Wednesday, June 30, 2021

WACKY WEDNESDAY: A Musical Salute to the Corvette

 


On this day, June 30, in 1953, the very first Chevrolet Corvette rolled off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan. This new American sports car was a major success. Though some generations of the 'Vette have been badged "Sting Ray" or "Stingray," Corvettes are still being made today -- which means the Corvette is a few months older than me!

The new car quickly won a place in pop culture. It was the car in which Martin Milner and George Maharis drove around the country in the tv show Route 66 in the early 1960s. (Chevrolet, of course, was a sponsor.)

And the Corvette inspired many songs in American music. Let's hear some, shall we?

The earliest song about Corvettes I've come across was from 1958, "Corvette" by The Corvettes (not to be confused with the all-girl pop-punk band, Nikki & The Corvettes):

In 1963 Chevrolet decided to call the second generation of Corvettes the "Sting Ray." The Beach Boys celebrated this the same year with "Shut Down," which was about a drag race between "my fuel injected Stingray" and a "Superstock Dodge."

I'm pretty sure that Chevrolet would have been less enthusiastic about this tragic 1964 teenage death song by Beach Boys pals Jan & Dean about about another teenage drag race involving a Sting Ray. (Two years later, Jan Berry would crash his Sting Ray into a parked car on Whittier Boulevard not far from the actual Dead Man's Curve in Los Angeles. He lived, but suffered severe head injuries.)

In the 1980s, George Jones sang the praises of the Corvette -- or was it a long-lost girlfriend?) with "The One I Loved Back Then (The Corvette Song)"


But the best-known song about a Corvette has to be that one by Prince:



Sunday, June 27, 2021

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST




Sunday, June 27, 2021
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist :

OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Thunder on the Mountain by Wanda Jackson
Primitive by The Groupies
Wild Man by The Shadows of Knight
Walkin' the Dog by The Sonics
White Hat by Joe "King" Carrasco
Oo Poo Pa Doo by Paul Revere & The Raiders
Cock in My Pocket by Iggy & The Stooges
The Desert's Flame by The William Loveday Intention
I Wanna Holler (But the Town's Too Small) by Gary U.S. Bonds

Don't Cry Alone by Bloodshot Bill
Whistle Bait by Larry Collins
Society by The Routes
Wild Little Rider by The Bloodhounds
Town of Horseheads by Count Vaseline
Lost Dead Island by Laino & The Broken Seeds
Devil Dance by The A-Bones
The Snake by Reverend Tom Frost

The Definitive Tom Jones Medley by The Pleasure Barons
Popstar by Tom Jones
Look in The Mirror by Gregg Turner
Lizard Hunt by Gas Huffer
Frog Went a Courtin' by Flat Duo Jets
Marie by Mitch Webb & Los Swindles
Poor Gary from the Gallows by Harvey McLaughlin

It's Your Voodoo Working by Charles Sheffield
Night Driver by Southern Culture on the Skids
Gardens by San Antonio Kid
Tears on My Pillow by Roy & The Devil's Motorcycle
You Only Live Twice by Nancy Sinatra
As Soon As I Hang Up the Phone by Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn
I'll Take Care of You by Bobby "Blue" Bland
Where or When by Dion & The Belmonts
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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     Want to keep the party going after I sign off at midnight?
Go to The Big Enchilada Podcast which has hours and hours of music like this. CLICK HERE

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Thursday, June 24, 2021

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Happy Birthday Ramblin' Tommy!

 

Ramblin' Tommy and his little pal Luke McLuke

Happy birthday to a proto-rockabilly (he was more 'billy than rock), radio and television star, comedian, ventriloquist and honest-to-God snake oil peddler.

His name was Tommy Lee Scott, though to fans of hillbilly music know him better as Ramblin' Tommy Scott. Born on June 24, 1917, Tommy lived to the age of 96. He might have made it 100 had he not been fatally injured in a car wreck a little less than eight years ago. 

According to his obituary at MusicRow.com, Scott:

... began his career on local radio in Georgia in 1933. When a medicine-show wagon stopped in Toccoa in 1936, Scott jumped aboard. It was a show that had been launched in 1890 by “Doc” M.F. Chamberlain. When Chamberlain retired, he turned the enterprise and its medicinal formulas over to Scott.

Using music and comedy, Scott sold the liniment Snake Oil, the tonic Vim Herb and the laxatives Herb-O-Lac and Man-O-Ree for decades.

Tommy Scott moved to North Carolina in 1938 to perform on WPTF radio in Raleigh. On WWVA in Wheeling, WV he was billed as“Rambling Scotty” when he fronted Charlie Monroe’s band The Kentucky Pardners. He moved to WSM and its Grand Ole Opry in 1940.

Back in Georgia, Scott became a country TV pioneer with the production of The Ramblin’ Tommy Scott Show in 1948. He later had the syndicated television series Smokey Mountain Jamboree.
In 1949, Scott starred in the movie Trail of the Hawk. Other films he appeared in include Mountain Capers, Hillbilly Harmony and Southern Hayride.

Scott worked ventriloquism into his act, with the help of his wooden partner Luke McLuke, and, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame, did a brief stint as a ventriloquist at the Grand Ole Opry.

He organized his own traveling musical medicine show,  playing songs and selling his dubious medications.  “Doc Scott’s Last Real Old Time Medicine Show” included such stars as Carolina Cotton (the "Yodeling Blonde Bombshell"), future Hee-Haw star Stringbean and bluegrass great Curley Seckler.

And, while this is nothing to celebrate, in his early years Scott did blackface comedy, including a stint with Stringbean in an act called "Stringbean & Peanut."

Here are a few of Ramblin' Tommy's songs that will make you feel better than a heaping dose of Herb-O-Lac.

Let's start out with the classic "She'll Be Coming Around The Mountain":


I first heard "Tennessee" performed by New Mexico's own Last Mile Ramblers in the early '70s:


Now here's some rockabilly, a song called "Rockin' and Rollin'":


Now for a spooky little number called "Graveyard:"


Finally here's Luke McLuke:


Happy birthday, hillbilly medicine man!




Sunday, June 20, 2021

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST




Sunday, June 20, 2021
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist :

OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Outer Space by The Sex Organs
Pink Lemonade by Daddy Long Legs
Nuthin' to Me by Suzi Moon
I Don't Need That Kind of Lovin' by Reigning Sound
A Different Kind of Ugly by The Sons of Hercules
Born to Lose by Social Distortion
The Man of Your Dreams by Johnny Dowd
Stay Out of It by Kathy Freeman
Smash Shit Up by Dropkick Murphys
Shakin' All Over by Johnny Kidd & The Pirates

Happy Birthday Brian Wilson!


Rio Grande by Brian Wilson
"Cassius" Love vs. "Sonny" Wilson by The Beach Boys
There's No Other Like My Baby by The Beach Boys
Love and Mercy by Brian Wilson


Vagina by Busy McCarroll



Beatnik Daddy by Barbara Evans 
The Beat Generation by Mamie Van Doren
Beatnik Bill by Richard Pine
Benny the Beatnik by The Untouchables
Kookie's Mad Pad by Edd "Kookie" Byrnes
Teenage Beatnik by Louis Nye
Beat Generation by The Beat Farmers
Bird Brain by Allen Ginsberg


Jason Fleming by The Sadies with Neko Case 
Child of the Moon by The Fleshtones



Freddy's Dead by Fishbone
Ballin' on a Budget by KevBev
The Old Rugged Cross by Homer Henderson
Great Mistake by Rachel Brooke
Gray Funnel Line by Peter Case
In Germany Before the War by Randy Newman
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Like the Terrell's Sound World Facebook page


     Want to keep the party going after I sign off at midnight?
Go to The Big Enchilada Podcast which has hours and hours of music like this. CLICK HERE

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast CLICK HERE

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

WACKY WEDNESDAY: The Mad Daddio World of Pseudo Beatnik Cool

 


Yes, I know that the Beat Movement of the 1950s and early '60s produced lots of important art, literature, poetry and music, from Ginsberg to Kerouac to Charlie Parker. True American giants, all.

But I'm also enamored by the weird pseudo "culture" of phony beatniks, the dumb-ass beat stereotypes personified by Maynard G. Krebs, portrayed by Bob Denver on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. While Maynard became the face of the Beats to mainstream America (i.e. The Squares), there also was a spate of "beatnik" novelty songs that parodied the slang, the bongos, the espresso and the non-conformity of the beatniks.

So enough squak, Dad, let's dig some crazy music!

You might have never heard this 1959 single, but punk-rock pioneer Richard Hell did and used it to create a punk-rock classic. "The Beat Generation" is by Bob McFadden and Dor. "Dor," (which is "Rod" spelled backwards) actually was poet Rod McKuen in his pre-Listen to the Warm days. 

Here's a lady named Barbara Evans who has a "Beatnik Daddy":

Sex bomb Mamie Van Doren did this put-down song in 1959. She also starred in a 1959 movie of the same name, which also had appearances by Louis Armstrong and Vampira!).


Even Perry Como, who was as far from hip as humanly possible, got in on the phony beatnik action:


In 1960, a band called The Untouchables told the musical tale of Benny the Beatnik:

Another legendary pseudo beatnik was Bill, as immortalized in 1962 by Richard Pine

It's a little early for Christmas, but I'd slide down the chimney for Patsy Raye:

Edd Byrnes' character "Kookie" from the tv series 77 Sunset Strip wasn't really a beatnik. But after 1959's "Kooky's Mad Pad," I bet Bob Denver and the Dobie Gillis braintrust wishes they would have cashed in with some Mayard G. Krebs records:




TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

  Sunday, March 24, 2024 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM, 101.1 FM  Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell E...