TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: SECRETS OF THE ANIMAL

As published in The New Mexican

When I heard "Once Upon a Time," the first song from My Secret Life, the new album by Eric Burdon, I was disheartened. Here's another washed-up old rock star pining for the good old days and that old-time rock 'n' roll. The second track, "Motorcycle Girl," which has a taste of Burdon's classic shouting and some flamenco-pop guitar, was better, so I didn't turn the CD off.

And good thing. The third song, a beefy minor-key blues-rocker called "Over the Border," is a berserk Tarantinoesque tale of drugs, paranoia, murder and betrayal. Burdon growls, wails and struts over the bound-for-battle B-3 organ of Mike Finnigan. Burdon attacks it as if this is the song that's been waiting for him all his life: "30 years on the highway running/I've got a trunk full of guns no love and no woman," he bellows in the bridge, his voice barely showing any age.

Burdon's been running down the highway for well more than 30 years. His old band the Animals is the most underrated British Invasion group. Sure, "House of the Rising Sun" is a mainstay of oldies radio. And "We've Got to Get Out of This Place" is used for great comic effect in Fahrenheit 9/11, as Michael Moore discusses the bin Laden family and other Saudi Arabians slipping out of the country right after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But the Animals never got the respect bestowed upon the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Kinks. Maybe it's because they were too meat-and-potatoes looking to become the darlings of French fashion magazines, like the Stones were. Or maybe it was because the Animals wrote little of their own material, most of which was old blues tunes and souped-up Brill Building offerings.

While others of his generation have remained in the public eye, Burdon basically sank from view after splitting from War, the influential funk-rock band he made famous in the early '70s. But he's been plugging away ever since, recording for tiny, unknown labels, doing an occasional Animals revival, playing casinos and living the blues he sings.

"Over the Border" is definitely the highlight of My Secret Life, but there are other gut punchers too. "The Secret" is full of crime and voodoo, while "Highway 62" is a tale of drugs, death and motorcycles.

"Black and White World" is a garage band/ska romper with an electric organ that recalls original Animal Alan Price.

Though the opening song, in which the singer yearns for the days of Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Elvis Presley and other singers, is a sentimental dud, Burdon does some tribute songs here that work. "Jazzman," featuring cool sax and trumpet, is a Van Morrison-worthy ode to Chet Baker, Billie Holiday and "Philly" Joe Jones. "Can't Kill the Boogieman" is a pounding invocation of the late John Lee Hooker. This is appropriate. Jillions of Americans, including me, were led to Hooker via the Animals' version of "Boom Boom."

And there are a couple of impressive covers here. Burdon does a slow, gospelish version of the Talking Heads' "Heaven." And the title song is a soul ballad written by Leonard Cohen.

This is such a rockin' CD, it makes me want to seek out some of Burdon's other little-heard works from the past 30 years.


Also recommended:

Ashgrove by Dave Alvin. Like Eric Burdon, Alvin pays tribute on his latest record to venerated old blues sages whose music moved him as a youth.

But the title song, a stinging blues shuffle named for the long-gone Los Angeles blues club where Alvin saw many members of the blues pantheon, isn't just a nostalgic look at the good old days. There's a gnawing dread and bitter regret here that undermines the happy boyhood memories. "Tryin' to make a livin', tryin' to pay the rent, tryin' to figure out where my life went," Alvin moans.

But not all is despair. As the song progresses Alvin makes it clear that his chosen path as a musician, "raising the ghosts" of Big Joe and Lightnin', not only gives him purpose, but gives a little joy and maybe even a little hope to the people he plays for.

Songs as good as this - and albums as good as this - indeed are beacons in difficult times.

And this is only the first song on the album, which is packed with jaw-dropping tunes; thanks mainly to Alvin's understated electric guitar, aided by guitar and steel-guitar monster Greg Leisz, the music is nearly as moving as the stories Alvin sings.

Some of my favorites:

"Nine Volt Heart," featuring Chris Gaffney on background harmonies, is the story of a kid whose life is changed by a car radio, which he discovers while his mom is looking for his dad in a bar.

"Out of Control" is a classic Alvin tough-guy tune. The narrator is a speed-dealing pimp who sits in his car with a gun as his girl is "puttin' on a show for some chump" in a motel room, and he sometimes calls on his ex-wife who's found the Lord, but he still likes to get "out of control."

Alvin wrote "The Man in the Bed" for his late father. Though he's weak and helpless and hospitalized, the old man has the spirit of the wild youth who rode the rails in the Depression and fought in World War II and organized unions, and who knows that he could have broken the heart of the young nurse tending him. "The man in the bed isn't me/Now I slipped out the door and I'm runnin' free." Alvin sings this sad acoustic waltz softly, as if he doesn't want to wake the subject of his song.

This is Alvin's first album of new original material since 1998's Blackjack David. After an album of folk tunes (Public Domain) and a live album (Out in California) I was beginning to worry that Alvin had lost his muse.

Those fears can be put to rest.

BOSTON BOUND

My friend Cathy, who lives up in that neck of the woods, has given me the harsh lowdown on Boston traffic during the upcoming Democratic Convention.

And now this from Maureen Dowd:

"Except for the fact that the Secret Service has already advised journalists to bring "escape hood respirators" to the Democratic convention in Boston in case of a terrorist attack, it looks as if happy campaign days are here again."

This is going to be fun ...

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: ROCKING THE LOVE BOAT

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican

It's pretty clear that New Mexico Democrats love John Kerry and John Edwards.

But it's also clear that New Mexico Democrats don't always love each other.

Case in point, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish and Attorney General Patricia Madrid.

The two ran against each other in the lieutenant governor primary in 1994 (Madrid won, but she and Gov. Bruce King lost in the general election.) And both are generally thought to harbor the ambition of one day being elected as the first female governor of the state.

In an interview Tuesday, the day Kerry announced that Edwards would be his running mate on the national Democratic ticket, Denish was talking about Edwards would help Kerry in the state.

When asked why Edwards came in a distant fourth in the state Democratic caucus last February, she said that was because his organization in the state wasn't strong. "You didn't see much of an (Edwards) organization here, just a few people out front," Denish said.

And who was in charge of Edwards' organization in the state? Attorney General Patricia Madrid.

But neither side on Wednesday wanted to rock the Democratic love boat - especially not with Kerry and Edwards coming to the state on Friday.

Caroline Buerkle, a spokeswoman for Madrid - and herself a part of Edwards' New Mexico caucus campaign - disagreed that Edwards' state organization was weak. But she said Madrid didn't want to comment on Denish's remarks. "We'll take the high road on this one," she said.

Meanwhile, Lauran Cowdrey, a spokeswoman for Denish, said the lieutenant governor didn't mean her remarks to interpreted as "a slam" against anyone.

"She just meant that she just couldn't identify a big organization for Edwards, whereas Kerry did have a big organization," Cowdrey said. "It was intended as a compliment to the Kerry campaign."

The return of medical marijuana: It seems like a different epoch back when Gary Johnson was governor and it looked like there was a decent chance that the Legislature might pass a law allowing New Mexicans suffering from serious medical conditions to legally use marijuana to treat their symptoms.

But it was just three years ago in 2001 when both the House and Senate passed different medical-marijuana bills. But because neither bill made it through both Houses, neither could be signed into law.

Even though Gov. Bill Richardson has said he'd consider signing a medical-marijuana bill, he also made it clear that it wasn't one of his priorities. Richardson appointed John Denko, an outspoken foe of medical marijuana, as Public Safety secretary. And when such a bill came to a vote in the House in 2003, many lawmakers who'd voted for it before changed their minds. The bill went up in smoke.

Though the political climate has changed, Reena Szcepanski, director of the New Mexico Drug Policy Project, said Wednesday her group intends to make another go for medical marijuana.

Though there hasn't been much movement in New Mexico on the issue in the past couple of years, Vermont recently became the ninth state to pass a medical-marijuana bill, Szcepanski noted. And polls around the country still show widespread support for the concept.

Support for medical marijuana hasn't completely evaporated in the Legislature. The winners of all three contested Democratic legislative primaries last month - Rep. Jim Trujillo, Rep. Peter Wirth and Senate candidate John Grubesic - all are on record for supporting a medical marijuana bill. (Wirth and Grubesic have opponents in the general election.)

Starr Time!: He was a solicitor general of the United States. He served two years on the U.S. Court of Appeals. He's the future dean of Pepperdine University School of Law. But come on, admit it. You only know him as the guy who examined the blue dress that led to the impeachment of a president.

Ken Starr, the special prosecutor who never learned what Bill Clinton's definition of "is" is, will be speaking in Albuquerque next week to a civic group called The One Hundred Club of New Mexico.

Tickets to the event (noon, July 16 at the Albuquerque Country Club) cost $20 per person. For reservations call 243-3525 by Monday.

THE ELVIS CONSPIRACY

I always knew deep in my heart that the story of Elvis was much larger than the story of the rise and fall of an entertainer.

This confirms it.

CLICK HERE

LAST HOURS OF NIGHT

My KSFR buddy and accomplished radio ranter Chris Goldstein has revamped his web site for his Wednesday night show The Last Hours of Night CLICK HERE

The new site includes a well-deserved rant against the cynical sham of a Clear Channel outlet based in Santa Fe claiming to be a "community radio" station. Chris doesn't name the offender, but it's KBAC.

Listen to Chris' show 10 p.m. Wednesday night on KSFR, 90.7 FM REAL community radio.

DEWEY BEATS TRUMAN!

Sometimes nightmares come true.

Here's every newspaper person's nightmare.

Here's the original story published in The New York Post, CLICK HERE.

And here's a story from the journalism trade publication Editor & Publisher. CLICK HERE

TO SING AN AMERICAN TUNE ...

Last night when I played Paul Simon's "American Tune" to cap off the 4th of July Terrell's Sound World, I was trying to explain to my co-host Laurell what that song means to me. Probably didn't do a great job doing that.

But then I remembered something I'd written on the old AOL No Depression Music Board back in 1999, a ranting that later was published in No Depression magazine (Issue #22, July 1999).

Here's the significance of "American Tune":

It was the fall of 1973; I'd just turned 20 years old (that was actually in Columbia, Missouri, at a bar called the Loading Zone; I'd just learned of Gram Parsons’ death), and I was on my first great hitchhiking adventure across these United States. 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.

Whenever I hear “American Tune”, my mind goes back to that bus called Lightnin': "We come on a ship they called the Mayflower/We come on a ship that sailed the moon…” But I just see this crowded VW bus, driver Bruce chugging bourbon while outmaneuvering the pursuing rednecks in South Dakota, or chugging up an impossible hill in Montana. I see Nixon in the White House, just starting to talk to the statues. Agnew was being prepared for the sacrifice... “We come in the age's most uncertain hour/To sing an American Tune…”

I recall us convincing the ranger at Mount Rushmore to turn on the lights even though it was way after hours, and all of us, maybe even the ranger, singing "America The Beautiful" when the faces were lit. Singing "Days Of ’49" in a campground restroom; hearing the Allman Brothers' "Ramblin' Man" in almost every other car that picked me up. And Sha Na Na: "If you don't like rock ’n’ roll, think what you've been missing…” I hear it all in "American Tune".

"Still tomorrow's gonna be another working day," Simon sang. Yeah, before we all knew it, just about every day would be another working day. But damn, the adventure was fun while it lasted.