Friday, May 15, 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
Angel Along the Tracks by The Dirt Daubers
Banana Pudding by Southern Culture on the Skids
Mr. Musselwhite's Blues by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Walk It By Myself by Blonde Boy Grunt & The Groans
A Box of Grass by Buck Jones
Rest of Our Lives by Mike Ness
Golden Grease by The Banditos
The Union Dues Blues by Chipper Thompson
Lookout Mountain by Bobby Bare
The Lonely Room by The Revelers
Oooeeoooeeooo by 6 String Drag
Dreaming Cowboy by Sally Timms
Reprimand by Joe West
Jam Bowl Liar by Homer & Jethro
The Kicked Me Out of the Band by Commander Cody
Big Fake Boobs by The Beaumonts
Third Rate Romance by The Amazing Rhythm Aces
Shit Happens by The Lonesome Heroes
Mary Mack by Al Duvall
I Miss My Boyfriend by Folk Uke with Shooter Jennings
His death wasn't unexpected. He'd been in hospice care for a couple of weeks following a reported heart attack.
I first saw him in concert in early 1972 at the UNM basketball arena, a place I still call "The Pit." He headlined a bill that also featured a new band called Z.Z. Top, as well as Black Oak, Arkansas. The crowd was an odd mixture of well-dressed middle-class African-Americans and scuzzy hippies.
Before King went on on, some guy a few rows in front of me got in an argument with another guy and pulled a pistol. Nearly everyone in out whole section ducked or scattered, I was a newly initiated blues fan. I just figured it was part of the experience. But no shot was fired. No blood was shed. The show went on.
And B.B. came out and killed. He sounded as wonderful as Black Oak sounded wretched.
About 10 years later I saw B.B. at the Paolo Soleri here in Santa Fe. He was just as good if not better than he was the first time I saw him. After the show I got to interview him back stage. I was just a freelancer for the local weekly, The Santa Fe Reporter, but he treated me like i was the most important music journalist in the country. Seriously, he was one of the sweetest musicians I've ever interviewed. We talked for what seemed like an hour, him telling stories of his life, which he'd told hundreds of other reporters.
So here's to Riley "B.B." King. Bluesman, gentleman, inspiration.
UPDATE: Here is a link to my review of his last studio album, One Kind Favor:
Here are some songs to remember him by.
The first B.B. King album I ever had was Live in the Cook County Jail. Here is my favorite song from that:
Back when I was in college, the KUNM Wednesday night blues show used this as their theme song.
And here's a Blind Lemon Jefferson song from a fairly recent album, One Kind Favor.
A couple of weeks ago, I was looking up information on a song called "Crazy Words, Crazy Tune" for a possible Wacky Wednesday post, a tune that I knew mostly from '60s era neo-jug bands. I found the names of the songwriters -- Jack Yellen and Milton Ager -- then quickly discovered that the pair had been responsible for some of the most memorable songs from the Roaring '20s, archetypal American touchstones of the Jazz Age.
Yellen , the one who wrote the lyrics, and Ager, who wrote the music, were responsible for so many hits, they could be considered the Leiber & Stoller of the Prohibition Era.
Yellen was born Jacek Jeleń in Poland in 1892, immigrating to the U.S. with his family when he was five years old. He grew up in Buffalo, N.Y. and for a few years worked as a reporter for The Buffalo Courier. But even then he was writing songs on the side. He died in 1991.
Ager was born in Chicago in 1893. He's got connections to journalism also. His wife Cecilia Ager was a film critic and reporter for Variety as well as The New York Post Magazine and other publications. Their daughter, Shana Alexander wrote for Life magazine and sparred with James J. Kilpatrick on the "Point/Counterpoint segment of 60 Minutes. Milton Ager died in 1979.
So what songs did these two write? Let's get to those.
One of their earliest hits was one called "Big Bad Bill is Sweet William Now." The earliest recordings of this were in 1924. Margaret Young and Billy Murray were among the stars who recorded it that year.
But my favorite of the early versions was from 1929 when Emmett Miller recorded it. (I'm not sure what the wedding photos in this video are, but I bet a guy named Bill got married around the time this was posted on Youtube.)
"Big Bad Bill" has several contemporary versions as well. Van Halen recorded it in the early '80s. But I prefer Merle Haggard's dandy version.
An even better-known song by this duo was "Hard-Hearted Hannah," also published in 1924. Here's a version by Lucille Hegamin.
But perhaps the greatest version ever was Ella Fitzgerald, who sang it in a 1955 movie called Pete Kelly's Blues. (And yes, you will see Jack Webb in this clip!)
Another Yellen & Ager classic is "Ain't She Sweet," written in 1927. One of the first recordings was by Ben Bernie and His Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra.
A British singer named Tony Sheridan recording this one, backed by a then-unknown band called The Beatles, in 1961 when they were living in Hamburg.
But probably Yellen & Ager's most enduring tune is "Happy Days are Here Again," a basic Chins-up-America tune written in 1929 and later adopted as the 1932 campaign song for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The Democrat Party adopted this as it's own theme song, often played during national conventions. But, according to The New York Times' obituary for Yellen, the lyricist considered himself a Republican.
Here is Leo Reisman & His Orchestra's version in a 1930 film called Chasing Rainbows. (Vocals by Lou Levin)
And here is the song that led me on this chase, a 1927 version by Frank Crumit of "Crazy Words, Crazy Tune," in which a nutty neighbor with a ukulele inspires homicidal fanrtasies. I still might do a Wacky Wednesday on this one some day.
Back in the '80s and '90s, when Rhino Records was actually a cool label, they released a series of albums called Golden Throats. These nutball compilations featured movie and TV stars, sports heroes and every stripe of cheesy celebrity singing ham-fisted versions of songs they had no business singing. Pop tunes, rock 'n' roll hits, country song, whatever. Nothing was sacred and nothing was safe from the Golden Throats.
Because of the exposure from the Rhino series, some of these unintentionally hilarious songsters became notorious and ironically hip. Think William Shatner -- the Elvis of the Golden Throats! -- and his over-the-top renditions of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "Mr. Tambourine Man." Think Muhammad Ali, whose musical career I covered a few weeks ago on Wacky Wednesday.
But there are so many more. Let's hear some of them.
Here's a little Kojack Kountry with Telly Savalas. We love ya, baby!
Jackie Chan croons the theme to CZ 12 aka Chinese Zodiac, a 2012 movie. He does his own stunts in the recording studio too.
Walter Brennan, makes "Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town" a Walter Brennan song.
This Golden Throat, Everett McKinley Dirksen, came from the U.S. Senate. This actually was a hit record during the Vietnam War.
And the Golden Throats will never die. Just a few years ago Scarlett Johannsson recorded an entire album of Tom Waits songs. Here is one of those.
And for the real zealots, here's a Spotify playlist :
Sunday, May 10, 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
Ain't it a Shame by Nirvana
Saint Dee by The Bloodhounds
Lupine Dominus by Thee Oh Sees
Little Black Submarines by The Black Keys
Pussy Riot by Acrid Fluff
Lipstick Frenzy by Lovestruck
Don't Slander Me by The Blue Giant Zeta Puppies
John Lawman by Roky Erikson
Gimme Gimme Gimme by Figures of Light
I Had a Friend by Jonny Manak & The Depressives
Bigger and Better by The Fleshtones
Spooks by Ghost Bikini
Dark as a Dungeon by The Tombstones
The Midnight Creep by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Mystic Eyes by Them
I May Be Gone by The Oblivians
Wade in Bloody Water by The Grannies
I Was a Teenage Kiddie Porn Star by Al Foul & The Shakers
I Got Your Number by The Sonics
Gimme Some by Sons of Hercules
I Got Worms by Archie & The Pukes
Snake Drive by R.L. Burnside
Not Enough Happenng by Hipbone Slim & The Knee Tremblers
Don't Answer the Door by B.B. King & Bobby "Blue" Bland
Troubled Mind by The Buff Medways
Crane's Cafe by TAD
I Predict a Riot by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
Shepherds of the Nation by The Kinks
You Are So Evil by Willie King & The Liberators
The House of Blue Lights by Don Covay & The Jefferson Lemon Blues Band
I Know I've Been Changed by John Hammond & Tom Waits
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
