Friday, October 17, 2014

Bobby's World

Back in 2008. Joe West produced The Ballad of Don Clavio, a strange but wondrous album by singer/ poet / visual artist and longtime La Cienega potter Bobby Brodsky. The album was a lo-fi affair consisting of music, sound collage, telephone messages, poetry, and insane rants.

Brodsky died two years ago at the age of 60. But his art lives on in a new book, Bobby’s World written and compiled by his sister Bette Brodsky. It features 100 color – vivid color! – reproductions of Bobby’s drawings, which are even more crazy than his music.

He was like a manic version of Daniel Johnston, drawing strange pictures of animals, real and imagined (a dog with the body of a Cheshire cat appears in several), jungle critters, dragons, ducks, several naked girls, Wizard of Oz characters, critters that look like Sendak’s wild things, Santa Claus, cars, pyramids UFOs … Plus plenty of photos of Bobby and his family and his pottery; hand scrawled poems and lyrics from some of his favorite rock ‘n’ roll songs. 

Collectively they tell a wild of a soul amazed by life itself.


Bette Brodsky will be signing copies of Bobby’s World 6 pm Tuesday Oct, 21 at the Collected Works Bookstore, 202 Galisteo St. Joe West will be playing music there, and he tells me they will be selling copies of The Ballad of Don Clavio as well.

Read Paul Weideman's story about Bobby's World (and check out more Brodsky art) in today's Pasatiempo. And check my review of Joe West's Theater of Death songs on this here blog. 

Thursday, October 16, 2014

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Bill Hearne Rides Again

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
October 17, 2014



Back in the mid-1970s, probably before I was quite 21, my pals and I crawled into a hopping little honky- tonk way on the south end of Cerrillos Road called the Bourbon & Blues. At least, it was considered way south back in those days. Playing that night was a couple — a blind couple — from deep in the heart of Texas. Nobody I knew had ever heard of them before that night. But somehow they packed the place. They played a lot of country classics, a bunch of Jerry Jeff Walker songs. The dude in the thick glasses and Hoss Cartwright-sized cowboy hat flat-picked his guitar with unassuming grace, while his wife’s piano sounded like something from some archetypal Old West saloon. The beer flowed that night at the B&B, and the dance floor was no place for claustrophobics. I believe everyone left the place that night a fan of Bill and Bonnie Hearne.

In 1979, the Hearnes moved from Texas to Red River, where they made a living playing for ski crowds. After more than a decade there, they moved to Santa Fe and quickly became a fixture. Now Bill Hearne is the undisputed king of country music in Santa Fe. He’s releasing a new CD, All That’s Real, which, like most of his recordings, I can’t listen to without drifting back to that first appearance at the Bourbon & Blues. Bonnie, who has been retired for several years due to medical problems, even sings on a couple of songs.

All That’s Real is co-produced by Bill Hearne and Don Richmond, a master of many stringed instruments who lives in Alamosa, Colo., but has many musical cronies in Northern New Mexico. Numerous area pickers and singers perform on it, as well as some notable Texans, including piano man Earl Poole Ball (best known as Johnny Cash’s piano player, though he also played on the Byrds’ landmark country-rock album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo), and Jerry Jeff Walker, who sings his own “Dust on My Boots” with Hearne.

Hearne never has claimed to be a songwriter, but he’s got a knack for taking others’ material and making those songs his own. On the new record, he draws from some familiar sources: Guy Clark, Lyle Lovett (Hearne has shared the stage in Santa Fe with Lovett, a fan of Bill and Bonnie since he was a kid), Delbert McClinton, and Gordon Lightfoot.

There are so many highlights here, it’s hard to know where to start. The album starts with a Clark gem called “Rita Ballou” (“Hill country honky-tonkin’ Rita Ballou/Every beer joint in town has played the fool for you …”). Both McClinton numbers — “Ruby Louise” and “Real Good Itch” — are among the best on the album, both having a roadhouse rock ’n’ roll edge. Bonnie Hearne sings harmonies on “Real Good Itch” as well as “One of These Days,” a tune best known for Emmylou Harris’ version. I wouldn’t have complained had Bonnie sung lead on that one.

My very favorite Hearne songs have always been the hard-core honky-tonkers. On All That’s Real, he does a crackerjack cover of a true touchstone of the genre, “City Lights,” which was written by “Whispering” Bill Anderson but is most associated with Ray Price.

When I saw that this album had a version of Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire,” my first thought was that this might not be the best tune for Hearne to tackle. Fortunately, though, he sings it with soul. The song is aided by Richmond’s pedal steel and Taos rocker Jimmy Stadler’s organ and piano. All That’s Real makes me proud the Hearnes made Santa Fe their home and nostalgic for the glory days of the Bourbon & Blues.

The official CD release party for this album is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Oct. 28 at La Fonda, where Richmond joins Hearne onstage. If you can’t wait, Hearne plays Saturday, Oct. 18, at the Cowgirl BBQ; Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 20 and 21, and Oct. 27 at La Fonda; and back at the Cowgirl for a solo happy-hour gig on Oct. 24.

Also recommended:

* Joe West’s Theater of Death. If West only concentrated on writing, performing, and recording his songs, he’d still be pretty darn remarkable. For well over a decade he’s been my favorite singer/songwriter from these parts.

But West’s spirit is a restless one. In recent years he has expanded his game, slipping the surly bonds of genre and medium, experimenting with time-traveling trans-vestite rock opera, avant-garde radio, and, of late, the stage. Last spring he created a dramatic ensemble called Theater of Death and performed a series of dark, one-act plays at Madrid’s Engine House Theatre. This shouldn’t be a surprise, considering that West started out in the theater years before he became a professional musician.

And now, with a group of musical conspirators, he has recorded an eight-song extended-play album of tunes from that show.

Three of the selections are titled “Zombie Jam.” They’re sinister-sounding instrumentals — mostly blues and spook-house jazz — the first of which includes some bursts of sound collage and fake newscasts. A song called “La Llorona” has Busy McCarroll singing in Spanish and “Rien Rien” features Lori Ottino singing in French. And there’s a phony radio ad for snake-oil patent medicine.

A couple are soon-to-be-classic West songs. “Dysfunction” offers a sardonic ray of hope for folks rising from bad life circumstances. “Night on the Town” is a sweet tune about an elderly couple celebrating their wedding anniversary. (“Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1952,” he sings.)

This EP will be sold at the upcoming performances of the new Theater of Death production, “The Absinthe Plays.” These are on Oct. 24 through Oct. 26, Oct. 30 through Nov. 2, and Nov. 7 through Nov. 9 at the Engine House Theatre, 2846 N.M. 14 in Madrid. The show starts at 8 p.m. except on Sundays, when curtain time is 3 p.m. Tickets are $20.

And if you want to see the show and support KSFR at the same time, listen to the Santa Fe Opry tomorrow night (KSFR, 101.1 FM, at 10 pm)

VIDEO TIME!

Here's Bill Hearne playing with Robert Earle Keen back in 2011. *The song doesn't start until about a minute and 45 seconds into it.)


And here's some Joe Wet & The Santa Fe Revue singing an old favorite, "Are You Still My Girl" at the Outpost in Albuquerque in 2012.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST


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Sunday, October 12, 2014 
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


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Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

Friday, October 10, 2014

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST


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Friday, October 10, 2014 
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:






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Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE
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Tuesday, October 07, 2014

Junior Brown Says "Better Call Saul"



Those of us Santa Fe folks who went to school with a hippie kid named Jamie Brown in the late '60s never thought he'd end up getting national publicity for hawking the services of a crooked lawyer.

But that's what happening with Jamie right now, Under his better-known stage name, Junior Brown, our old classmate was chosen to sing the theme song of Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad spin-off, scheduled to debut on AMC next February.

And it's a cool song too. Listen below:



My favorite line in the song is  “Shopping at a Wal-Mart short just a couple of beans/ There’s a George Foreman grill down the back of your blue jeans.”

No, I don't think it's autobiographical. The lyrics were written by show creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould.

JB playing his guit-steel at a Thirsty Ear Festival
After finding that out after hearing the song, I was surprised that Brown himself didn't write the words. The twisted humor is consistent with Junior classics like "My Wife Thinks You're Dead" and his newer tunes like "The Phantom of the Opry."

Though he's been Junior Brown for more than 20 years now, touring the country, appearing on TV shows like Austin City Limits, Saturday Night Live and even SpongeBob Squarepants, Santa Fe got to know his music first in his psychedelic band Humble Harvey and later, in the early '70s with the honky-tonkin' Last Mile Ramblers.

So I wish him well with this video, And I hope he never needs to call Saul.




Sunday, October 05, 2014

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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Sunday, October 5, 2014 
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
Like the Terrell's Sound World Facebook page

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

Friday, October 03, 2014

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST


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Friday, October 3, 2014 
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:






Like the Santa Fe Opry Facebook page 

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

Thursday, October 02, 2014

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: The Raw Gospel of Designer Records

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
October, 2014





On his 1968 “comeback special” on NBC, Elvis Presley made the following observation:

“I’d like to talk a little about music. Very little. ... I like a lot of the new groups, you know. The Beatles and ‘the beards’ and the whoever. But I really like a lot of the new music. But a lot of ... rock ’n’ roll music is basically gospel or rhythm and blues. Or it sprang from that.”

Elvis said it. I believe it. That settles it.

The blues and R & B connection to rock ’n’ roll is widely acknowledged, but the influence of gospel often gets overlooked. And that’s despite the church roots of major rock and soul icons like Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Solomon Burke, and The Staples Singers.

I believe the problem is that way too many people who consider themselves rockers aren’t acquainted with the joys of old-time gospel music. They hear the word gospel and they think of that sappy excuse for music that passes as contemporary gospel, not realizing that this vanilla dreck is to real gospel what Coldplay is to Iggy & The Stooges, what Rascal Flatts is to Hank Williams, what Kenny G is to John Coltrane.

There is a brand-new collection of exciting, shouting, holy spirit-raising, fire-and-brimstone-testifying gospel music — the kind Elvis was talking about — that I’ve been enjoying immensely in recent weeks. It’s called The Soul of Designer Records, and it features 101 songs on four compact discs packaged to resemble an old 33 rpm album.

You won’t find any big stars of the genre here. No Mahalia Jackson or Sister Rosetta Tharpe or Rev. James Cleveland or The Blind Boys of Alabama or any other state. But even though you’ve probably never heard of The Dynamic Hughes Singers, The Mighty Blytheville Aires, The Fantastic Alphonzo Thomas, or The Christian All Stars of Akron, Ohio, that doesn’t mean these obscure tracks lack power.

Designer Records, which operated in Memphis in the 1960s and ’70s under the ownership of J.C. “Style” Wooten, was pretty much an under-the-radar operation that specialized in black gospel. Wooten would charge a group a relatively modest fee ($469.50 was the advertised price in the late 1960s) to cut a few songs.

“He’d bring those groups in there, they’d come in from Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, St. Louis, all over the place,” said Roland Janes, interviewed in the box set’s liner notes. Janes was the owner of Sonic Studios, which recorded all of Designer’s records in the company’s early days. (He also played guitar on early hits by Jerry Lee Lewis and Billy Lee Riley.) “Every weekend we’d cut maybe five different groups.[Wooten would] cut four songs on each group, he’d put a single out, and then he’d hold one in the can. ... They’d pay him a little bit at a time; then when they had enough to press a record, [Wooten would] press the record, give ’em X number of copies, then when they needed more, they’d buy ’em from him.”
The Fantastic Gospel Travelers

The weekend was the busiest time because so many of the singers had to work during the week.

As Janes said, “See, these gospel guys, man, they’re doing it for the love of what they’re doing. They used to get in their cars — maybe two or three car loads of ’em, say from Detroit — and they’d come down south, and they’d work here all Friday night and Saturday and Sunday. ... While they was here, they’d do a recording session and they’d play a bunch of different churches and take up the love offerings and everything. They just did it for the love of it; that’s what it boiled down to.”

Yes, love is the key here. And it’s hard not to love these songs back.

Take “Clean up Your Life” by the Jackson Trumpeteers. Were they from Jackson, Mississippi, or were they a family named Jackson? The liner notes offer no clue. All I know is that they were a vocal group led by a high-voiced singer and backed mostly by an electric guitar, organ, and drums. This is a fast-tempo tune with the singer warning against being a “playboy” and living in sin.

The Gospel Songbirds, a group from Mississippi led by a tenor named Andrew Cheairs, remind me of another gospel group from that state, The Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, which was led by Archie Brownlee. (Cheairs, however, is backed by no “boys” at all. It’s a female quartet.) The Songbirds’ “Tone the Bells Easy” is a slow burner that allows Cheairs to work himself into a sanctified frenzy, as Brownlee was known to do.

Alberta Powell has two songs — “Trusted” and “The Same God” — both of which prove that the line between gospel music and the blues is thin. The Rev. Leon Hamner’s infectious, stomping “I’ve Got the Love of Jesus,” punctuated by the Cincinnati preacher’s throat-shredding screams, will make a listener feel like shouting, “Hamner time!”

Meanwhile, the guitar on George Shields’ “God’s Word Will Never Pass Away” makes me wonder whether Ry Cooder studied this guy’s picking style.

Style Wooten
The headlines of the day work themselves into one of the songs: “Viet Nam” by The Dynamic Hughes Singers. The song basically is an emotional prayer for the soldiers fighting that war. But at one point, lead singer Jerry Hughes shouts, “No more segregation in this land!”

The music of the day seeps in too. While most of the album proves Elvis’ point that gospel is the root of rock ’n’ roll, other tracks show the influence of rock on gospel. For instance, the minor-key “Do Yourself a Favor” by Souls of Solomon, a group from Buffalo, New York, starts out with a throbbing bass that sounds straight out of The Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” and has an electric guitar that sounds like a venomous snake about to strike.

This collection can be seen as a big love offering. Constituting somewhere between a quarter and a fifth of Designer’s catalog, The Soul of Designer Records is a galaxy of great American musical treasures most of us never knew we had.



Enjoy a couple of gospel videos from groups included in this box set:

This song by The Magnificent Soul Survivors is in this collection.



This isn't a Designer record, but it's Andrew Cheairs & The Gospel Songbirds from around the same era.



And if you like this stuff, you should seek out:

* Fire in My Bones: Raw, Rare & Otherworldly African-American Gospel, 1944-2007
This May Be My Last Time Singing : Raw African-American Gospel on 45RPM 1957-1982
* Screaming Gospel Holy Rollers (I have Volumes 1 and 2. There's also one called Screaming Gospel Holy Rollers: Hop Skip and Jump, which I haven't heard yet.)
* The Hurricane That Hit Atlanta by Rev. Johnny L. Hurricane Jones
* The Great 1955 Shrine Concert

New GaragePunk Hideout Compilation in Two Years


The GaragePunk Hideout has just released its 10th compilation of crazed sounds Countdown to a Breakdown. There are 33 (!) raging songs, an hour and 23 minutes of rough and rowdy rock 'n' roll, for a mere $7 bucks, surely one of the better musical deals you're going to find on the Internet.

Right now it's only available on Bandcamp (a download joint of which I'm growing increasingly fond)  though within days it should be on iTunes, Amazon and other places where quality MP3s are sold.

I already was familiar with a couple of tunes here. The title song, by Viki Vortex & The Cumshots appears on a recent Big Enchilada podcast episode, Family Fun Night.  And then there's "Get Outta Dallas" by Mal Thursday and The Cheetahs, a bitchen song about the JFK assassination, which also appeared on the Conspiracy a Go-Go compilation last year. (Mal is a fellow GaragePunk Pirate Radio podbuster, whose shows can be found HERE.)

A couple of the bands that have songs on Countdown to a Breakdown -- The Mobbs and Audio Kings of The Third World -- have different songs on the latest Big Enchilada, Dance Hall of the Dark Dimension.

But I'm not familiar with the vast majority of the maniacs making noise on this compilation. But I'm having a great time getting familiar with them. You'll be hearing many of them on upcoming Terrell's Sound World shows on KSFR and future Big Enchilada episodes.

You can listen to the darn thing on the widget below. But do yourself and buy it.


Sunday, September 28, 2014

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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Sunday, September 28, 2014 
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
Like the Terrell's Sound World Facebook page

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

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