Sunday, March 27, 2022 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
Bad Betty by The Sonics
See Me Frown by Les Grys-Grys
On Graveyard Hill by The Pixies
Take a Good Look by The Fleshtones
Groove Shelter by Xposed 4Heads
Bruges Jail Rhumba by Nesttor Donuts
Can't Seem to Make You Mine by The Barbaraellatones
Nobody Spoil My Fun by The Seeds
I'm Not Afraid by Dead Moon
We Can Really Feel Like We're Here by Negativland
She Don't Care by Ty Segall
Divide and Conquer by Husker Du
Crashing Down by The Grawks
(Hey Mama) Wild Tchoupitoulas by The Neville Brothers with Ivan Neville, Ian Neville & George Porter Jr.
It's officially spring -- although yesterday in Santa Fe we all woke up to a
winter wonderland, which, thankfully melted by afternoon. And, during my daily
walk, I actually saw a red red robin, bob bob bobbin' on a neighbor's
recycling bin.
So let's help nudge our sleepyhead spring to get up, get out of bed by
celebrating a song that for nearly 100 years has been synonymous with the
spring, "When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along)."
This tune was written in 1926 by Tin Pan Alley's Harry Woods, who also wrote
or co-wrote songs like "Paddlin' Madeline Home," "I'm Looking
Over a Four Leaf Clover," "Side by Side," (that's the one that starts out,
"Well we ain't got a barrel of money...") and "Try a Little Tenderness."
Woods' song about the bird was recorded by several singers in 1926, but Al
Jolson's version is surely the best-known:
Starting in the late 1920s, "Red Red Robin" became the signature tune for actress Lillian Roth. (This recording was decades later, 1956 to be exact.):
There seemed to be a Robin revival in the '50s. For instance, Louis Armstrong took a shot at the robin in 1956...
... as Doris Day had done in 1954
But I believe my favorite version of this happy tune came even later. Texas singer Rosie Flores did this rockabilly "Robin" on a Bloodshot Records children's song compilation, The Bottle Let Me Down in 2002:
Sunday, March 20, 2022 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
Red Red Robin by Rosie Flores
I'm Going Back by Les Grys-Grys
Dirt Bag Fever by Quintron
Voice in the Mirror by Thee Oh Sees
Pornography Part 1 by Mike Edison
Meow Meow by Nesttor Donuts
Kiss My Ring by King Salami & The Cumberland 3
Make It Up by Reigning Sound
You're Crazy for Taking the Bus by Jonathan Richman
Bionic Trunk by Old Time Relijun
Cream Johnny by Night Beats
Nothing Makes Me Happy by The Grawks
Do Me Do by Johnny Dowd
Gloomy Sunday by Nocturne Spark
Handful of Sand by Divine Horsemen
(There's ) No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car by Elvis Presley
Dog is Life / Jerusalem by The Fall
Alice by Figures of Light
Vodka is Poison by Golem
Corn and Grain by The Mekons
Down by Sam Snitchy
Oak Tree Hanging by Gary Gorence
Judy in Disguise by Jello Biafra
I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day by The Pogues
Born Stupid by Paul Leary
Three on the Tree by Bigdumbhick
I Love You So by The Chantels
Feelings by Die Zorros
Goodnight Irene by Tom Waits
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
The Beatles broke up in 1970. And yet their music lived on. Why weren't they
forgotten by the masses like The Dave Clark 5 or Gerry & The Pacemakers?
The answer is obvious: The stars of 1970s TV variety shows made a bold effort
throughout the Me Decade to make sure Beatles songs would be remembered
through time.
The Beatles may have been over and done as a band, but the tacky variety shows, which
were on the rise, threw their music a necessary lifeline.
Old school variety show host Ed Sullivan might have helped launch The Beatles
in 1964. But Donny & Marie and their contemporaries helped preserve the
Fab 4's legacy.
Actually, even before the '70s, some variety programs displayed a sincere
affinity for The Beatles' music.
For instance, this 1967 clip from the Carol Burnett Show, starring Carol along
with Phyllis Diller, Gwen Verdon (best known as a dancer), and Bobbie
Gentry -- all of whom grew mustaches for the occasion -- might have been
the template for the variety shows that followed.
On one hand, how cool was it, seeing Bobbie Gentry and Phyllis Diller in the same
"band"? On the other hand, this reinforces a line in The Dictators' song
"Who Will Save Rock 'n' Roll":
"I wish Sgt. Pepper had never taught the band to play."
Skip ahead to 1975 and here's Cher, on her popular television program, singing a Beatles medley with Tina Turner and ... Kate Smith???????
And in 1978, Donnie & Marie were joined by none other than Kris Kristofferson for another rollicking Beatles medley.
But as far as I'm concerned, the best variety-show Beatles song was the 1970 appearance by the beautiful Juliet Prowse (hey, this lady dated both Sinatra and Elvis). She did a crazy Bollywood-style "Tomorrow Never Knows" -- one of my favorite Beatles tunes, that rarely gets covered -- on The Engelbert Humperdinck Show.
Top this, Phyllis Diller!
And if you enjoyed this post, check out the crazy Beatles covers HEREandHERE
Sunday, March 13, 2022 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
I'm Gonna Dig Up Howlin' Wolf by Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper
Master picker Norman Blake, whose talents on guitar, dobro, mandolin, fiddle,
and banjo as well as his Tennessee-soaked vocals have amazed and delighted
country and bluegrass fans for decades, turns 84 today!
Happy birthday, Norman.
Even if you don't recognize his name, if you're a fan of the
O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, or the classic 1972 hillbilly
collaboration Will the Circle Be Unbroken -- or certain seminal records
by the likes of Johnny Cash, John Hartford, Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson,
Steve Earle and others -- you have heard the music of Norman Blake. (I
probably first heard him on Dylan's Nashville Skyline.)
Blake was born in 1938 in Chattanooga. According to a 2003 article in
Vintage Guitar:
His career started when he left school at age 16 to be a professional
musician. Early jobs included playing fiddle, dobro, and mandolin in
country dance bands before a short stint in the Army. After serving,
Norman worked with June Carter, then Johnny Cash when Cash’s regular dobro
player couldn’t make a session. He stayed with Cash’s band for over 10
years.
Here is what I believe is Blake's finest moment with Cash. His dobro shines,
though Cash's crazed vocal track almost makes you worry that he's going to go
off the rails and start murdering his band.
Blake began his "solo" recording career (often sharing credits with his wife
Nancy and other collaborators) in the early 1970s. Here are a couple of tunes
from Norman or Nancy:
This is a favorite from 2001, Blake's version of an Uncle Dave Macon song,
"All Go Hungry Hash House":
I looked for, but couldn't find a Youtube of Norman's "Precious Memories
(Was a Song I Used to Hear)," which was written by our mutual friend and Santa
Fe picker Jerry Faires. But here's that song on Spotify (I know, I know
...) by Norman & Nancy:
But this is my favorite Norman Blake song of all time, "Last Train from Poor
Valley":
Sunday, March , 2022 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
Delta Cats: Ike Turner, left, with Jackie Brenston
Happy birthday rock 'n' roll!
On this day, March 3, 1951, at Memphis Recording Service -- later renamed "Sun Studios," a band called Ike Turner & His Rhythm Kings, featuring a singer named Jackie Brenston from Clarksdale, Mississippi recorded a little jump blues tune called "Rocket 88."
And what a song it was.
Writing in Time Magazine in 2004, Jamaican-born journalist Christopher John Farley said of "Rocket 88":
Rocket 88 was brash and it was sexy; it took elements of the blues, hammered them with rhythm and attitude and electric guitar, and reimagined black music into something new. If the blues seemed to give voice to old wisdom, this new music seemed full of youthful notions. If the blues was about squeezing cathartic joy out of the bad times, this new music was about letting the good times roll. If the blues was about earthly troubles, the rock that Turner's crew created seemed to shout that the sky was now the limit. And if anyone had ever thought before that black music was just for black people, Rocket 88 undercut that tall tale — the beat was too big, the lyrics too inviting, the melody too winning, the volume too loud, for the song to be taken as anything but an invitation for all who heard it, black or white or brown or whatever, to join the party.
Sun Studios licensed the song to Chicago's Chess Records. But instead of crediting the single to Turner and his band, Chess released it under the name "Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats." This had to have pissed off Ike Turner to the max.
Besides Turner's pounding piano, Brentson's joyful vocals and 17-year-old Raymond Hill's wild tenor sax, many "Rocket 88" fans also cite Willie Kizart's distorted electric guitar as a factor that made the song so unique.
Talking to Rolling Stonein 1986, Sun king Sam Phillips said,:
"... when Ike and them were coming up to do the session, the bass amplifier fell off the car. And when we got in the studio, the woofer had burst; the cone had burst. So I stuck the newspaper and some sack paper in it, and that’s where we got that sound."
Many scholars dispute that "Rocket 88" is the very first rock 'n' roll song. Other candidates include Roy Brown's "Good Rockin' Tonight," or Goree Carter's proto-Chuck Berry "Rock Awhile" or Sister Rosetta Tharpe's "Strange Things Happening Every Day" or other tunes.
We'll leave that debate to grumbling academics. But even if it wasn't the first rock 'n' roll song, there's no denying "Rocket 88" is a wild joy.
Here's the song that made us all fall in love:
So why aren't we more familiar with Jackie Brenston? Not long after "Rocket 88," the singer left Turner's band to try a solo career. He never received much success, but Brenston, who died in 1979, left behind some pretty cool tunes. Here are a few of them, starting with one called "Leo the Louse":
This one is "Tuckered Out"
And from Jackie's short-lived career as a restaurant critic, (I know, I know) here's "Fat Meat is Greasy"
