Four years ago today, February 6, 2016, we lost a great one: Daniel Ivan Hicks, undisputed captain of the good ship Hot Licks.
Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Hicks was the drummer with one of the first generation San Francisco psychedelic bands, The Charlatans. During those days he formed an acoustic group featuring fiddle, standup bass and two female singers. This band was known as Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks. They released three albums, combining elements of jug band, country, hot jazz, western swing and more.
Hicks broke up the band in 1973 at the height of their popularity. And he essentially sat out the rest of the 70s and most of the 80s and 90s, releasing just a couple of albums during that time. But at the tirn of the century, he revived the Hot Licks and released several more records, including an excellent live record featuring most, if not all, of his bandmates from decades past.
Here are some of my favorite Hicks tunes:
Let's start with this early classic "The Buzzard Was Their Friend."
The Devil made Flip Wilson invite Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks to appear on his NBC variety show in 1972. They played "By Hook or By Crook" and "Shorty Falls in Love." Here are both of those songs.
Also on Flip Wilson's show Hicks & Licks performed "Milk Shakin' Mama"
This version of "Pay Day" is from 1989 in what seems to be a melding of Hick's classic Hot Licks lineup and his Acoustic Warriors, which was his band in the late 80s and 90s.
This song filled my head four years ago when when Dan really took that last train to Hicksville
Dan uses his psychic powers to play guitar in Santa Fe, 2009
Sunday, February 2, 2020 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
Cherry Red by The Groundhogs
Angola Rodeo by Black Lips
Nitty Gritty by Southern Culture on the Skids
Casting My Spell by Johnny Kidd & The Pirates
Days and Days by Concrete Blonde
Slipping Away by Mudhoney
Murdered Out by Kim Gordon
Ground Hog Blues by John Lee Hooker
I've Known Rivers by Gary Bartz
Pretty Good for a Girl by Pussycat & The Dirty Johnsons
Pink Petticoats by The Big Bopper
Roky Said by Dead Ghosts
It's a Cold Night for Alligators by Roky Erickson & The Aliens
Don't Be Afraid to Pogo by The Gears
Hang On by BBQ
Book of Love by Sha Na Na
(The Girl With the) Raven Hair by Jody Reynolds "Unheard Heroes" of the '70s set
The Trader by The Beach Boys
The One That Got Away by Tom Waits
Ask the Angels by Patti Smith
Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy by Frank Zappa & Captain Beefheart
Blackheart Man by Bunny Wailer
Unrequited to the Nth Degree by Loudon Wainwright III
Cajun Stripper by Doug Kershaw
New York Girls by Steeleye Span
Dover to Dunkirk by Jack Hardy
Hearts on Fire by Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris
American Childhood I Civil Defense by Terry Allen
Stranger in Town by Dave Alvin CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Forty years ago last Friday, Jan. 31, 1980, The Santa Fe Reporter was crazy enough to publish an unsolicited story from a local barroom singer who arrogantly assumed that everyone in town would be interested in what he had to say about the music of the previous decade.
Yes, that previously unpublished writer was me. That was the start of my four-decade career in journalism, from which I retired last November.
That story the Reporter published (on page 27) was under the headline "Some Unheard Heroes" was "inspired" by Time magazine's end of the decade feature listing its favorite albums of the '70s. I've long forgotten what records made that list, but I remember being very underwhelmed. I decided to make my own list "of 10 great but unacclaimed albums" of the Me Decade.
Below are songs from all those records, starting with one from Holland, which I still believe was the last good album by The Beach Boys. Though the best song there definitely was "Sail On Sailor," here's a more obscure one, a weird ode to a New Age princess, "Funky Pretty."
Though it was panned by most "serious" critics, Radio Ethiopia still is my favorite Patty Smith abum.
This is "Crime of Passion" by Loudon Wainwright III in his prime.
In retrospect, I probably like Steeleye Span's Below the Salt better than Commoner's Crown. But I still think it's cool they did this song with Peter Sellers (!) on the uke.
Blackheart Man by Bunny Wailer still is the best reggae album I've ever heard.
Small Change was the first Tom Waits album I ever owned and still is one of my favorites
If I could go back in time just to see one concert, it probably would be Frank Zappa, the Mothers of Invention and Captain Beefheart at the Armadillo World Headquarters in 1975, as documented in the album Bongo Fury.
Though it never got any significant airplay on country radio, Gram Parson's posthumously released Grievous Angel was a high water mark in country music.
OK, I'm cheating here. YouTube has only one song from Doug Kershaw's 1975 live album Alive & Pickin' and that's just a fairly forgettable instrumental called "Dixie Creole." The album's also missing on Spotify. So here's another live version of one of my favorite Alive & Pickin' songs, "The Stripper."
Finally, this one, from the late New York folkie Jack Hardy's excellent 1978 album, The Nameless One definitely is the most obscure one on this list. I'd read a review of it in Rolling Stone, which included Hardy's address. I wrote him and asked how to get a copy and he just sent me one.
I'll be doing a set with songs from all these tonight on Terrell's Sound World, 10 p.m. to midnight on KSFR, 101.FM in Northern New Mexico or www.ksfr.org
It's been nearly three years since Wacky Wednesday shot fish in the Golden Throats barrel.
What's a "Golden Throat?" you might ask. A wise man said once (or twice, now three times):
Back in the '80s and '90s, when Rhino Records was actually a cool label, they released a series of albums called Golden Throats. These nutball compilations featured movie and TV stars, sports heroes and every stripe of cheesy celebrity singing ham-fisted versions of songs they had no business singing. Pop tunes, rock 'n' roll hits, country song, whatever. Nothing was sacred and nothing was safe from the Golden Throats. Because of the exposure from the Rhino series, some of these unintentionally hilarious songsters became notorious and ironically hip. Think William Shatner -- the Elvis of the Golden Throats! -- and his over-the-top renditions of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "Mr. Tambourine Man."
I'm not sure any of these reach the Shatner level, but check them out ...
Tina Louise, star of the classic ensemble comedy Gilligan's Island did this one very Gingerly.
At least two Bonanza stars recorded albums. (I was disappointed I never came across any Hoss solo recordings.) But here's the whole Cartwright family making a corny old song even cornier
Remember when Paris Hilton was something? I'm not sure what she was, but one thing she wasn't was a singer (though, in fairness, this isn't that much worse than Rod Stewart's original.)
Here's a classic Golden Throats favorite from Sebastian Cabot, TV's beloved "Mr. French"from the show Family Affairs. I once wrote about this stab at a Dylan song, "Sebastian starts off as if he's nursing the hangover of his life ("Go away from my window!") and ends up sounding like a third rate villain taunting some poor hostage."
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
Ouija Board Lies /Garbage Truck by L7
Tonight is the Night by The Goon Matt & Lord Bernardo
Bright Blue Day Haze by Mystic Braves
I Ain't Cryin' by The Darts Hey Joe by Dead Moon
No Anthems by Sleater-Kinney
Ride Away by The Fall
Contagious by Sleeve Cannon
Call the Police by Stephanie McDee
Police Call by Drywall
The Train Kept A-Rollin' by The Yardbirds
Animal by Knoll Allen & The Noble Savages
Short Term Memory Lane by J.J. & The Real Jerks
Mystery Girl by Mondo Topless Wake Up Baby by Sonny Boy Williamson
Long Haired Guys from England by Too Much Joy
Cowboy Bob by Butthole Surfers
Reverso Destructo by Toy Trucks
Bad Reruns by Big Foot Chester
Don't Play It by Kim Gordon
Spring Swells by Thurston Moore
Psy-Ops Dispatch by Thee Oh Sees
Never Did No Wanderin' by The Folksmen
Four Chambered Heart/Marquis Moon by Charlie Pickett
Black Star by Nick Shoulders
In the Dark of Morning by Possessed by Paul James
Detour by Sleepy LaBeef
East Side Boys by Martin Zeller
Some Velvet Morning by Firewater
Goodnight Irene by Tom Waits
That's how most people recognize the song, about a gun-toting guy who's telling a friend he's about to shoot his woman who's recently been seen messing around with another man. Later the cuckholded Joe informs his friend that he indeed shot her and is now about to flee to Mexico.
Guns don't kill people. Jealous maniacs kill people. Often with guns.
But before Hendrix brought new levels of popularity to "Hey Joe," the song had quite a history, jumping from the world of the folkies to the realm of the young, loud and snotty realm of the first-generation garage rockers.
Johnny Cash fans may recognize the basic plot similarities of "Hey Joe" and Cash's "Cocaine Blues," which itself was a black-humor rewrite of the old murder ballad "Little Sadie."
Though some mistakenly have said "Hey Joe" itself is a traditional folk song, and others have claimed a role in writing it, it actually was a folkie from California named Billy Roberts who was the first to sing the basic "Hey Joe" that we know and love and the first to copyright the song in 1962.
But some say Roberts' song was a re-write of his old girlfriend, Niela Miller's song, "Baby Please Don't Go to Town." Miller herself said this in 2004 in a response to a post on a blog dedicated to different versions of "Hey Joe."
Miller said Roberts was her boyfriend for a brief time in the late 1950s. "I was a songwriter and had written a song called 'Baby Please Don’t Go To Town,'" she wrote. "It is copyrighted. He stole it from me, kept the melody and put different words to it. thereby turning it into `Hey Joe.'"
Here's Niela's song
By the mid '60s, "Hey Joe" was bouncing around the Los Angeles rock 'n' roll world. The bridge between the folkies and the rockers probably was Dino Valenti, aka Chet Powers, who's probably best known for being a singer in Quicksilver Messenger Service and the undisputed writer of the peace-and-love classic "Get Together." Valenti's name appears in songwriting credits on many versions of "Hey Joe."
The Leaves recorded the first rock version of "Hey Joe," taking it to the garage in 1965.
And this sparked a whole mess of covers by bands like Love, The Standells. The Music Machine, The Shadows of Knight, The Surfaris. The biggest band before Hendrix to record "Hey Joe" was The Byrds with vocals by David Crosby. According to Roger McQuinn in the 1996 CD release of The Byrd's third album, Fifth Dimension:
The reason Crosby did lead vocal on "Hey Joe" was because it was his song. He didn't write it but he was responsible for finding it. He'd wanted to do it for years but we would never let him. Then both Love and the Leaves had a minor hit with it and David got so angry that we had to let him do it.
In 1969, Wilson Pickett turned it wicked, obviously influenced by the Hendrix version. (That's Duane Allman on guitar here)
Patti Smith also took to Hendrix's slower version, but turned it into an ode to Tania in 1974 on the flip side of her first single, "Piss Factory."
Nick Cave kept Joe alive, covering the song in his 1986 album Kicking Against the Pricks. In the version below, from an episode of Night Music in 1990, with a band including jazz greats Charlie Haden (bass) and Toots Thielemans (harmoinica).
Around the same time, Dead Moon returned it to its Leaves-era urgency
But perhaps it was Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention who had the most fun with the song, twisting it into a biting hippie spoof on their third album, We're Only In It For the Money.
(This post barely scratches the surface of "Hey Joe" covers. So before you start peppering me with "What about the _____ version???" check out this list of covers.)
Sunday, January 19, 2020 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
Jesus Christ Twist by Reverend Beat-Man
Robotic Centipede by Mean Motor Scooter
Cherry Red by Ty Segall
Hanged Man by Churchwood
My Friend is a Stooge for the Media Priests by Pere Ubu
Demon Seed by Demented Are Go
Let's Go to Mars by The Ghost Wolves
Turncoat by Imperial Wax
Get Down (and Get Stupid) by The Del-Gators
All Grown Up by Warm Soda
In a Peak State State with You by Rattanson
Schizo MF by Destination Lonely
Hey Gyp by The Orphans
Your Gun by The Hormonauts
Luck by The Manxx
In the Good Old Days When Times Were Bad by Dolly Parton
Down from Dover by Sally Timms & Jon Langford
Jeanie's Afraid of the Dark by Robbie Fulks
Ding Dong Daddy by Nick Shoulders
Kansas City by David Bromberg
Buzz Buzz Buzz by The Blasters
Phone Booth by Robert Cray
Manny's Bones by Los Lobos
Any Sunny Day by Bruce Hendrickson & The Blue Giant Zeta Puppies
Post by Kult
When It Breaks by Possessed by Paul James
Welfare Bread by King Khan & The Shrines
Land of Hopes and Dreams by Bruce Springsteen CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
