THROWBACK THURSDAY: Happy Birthday, Leonard

He was a soldier, a preacher and a honky tonk singer. He was an Okie who helped shape what became known as The Bakersfield Sound, recording a bunch of singles in the 1950s with a lead guitarist named Buck Owens. He wrote hits for Merle Haggard, Faron Young and Mel Tillis. Haggard wrote a song about him.

He was born Leonard Raymond Sipes, born Sept. 28, 1930 in Bethany, Okla. just outside of Oklahoma City. But he would become better known under his stage name, Tommy Collins. He would have been 87 today, but he died in 2000 before he reached 70.

I first became familiar with Collins in the mid '60s from his guest appearances on my favorite syndicated country music show, The Buck Owens Ranch. His songs were funny and a little suggestive. I thought he sounded like another Okie hero of mine, Roger Miller.

But he also had a serious side to his songwriting. Later, he'd write the dark tale of adultery called "Carolyn," which Haggard would turn into a hit.

Let's celebrate Leonard's birthday with some songs he did with Buck and The Buckaroos on the Owens show. Buck plays lead guitar on this one.







Here is Collins' version of "Carolyn." (I still like Haggard's version best.)


And here's the song Hag wrote for his friend.

WACKY WEDNESDAY: The End of The World

No the world didn't end last Saturday.

(Or so they'd have you believe ...)

Once again some self-proclaimed Bible expert gave an exact date -- Saturday, September 23, 2017 -- when the world would go KABLOOEY as foretold by the ancients.

And now, this funky dude, "researcher" David Meade, says he made a slight miscalculation. The end will come in October. Meade now says.

That reminds me of a friend of mine who staunchly believed that Y2K would lead to a meltdown of civilization. When I chided him about this on Jan. 2, 2000, he said, "Well now I hear it's going to happen in a couple of months ..."

The history of religions, cults and weird beliefs in America (and I assume elsewhere) is full of Doomsdays that turned out to be duds. There are too many numskulls who believe this crap -- though there probably are too many of us who love making fun of it.

And a lot of musicians in recent decades have created a lot of songs dealing with the end of the world.

Here are some of my favorites.

Let's start with The Jefferson Airplane's greatest stab at apocalypse rock, "The House at Pooneil Corners." It was the final cut on their 1968 Crown of Creation album. The one with the mushroom cloud.

Everything someday will be gone except silence 
Earth will be quiet again 
Seas from clouds will wash off the ashes of violence 
Left as the memory of men 
There will be no survivor my friend 
Suddenly everyone will look surprised 
Stars spinning wheels in the skies 
Sun is scrambled in their eyes 
While the moon circles like a vulture 



This one by R.E.M. is overplayed, but I still love it. In contrast to the stern sincerity of The Jefferson Airplane, Michael Stipe dripped with irony as he rattled off the lyrics:

Six o'clock, T.V. hour, don't get caught in foreign tower
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn
Lock him in uniform, book burning, bloodletting
Every motive escalate, automotive incinerate
Light a candle, light a motive, step down, step down
Watch your heel crush, crush, uh oh



Tom Waits caught a midnighjt boxcar to Pooneil Corner on "Earth Died Screaming," the first song of his 1992 masterpiece, Bone Machine.

There was thunder
There was lightning
Then the stars went out
And the moon fell from the sky
It rained mackerel
It rained trout
And the great day of wrath has come
And here's mud in your big red eye
The poker's in the fire
And the locusts take the sky
And the earth died screaming
While I lay dreaming of you



Here's a lesser-known song by a lesser-known artist, Phoebe Legere. "Armageddon a Go-Go" appeared on her 2002 album Last Tango in Bubbleland.

The anchor man has seven eyes
Seven horns and seven ties
He says "The end is near
In fact, it's here."
The sky rolls up and disappears ...



But more than 50 years later, my favorite is still the classic by the late Skeeter Davis. Technically, "End of the World" is not literally about the destruction of the planet Earth. There are no stars spinning wheels in the sky or raining mackerel or seven-eyed anchor men. But Skeeter's sweet voice and sad eyes tell a story of personal apocalypse that still makes me shudder sometimes.

Here's a live TV performance of Skeeter Davis singing her greatest hit.


The End?

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, Sept. 24  , 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
Mess Around by Ray Charles
When You Stop Loving Me by Thee Headcoatees
Hangin' on a String by Question Mark & The Mysterians
Human Lawn Dart by James Leg
Oh Sinnerman by Black Diamond Heavies
Mon Nom by The Yawpers
Eleggua by Dr. John
God is a Bullet by Concrete Blonde
Hey Pendejo by Chuck E. Weiss

Break a Guitar by Ty Segall
Some Kind of Kick by The Things
Heavy Load by Phil Hayes & The Trees
Come Ride With Me by The Black Lips
Drowned Beast by Thee Oh Sees
Go Wild by Travel in Space

AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAZE
Globalquerque was this weekend. But the annual Fiesta Fela is coming up! 

La Muerte En Quillagüa by Pascuala Ilabaca y Fauna
Makiyage by Bideew Bou Bes
Centinela by Bostick & Fussible
Aseni by Orlando Julius
Vodka is Poison by Golem
Antory Peca by Cankisou
Zombie by Fela Kuti

Walking on Burning Coal by Gogol Bordello
Love Letters by Dex Romweber Duo with Cat Power
Change for the World by Charles Bradley
Mean Old World by Sam Cooke
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, Sept. 22, 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
War Whoop (Chief Paduke's Revenge) by Legendary Shack Shakers
Keep on Truckin' by Hot Tuna
Second One to Know by Chris Stapleton
I Need Me (a Whole Lot More Than I Need You) by Miss Leslie
Cathead Biscuits and Gravy by Nancy Apple with Rob McNurlin
The Sound of Laughter by Jocephus & The George Jonestown Massacre
Callin' My Name by Lara Hope
Rag Mama Rag by the Band
At the Darktown Strutters Ball by Hoosier Hot Shots

Hungover Again by The Imperial Rooster
Deeper in Your Love by Dan Whitaker & The Shinebenders
Six Pack of Beer by Hank III
Blue Moon of Kentucky by Reverend Beat-Man
Alien Baby by DM Bob & The Deficits
Waiting at the Turnpike by Dad Horse Experience
Arizona Rose by The Waco Brothers
Drunk by Noon by Sally Timms
New Old John Robertson by Chris Hillman

Traveling Man by Dolly Parton
Between Jennings and Jones by Jamey Johnson
Sunset Highway by Steve Earle
I'm a Little Mixed Up by Eilen Jewell
Fun All Night by The Banditos
Keep Your Mouth Shut by Beth Lee & The Breakups
Dysfunction by Joe West
St. Pete Jail by Panama Red
Vote for Me, My Name is Buddy Max by Buddy Max

House of the White Rose Bouquet by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Cumberland Gap by David Rawlings
Get Thee Gone by Geraldine Fibbers
Whispering Pines by Johnny Horton
Divers Are Out Tonight by Porter Wagoner
Given to Me by Southern Culture on the Skids
A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow by Mitch & Mickey
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets


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THROWBACK THURSDAY: I'll Be Down to Get You in a Taxi, Honey

It was 50 years ago this week that one of the greatest rock 'n' roll albums of all time was thrust upon the world. This was the second album, a self-titled album by a band that called itself The Band. Fans came to call this work "the Brown Album."

It's the album that featured "Up on Cripple Creek" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and "King Harvest Has Surely Come." And the opening scene is of a man being held at gunpoint,  for reasons never explained, by the woman he loves.

But even before I took off the plastic shrink wrap and opened my copy of The Band, the first thing that intrigued me was a cryptic inscription on the back cover"

“I’ll be down to get you in a taxi honey. Better be ready by half past eight. Now, honey don’t be late. I want to be there when THE BAND starts playing…” 

They were song lyrics, credited to someone named Shelton Brooks, from a song -- that did not appear on the album -- called "The Darktown Strutters' Ball."

I was a mere high school lad at the time and I didn't know if this was a real song or what. But, even with the actual songs on the album being so rich, so magical, I knew that I'd never fully appreciate The Band until I got my ears on "The Darktown Strutters' Ball."

Like The Band told me, it was written by Shelton Brooks, a Canadian-born African-American jazz composer and was first published in 1917. That same year it was recorded -- in an instrumental version --by a popular group called The Original Dixieland Jazz Band.



One of the first versions to feature the lyrics was recorded later that year by Arthur Collins & Byron G. Harlan.



Two decades later, Fats Waller breathed new life into the song.



And in the rock 'n' roll era, another guy named "Fats" put his stamp on it.

  

In the mid '70s an Australian band called The Ted Mulry Gang made what is perhaps the whitest "Darktown" ever.



Finally, here's a fabulously obscene version performed by Howard Armstrong with Ikey Robinson and Ted Brogan in the documentary Louie Bluie.

In 1976, this Blaxploitation movie about
"Super Sisters on Cycles" hit the nation's theaters. 

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