Sunday, May, 2015 KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell Webcasting! 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org
Here's the playlist below
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
The Snake by Johnny Rivers
Shake Me by Motobunny
The Claw by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Glow in the Dark by Lovestruck
Walkin' with the Beast by Gun Club
Parts Unknown by Kid Congo Powers with Lydia Lunch
Who'd You Like to Love You by Li'l Wally
Wine Wine Wine by Bobby Fuller Four
Bad Bad Woman by The Molting Vultures
Red Rose by Lisa Doll & Rock 'n' Roll Romance
Local Dive by Lawn Chair Kings
I Got Eyes For You by The Gories
Dirty Hands by Black Lips
Zombie Island by Jonny Manak & The Depressives
Elephant Stomp by Left Lane Cruiser
I'm Insane by T-Model Ford
The Lord is Coming Back by Reverend Beat-Man & The Un-Believers
GOSPEL SET
Don't Drive Your Children Away by Isaac Freeman & The Bluebloods
I Want Two Wings by Rev. Utah Smith
God's New Building by Little Midget & The Morning Stars
I Am Willing to Run All the Way by B.B. King
Feel Like Holdin' On by Valerie Mathis
Let Me Lean On You by Christian All Stars of Akron, Ohio
Help Me by Lula Collins
Something Within Me by Jubilee Hummingbirds featuring Rev. E.L. Whitaker
By and By by Katie Jackson with The Campbell Brothers
I'm a Soldier by The Original Blind Boys of Mississippi
What He's Done for Me by The Famous Davis Sisters
Sweeping Exit by Jody Porter
Drowning Man by Stan Ridgway
Fannin Street by Tom Waits
Innocent When You Dream by Kazik Strazewski
Surf's Up by Brian Wilson CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
The Omninous Anthropophageous Slackeye Slim by The Misery Jackals Slackeye Slim Live Set
Cowboy Song
Where the Wind Will Let Me Go
Vengeance Be Thy Name
Looks Like I Killed Again (from album)
Don't Touch My Horse
Introducing Drake Savage (from album)
Honky Tonk Maniac from Mars by Jason Ringenberg
Take Me to the Fires by The Waco Brothers
Nashville Casualty and Life by Kinky Friedman
The Love-in by Ben Colder
Me and The Whiskey by Whitey Morgan
I Can't Hold Myself in Line by Frontier Circus
North to Alaska by Johnny Horton
Marie Laveau by Bobby Bare
Weather Woman by The Gourds
Chick Singer, Badass Rocker by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Born to Boogie by Texas Marty & The House of Twang
Be My Ball and Chain by Brennen Leigh & Noel McKay
Cool Rockin' Loretta by Joe Ely
Two Dollar Bill by Paula Rhae McDonald
In My Arms Once Again by Slim Cessna's Auto Club
Some of Shelly's Blues by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Cheater's World by Amy Allison & The Maudlins
Feeling Mortal by Kris Kristofferson
Drinkin' Thing by Gary Stewart
I've Got a Tender Heart by Merle Haggard
The Selfishness in Man by George Jones CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Updated: Here's the first hour -- with the Slackeye Slim set -- via Mixcloud
The show starts at 10 p.m. Mr. Slim will go on 10 or 15 minutes after that.
Slackeye, known in the mundane world as Joe Frankland is responsible for at least three albums -- Texas Whore Pleaser, El Santo Grial: La Pistola Piadosa, and, his most recent effort, Giving My Bones to the Western Lands. (Follow the links to my reviews of the last two.)
Basically his albums are the musical equivalent to dark, troubling western movies, wild tales full of harsh landscape, desperate anti-heroes. Sometimes the songs are full of savage violence. Sometimes they're just soul-searching reflections by men with broken hearts (to sneak in a Hank Williams reference.) And many of his melodies are nothing short of gorgeous.
Slackeye's originally from Ohio, but like the troubled transients he sings about, Slackeye has knocked around the west these past few years, living in Montana, Colorado and now New Mexico.
So tune in tomorrow night and hear Slackeye Slim's songs and stories. You can listen live on KSFR's website, or, if you live in northern New Mexico and parts of Albuquerque, at 101.1 FM.
I have one listener down there who tells me he sometimes drives out to the West Mesa to listen to my show on his car radio.
Tonight would be a great night to do that.
You can listen -- and buy (what a radical idea!) Slackeye Slim's most recent works HERE.
And meanwhile, here's one of his real purdy songs:
Whatever you say about Herbert Boutros Khaury, better known as Tiny Tim, you have to admit that the man knew a lot about old popular songs, especially those from the the first three or four decades of the 20th Century.
Below are a bunch of Tiny's songs as done by the original -- or at least much earlier -- artists. All but one of the following were on Tiny's first album, God Bless Tiny Tim.
Tiny loved these tunes and so do I.
"Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight" was written by a couple of guys named Al (Sherman and Lewis) for the 1930 movie, The Big Pond, which starred Maurice Chevalier. Tiny Tim was exposed, so to speak, to whole new generation when his version was used in the very first episode of Spongebob Squarepants.
But Maurice did a good job too.
I once saw Ozzie Nelson sing a version of "Out on the Old Front Porch" on some late-night talk show. I think it was on Joey Bishop' show. Maybe Harriet was there too, I don't remember. But this one goes way back to at least 1913 when Billy Murray did it as a duet with Ada Jones.
Tiny of course didn't do a duet. He sang all the parts himself, including the angry father.
Tiny did a pretty warped cover of "On the Good Ship Lollipop" on his first appearance on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. He also recorded it for his 1969 children's album For All My Little Friends.
The original version, of course, was by America's little friend, Shirley Temple, who sang in in her 1934 movie Bright Eyes.
Tiny reached way far back for "Then I'd Be Satisfied with Life," 1903 to be exact. It was written by George M. Cohan, the same guy who wrote "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Over There." This version is by S.H. Dudley.
One major change Tiny made in his version. Dudley wants "an heiress" for his wife. But Tiny wants Tuesday Weld!
And Tiny also did a little number called "Tiptoe Through the Tulips." Here is the original, as performed by Nick Lucas, the Crooning Troubadour, in the movie Gold Diggers of Broadway.
Before you start watching the videos of the bad television themes below, indulge me in a couple of creative musical exercises:
1) Think of the melody to "House of the Rising Sun." Now think of someone singing the Gilligan's Island theme to that melody. (Hey, it works better than "Stairway to Heaven.")
2) Now imagine The Pogues singing the theme, Shane MacGowan slurring all the lyrics, to The Brady Bunch.
I apologize if you can't get those out of your head all day.
The point is, I'm a fan of TV themes, even, in a weird way, the bad ones. I think about them way too much.
The Too Many Cooks video that swept the Internet late last year was a wonderful satire of cheesy boob-tube theme songs, especially from the late '70s and '80s. (If you're one of the last six Americans who hasn't seen or heard this CLICK HERE.)
But here a bunch of theme songs -- from shows that mostly were flops -- that still haunt my nightmares.
First, I give you My Mother the Car, a Jerry Van Dyke vehicle (pun intended) that ran on NBC from late 1965 through the spring of 1966.
Many years ago, George R.R. Martin (sorry for the gratuitous name-dropping) made me laugh out loud when he said that that the funniest thing about My Mother the Carwas that serious men with briefcases and expensive suits at NBC had to have had several intense meetings to develop this show.
The entire premise of this clunker is explained in the theme song.
Phyllis(1975-77) has the distinction of being the worst of the Mary Tyler Moore Show spin-offs. (Hey, I liked Lou Grant!) The opening theme actually was kind of clever. But still ... Phyllis.
The mid '60s hit series Batman had one of the coolest theme songs in TV history. Written by Neal Hefti, this instrumental was covered by The Ventures and even Iggy Pop, who did a live version. But that makes the theme song of Batman's far-less successful spin- off Batgirl even more deplorable. For one thing, they gave it lyrics -- lyrics like "Are you a chick who fell in from outer space? Or are you real with a tender warm embrace?" Holy crap on a cracker, Batman!
Besides Batgirl, Batman's success, inspired other superhero shows on network TV. NBC's answer was a bad comedy called Captain Nice. At least Batgirl was easier to look at than this mercifully short-lived series. And the theme song was nearly as terrible.
F Troop's stereotypical treatment of Native Americans would never fly today. Just ask Adam Sandler. Of course the only people dumber than the Hekawi tribe, for the most part, are the white soldiers at Fort Courage.
I have to admit, I kind of liked this show when I was a kid. It was better than My Mother the Car anyway. Still, the mock-heroic theme song from the first season is pretty clunky.
B.J. and The Bear was an NBC comedy about a truck driver and his chimpanzee. It debuted in 1979, a year after Clint Eastwood's Every Which Way But Loose, a comedy about a truck driver and his orangutan. (It was not a rip-off. Chimps and orangutans are completely different animals.)
And yes, the theme song sucked. "New dreams and better scenes/ And best of all I don't pay property tax," the show's leading man, Greg Evigan sang.
I don't know, but I think even Grover Norquist would rather pay property tax than to be stuck in the cab of a truck with a damned chimpanzee day in and day out.
The song loses even more points when you compare it with the theme of an earlier NBC truck-drivin' comedy Movin' On, -- which was written and sung by Merle Haggard.
All parents make mistakes, but I can proudly say that I never inflicted Lamb Chop's Play-Along (PBS, 1992-97) on either of my children. But I must admit, the theme song is a showcase for one of the pioneers of Caucasian hip-hop: Shari Lewis.
And I agree with this next one. Eight IS enough of these horrible tunes.
But may you spend your Wacky Wednesday like a bright and shiny new dime!
(Background Music: Dog Breath in the Year of The Plague by The Mothers of Invention)
Deputy Dog by The Great Gaylord & The Frigss
Motor Pyscho by Rattface
Bomb Squad by Gas Huffer
Saint Dee by The Bloodhounds
You Bring Me Down by Jonny Manak & The Depressives
Hound Dog by '68 Comeback
(Background Music: Taylor's Rock by Hound Dog Taylor)
Sunday, May 24, 2015 KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell Webcasting! 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org
Here's the playlist below;
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
After the Rain by Mission of Burma
God is a Bullet by Concrete Blonde
Goo Goo Muck by The Cramps
Miniskirt Blues by Simon Stokes
Suicide in a Bottle by Evil Idols
Baby Doll by Horror Deluxe
Don't Slander Me by Roky Erikson
Spider and Fly by Motobunny
Milkshake 'n' Honey by Sleater-Kinney
Whammy Kiss by The B-52s
Inside Looking Out by Chesterfield Kings
Time Will Tell by Handsome Jack
Take Me to Our Place by Jonny Manak & The Depressives
Mean and Evil by Juke Joint Pimps
Total Destruction to Your Mind by Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires
Oh Wendy, Let's Stay Out All Night by The A-Bones
Do the Get Down by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Designed to Kill by James Chance
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOB DYLAN
Maggie's Farm by Bob Dylan
The Wicked Messenger by The Black Keys
Thunder on the Mountain by Bob Dylan
Don't Think Twice by Mike Ness
Dignity by Bob Dylan
Every Grain of Sand by Giant Sand
Baby Let Me Follow You Down (Reprise) by Bob Dylan & The Band
That Knucklehead Stuff by Chuck E. Weiss
Borracho Mark Lanegan
That Lucky Old Sun by Bob Dylan
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, May 22, 2015 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist below:
OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens
Vengeance Gonna Be My Name by Slackeye Slim
Daddy Was a Preacher, Mama Was a Go-Go Girl by Southern Culture on the Skids
Hard Times by Jon Langford
Tulsa by Wayne Hancock
Trailer Mama by The Bottle Rockets
Big Ol' White Boys by Terry Allen
What Kinda Guy? by Steve Forbert
The Rubber Room by T. Tex Edwards & Out on Parole
Hey Mama My Time Ain't Long / Snake Farm by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Falling Off of the World by Chipper Thompson
Give Back the Key to My Heart by Uncle Tupelo
The Devil Ain't Lazy by Asleep At the Wheel with The Blind Boys of Alabama
Ditty Wah Ditty by Ry Cooder
Liquor and Whores by The Misery Jackals
Kansas Women by Two Ton Strap
Don't Give a Damn by Honky Tonk Hustlas
Ready to Run by Jimbo Mathus
The Hoover Farm Exorcism by The Imperial Rooster
The Road Goes On Forever by The Highwaymen
Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes by The Rizdales
I'll Be There (If Ever You Want Me) by John Fogerty
There's No Fool Like an Old Fool by Ray Price
The Genitalia of a Fool by Cornell Hurd with Justin Trevino
Legend in My Time by Don Walser
Train of Life by Merle Haggard
When Two Worlds Collide by Roger Miller
The Last Kind Words by David Johansen & The Harry Smiths
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican May 22, 2015 Ray Wylie Hubbard’s Twitter feed (@raywylie) isn’t anywhere as essential as his music, but it’s often pretty entertaining. Early in May, after some ticket agency apparently had referred to him as a “country” singer, Hubbard tweeted, “i ain’t country..use ‘cool ol low down dead thumb groove badass folkie halfass blues poet with a young rockin band’ instead.”
That tweet could be read as a darn good self-evaluation of his latest record, The Ruffian’s Misfortune. Once again, Hubbard has given the world a swampy, blues-soaked collection of tunes in which, in his trademark Okie drawl, he tells stories of sin and salvation; gods and devils; women who light candles to the “Black Madonna;” undertakers who look like crows (“red-eyed and dressed in black”); and hot-wiring cars in Oklahoma.
And I wasn’t kidding about “essential.” Somehow in the last decade or so, Hubbard has clawed his way from being an interesting survivor of the early-’70s-Texas-cosmic-cowboy scene to one of the most important unsung songwriters in the music biz today. And I don’t say that lightly. Last time I reviewed one of Ray Wylie’s albums, I said, “Hubbard’s albums of the last 10 years are even more consistently brilliant than Tom Waits’ output since the turn of the century.”
That’s still true. And Ray Wylie is more prolific than Waits, too.
He’s using the same basic band he’s used on his last few albums, including his son Lucas Hubbard on guitar, George Reiff on bass, and Rick Richards on drums. Together they’ve crafted a distinctive sound, and, like Hubbard himself, they keep getting better.
Hubbard grabs you by the throat immediately in “All Loose Things,” the first song on The Ruffian’s Misfortune. Raw guitar chords explode over a harsh drum beat. Then Hubbard begins to sing, though he’s giving voice to a blackbird looking down on pitiful humans: “Storm is comin’, rain’s about. To fall/Ain’t no shelter ’round here for these children at all. ... Now the dirt is splatterin’ it’s turning into mud/Erasing all traces of broken bones and blood/All loose things end up being washed away.”
Hubbard with son Lucas at 2012 SXSW
Listening to Hubbard, you might start to get the feeling that, like some grizzled oracle, he’s gently imparting secrets of the universe. At the start of the song “Hey, Mama, My Time Ain’t Long,” he sings matter-of-factly, “Now children let me tell you about the songs a bluesman sings/Comes from a woman’s moans and the squeak of guitar strings/Some say it’s the devil jingling the coins in his pocket/I say it sounds more like a pistol when you cock it.”
Hubbard name-checks some of his rock ’n’ roll forbearers — the Rolling Stones, the Allman Brothers, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top – in “Bad on Fords,” a song he co-wrote with country star Ronnie Dunn -- and previously recorded by Sammy Hagar.
He’s trying to convince some “pretty thing” to go on some crazy joyride from Abilene to L.A. “We’ll stop at The Sands in Vegas and bet it all on black 29,” he sings.
The song “Down by The River” is a frenzied tune that might remind you of James McMurtry’s “Choctaw Bingo.” Hubbard’s tune is about a bunch of El Paso kids crossing the Santa Fe Bridge into Juárez to “sip a little poison.” Violence lurks everywhere – gunfire, bloodstains, those crowlike undertakers burying bodies down by the river.
Sister Rosetta
He’s basically describing a real-life hell in that song. But in a later song, “Barefoot in Heaven,” Hubbard sings of the other place, “where there ain’t no end of days.” The groove is similar to some long-lost Pops Staples tune. But the lyrics speak of another gospel titan: “When I get to Heaven, all the preachers tell me, I get a halo, some wings and a harp/That’s well and good, but what I want to hear is Sister Rosetta Tharpe.”
Two of the songs here are named for Hubbard’s blues heroes. “Mr. Musselwhite’s Blues” tells the story of harmonica shaman Charlie Musselwhite and how he was born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago, where Little Walter himself bestowed a harp on him. Musselwhite even gets some advice for the lovelorn from Big Joe Williams. “Big Joe said, ‘I’ve seen that woman, and Charlie, you’re better off with the blues.”
Then there’s “Jessie Mae,” a slow groover about the late Ms. Hemphill. “Every time you sing, black angels dance,” Hubbard sings. Praising her guitar style, he notes Hemphill had that “dead thumb groove” he admires, “like hammerin’ nails/On the low E string.”
Undoubtedly there’s a little bit of Jessie Mae Hemphill in the singer with the “short dress, torn stockings” who is subject of “Chick Singer, Badass Rocking.” Hubbard probably sounds a little lecherous here, but even if that’s so, it’s far outweighed by the sheer admiration he has for this unnamed belter, carrying on a sacred American tradition at her midnight gig at some dive.
Hubbard wouldn’t look that great in a short skirt and torn stockings, but he’s carrying on a noble tradition himself.
Check out these videos:
Here's one with an authentic chick singer/badass rocker
And here's another song from The Ruffian's Misfortune, performed with the co-writer Jonathan Tyler.
And making his debut on The Stephen W. Terrell (Music) Blog, I give you Mr. Sammy Hagar
Correction: The earlier version of this incorrectly called my favorite James McMurtry song as "Cherokee Bingo." The real title is "Choctaw Bingo." Sorry, wrong tribe. It's been corrected in the text.
Last week when eulogizing B.B. King, I included "See That My My Grave Is Kept Clean," the title song, sort of, from his final studio album. It's a song known by at least three names -- the one King used; "Two White Horses," and "One Kind Favor" -- which was the actual title of King's last album.
Blind Lemon Jefferson, a bluesman from Texas, recorded the song in 1928, but I first heard it in the version by Canned Heat. The song, part of Heat's 1968 album Living the Blues, wasn't a huge hit. But it was the flip side of "Going Up The Country," which probably was their biggest hit. They played it on KVSF here in Santa Fe ever so often and I liked it right off.
But I didn't really get into it until the early '70s, when, as a college kid I started making trips to Juarez, Mexico with my buddies. it was always on the jukebox at El Submarino nightclub, and I always played it several times as my friends an I sat there loading up on 35-cent margaritas. The crazy energy of the song -- not to mention the fatalistic, somewhat morbid lyrics with strange images of white horses coffin sounds and graves in need of cleaning -- seemed to capture the Juarez spirit of those happier times.
Blind Lemon died two years after recording "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean." But the song is allive and well. Blind Lemon's version was included on Harry Smith's more-than-influential Anthology of Folk Music in 1952.
Even before then, it was recorded by a bunch of other blues artists including fellow Texan Lightnin' Hopkins, Furry Lewis and Mississippi Fred McDowell. And it keeps popping up in the realms of folk, rock, soul and the blues.
Here are some of the better versions of the song. Let's start with Mr. Jefferson's:
Bob Dylan, whose career owes a lot to Harry Smith's Anthology, was one of several folk revivalists who recorded it. His fiery version of "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" was on his first album. (Notice on this one, the two white horses aren't just "in a line" as in most renditions of the song. In Dylan's, the white horses are "following me.")
Dylan's version inspired this electric rendition by The Dream Syndicate in 1988.
Lou Reed performed a growling, menacing take on the tune at a Harry Smith tribute concert in 2001.
Mavis Staples did it in the "Lightning in a Bottle" concert at Radio City Music Hall in 2003
Also in the early part of the century, folkie Geoff Muldaur (a former member of Jim Kweskin's Jug Band), recorded a haunting two-part saga in which he and some pals take literally Blind Lemon's odd request.
Here's Part 2
But still the best version of "One Kind Favor" is the version that brought the boogie to El Submarino. Viva Canned Heat!