Sunday, July 31, 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
Who Was In My Room Last Night by Butthole Surfers
Obeah Man by Meet Your Death
Bloody Mary by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Oh My Lover by P.J. Harvey
Put de Pot On, Mary by Poontang Perkins
The Second Generation Punks by Wild Billy Chyldish &CTMF
TV Eye by Iggy Pop
She's Wild by The Vagoos
Forgiveness Through Pain by The Yawpers
Too Much Tension by The Mystery Lights
Bulldog by The Beatles
Isolation by Ty Segall
Bad Neighborhood by Daddy Longlegs
Louie Louie by The Night Beats
Don't You Just Know It by The Sonics
Personality Crisis by Johnny Thunders
Lula Baby by The A-Bones
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll by Bob Dylan
Who's Knocking on My Door by The Legendary Stardust Cowboy
Xoe's FAvorite Honky Tonk by Xoe Fitzgerald
Bury Me Deep by Steve Train & His Bad Habits
Guns of Thunder by Pierced Arrows
Cool Arrow by Hickoids
Shake Sugaree by Elizabeth Cotton with Brenda Evans
Sweet Lizzy by Bobby Rush
79 Cents (The Meow Song) by Eilen Jewell
I'm the Ocean by Neil Young & Pearl Jam
It's Only Make Believe by Screamin' Jay Hawkins
The Curtain Falls by Bobby Darin CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican July 19, 2019
Warning: This column is full of spoilers for the Netflix movie Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. Life is full of spoilers. Welcome to the real world, kids.
A little historical perspective for those who weren’t around or those who were in a coma during the mid-’70s: the Rolling Thunder Revue was a ragtag tour featuring Dylan and lots of other musicians, including lots of his old folkie pals like Joan Baez, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and Bobby Neuwirth; beat poet Allen Ginsberg; and Dylan rock contemporaries like Joni Mitchell and Roger McGuinn.
Backed by a group that included band leader T-Bone Burnett (who nobody had heard of at the time), David Bowie alum Mick Ronson on guitar, and mystery lady Scarlet Rivera on violin, the revue was the antithesis of the big-time mega-monster corporate stadium-rock tour that was rising in the ’70s. Rolling Thunder played small venues with little advance publicity.
And lots of great concert footage was captured by the incomparable Dutch filmmaker Stefan van Dorp, hired by Dylan to accompany the merry caravan.
Van Dorp, a Dutch master
One thing I liked about Rolling Thunder is that you can’t always tell what’s the “real world” and what ain’t. It’s part documentary and part mockumentary. At least one of the characters is completely made up, and several of the people being interviewed didn’t really do what they claimed to do during the daze of that tour.
Some critics have complained that the cruel and callous Dylan and his henchman Scorsese snared them into this web of deception. One overwrought review likened these deceptions to the “fake news” epidemic in the Trump era. Some calmer voices just dismissed the fake interviews as an unnecessary distraction.
When I found out about this — after reading up on the film right after watching it — I howled with laughter. I was duped! I shouted, loud enough to frighten my cat. It was a classic Dylan jest. No wonder Scorsese included Joni Mitchell singing “Coyote” in the doc. Like Joni’s protagonist, Dylan is the ultimate trickster.
But I was a little disappointed that a teenage Sharon Stone didn’t really join the tour because Dylan liked her KISS T-shirt. (She wasn’t there at all.)
And it would have been cooler had the stuffy, vainglorious van Dorp — who complains about everyone in Rolling Thunder nearly as much as people complain about him — had been real. Van Dorp (played by Bette Midler’s real-life husband, Martin von Haselberg), was a vehicle for Scorsese to poke fun at the self-important earnestness of talking heads in rock documentaries.
But whatever you think about these little twists, the music in the film is tremendous. Standouts include the live “Isis” (probably the best song on Dylan’s album Desire, released around the same time as the tour), as well as “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” and “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” both of which he turns into rowdy rockers.
All these and others are a thrill to behold.
A real thrill.
Terrell’s Tune-up’s top 10 underrated Dylan songs:
* “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)” — This song from Dylan’s Street Legal (1978) evokes troubling images of impending violence at some border town saloon. This would have fit in on Dylan’s Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid soundtrack a few years earlier.
* “Billy 1” — Speaking of Pat ’n’ Billy, this song didn’t really shoot me in the back until about 20 years ago, when I walked into the Lincoln County Courthouse — from which Billy made a daring escape and killed two deputies in 1878 — and someone was playing this song. It made the whole visit magical.
* “Days of ’49” — Dylan didn’t write this tune, which appeared on his unjustly panned 1970 effort Self Portrait. The narrator is an aged ’49er recalling his friends and how they met their demise. “Of the comrades all that I’ve had, there’s none that’s left to boast/ And I’m left alone in my misery like some poor wandering ghost.” Those words go through my head every time a friend of mine dies, which is far too often these days.
* “Jokerman” — This oracle of a song, from his otherwise unremarkable 1983 album Infidels, proves that not everything Dylan did in the mid-’80s sucked. Just most of it.
* “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” — I didn’t begin to understand this gem from 1965’s Highway 61 Revisited (still Dylan’s greatest album) until years later, after I myself had gotten lost in the rain in Juárez a few times.
* “Everything Is Broken” — This swampy, bongo-boosted tune from Oh Mercy (1989) sounds like Slim Harpo’s “115th Nightmare.” * “Watching the River Flow” — This was a 1971 single that didn’t appear on an album until the arrival of Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Vol. 2, released later that year. It features Leon Russell on piano and Jesse Ed Davis on guitar. It has one of my favorite Dylan couplets, “People disagreeing everywhere you look/Makes you wanna stop and read a book ...”
* “Dignity” — This was recorded in 1989 during Dylan’s Oh Mercy sessions but didn’t see commercial release, in a remixed version, for another five years.
* “Mississippi” — This laid-back gem first appeared on Love and Theft (2001), but the slower, looser version that kicks off The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs (2008) is the best. It’s like a hip update to the country classic “Gotta Travel On.”
* “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” — One of the best bloody tracks on Blood on the Tracks (1975). I came to truly appreciate this song during a break-up the next year.
Now with some videos!
Where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Ninety years ago today a baby was born. Born to scream.
That baby was Jalacy Hawkins, but rock 'n' rollers know him as Screamin' Jay.
I got a weird compliment from my friend Dave last last week. He was telling another friend about my radio show and he said, "The most mainstream thing you'll hear on it is Screamin' Jay Hawkins."
I got to interview Screamin' Jay when he played Club West in Santa Fe in the mid '80s. The most memorable thing about that interview was Hawkins getting into an argument with a local musician who was part of his pick-up band.
His show was fantastic though.
Screamin' Jay died back in early 2000 at the age of 70. But his hoodoo spirit still haunts us.
I'm pretty sure most people reading this are quite familiar with Screamin' Jay's signature song, "I Put a Spell on You." But he did a lot more than that. Here's a few of those ....
In his later years, Screamin' Jay was a wonderful interpreter of Tom Waits. He recorded "Heart Attack and Vine" and "Ice Cream Man," but this one is my favorite:
This is one of his early ones, whih I like even more than "Alligator Wine."
And here's a sweet tribute to one of my favorite stars of Twin Peaks.
Sunday, June 14, 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
I Can't Stop Thinking About It by The Dirtbombs
Sweet Young Thing by The Monkees
Sweet Young Thing by The Chocolate Watchband
Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More by Mudhoney
Long Way Down by Sons of Hercules
God is a Bullet by Concrete Blonde
Bust Out by April March & The Makers
Contagious by Sleeve Cannon
Deal by Dr. John
Bend Over, I'll Drive by The Cramps
I'll Be Loving You by The King Khan & BBQ Show
Cosmonaut by Mean Motor Scooter
Overthrown by Thee Oh Sees
Hands on the Controls by The Coachwhips
Love My Lover by The Fleshtones
Let's Get it On by Alien Space Kitchen
Laura By Xoe Fitzgerald
May Be a Scandal by Roosevelt Sykes
Boy in a Bubble by Jack Oblivian & The Dream Killers
No Panic, No Stress by The Scaners
Wouldn't You Know by Billy Lee Riley
I Have Always Been Here Before by The Hickoids
Devil in Me by Churchwood
Light Rail Coyote by Sleater-Kinney
Crazy Date by T. Tex Edwards
Bury Me Deep by Kim Lenz
Love Like Crazy by Jessica Lee Wilkes
I'm Clean by Shinyribs
Working Hard for Your Love by Eilen Jewell
All the Way Back Home by The Dinosaur Truckers
In San Francisco Bay by DBUK
Watching Over Me by Cynthia Becker & The Edge
Georgia Lee by Tom Waits
A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow by Mitch & Mickey CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Sunday, June 7, 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
He's Waitin' / Eyes on Me by The Night Beats
Janglin' Jack by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Sheena's in a Goth Gang by The Cramps
Let Me In by ET Explore Me
Hollywood High by Alien Space Kitchen
Worthless by The Yawpers
Scarla by Jack Oblivian & The Dream Killers
Call the Police by The Oblivians
Fall on You by The Plimsouls
We're Desperate by X
Rational Actor by Notts
Sun Medallion by King Tuff
Lawrence of California by The Mekons
Don't Mess Up My Baby by Black Lips
Clouds of Dawn by Dead Moon
Poison Ivy by Imperial Wax
I Will Dare by The Replacements
Baby Face by Bobby Darin
Frankie & The Time Machine by Xoe Fitzgerald
$2,000 Navajo Rug by Joe West & The Sinners
Hey Joe by Lee Moses
Commando by The Ramones
Heart by REQ'D
Set to Stun by The Grannies
Hornet's Heart by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282
Old Time Religion by B.B. King
Witness by Eilen Jewell
I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say by Dr. John
Isolation by Ty Segall
Aggie and the DA by Hamell on Train
I Hate These Songs by Dale Watson
Remember (Christmas) by Nilsson CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Here are some classic patriotic songs performed by soul music stars.
Sharon does Woody
Ray Charles did the ultimate version of this patriotic classic (if you don't count the version I did with Butch Hancock in the early '80s at the Forge in downtown Santa Fe,)
