Sunday, March 17, 2019 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
The Sky is a Poisonous Garden by Concrete Blonde
That's Tough by Gabriel & The Angels
Bone Machine by The Pixies
Eyes on Me by The Night Beats
Some People by Ar-Kaics
Dancing on My Knees by The Yawpers
Who Do You Love by Patti Smith
Corn Foo Fighting by The Hickoids
All I Know by The Neon Brothers
Don 't Wanna Wash Off Last Night by The Gaunga Dyns
Let's Go Let's Go, Let's Go by Hank Ballard & The Midnighters
You Can't Steal My Shine by The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
Hornet by Jon Spencer
Blue Haired Lady by The Polkaholics
Pony Dress by The Flesh Eaters
How It's Done by Unknown Instructors
I'm a No Count by Ty Wagner
Sweet Jane by Lou Reed
THE LAST GASP OF ST. PAT's
Black Velvet Band by The Dubliners
Captain Kelly's Kitchen by Dropkick Murpheys
The Captain's Dead by Paddy & The Rats
The Likes of You Again by Flogging Molly
Donegal Express by Shane McGowan
Some Say the Divil is Dead by The Wolfe Tones
Forty Deuce by Black 47
Molly Malone by Sinead O'Connor
Oklahoma on my Mind by Martha Fields
Don't Let Nobody Drag Yo' Spirit Down by Linda Tillery & The Cultural Heritage Choir with Wilson Pickett & Eric Bibb
Jeep Cherokee Laredo by The War & Treaty
How Many Stars by The Mekons CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican March 15, 2018
I almost feel bad for fans of Michael Jackson following the revelations of Leaving Neverland, the recent HBO documentary detailing the agonizing allegations of sexual abuse, by Jackson, of two of his former kiddie pals, now grown men.
Almost.
Like most living Americans my age, I became aware of Michael Jackson back in my late high school days, when The Jackson 5 began dominating pop charts.
I didn’t like them.
To me they were bubblegum soul, a black version of the Osmonds, who I also couldn’t stand. Both the Osmonds and the Jacksons were out there back then, each doing their best to damage AM radio beyond repair. (Now there’s a good thesis for a Ph.D. in pop culture: How Michael and Donny paved the way for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.)
Michael Jackson rarely crossed my mind for years after the demise of The Jackson 5. But around 1979, I started hearing songs from Jackson’s album Off the Wall on the radio — and I thought they didn’t stink too bad for disco-laden pop, going well beyond the pipsqueak pop of his early career.
And soon came Thriller, and with that, Michael Jackson basically became the ’80s in the eyes of his rapidly expanding fan base. As for me, after the initial thrill of Thriller was gone, Jackson once again just seemed cheesy to this old cynic.
At first, it was just that the glitz and excess of both his sound and his image seemed to epitomize everything about the ’80s that I hated.
But it ultimately wasn’t a question of musical taste that bothered me about Jackson and his worldwide legions of true believers. Whispers of pedophilia about Jackson and his seemingly endless parade of boy companions abounded for years.
I myself made a snarky innuendo in this very column back on Jan. 5, 1990. Reviewing a record by Terence Trent D’Arby (Neither Fish Nor Flesh, an album I still love), I wrote, “He can sound as angelic as Michael Jackson crooning lullabies to Webster or as wild as James Brown in a high-speed chase along a southern highway.” (Webster was a 1980s TV sitcom starring child actor Emmanuel Lewis, who was a frequent Jackson boy pal and houseguest in the ’80s.)
In 1993, the parents of one of his constant kiddie companions filed a civil lawsuit against Jackson, alleging he’d molested his son. Jackson settled the case, reportedly for more than $20 million. Jackson loyalists knew that it was just a case of money-grubbing parents trying to besmirch the honor of a wholesome entertainer who just happened to love children.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Then in 2003, British journalist Martin Bashir made a documentary called Living with Michael Jackson, in which the singer talked openly about sleeping with the little boys who were guests at his Neverland Ranch.
“It’s not sexual. We’re going to sleep. I tuck them in,” he said. “It’s very charming, it’s very sweet.”
And millions of his fans were charmed. Not so much the district attorney of Santa Barbara. Jackson would be charged with molesting another boy. This case went to trial, but the King of Pop beat the rap — with the help of testimony by Wade Robson, an Australian kid whose family had moved from their home country to California so he could be closer to Jackson, who he’d idolized.
Robson is one of the alleged victims at the center of Leaving Neverland, who in the documentary describes in excruciating detail his story of being raped by Jackson as a young boy.
Some of his fans still — and will always — defend Jackson. But not all. On social media, I’ve seen many Jackson fans who, after seeing the documentary, no longer care to defend him, despite growing up on his music and loving him for most of their lives. While it’s tempting to feel morally superior for never having been a Michael Jackson fan and for pegging him as a child molester years and years ago, I know how it is to have musicians you like transform into monsters.
For instance, I’ve always liked Western-swing pioneer Spade Cooley, even though he murdered his wife. I’ve even made sardonic jokes about that fact when playing Cooley on the radio.
But my perception of Donnell Clyde Cooley changed a couple of years ago when I heard an episode about him on the Cocaine & Rhinestones podcast. Host Tyler Mahan Coe described in brutal detail how Cooley not only killed but tortured Ella Mae Cooley and forced their fourteen-year-old daughter to watch.
“This was not a domestic argument that got out of hand,” Coe said in the podcast. “Not an accident with a dangerous weapon. Not a so-called crime of passion. This wasn’t even an isolated incident. It was a savage and deliberate execution which many people had to have seen coming.”
And while I haven’t thought much of or about the music of Ryan Adams in recent years, during the great alt-country scare in the mid-to-late ’90s, I was a huge fan of his old band Whiskeytown. For years I’ve thought of Adams, who’s always been known for his “bad boy” antics, as a guy who’s just too full of himself.
But a recent article in the New York Times contained serious accusations about his treatment of women, including one allegation that’s caught the interest of the FBI: that he engaged in “graphic texting” and phone sex on Skype with a female musician who was fifteen and sixteen at the time.
How do you separate a horrible man from his art that you love? No easy answer here. Last week comedian Bill Maher said he’ll still go on listening to Thriller — though he might have problems with one of the songs, the one subtitled “Pretty Young Thing.”
So before you start idolizing musicians — or other entertainers or politicians — realize they are not gods but humans. And some humans are just plain evil.
68 years ago in Murcia Spain -- that's the official story but there is dispute about the year of her birth -- María del Rosario Mercedes Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza was born, But that name was way too long for Las Vegas billboards or Tonight Show credits, so the singer/dancer/comedian/flamenco guitarists became known simply as Charo.
If you watched more than five minutes of television in the '70s you couldn't have missed her. She was a frequent guest on Johnny Carson's show, though she first got national TV exposure on the Ed Sullivan Show in the '60s singing with her then-husband Xavier Cugat's band.
Despite her many talents, Charo in her heyday probably was known best for her sex appeal. She was quoted in Billboard saying, "Around the world I am known as a great musician. But in America I am known as the cuchi-cuchi girl. That’s okay because cuchi-cuchi has taken me all the way to the bank."
Here are some videos of Charo at work. Have a cuchi cuchi birthday, Charo!
Let's start with Charo on a Dean Martin special with Dino and Danny Thomas.
Here's Charo with Cher-o
But yes, she did have real musical talent having reportedly studied flamenco guitar at a school for unprivileged children founded by Andre Segovia. She shows her stuff on this 1977 video:
Sunday, March 10, 2019 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
Jungle Drums by The Dexter Romweber Duo
I Need You by the Rationals
Someone Else is in Control by Mystery Lights
Suburban Junky Lady by Royal Trux
Child of Mercy by The Yawpers
Cinderella by The Flesh Eaters
She Don't by Pussycat & The Dirty Johnsons
Lost in the Dunes by The Vagoos
Rootie Tootie Baby by King Salami & The Cumberland 3
Hobo Bill's Last Ride by Jason Ringenberg
Hey There Stranger by The Compressions
The Hippies Killed the Polka Star by The Polkaholics
Hit It and Quit It by Ty Segall
A Nod by Ty Segall & White Fence
Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl by The Barbarians
Only One by Lonesome Shack
Mirage by The Mekons
I It Were Me by Homer Henderson
Primitive by The Groupies
Pyscho by The Sonics
From the Estate of John Denver by DBUK
Circumstance by Eleni Mandell I Ain't Got Nobody by Fats Waller CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican March 8, 2018
I’m not sure how religious you gentle readers are, but I’m going to spotlight the latest albums by three righteous rock ’n’ roll reverends —the Reverend Horton Heat, Reverend Peyton, and Reverend Beat-Man. (Sorry, Reverend Gary Davis, but you’re, uh, dead.) All of these hell-raising holy men preach wild gospels that, to those with ears to hear, can lead to sweet salvation.
Let’s start with Rev. Heat, aka Jim Heath, the longest running member of this trinity, and his new record, Whole New Life. The Dallas native’s debut album, Smoke ’Em If You Got ’Em, was released by Sub Pop Records around the height of that influential label’s heyday, back in 1992.
Heath didn’t invent the term “psychobilly,” which was sometimes used to describe The Cramps in the late ’70s and early ’80s and was picked up by a bunch of British bands like The Meteors and Demented Are Go later in the ’80s.
But the term has been applied to Heath and his band, and they helped popularize it via an instrumental on their first album called “Psychobilly Freakout” — which, judging by the couple of times I’ve seen him perform, remains perhaps his most requested number.
Nobody would call Reverend Horton Heat “psychobilly” anymore. Like most of us who were around in the early ’90s, he’s mellowed and his songs aren’t quite as frenzied as they used to be. But he’s still got a rockabilly heart and the new album has plenty of high-powered rump-shakers. “Perfect” is a perfect example, as is “Got It in My Pocket.” (No, it’s not a rocket, like that old 1958 rockabilly classic by Jimmy Lloyd goes. It’s a diamond ring for a woman to whom he’s going to propose.)
Other standout tracks on Whole New Life include the bluesy “Hog Tyin’ Woman”; the jaunty Professor Longhair/Fats Domino-style New Orleans romp called “Tchoupitoulas Street,” which shows off the talents of the band’s new piano player Matt Jordan; and an uptempo slice of craziness called “Wonky.” (I’m still trying to wrap my mind around a rockabilly song titled “Wonky.”)
Late last year, the prolific Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band (as fans know, a trio from rural Indiana headed by singer/slide guitarist Josh Peyton), released its latest album, Poor Until Payday.
The Big Damn Band — which includes the reverend’s wife, Breezy Peyton, on washboard and background vocals, and drummer Maxwell Senteney — doesn’t break a lot of new musical ground. Basically, if you liked any of their blues-infused, touched-by-gospel albums in the past 15 years or so, or if you’ve enjoyed any of their live shows (they’ve played in Santa Fe and Albuquerque several times in recent years), chances are you’ll like this record.
While Peyton has yet to top his greatest song (“Your Cousin’s on Cops,” from 2008’s The Whole Fam Damnily), there are some fine new tunes in this latest batch. The rousing title song is a soulful rocker about a guy promising to show his woman a good time once his next check comes.
“Get the Family Together” is a rowdy but sweet little tune with some good advice: “Don’t wait for a funeral to get the family together.” And, speaking of funerals, “Church Clothes” is an acoustic song about a guy who needs decent threads because “you know we got the worst kind of call/and I can’t go to town in these dirty overalls.”
And just like Reverend Heat’s latest, Reverend Peyton’s new one has a song about a street in New Orleans. Unlike “Tchoupitoulas Street,” “Frenchmen Street” doesn’t have a lot of Professor Longhair in it. (No piano, for one thing.) And there isn’t a hint of brass either, but every time I hear it, in my mind’s eye I see and hear the impromptu brass band I saw forming one night on Frenchmen Street a few years ago.
And then there’s Reverend Beat-Man, aka Beat Zeller, a Bern, Switzerland, wild man who is more than just a “reverend” when it comes to primitive, trashy rock. He’s the high priest — naw, he’s the dang pope — of “Blues Trash Folk Noir,” the name he gives to the music on Baile Bruja Muerto, his latest album, which is co-credited to Izobel Garcia, a honey-voiced singer (who also plays drums and keyboards) from Los Angeles. Garcia collaborated with Beat-Man on last year’s dandy album, Blues Trash.
Dedicated Beat-Man fans will recognize that the first two songs on this record are ones he’s recorded before. “Pero Te Amo” (But I Love You), sung in Spanish by Garcia, who also performed it on Blues Trash. The Baile Bruja Muerto version is more hard-edged, but Garcia’s voice is equally stunning.
Meanwhile, “Come Back Lord” is a Beat-Man rewrite of an obscure old ’60s garage-rock tune (“Come Back Bird” by an Abilene, Texas, band called Chevelle V), with lyrics about God, sex, and the devil.
At the moment, my favorite tracks are the fuzzed-out rocker “I Never Told You,” sung by Garcia; a cover of a Venom song, “Black Metal,” which has lyrics that seem personally tailored for Beat-Man (“Lay down your soul to the gods of rock ’n’ roll ...”); and Garcia’s take on the Costa Rica-born Chavela Vargas’ “Macorina,” another song she sings in Spanish.
The album ends with a trademark Beat-Man seven-minute spoken-word, sometimes obscene psychosexual religious rant/sermon called "My Name Reverend Beat-Man." Nobody does it like the Rev.
Last week I regaled and delighted you readers with a deep dive into the song "Just a Gigolo."
But to fans of Louis Prima & Keely Smith -- and David Lee Roth and The Village People, "Just a Gigolo" is just a half a song -- the other half being "I Ain't Got Nobody."
"I Ain't Got Nobody" was copyrighted in 1915 by lyricist Roger A. Graham and composer Spencer Williams. But authorship is disputed. The late St. Louis pianist Charles Warfield claimed that he'd actually written it with lyrics by Dave Peyton.
Whoever wrote it, the song had legs.
A singer named Marion Harris might have been the first to record it back in 1916,
A decade later Bessie Smith turned it into a blues song.
Louis Armstrong recorded the tune in 1929. (On a later, separate record, he also did a version of "Just a Gigolo.")
Fats Waller picked up the tempo on his mid '30s version. He'd also recorded instrumental versions of the song back in the '20s including one featuring Fats on pipe organ.
In the 40s, Bob Wills swung the song to Texas.
And just a few years ago, Patti Smith sang a retro take, probably closest to the one by fellow Smith Bessie, for the closing credits of HBO's Prohibition-era crime drama Boardwalk Empire.
To conclude, here is Louis Prima's first recording of the "Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody" medley in 1945. I still prefer the one we know and love from the '50s, but this is where it started:
In case you missed the link for my look at "Just a Gigolo," CLICK HERE And for the Stephen W. Web Log Songbook, CLICK HERE
Sunday, March 3, 2019 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
Journey to the Center of the Mind by The Amboy Dukes
Cramp Stomp by The Cramps
Cosmonaut by Mean Motor Scooter
Death of a Rockstar by Echocentrics
Good Good Crack by The Fleshtones
Lonely by Lonesome Shack
Surrealistic Feast by Weird Omen
Little Girl by John & Jackie
I'm a Man by Ty Segall
RATFINK by Balzac
Twice Thrice by Alien Space Kitchen
My Life to Live by The Flesheaters
Moon by REQ'D
Hand in Hand by Unknown Instructors
Looking by Archie & The Bunkers
In the Desert by The Mekons
Stuck in a Static in Camber by Mekons 77
It's All About the Money by The Standells
Don't Bother Me by Mark Sultan
Desert Mile by King Khan
Demona by Martha Fields
Many Happy Hangovers to You by Jason Ringenberg
Butterfly by Charlie Gracie
The Man of Your Dreams by Johnny Dowd
Don't Let the Devil Ride by Leo "Bud" Welch
Lass Uns Liebe Machen by Reverend Beat-Man & Izobel Garcia
Thirty-nine and Holding by Jerry Lee Lewis
Nostalgia by Full Speed Veronica
Gotta Lotta Love by The Cactus Blossoms Just a Gigolo / I Ain't Got Nobody by Louis Prima & Keely Smith with San Butera & The Witnesses CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
