Sunday, May 19, 2024 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM, 101.1 FM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell
Email me! terrell(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Earlier this week I saw Mississippi bluesman Cedrick Burnside play at the
Tumbleroot here in Santa Fe. As I suspected, Burnside, grandson of the late
master R.L. Burnside, was fantastic and any Santa Fe blues fan who missed it
should regret it.
But this post isn't about the music Burnside played. It's about a joke he told
Monday night.
It was a funny joke, but I already knew the punchline. That's because I was
familiar with this song I first heard by Gabriel Sanchez, aka Baby Gaby.
Here's that song:
Despite the name "Pepito" and Baby Gaby's exaggerated Mexican accent, I've
always suspected that the dysfunctional family poked fun at in this tune might
not be Mexican at all.
And in fact, that's the case.
The first known published telling of this tale was "Madame la Marquise." a
poem satirizing French aristocracy by British-born poet
Robert Service in his 1940 collection Bar-room Ballads: A Book Of Verse.
Here's how it starts out:
Said Hongray de la Glaciere unto his proud Papa:
"I want to take a wife, mon Pere." The Marquis laughed: "Ha! Ha!
And whose, my son?" he slyly said; but Hongray with a frown
Cried: "Fi! Papa, I mean -- to wed. I want to settle down."
The Marquis de la Glaciere responded with a smile:
"You're young, my boy; I much prefer that you should wait awhile."
Kind of wordy, no? It takes a few lines more before the Marquis gets around to
warning his lovesick son about the dangers of possible incest.
And that leads us to a classic zombie movie ...
In 1943, the calypso star known as Sir Lancelot (Lancelot Victor Edward
Pinard) wrote a song for -- and appeared in -- a creepy film called
I Walked With a Zombie. (But no,
Roky Erikson never covered this)
Lancelot called the tune "Fort Holland Calypso Song" (Not "Fort
Collins" as it's mistitled in the video below. My daughter lives in Fort
Collins and if there were any zombies there, I'm pretty sure she would have
told me.)
Check the scene below:
Notice the refrain and the melody are very similar to the song Baby Gaby
sings. But there's no story about a lad wanting to marry girls his dad thinks
are his secret sisters.
But skip ahead about 20 years and another calypso singer, Lord Melody rewrote
Sir Lancelot's lyrics, adding the basic ""Madame la Marquise" plot, and here we go. But I still don't know why he'd call his song "Wau Wau":
"Shame"-- or "Wau Wau" spread around the Caribbean. Puerto Rico-born pop singer Shawn Elliott had a hit in South America with his
version:
Here's Peter Tosh of The Wailers, backed by The Skatellites in 1965:
Tex-Mex folk-rocker Trini Lopez also sang of this troubled family:
Also in the '60s, Buffy Sainte-Marie sang an Irish-style song called "Johnny Be Fair," which tells the familiar story, though Canadian folklorist Edith Fowke quotes The Buffy Sainte-Marie Songbook, (1971) where the singer introduces "Johnny Be Fair," saying her song was "based on a joke I heard from an Irishman ..."
And this seemed like an affirmation to me. The strange idea that prompted me to look into this song was a weird and unsubstantiated notion I had that the story told in the Baby Gaby song I love might have originated in Ireland. "Pepito" is much closer to Lord Melody and the others posted above, but the plot is the same as Buffy's:
But as we all know, shame and scandal often leads to Madness! The British punk-ska group recorded this in 2005.
Now all us Cedrick Burnside fans need to convince the man to craft his joke into a song ...
Sunday, May 12, 2024 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM, 101.1 FM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell
Email me! terrell(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
The Holygram's Song (Back From The Shadows Again) by Firesign Theatre
Sunday, April 28, 2024 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM, 101.1 FM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell Email me! terrell(at)ksfr.org
Here's my playlist :
OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
It came to me yesterday after I ran into my friend Dan during my afternoon walk along the Santa Fe River Trail and he mentioned a Ty Segall album called Fudge Sandwich. For some reason that reminded me of Primus' album Pork Soda.
Then it got worse.
So here's. selection of songs from albums named for dishes you've probably never consumed -- and never would want to.
My drink order? How about a frosty can of ...
I see the soup d'jour is Goat Head Soup.
I can' decide between the Burnt Weenie Sandwich ...
Or the Fudge Sandwich ...
But I would like a side of Caviar and Chitlins
And for dessert, how about a slice of Spider-Cake? (I'm cheating here. This actually is an EP by a group called The Ashens, not a full album. But that's o.k. I'm suddenly not very hungry.)
