Perkins
Back Street Affair by Webb Pierce
Where's the Dress by Moe Bandy & Joe Stampley
The Nail by Sarah Shook & The Disarmers
Forever Lasts Forever by Nikki Lane
Confession by Stephanie Hatfield
Just Someone I Used to Know by Buddy Miller with Nikki Lane
Nothin' Feels Right But Doin' Wrong by Sarah Shook & The Disarmers
Wish You Back by Stephanie Hatfield with Mariachi Sonidos del Monte
He's Sorry by John Wagner
I See the Want To in Your Eyes by Gary Stewart
Long Black Veil by David Allen Coe
When I Was a Cowboy by David Bromberg
Storms Never Last by Waylon Jennings & Jessie Colter
Dreamin' My Dreams by John Prine & Kathy Matea
King David's Last Psalm by Jessie Colter
Were You When They Crucified My Lord by Johnny Cash with The Carter Family CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
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A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican April 14, 2017
Here are three of my favorite albums by female singers to cross my reality in recent weeks.
* Sidelong bySarah Shook & the Disarmers. I don’t say this very often these days, especially when talking about emerging musicians, but Rolling Stone was right. Last summer, the magazine declared that this North Carolina outfit was one of the “10 New Country Artists You Need to Know.”
On my very first listen, I was a fan by the end of the first two tracks, “Keep the Home Fires Burnin’ ” (which has a beyond-catchy melody similar to the bluegrass classic “Rocky Top”) and “The Nail” (a love-gone-wrong honky-tonker with some fine guitar and lap steel in which Shook makes the wry observation, “Well, I ain’t your last, you ain’t my first/You can’t decide which fact is worse”).
With a fresh face like a young Jodie Foster and a voice with more than a hint of a whiskey rasp, Shook sounds as if she were born in an outlaw country song — or perhaps she’s the punk-rock granddaughter of Hazel Dickens.
In the country weeper titled “Dwight Yoakam” (which isn’t really about the singer by that name), Shook sings mournfully, “I’m drinking water tonight because I drank all the whiskey this morning.” Then in “Make It Up to Mama,” she playfully takes the persona of a bad hombre: “Well, I killed a man for lookin’ at me wrong … and I wasted my inheritance on hookers and booze/But I’m gonna make it up to Mama with this mother’s heart tattoo.”
I’m hoping that last one isn’t autobiographical, but I have a feeling that the preceding song — with a title that cannot be named in a respectable family newspaper like this one — might be based on personal experience: “I can’t cry myself to sleep, so I drink myself to death/I got cocaine in my bloodstream and whiskey on my breath/Ain’t a thing that I can change to get my luck up/I guess I’m just too much of a …”
Apparently Sidelong, originally self-released, has been out since late 2015, though Bloodshot Records is rereleasing it for national distribution at the end of this month.
* Traces by Stephanie Hatfield. Santa Fe’s Stephanie Hatfield just released her third and what I
believe to be her strongest album to date. This is music for late-night listening — with her sultry voice and heartfelt lyrics of love and longing.
Several tunes here, most notably “Stay Lover Strong,” “Wrap My Limbs,” “Season Too Soon” and “Exposed,” have a discernible Latin flavor. Aided by two members of a local group, Mariachi Sonidos del Monte (Eric Ortiz on trumpet and guitarist Santiago Romero), Hatfield creates a sound influenced by the band Calexico. And it works. On most of the songs the mariachi is more of a suggestion than the driving force. The driving force, as it should be, is Hatfield’s voice.
Some of my favorites on Traces are the mysterious, smoky “Talking to the Dead” and the soulful, gospel-informed “Sold and Stolen.” On the latter, Hatfield’s voice soars on the bridge while pianist R. Bruce Phillips offers sweet, subtle touches.
But even more satisfying is the minor-key slow-burner called “Confession.” At five and a half minutes, it’s the longest song on the album, but it’s time well spent. With her husband and co-producer Bill Palmer on guitar, the song builds and builds until the listener is virtually on the edge of his seat.
And the lyrics are even more intense than the music: “So I walk, I run, I hide in a bathroom down the hall/Sink to my knees and hold my head as if somehow I can stop the fall/He was gone and so I carried on, but I left most of me behind.”
My only disappointment is that this album doesn’t include Hatfield’s “Wish You Back,” her collaboration with the full Mariachi Sonidos del Monte. But don’t worry. You can download that one for a buck at Hatfield’s Bandcamp page.
* Highway Queen by Nikki Lane. Like Margo Price and Sturgill Simpson, Nikki Lane is a major voice in a loose-knit movement that I call “new country music that doesn’t suck.” And like Sarah Shook, she’s also got a punk-rock heart.
In fact, the first time I ever heard of Lane was when I saw her open for Social Distortion in Austin a couple of years ago. I walked away from that show with two songs ringing in my head: Social D’s cover of Hank Williams’ “Alone and Forsaken” and Lane’s “Sleep With a Stranger.”
Released earlier this year, Highway Queen shows I wasn’t wrong in my initial impression of Lane as a strong, spunky, and important country artist. But some of the tunes seem to be hinting that the nonstop touring might be getting to her.
On the opening track, “700,000 Rednecks,” Lane sings, “Well, I travel around from town to town/I do the best I can everyday/I drive long hours and I don’t get to shower and I ain’t gonna brag about the pay.” Then, on the album’s title song, she sings, “Sixty thousand miles of blacktop/Countless broken hearts between/Winding lines of white that don’t stop/Living the life of the highway queen.”
But it’s not all complaints about the road. “Jackpot,” a snappy little country rocker, is raw joy, as is “Big Mouth,” an upbeat tune about small-town gossip.
And like all great country artists, Lane knows how to write a heartache song. “Forever Lasts Forever” is just stunning. In the refrain she sings, “We swore for better or for worse/And it was better at first, and worse at the end/But they say, forever lasts forever/’til forever becomes never again.”
Lane is scheduled to appear at Launchpad in Albuquerque on Monday, May 1. Tickets are $13.
Video time!
Here's Sarah
Here's a live-in-the-studio song from Stephanie (and Bill)
It's a song sung by a ghost, so it should not be a surprise that it's a song with an afterlife.
I'm talking, of course about "Long Black Veil." I first heard it by The Band. It's probably best known for its version by Johnny Cash. It originally was recorded by Lefty Frizzell. It was written by by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkins.
American Songwriter in a 2013 article said the song began with Dill wanting to "write a folk song that would last for the ages." Writer Jim Beviglia said:
He was partially inspired by a newspaper story of a priest in New Jersey who was killed under a streetlight with witnesses watching. For the chorus, Dill drew from the song “God Walks These Hills With Me.” Perhaps most fascinating of all, Dill borrowed elements of the urban legend surrounding the grave of actor Rudolph Valentino. It seems that each year following the death of the legendary Italian screen star, a woman wearing a long black veil would lay a single red rose on the grave, drawing the attention of the press in the process. (The majority of the evidence points to the Valentino phenomenon having originated as a publicity stunt, which was then carried on in subsequent years by copycats.) Dill took his unfinished song to co-writer Marijohn Wilkin to hammer out the plot. What they came up with was a tale that transcended all of its disparate sources.
Indeed they did. Here's Lefty's version recorded in 1959:
The song has been covered by a wide range of folk, country and rock acts, from Joan Baez to Social Distrortion's Mike Ness to The Chieftains (vocals by Mick Jagger) to Nick Cave to Bill Monroe to Orion.
But before most of those, the song's co-writer, Marijohn Wilkin, cut a version from the perspective of the best friend's wife. She called it "My Long Black Veil."
Then in 2011 Jason Boland & The Stragglers recorded a song called "False Accuser's Lament" in which he revealed the murder beneath the town hall light was part of a conspiracy by the husband of the lady in the long black veil.
Somehow Boland's answer song didn't inspire its own answer song in which the ghost of the frame man seeks revenge on his former best friend.
Maybe that's next. But until then, here is Red Foley's country hymn, "God Walks These Hills With Me"
[UPDATE 6-29-17: Just a couple of months after this post, Foley's version has disappeared from YouTube. But here's a version by Don Gibson.]
And here are enough "Long Black Veils" to last you an eternity!
It was 40 years ago today Poison Ivy taught The Cramps to play.
Or something like that ...
Yesterday Norton Records co-founder and one-time Cramps drummer Miriam Linna posted on her Facebook page a video featuring eight lo-fi, early, early versions of Cramps songs.
And here's what she had to say: So, like it or whatnot, now is the 40th anniversary of the Cramps first studio recording session, no matter what any boob or youtube might say. This sesh was in April 1977 and it was at Bell Sound in NYC and it was booked and paid for by Richard Robinson who also shot a home movie in his living room a few days later. The cover shown here was for a Munster boot out of Spain many moons ago. I have no clue where they got the tape. That's all. You can debate the date all you want, but as Kim Brown's Renegades would say, "I Was There". Just the facts, that is ALL.
As you can see, both the Youtube she posted as well as the bootleg album cover she refers to says the session in question in 1976, the year of our Bison Tentacle.
But like Miriam wrote, she was there and she says '77. So I'll go with that. Miriam said it, I believe it. That settles it.
Anywho, here's that music. As I said, the fi ain't high, but you're listening to HISTORY being made so stop your sniveling!
This is the set list:
1. Don't Eat Stuff Off the Sidewalk
2. I Was a Teenage Werewolf
3. Sunglasses After Dark
4. Love Me
5. Domino
6. What's Behind The Mask
7. I Can Hardly Stand It
8. TV Set
And in case you were wondering about the obscure reference to Kim Brown and The Renegades ...
Sunday, April 9. 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
Man in White by The Taxpayers
Creature by Double Date with Death
Lizard People by Playboy Manbaby
The Straight Life by Mudhoney
Dinero by Ton Ton Macoutes
Mantrap by Thee Headcoats
Panic is No Option by Mission of Burma
English Civil War by The Clash
I'm a Big Man by Big Daddy Rogers
It's All Right / For Sentimental Reasons by Sam Cooke
Sing Me Back Home by The Chesterfield Kings
It Ain't Gonna Save Me by Jay Reatard
Take Me Aay by Willis Earl Beal
Spastica by Elastica
I'm Moving On by Yoko Ono
Who Shot the Druggies by Lynx Lynx
No Rock on Mars by The Vagoos
Claw Machine Wizard by Left Lane Cruiser
Pan by Ty Segall
Over and Over by The Moonglows
Youth Against Fascism byb Sonic Youth
Sacrifice/Let There Be Peace by Bob Mould
I Walk for Miles by Dinosaur Jr
Hanged Man by Churchwood
Land of a Thousand Dances by Little Richard
Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf
Don't Fuck Around With Love by Bernadette Seacrest & Kris Dale
The Fat Angel by The Jefferson Airplane
What Once Was Dead by Laino & The Broken Seeds
Is That You in the Blue by Dex Romweber Duo
Don't Blame Me by The Everly Brothers
Peace Like a River by Jerry Lawson CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, April 7 , 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
They Call the Wind Mariah by Bobby Osborne
Dwight Yoakam by Sarah Shook & The Disarmers
Two Doors Down by Dwight Yoakam
Steve Earle by Lydia Loveless
Hardcore Troubadour by Steve Earle
Bottom Below by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs
I Don't Give a Shit by Shinyribs
Border Town Blues by John Wagner
666 Pack by The Meat Purveyors
She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye by Jerry Lee Lewis
Bowling Alley Baby by Reach Around Rodeo Clowns
Mean Mama Boogie by Johnny Bond& His Red River Valley Boys
Patrick by The Misery Jackals
Pigfork Jamboree by The Imperial Rooster
Too Much Pork for Just One Fork by Southern Culture on the Skids
Carny Folk by The Saucer Men
I Drink by Mary Gauthier
Fishin' Forever by Mose McCormack
Season Too Soon by Stephanie Hatfield
Homeland by Lauria
Feelin' Haggard by Dale Watson & Ray Benson
He Won't Ever Be Gone by Willie Nelson
One Sweet Hello by Merle Haggard
Old Man from the Mountain by Eugene Chadborne with Bryan & The Haggards
I'll Fix Your Flat Tire Merle by Pure Prairie League
Take Out the Trash by Jesse Dayton
Who's Gonna Take Your Garbage Out by Rosie Flores & The Pine Valley Cosmonauts
Long Old Time by Scott H. Biram
Southern White Lies by Marty Fields
Praise Ye the Lord by Jessi Colter
Second Coming Blues by Larry Kirwin
The Man in the Bed by Dave Alvin 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
Back in December 2014, just a few weeks after I started the Throwback Thursday
feature on this blog, I did a look at one of my favorite old songs from the
1920s,
"I'll See You in My Dreams."
Written by Isham Jones and lyricist Gus Kahn and published in 1924, and first
recorded by the Ray Miller Orchestra (vocals by Frank Besinger) in 1925, "I'll
See You in My Dreams" became an instant American classic.
Khan's lyrics seem almost like a mystical incantation, an opening of the door
into the world of dreams:
I'll see you in my dreams Hold you in my dreams Someone took you right out of my arms Still I feel the thrill of your charms Lips that once were mine Tender eyes that shine They will light my way tonight I'll see you in my dreams
You can find Ray Miller's version of "Dreams" and several others in that
original post.
But there have been so many wonderful covers of the song in the past 90 years or
so, I believe my original post deserves a sequel.
Let's start with Ella Fitzgerald, who recorded "Dreams" in the mid 1940s. That's
Louis Armstrong on trumpet.
Thrill to the charms of the ever-sultry Julie London, who sang it on her 1968
album, Easy Does It.
Fast forward to the 1990s and you'll find The Asylum Street Spankers singing it
on their first album.
British rocker Joe Brown sang it as the closing number of a tribute
concert for George Harrison at the Royal Albert Hall in 2002. [Update 5-29-22: That clip apparently was taken down off Youtube. This video is from a different show.]
Brown's cover inspired this moving version by a young British ukulele enthusiast
named Sophie Madeleine
There's a weird tradition in country music of novelty songs about Native Americans. It goes back at least as far Bob Wills' "Cherokee Maiden" (written by Cindy Walker) in 1941. The tunes are full of racial stereotypes and basically devoid of actual Indian culture.
Except perhaps for "Cherokee Maiden" and Hank Williams' "Kaw Liga" (which was about a wooden cigar-store Indian), you don't hear many of these tunes today. While they weren't written or performed in a hateful way, most of them were pretty clueless.
But there was one band that enthusiastically embraced these old songs -- an Irish "show band" -- cover bands that played Ireland's ballroom circuit -- called The Indians.
For most of the '60s the Dublin-based band was a journeyman group known as The Casino. But in 1970s, on the verge of breaking up. A prospective manager suggested The Casino needed a fresh gimmick. He recommended the group start wearing war paint and dressing up in headdresses and buckskins -- a proto-Village People style, basically.
So they did all that and and started playing all those Native-themed novelty tunes (though these actually are just a small part of their repertoire.)
The Indians are still around today, though most the original members are long gone. And apparently they still love those dumb-ass novelty songs.
Let's start wit "Kaw Liga." I don't think Hank done it this a way
One of the greatest pseudo-native songs in history "Running Bear."
Here's The Indians' interpretation of Hank Thompson's "Squaws Along the Yukon"
Here's The Indians' synth-marred version of the surf guitar classic "Apache."
This song didn't start out as an "Indian" song.
Finally, here's The Indians' version of Rex Allen's incest cautionary tale, "Son Don't Go Near The Indians."
Sunday, April 2. 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
Kickin' Child by Dion
The Ode Trip to Jerusalem by The Mekons
Treat Her righ by The Blue Bonnets
Bo Weavil Laino & The Broken Seeds
Karate Monkey by The Woggles
Andres by L7
Strobe Light by The B-52s
Days and Days by Concrete Blonde
Angel Baby by Rosie & The Originals
Must be Voodoo by The Vagoos
Crazy to the Bone by Dead Moon
Black Eyed Dog by Destination Lonely
Get Straight by Lynx Lynx
Never Say Never by Romero Void
Apostle Island by The Blind Shake
Sexy Hell by Blank Generation
Memories Are Made of This by Little Richard
Sheela-Na-Gig by PJ Harvey
Now You're Gone by Mark Sultan
Hang Up by The Cramps
If I Had My Way by Evan John
Come Back Lord by Reverend Beat-Man
Never Stand If You Can Walk by Help Me Devil
Elephant Man by Meet Your Death
25th Floor/High on Rebellion by Patti Smith
Lips of a Loser by Black Joe Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
Manny's Bones by Los Lobos
People Want to Go Home by William Bell
The Last Day of Our Acquaintance by Sinead O'Connor
Don't Blame Me by The Everly Brothers
And I Bid You Goodnight by The Persuassions CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, March 31, 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
Back from the Shadows Again by Firesign Theatre
700,000 Rednecks by Nikki Lane
Cowboy in Flames by The Waco Brothers
Still Sober After All these Beers by The Banditos
Solitary Confinement by Sarah Shook & The Disarmers
Battle of Love by Mose McCormack
Beans & Make Believe by John Wagner
This Town Gets Around by Margo Price
Fuck This Town by Robbie Fulks
I'm Fixin' to Have a Breakdown by Dale Watson
Y'all Come by Minnie Pearl
Hands on Your Hips by Shinyribs
My House Has Wheels by Southern Culture on the Skids
The Ballad of Thunder Road by Jim & Jesse Flora, The Lily of the West by Tim O'Brien
Hey Little Darlin' by The Wilders
I Believe in Spring by Eleni Mandell
Sold and Stolen by Stephanie Hatfield Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean
She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye by Jerry Lee Lewis
Who's Heart Are You Breaking Now? by Don Walser
Cajun Joe (Bully of the Bayou by Doug & Rusty Kershaw North to Alaska by Johnny Horton
I'd Like to Know by Jo-El Sonnier
Dim Lights, Thick Smoke and Loud Loud Music by John Prine & Amanda Shires
One Bad Shoe by The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
Wasp's Nest by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Crippled and Crazy by Scott H. Biram
Mercy and Loving Kindness by Jessi Colter
Commandment 3 by Slim Cessna's Auto Club
The Selfishness of Man by George Jones
You Don't Know Me by Willie Nelson
Crazy Moon by Merle Haggard
April Fool's Day Morn by Loudon Wainwright III 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
