WACKY WEDNESDAY: Another Birthday for R. Crumb!

Once again it's birthday time for America's greatest cartoonist Robert Crumb. The old boy turns 74 today.

As most of you know, in addition to his talents as a visual artist, Crumb also is a musician. His main love is old 1920s-30s jazz and blues.

With his string band The Cheap Suit Serenaders, which first came together in San Francisco in the late '60s, Crumb captured the crazy energy of those old sounds -- which also informed his vision behind his best cartoons.

So happy birthday one more time, Mr. Crumb and many more.

Here are a bunch of his songs on YouTube.

This one is called "I Had But 50 Cents."



Regular readers know I love the following song, "I'll See You in My Dreams" (See HERE and HERE.) Crumb and the boys do it justice.

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This is about a girl who lives down by the firehouse.



This is a crazy little instrumental called "The Cuckoo Waltz." Enjoy the visuals.



This one is relatively recent (2013). Instead of The Cheap Suit Serenaders, this is The East River String Band,



For more Crumb music check out my 2015 birthday salute and well as Songs That Crumb Taught Us from last year,

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, August 27, 2017
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
Saboteur Blues by Gogol Bordello
The Static God by Thee Oh Sees
The Ladder by Travel in Space
Dancing Fool by Butthole Surfers
The Future is Now (and it Stinks) by J.J. & The Real Jerks
Shiver by King Salami & The Cumberland 3
These Tears by The Howlin' Max Messer Show
Today I Learned to Drink by Dengue Fever

Freedom by Ty Segall
Little Mama by Suicide Generation
She Doesn't Laugh at My Jokes by Jonathan Richman
Eye by Audio Kings of the Third World
Lately by Left Lane Cruiser
Midnight Jungle by O Lendario Chucrobillyman
A Dirtier Job by The Blues Against Youth
Mon Nom by The Yawpers
Cranked Up Real High by The Grannies
Volare by The Drifting Mines
Triggs Beach by Molting Vultures

Go-Go Girls by Sam the Sham & The Pharoahs
Trippin' by The Ghost Wolves
Medicine by Black Angels
One Day I Will Kill You by Deadbolt
Puddin' Truck by NRBQ
Violence by Nots
Bitch Slap Attack by Lovestruck
No Cops by The Night Beats
Hooky Wooky by Lou Reed

Candlelight by Mystery Lights
Love Your Money by Lolita #18
Squatting in Heaven by Black Lips
Frankie Baby by Mojo JuJu
Fear and Beer by The Mekons
Motivation by Benjamin Booker
Love Train by The Holmes Brothers
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, August 25, 2017
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 :

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens
Lucifer and the Fallen Angels by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Amos Moses by Jerry Reed
Her Hair is a Mess by Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys
Genitalia of a Fool by Cornell Hurd featuring Justin Trevino
Write Your Own Songs by Dale Watson & Ray Benson
I Can Get Over You by Miss Leslie
Til the Well Runs Dry by Lara Hope & The Ark-Tones
George's Playhouse Boogie by Maddox Brothers & Rose
Blind Man's Penis by John Trubee (Ramsey Kearney vocals)

Florida by The War and Treaty
Smilin' Ed by The Imperial Rooster
Since She Started to Ride by Jonathan Richman
Highway Patrol by Junior Brown
So Many Curves by Jonny Barber & The Rhythm Razors
Johnny Law by Wayne Hancock
They Call Me Country by DM Bob & The Deficits
You're Gettin' a Good Girl by Caolina Cotton
Walkin' After Midnight by Cyndi Lauper

Henry, O My Henry by Hillstomp
Fun All Night by Banditos
Everyone is Guilty #2 by  Slim Cessna's Auto Club
Drunk on Jesus by Reverend Deadeye
Ghost of Th' Rails by The Goddamn Gallows
God's Mercy by The Yawpers
Botched Execution by Shovels and Ropes
St. Louis Blues by Pokey LaFarge

Drinkin; Thing by Gary Stewart
Take Me by Jesse Dayton & Brennan Leigh
Golden Days by Boris McCutcheon
Days of 49 by Steve Young
Beaten and Broken by Mini Mekons & Robbie Fulks
Desert by The Whiskey Charmers
Same God by The Calamity Cubes
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets


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THROWBACK THURSDAY: Do the Chairs in Your Parlor Seem Empty and Bare?

OK, I realize that just a week ago Throwback Thursday featured a bunch of my favorite Elvis Presley songs to mark the 40th anniversary of his death.

But this week we're taking a slightly deeper dive into another Elvis song, "Are You Lonesome Tonight."

Basically this is a song about a guy who misses his woman so much he's fantasizing that she's so miserable without him, she'll gladly take him back on the strength of a pretty melody.

And he may be projecting a little mental instability on her:

Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare? 
Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?

As I sometimes do with songs I love, a wrote another verse to "Are You Lonesome Tonight" for my own amusement, building on that theme of insanity:

Do the shadows in your hall seem to whisper my name?
Do you pound on the walls seeking someone to blame?

Fortunately for you, gentle readers, I've never recorded that, though I did perform an a Capella version last week at Whoo's Donuts.

Be that as it may, "Are You Lonesome Tonight," unlike many of Elvis' hits of that era, was already decades old when he recorded it.

It was written in 1926 (some sources say 1927) by the team of  Roy Turk (lyrics) & Lou Handman (melody).

Turk (1892-1934) also wrote the lyrics to "Walkin' My Baby Back Home," (recorded by Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and a jillion others) as well as the jazz standard "Mean to Me," (Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan) and Bing Crosby's "Where the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day."

By 1927 several artists of the day had recorded "Are You Lonesome Tonight." You'll notice in the early version, the song that we know, as sung by Elvis, is just the chorus of the song. The verses (the first one begins "Tonight I'm downheated / For though we have parted /I'll love you and I always will") have been forgotten through the years.

Here's the first recording of the song by crooner Charles Hart:



Here's a female singer, Vaughn De Leath, with another 1927 version.



I never realized until researching this that The Carter Family did a version in 1936 with a different melody.



Al Jolson recorded first version I could find to include the "world is a stage" spoken bridge. This is from 1950, just a decade before Elvis recorded it. (Despite the photo in the video, I don't believe Jolie did this one in blackface.)



Let's fast forward through a few decades. This is from the '90s but I bet Tiny Tim loved this song even before Elvis did. (Song doesn't start until after the 4 minute mark.)



Finally, here's Elvis.





For more deep dives into songs, check out The Stephen W. Terrell Web Log Songbook

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Truly Trubee

John Trubee, God knows how many years ago.

This is as good of a Wacky Wednesday as any to celebrate the music of one of my offbeat heros, John Trubee.

He was born in Rapid City, South Dakota about 60 years ago. Raised in New Jersey, Trubee has lived for at least a couple of decades in California. He's a one-of a kind musician / songwriter / prankster.

Usually backed by a revolving-door group called The Ugly Janitors of America, Trubee plays wild funk, skewed pop, crazy noise  -- and sometimes even pretty acoustic music.

As writer Charlie Swanson wrote in a 2015 feature in Bohemian.com:

If Trubee had become a filmmaker, he might draw a comparison to horror director and American Movie documentary subject Mark Borchardt. Had he taken the author's route, he might be another Charles Bukowski. As it is, Trubee is a music man, and his dark, profane and subversively hilarious songs have offended the conservative and mystified even the most progressive listeners for 30 years.

Trubee described his approach to his music in the notes for Forgotten Afternoon, a 2015 acoustic album he recorded with singer Laurie Amat:

Once I record my songs, I no longer hear them in my head, and new songs supersede them to continue to drive me crazy. I strongly regret not possessing the time and resources to more frequently record my multitude of song ideas. This is the terrible struggle of my life--somehow getting all this music out of my head before I am dead while I am continually enervated and depleted from my full-time workaday job routine

Chances are you've never heard of Trubee. He's not the kind of guy who naturally cozies up with the music industry. I don't think he'd compromise his artistic principles if you stuck a gun to his head.

But enough of my blather. Let's get to the assortment of Trubee tunes I've assembled below. If you like what you hear check out Trubee's Bandcamp page and buy some of his work.

Let's start out with a funky one, "Cram The Plastic Down My Throat" in which Trubee reveals that "The CIA invented LSD to blow out the brains of idiots like you ... Goddam the Trilateral Commission, goddamn the Russians, goddamn the CIA ... They want to kill us .."



Here's a live performance of a song called "You Idiot I Don't Believe You"



On this one, Trubee observes that "Many Whores Copulate for Money"



Here's a tender little ditty called "Field of Corpses."




Besides music, Trubee also does surreal phone pranks



Finally, here's one you've heard many times on The Santa Fe Opry. I'm pretty sure there is a federal statute requiring anything published about John Trubee has to include "Blind Man's Penis." This is not quite a hit, but definitely his best known song. It's a song poem. which means Trubee wrote the lyrics and paid some fee for a company to write the melody and record it. The singer is Ramsey Kearney, a monster of song poem vocals.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, August 20, 2017
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
Do the Clam by The Cramps
My Baby left Me by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Reconsider Baby by Elvis Presley
Leave My Kitten Alone by Detroit Cobras
Ice Cream for Crow by Captain Beefheart
The Point is Overflowing by Left Lane Cruiser
Incubus by The Howlin' Max Messer Show
Hey There Stranger by The Compressions
Gun Slinger by Bo Diddley

Lost All Day by Dinosaur Jr
All the Goods Gone by The Ghost Wolves
Whole Hearts Desire by Bloodshot Bill
Undertaker by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282
Eh by Dot Wiggin Band
Sputnik by Roky Erikson & The Aliens
Turn My Head by The Molting Vultures
Johnny Hit and Run Paulene by X

Waiting for Alberto by The Monochrome Set
Mr. Pitiful by Otis Redding
96 Tears by Aretha Frankin
Girl You Captivate Me by Question Mark & The Mysterians
Shortnin' Bread Rock by Etta James
Rat City by Jack Oblivian
Robot Blues by The Oblivians
My Confession by The Gears
We Know by Black Lips
I'm Insane by T-Model Ford

Dog Breath in the Year of the Plague by The Mothers of Invention
1848 Now! by The Mekons
Masterpiece by Jon Langford & Four Lost Souls
All My Lovin' by The Beatles
Old Swan by Mark Lanegan
Lord I've Been Changed by Tom Waits
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, August 18, 2017
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 :

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens
The Crawdad Song by The Meat Purveyors
I'll Fix Your Flat Tire, Merle by Pure Prairie League
This Old Man by Tommy Miles & The Milestones
Fuzzy Little Hippie Girl by Great American Taxi
There Stands the Glass by Webb Pierce
No One Likes Me / Demons in Your Head by The Imperial Rooster
Drinkin' Ain't Hard to Do by Hank III

Thrown from a Train by Gay Sportscasters with Evan Johns

God Looked Around by Ray Wylie Hubbard

Red Brick Wall by The Waco Brothers

TJ by Hickoids

Straight and Narrow by The Whiskey Charmers

Burn the Place to the Ground by Dinosaur Truckers
Money is the Meat int the Coconut by David Rawlings
I Dreamed of a Hillbilly Heaven by Tex Ritter

It Ain't Necessarily So by Asylum Street Spankers
When That Helicopter Comes by The Handsome Family
What's Your Mama's Name, Child by Tanya Tucker
Working Man's Tools by Lara Hope & The Ark Tones
Love is a Dangerous Thing by Blonde Boy Grunt & The Groans
Wheels by Flying Burrito Brothers
Kangaroo Blues by Cliff Bruner's Texas Wanderers
Honky Tonk Queen by Moe Bandy & Joe Stampley

Turtles All the Way Down by Sturgill Simpson
The New Lee Highway Blues by David Bromberg
Zoysia by Bottle Rockets
There Will Be Nights When I'm Lonely by Possessed by Paul James
Sadly Beautiful by Glen Campbell
Katy Kay by Robbie Fulks

CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets


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