WACKY WEDNESDAY: Marxist Takeover

There aren't very many wackier than the Marx Brothers, And their classic comedies -- and even their not-so-classic comedies -- were filled with music. Here are some of my favorite songs from those movies.

First from the 1939 film At the Circus



A cowboy song from Go West



A classic tune by Groucho as Captain Spaulding from Animal Crackers



Chico and Harpo get down in The Big Store



And decades before the rock 'n' roll versions, Harpo was playing a serious harp rendition of "Blue Moon.' (another one from At the Circus)



UPDATED 9:10 am Thanks to Chuck for pointing out this omission. From Horse Feathers ...

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, January 10, 2016
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

OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres

Love is a Beautiful Thing by The Cellar Dwellers

I Wanna Come Back From The World Of LSD by Fe-Fi-Four Plus 2

Jane / Spectacle by Dead Moon

Til My Back Ain't Got No Bone by Tom Jones

Rub My Root by Memphis Slim & Willie Dixon

Ooh Baby / Wrecking My Love Life by Super Super Blues Band

 

Try it by The Standells

Bad Man by Thee Fine Lines

Rocket Boy by Lovestruck

Nest of the Cuckoo Bird by The Cramps

Down and Out by The Vagoos

Flesh Eating Cocaine Blues by Daddy Long Legs

Bittersweet Romance Party by The Dirtbombs

Pictures of Lily by The Hickoids

Out of Control by Wayne County & The Electric Chairs

Little Bad Wolf by The Tra-Velles

Moonlight by Jerry J. Nixon

 

Where the Good Doggies Go by Al's Equinox Party

Mean Heart by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

Swamp Buggy Badass by Quintron & Miss Pussycat

Put Me in Jail by Joe "King" Carrasco

People Who Died by Jim Carrol Band

It Ain't Easy by Javier Escovedo

Get Outta My Way by The Laughing Dogs

 

Mr. Face by Ty Segall

Two Sided Triangle by Any Dirty Party

Vega-Tables by The Beach Boys

Cheryl's Going Home by Miriam

Czekając Na Wczoraj by Kazik & Kwartet ProForma

Bittersweet Candy by The Barbarellatones

Moonbeam by King Richard & The Knights

CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, January 8, 2016
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

Tiger by the Tail / Building Our Own Prison by The Waco Brothers

Gotta Travel On by Jerry Lee Lewis

Purple Sprouting Broccoli by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band

High Noon in Killville by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies

Sweet Sweet Young 'un by Al Duval

I Like to Sleep Late in the Morning by David Bromberg

Barber Hair Blues by Wayne Satkamp

Go Down Old Hanna by Scott H. Biram

 

Drifting Life by Eric Hisaw

Keep on Truckin' by Hot Tuna

Ladies Love Outlaws by Waylon Jennings

Roll the Dice by Jimmy & The Mustangs

Long White Line by Sturgill Simpson

Trashy Women by Jerry Jeff Walker

Squeezebox by Tim Timebomb

Rockabilly Rebel by Orion

 

New Mexico by Peter Case

Call of The Wrecking Ball by Robbie Fulks

You Know I Love You by JD Wilkes & The Dirt Daubers

What Kinda Guy by Steve Forbert

Hank Williams Saved My Life by Ashley Raines

Right or Wrong by Kelly Hogan

I Can Talk to Crows by Chipper Thompson

Sweet Fern by Maybelle & Sara Carter

 

On the Banks of the Old Ponchatrain by Possessed by Paul James

Troubador Blues by Stevie Tombstone

Sweet Rosie Jones by Jim Lauderdale

Last Kind Words by David Johansen & Larry Saltzman

Elvis Presley Blues by Tom Jones

Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues by Elvis Presley

CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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THROWBACK THURSDAY: From the Land of Sky Blue Waters

When I was a kid some of my favorite TV commercials were those for Hamm's Beer. I loved the wacky cartoon Hamm's bear and his woodland pals.

This of course was years before I became an actual beer drinker. But maybe there was some kind of insidious subliminal Joe Camel psychology going on here. In my early years of college, I used to buy Hamm's beer to keep around the house. It was cheaper than the more popular beers, so when friends would drop by, they'd go for my roommate's Budweiser, Schlitz or Coors, leaving the Hamm's for me.

But I digress.

The other cool thing I loved about those Hamm's commercials was the music. The song was a pseudo Native American chant, heavy on the tom toms, with lyrics that began:"From the land of sky blue water ..."

Here. Watch one of those ads yourself




But it's only recently that I realized the phrase "From the land of sky blue waters" did not originate with the Minnesota beer company.

It came from a 1909 composition by Charles Wakefield Cadman with lyrics by Nelle Richmond Eberhart. The melody, Cadman said, was based on a song from the Omaha tribe collected by anthropologist Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838-1923).

Eberhart's words tell of a white woman captured by Indians. I know, I know, it plays upon some sick Caucasian psycho-sexual fantasies common in that era. But one of the captors doesn't want to rape the lightning-eyed beauty. He's in love with her.

From the Land of Sky-blue Water,
They brought a captive maid,
And her eyes they are lit with lightnings,
Her heart is not afraid!
But I steal to her lodge at dawning,
I woo her with my flute;
She is sick for the Sky-blue Water,
The captive maid is mute. 

Yes, this would make a hell of a beer commercial.

The song has been performed by some of the great artists of the early 20th Century.

Here is a very early operatic version by Romanian-born soprano Alma Gluck. (No, she wasn't a Jonathan Winters character. She was, in fact, the mother of actor Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.)



The Andrews Sisters made it swing (and added some hazy history about Christopher Columbus)



And finally, here is Harpo Marx with some fake Indian chief doing a strangely alluring version in the 1940 Marx Brothers movie Go West.




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

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Mash-up Smash-up!

Time to mash the music

Back in  2004 D.J. Danger Mouse remixed instrumental samples from The Beatles' White Album with vocals from Jay-Z's Black Album to create The Grey Album. (Listen to it and/or download for free HERE.)

Here's a promo video for The Grey Album.



For more than a decade there has been all sorts of hand-wringing  and belly-aching about the legality of all this. EMI, which holds the copyrights on Beatles songs, threatened legal action against The Grey Album, which provoked Internet backlash resulting in mass free downloading of the album.

And the floodgates were opened. For the past dozen years there have been countless amateur Danger Mouses bringing all sorts of unrelated music together over the Internet. Some of the efforts are better quality than others. But when they're good, they're a lot of fun.

Here is a handful of mash-ups that have made me chuckle.

Let's kick this off with those Fab Metallica Moptops



I always thought the Bee Gees would be a lot more tolerable if  they had some AC/DC in them



The Grateful Dead and Notorious B.I.G. share the women and they share the wine.



It's The Sex Pistols, Charlie Brown!



Finally, this one isn't really a mash-up of songs, just a mash-up of different realities.