Sunday, August 18, 2019 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
Commotion by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Plastic Hamburgers by Fantastic Negrito
Crane's Cafe by TAD
I Never Told You by Reverend Beat-Man & Izobel Garcia
I'm Bigger Than You by The Mummies
Dumb All Over by Frank Zappa
I Think of Demons by Roky Erickson & The Aliens
Leviation by Sleeve Cannon
Spin Like a Record by The Scaners
Morning Sun by The Molting Vultures
I Smashed a Mirror by Salty Pajamas
Big Booty Judy by Horace Trahan
When Fate Deals Its Mortal Blow by Meet Your Death
Axeman of New Orleans by The Tombstones
Ground Control by Boss Hog
Nothing Like a Busch by Polkaholics
Don't You Just Know It by The Sonics
Skinny Minnie by Night Beats
Lone Ranger of Love by Jack Oblivian & The Dream Killers
Shake Some Action by The Flamin' Groovies
The Arms by Ty Segall
Bad Dance by Sleater-Kinney
Enter the Void by Alien Space Kitchen
Public Image by Kazik & Zdunek Ensemble
The Bitch Done Quit Me by King Ivory
Miles to Go by Eilen Jewell
Surrealistic Feast by Weird Omen
Celaphine by Daddy Long Legs
Teen Angel by Sha Na Na
Singing in the Rain by Petty Booka
Love Letters by Dex Romweber Duo with Cat Power CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican Aug 16, 2019
I’d been aware of Eilen Jewell for a few years before I realized I actually liked her. She’d struck me as a decent, sweet-voiced songbird. You know the type: a waifish coffeehouse queen. I didn’t mind what I’d heard from her, but I didn’t pay her much mind.
But then I heard her version of “Shakin’ All Over” from her 2009 album Sea of Tears. Yes, that “Shakin’ All Over”! This cute little singer-songwriter from Idaho was setting herself up for brutal comparisons with OG rockabillies Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, not to mention The Who.
And she pulled it off in her own earthy, understated way. It didn’t have the bombast of The Who, but it was obvious the lady had rock ’n’ roll down in her soul. It was then when I started listening seriously to her material, especially her original songs on that album and others, and found it alluring. And I began looking forward to Jewell’s new releases.
And this was before I even realized that she’s a former St. John’s College student who used to busk for tips at the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market.
Jewell’s impressive previous album, Down Hearted Blues, which consisted of old blues and hillbilly covers, made my 2017 Top 10 list. But her just-released, Gypsy (Signature Sounds) is even better.
The record starts out with a swampy rocker called “Crawl,” that surely makes the ghost of Tony Joe White smile. That’s followed by “Miles to Go,” one of the prettiest songs Jewell has ever done (which is saying a lot). The lilting intro to “Miles to Go” might remind you of Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic.” It’s a sweet, yearning song of surviving life’s blows, even borrowing a line from Jesse Fuller’s “San Francisco Bay Blues”: “Ain’t got a nickel, ain’t got a lousy dime ...”
This theme is explored further in a subsequent harsher, bluesier song, “Hard Times” (“Hard times come no more/Hard times get away from my door/Don’t want to be mad no more/Don’t want to be scared no more … Don’t want to be disgusted no more.”)
A couple of the finest moments on Gypsy are “You Cared Enough to Lie” (written by Idaho country singer Pinto Bennett and the only cover on the album) and her own “These Blues.” Both are credible hardcore honky-tonk shuffles, complete with fiddle by Katrina Nicolayeff and lap steel by Dave Manion, both Potato State pickers. Though Jewell’s never pretended to be an actual country singer, it’s obvious since she did a tasty Loretta Lynn tribute album, Butcher Holler, a few years ago that she truly loves the hillbilly music.
Jewell even tries her hand at protest songs with “79 Cents (The Meow Song),” a funny tune with singalong choruses that deals with sexism and economic disparity, in which she sings, “Don’t complain or they’ll call you insane/People call me left-wing swine.” And there’s a reference to the current commander-in-chief, who’s “grabbin’ us right in the meow.”
This whole album grabs me by the meow,
And I don’t even have a meow.
Also recommended:
* Xoe Live in Madrid by Joe West (Frogville Records). Come, take a seat in my time machine, and let’s travel back to the forgotten time of 2010, when a young (well, he’s younger than me) Santa Fe singer named West released a concept album or rock opera —Xoe Fitzgerald: Time-Traveling Transvestite — telling the incredible story of an androgynous alien time-traveler who claimed to be the love child of David Bowie, conceived in New Mexico during the filming of The Man Who Fell to Earth.
In the summer of 1975, a bright light was seen falling into the hills south of Santa Fe, NM. Some claim it was a meteor. Others say that later they found a strange unearthly substance that appeared to be the remains of a flying vehicle. Shortly thereafter, a child was born to a young hippie girl who made her home in the old mining town.
After this spoken-word intro, West moved beyond the country rock in which he’s always excelled to a more glam-rock sound.
But even before West released Time-Traveling Transvestite, he and his band had been telling Xoe’s story in live performances. One of those, recorded in 2007 at the Mine Shaft Tavern in Madrid, New Mexico, has now emerged on CD for the world to rediscover Xoe.
Except for West, the band on the live album is completely different than the one on the first Xoe album. But most of the songs are the same, including “Frank’s Time-Travel Experiment,” the rip-roaring “Xoe’s Favorite Honky Tonk,” “I Got It All” (probably the hardest rocker West has ever done), and the sweet reincarnation tale “Butterfly.”
And both the cover songs from the 2010 album are here: “Laura,” which originally was recorded by The Scissor Sisters, an early-21st-century New York glam-rock band and, best of all, Bowie’s “Heroes.”
Some of the songs, such as “I Wanna Party (Like It’s 1985)” and “The Good-Time Kids,” are missing. I’m assuming they hadn’t been written yet in 2010, although if Xoe were truly a time traveler, that wouldn’t have been a problem.
And there are some recordings on the live album that didn’t make it on the 2010 cut, the best of which is “Black Car,” a tale of paranoia. And there’s “Robots of Rayleen,” which would appear on West’s 2008 children’s album, If the World Was Upside Down.
All in all, I have to say this music is timeless. And that’s how Xoe would have wanted it.
Here are some videos:
Here's the song that made me a fan
And here's the official video of "I Got It All" by Xoe
Lyndsey Parker, Yahoo News' music editor, must have been thinking along the same lines in an article published yesterday (Thanks Sean H. for pointing me there.):
..the kitschy ‘50s revival act, who’d originally formed as an a cappella group at Columbia University in the late 1960s at the height of hippie counterculture, and had only played seven previous gigs, were unlikely breakout stars at Woodstock ’69 — after the virtual unknowns secured a prime slot right before Hendrix’s weekend-closing set.
Somewhere outside of Madison, Wisconsin, I got picked up by three fools from Connecticut in a VW Bus they called Lightnin’. The Lightnin’ boys were like me: out on the road to glimpse Kerouac's vision before things started changing too much. We traveled together several days, had a great time, got chased out of South Dakota from a little drugstore town. Back on that first night, traversing southern Minnesota at night, we had dinner at a truck stop and purchased two 8-track tapes: Rock 'n' roll Is Here To Stay by Sha Na Na, and There Goes Rhymin' Simon by Paul Simon.
And we played those two tapes over and over and over until they let me off in southern Montana.
And just a few years ago I got to interview Bowzer from Sha Na Na for a column I wrote during a session of the Legislature. (He actually joined the group after Woodstock.)
Here are some videos from Sha Na Na's short set at the Aquarian Exposition. (I used to perform this song myself as part of my "Teenage Death Medley" (along with "Tell Laura I Love Her" and "Ebony Eyes.")
Nothing can stop the Duke of Earl
This is the clip from the Woodstock movie that made Sha Na Na famous:
And this is the greatest tribute to Sha Na Na
Remember these wise words of wisdom:
You can move to Montana And listen to Santana But you still won't be As cool as Sha Na Na!
Jimi Hendrix offstage at Woodstiock watching Sha Na Na perform
(from YouTube)
Sunday, Aug. 11, 2019 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
Rock 'n' Roll Murder by The Leaving Trains
Astral Plane by The Modern Lovers
The Green Door by Jim Lowe
I'm Cramped by The Cramps
Can't Slow Down by Alien Space Kitchen
Life on the Dole by The Molting Vultures
Unaccompanied by Sleeve Cannon
China Grove by Hickoids
Into the Valley by Kazik & Zdunek Ensemble
In A Parallel World by CTMF
Ask the Angels by Patti Smith Group
Cocaine Blues by Wayne Kramer & The Pink Fairies
Radio by Ty Segall
Oiuja Board Lies by L7
Wet Bar by Ross Johnson
Photographer Baron Wolman on Woodstock stage
Some guy named Carlos in the background
WOODSTOCK SET
Plastic Fantastic Lover by Jefferson Airplane
I Want to Take You Higher by Sly & The Family Stone
Mean Town Blues by Johnny Winter
Can't Turn You Loose by Janis Joplin (vocals by Cornelius Flowers)
You Just Don't Care by Santana
In Praise of Sha Na Na by The Dead Milkmen
It's Killing Me by DBUK
Fear by Eilen Jewell
Night Time is the Right Time by Bettye LaVette, Andre Williams & Nathaniel Meyer
I Want You To Hurt Like I Do by Randy Newman CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Today is birthday of one of the greatest soul men of the 20th Century, Joe Tex.
He was born Joseph Arrington, Jr. in Rogers, Texas. There is some dispute about the year of his birth, most sources saying 1933, though a website dedicated to him says that date is "misreported" and that he actually was born in 1935.
He died in 1982, just five days after his birthday,
Tex began his recording career at King Records in 1955. In 1958, he signed with Ace Records.
Here's one he did for Ace that year, an "answer" song to a Coasters hit:
But he didn't get a big hit until 1965, with a gospel-marinated plea for fidelity called Hold On to What You've Got."
Probably my favorite Joe Tex songs comes from 1971
And for the record, nobody except Bobbie Gentry herself did a better version of "Ode to Billy Joe."
