From 1898 up through the 1950s, the 78 rpm record, usually made from shellac (beetle resin) was the major medium of recorded music. A big chunk of the artists you see featured on "Throwback Thursday" -- all those great blues, hillbilly and jazz artists of the '20s, '30s and '40s -- started out on 78s
Supposedly there were more than 3 million sides produced during the 78 era. But while the most famous and most commercially successful of those have been preserved onto modern formats, there are countless obscure old 78s out there that are in danger of being lost. After those old shellac artifacts are known to shatter in your hands without warning,
A George Blood turntable used for 78 rpm digitization of four simultaneous recordings with different needles. Fancy!
The Great 78 Project is a community project for the preservation, research and discovery of 78 rpm records. ... Already, over 20 collections have been selected by the Internet Archive for physical and digital preservation and access.
... There’s no way to predict if the digital versions of these 78s will outlast the physical items, so we are preserving both to ensure the survival of these cultural materials for future generations to study and enjoy.
And already there is plenty to enjoy. At this writing there are 30,495 songs on the project's Internet Archive home.
I'm going to post a few but I recommend you check it out yourself and get lost in the sounds of yesteryear.
Here's a little 1936 craziness from Hal O'Halloran's Hooligans: "She's Way Up Thar."
Here's one called "Jungle Boogie." No, it's not Kool & The Gang, it's The Bobby True Trio from 1948.
Country music star Roy Acuff is part of the Great 78 collection. Here's "A Sinner's Death" from 1947.
Here's a highfalutin, rootin' tootin' version of "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" by Dick Jurgins & His Orchestra (1941).
This is a 1927 record called "Hawaiian Dreams" by The Hilo Hawaiian Orchestra.
Ninety-six years ago this week, Sept. 5, 1921, an aspiring actress named Virginia Rappe suffered a ruptured bladder at a party in the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. She'd been in the company of one of the greatest comedians of the silent-movie era, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.
Rappe died on Sept. 9 at the age of 25. It was the end of her life. It also was the end of Arbuckle's career.
He was arrested on charges of manslaughter and booked without bail.
According to a 2011 piece by Gilbert King for Smithsonian.com:
The Hearst papers had a field day with the story—the publisher would later say the Fatty Arbuckle scandal sold more papers than the sinking of the Lusitania. While sexually assaulting Virginia Rappe, the papers surmised, the 266-pound star had ruptured her bladder; the San Francisco Examiner ran an editorial cartoon titled “They Walked Into His Parlor,” featuring Arbuckle in the middle of a giant spider web with two liquor bottles at hand and seven women caught in the web. Rumors that he had committed sexual depravities began to swirl.
The rumors were nasty. Some assumed he crushed her with his weight during an attempted rape. Some claimed Arbuckle penetrated Rappe with an empty bottle.
Basically everyone in the country assumed Arbuckle was a big fat perv who attacked this poor girl.
But not everyone believed it. Arbuckle went to trial for Rappe's death three times. The first two trials ended in hung juries. In the last one, the jury voted to acquit the comic, taking the rare step of sending him a note of apology.
Acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle. We feel that a great injustice has been done to him … there was not the slightest proof adduced to connect him in any way with the commission of a crime. He was manly throughout the case and told a straightforward story which we all believe. We wish him success and hope that the American people will take the judgment of fourteen men and women that Roscoe Arbuckle is entirely innocent and free from all blame. According to The Smithsonian article:
Arbuckle’s lawyers introduced medical evidence showing that Rappe had had a chronic bladder condition, and her autopsy concluded that there “were no marks of violence on the body, no signs that the girl had been attacked in any way.”
And the jury's hope that the public would take their judgement and realize Arbuckle was innocent didn't happen.
Arbuckle was banned from the movie industry for several months and basically considered box office poison. He worked behind the scenes as a director on some films under an assumed name. In 1933 he died of a heart attack.
Arbuckle's mug shot.
But one contemporary American jazzman did. Trumpet player Dave Douglas in 2005 released an album called Keystone, named for the Hollywood studio where Arbuckle filmed some of his greatest work (and yes, the namesake of The Keystone Cops.)
“Aside from liking the movies, one of the things that encouraged me to do this project was to vindicate Roscoe Arbuckle,” Douglas told Jazz Times. “I think that he really ought to be considered with Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd as one of the masters of the genre."
Keystone is a two-disc set including a CD and a DVD, The CD that contains 11 music tracks Douglas composed for Arbuckle’s films. The DVD features Arbuckle’s 1915 film Fatty and Mabel Adrift, accompanied by Douglas’ score and a music video for “Just Another Murder” that has footage from Arbuckle's 1915 film “Fatty’s Tin-Type Tangle.”
Here's "Just Another Murder."
But even after Keystone, Douglas continued playing around with music for Arbuckle's comedy shorts. This is "Moonshine" posted on Youtube by Douglas' Greenleaf label in 2008. It's the title track from his album released that year.
And here is a Keystone outtake called "Fatty's Plucky Pup."
Finally, here's Keystone in its entirety on Spotify
Last night the final two episodes of Twin Peaks: The Return aired on Showtime.
I miss it already.
And for those of you who miss it too, here is some Twin Peaks music to help ease the pain.
Let's start out with Special Agent Tammy Preston (in her guise as singer Chrysta Bell) singing "Sycamore Trees," written by Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti and originally sung by Little Jimmy Sott in The Black Lodge in the final episode of Season 2.
Here's the group Xiu Xiu, which recently recorded an entire album of Twin Peaks music, doing "Into the Night."
My favorite discovery among all the Roadhouse bands that played on The Return was The Cactus Brothers. These guys apparently worship The Everly Brothers -- and that's OK by me. I've been playing a lot of their songs in recent weeks on The Santa Fe Opry.
I also loved Rebekah Del Rio's Roadhouse song.
From the original series, James, Donna and Maddy sing "Just You." (James reprised this at The Roadhouse in The Return.)
But the singer most identified with Twin Peaks -- and rightly so -- is Julee Cruise. "The World Spins" is the song she sang in the Roadhouse (while Leland was busy killing Maddy back at the Palmer house) in the original series. She also sang it at the end of Part 17 last night. I believe this clip is from a Lynch/Badalamenti project calledIndustrial Symphony No. 1.
Sunday, Sept. 3, 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
Do You Love Me by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Dishonest John by The Jim Jones Revue
Open Minds Now Close by The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Rimbaud Diddley by Churchwood
Sisters of The Moon by Fleetwood Mac
Timothy by The Buoys
Linen for the Orphan by The Yawpers
Cruel Friend by Nots
I'd Kill For Her by The Black Angels
Green and Mean by Travel in Space
Claw Machine Wizard by Left Lane Cruiser
Leadfoot Down by Leadfoor Tea
Got Blood in My Rhythm by The Blues Against Youth
Betty vs. The NYPD by Jon Spencer Blued Explosion
Break a Guitar by TY Segall
Little Girl by Syndicate of Sound
Keys to the Castle / Man in a Suitcase by Thee Oh Sees
Power Child by The Night Beats
Fruit Fly by Hickoids
Another Girl by Satan's Little Helpers
Rock Out by The Chuck Norris Experiment
I Can't Give You Anything But Love by Louis Prima & Keely Smith
Ooga Booga Rock by Hipbone Slim
Stranger in Me by The Howlin' Max Messer Show
I Got You on My Mind by The Vagoos
What's My Name by Jon Langford's Four Lost Souls
After You Die by Tom Waits
Sycamore Trees by Jimmy Scott
My Prayer by The Platters
The World Spins by Julee Cruise
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican Sept. 1, 2017
The Rooster crows once again! The pride of Española, that ragtag band of rounders, rowdies, and reprobates known as The Imperial Rooster is back with Volume 4 — their first full-length album since Cluckaphony four years ago.
The group has gone through a few personnel shuffles, but this record shows they’ve still got their basic chaotic, hillbilly-nuts, jug-band-riot sound full of banjos, kazoos, honking harmonicas, wild rhythms, drunken harmonies, and devilishly irreverent lyrics. In other words, it’s my kind of party.
The core of the Rooster still consists of Nat King Kong (Enrique Martinez) on vocals, harmonica, jug, and “hobophone” (a fancy kazoo-like device); Cootie Leroux (Rob Tomblinson) on vocals, guitar, and banjo; and Kohrn Sirrap (Randy Perraglio) on banjo, dobro, and guitar. The newest Roosters are Carlossus! The Count of Monte Carlos (Carlos Rodriguez) on bass and vocals and Perro De Mal (Luis Rodriguez, no relation to the Count) on drums.
The album is produced by none other than Joe Frankland, better known in underground-country circles as Slackeye Slim. Slackeye frequently played with The Rooster a couple of years ago when he was living in New Mexico. Now a Colorado resident, he also adds some lap steel, dobro, banjo, and saw on the Rooster’s tracks here. (Hey, Joe, it’s been at least a couple of years since your last album. You’re about due!)
The ImperialnRooster live at The Burger Stand 2016
The album starts off with “cluckaphonous” fanfare that almost reminds me of Beirut’s first album. But instead of trumpets, you hear kazoos, banjo, and Slackeye’s saw. That’s fitting because the song, titled “Dangerous Times,” is a faux Balkan stomp. The lyrics are a call to action against “thought police” who want to kick down your door. “We’re living in dangerous times,” the refrain goes.
Later in the album there’s a fast-paced song called “Wage Slave Revolt” — a fantasy of a revolution, burning down the mansions of the “greedy bastards” in a struggle to “protect our starving families and to take back all our land.” But the revolt doesn’t end well, as the greed-heads strike back with bomb-dropping drones. The minor-key melody sounds like some kind of centuries-old ballad that might have been sung by sentimental veterans of the Whiskey Rebellion or some other old thwarted uprising.
But speaking of whiskey, most of the songs on this album aren’t nearly as political as “Wage Slave Revolt” and “Dangerous Times.” In fact, most are geared toward good, goofy, drunken fun, with titles like “Hungover Again” (where the Roosters sing, “Nat King Kong started crackin’ jokes and we started cracking cans/Goddamn, I’m hungover again”) and “No One Likes Me” (The sad refrain: “I don’t know why nobody likes me/I swear I’m being cool, everyone wants to fight me”).
But the most powerful of the boozer tunes is “Prolly Die From Drankin’.” Nat King Kong describes the horrible liquor-soaked, liver-damaged fate of various family members, reminding me of “Dying Breed,” a stark and chilling song about a family’s substance abuse by Lonesome Bob (also recorded by Allison Moorer). However, The Imperial Rooster is employing dark humor here, turning the song into a grim joke. (“A six-pack leads to a 12-pack/And a 12-pack leads to I-don’t-know/And I-don’t-know leads to wakin’ up in a ditch.”) So you leave the song laughing, but fully aware of the pain beneath the punch lines.
Being that this is an Imperial Rooster album, there had to be a funny, bluesy devil song. After all, the very first song on their very first album, Old Good Poor Crazy Dead, was “Your Friends Think I’m the Devil,” while subsequent albums have had songs like “The Hoover Farm Exorcism” and “Anything Goes at a Rooster Show,” which talks about L. Ron Hubbard telling Satan about “inner light.” So on Volume 4, the devil gets his due on a hilarious dobro stomper called “Demons in Your Head,” which builds to a climax in which Cootie sings, “After a week when the bodies piled up I knew she had gone insane … I wish I’d never fell in love with that mama rattlesnake.”
The album ends with an acoustic waltz called “Old, Fat, and Stinky,” about a guy who matches that description. He also suffers from aching feet and impotence. He blames his wife, who lured him into a life of obesity with a ham sandwich (with chile and cheddar). Like “Prolly Die from Drankin’,” it’s funny, but funny with a bite.
You can hear and buy — don’t forget that part — Volume 4 and all Imperial Rooster music at their Bandcamp page. Also recommended:
* A Black and Tan Ball byJoe Hunter & Joe Seamons with Phil Wiggins. No, this Seattle-based group is not as nutso as The Imperial Rooster, but fiddler Hunter and banjo man Seamons (joined here by harmonica player Wiggins) are the best string-band revival group this side of the South Memphis String Band (Alvin Youngblood Hart, Jimbo Mathus, and Luther Dickinson).
I knew I was going to like this album when I saw it starts off with “Do You Call That a Buddy,” a version clearly inspired by the one by Martin, Bogan, & Armstrong. It’s a funny little song about a guy plotting revenge on an ungrateful houseguest who eats all his food and tries to steal his woman.
Other highlights here are “Bad Man Ballad” (basically the murder song “Little Sadie”); a Louis Armstrong classic, “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue”; “Po’ Howard,” a tune from the Lead Belly songbook; and the jazzy “Do Nuthin’ Til You Hear From Me,” a Duke Ellington ballad that works just fine as an acoustic number.
Enjoy some videos:
Here is an early version of "Smilin' Ed" by The Imperial Rooster
An even earlier version of "Prolly Die from Drinkin'" (featuring original Rooster lineup)
The world is a carousel of color, wonderful, wonderful color ... and it's a rainbow of sound right here on The Big Enchilada. Sit back and absorb them all.
On this night in 1928, The Threepenny Opera by composer Kurt Weill and playwright Bertolt Brecht opened in Berlin's Theater am Schiffbauerdamm.
According to a website dedicated to the work by the Kurt Weill Foundation, the show "transformed saccharine, old-fashioned opera and operetta forms, incorporating a sharp political perspective and the sound of 1920s Berlin dance bands and cabaret. Weill's acid harmonies and Brecht's biting texts created a revolutionary new musical theater ..."
As Brecht said in 1956:
When The Threepenny Opera was originally staged in Germany in 1928 it had strong political and aesthetic impact. Among its successful results were: 1. The fact that young proletarians suddenly came to the theatre, in some cases for the first time, and then quite often came back. 2. The fact that the top stratum of the bourgeoisie was made to laugh at its own absurdity. Having once laughed at certain attitudes, it would never again be possible for these particular representatives of the bourgeoisie to adopt them.
Another thing The Threepenny Opera had going for it: a bunch of great song that still resonate today.
Here are a few of those performed by some folks who weren't around for the original show.
Let's start with Nina Simone performing a song called "Pirate Jenny." It's about a cleaning lady who has some pretty intense revenge fanatasies.
Tom Waits' music has obviously been influenced by Brecht and Weill. He actually covered a Threepenny tune, "What Keeps Mankind Alive."
Of course the most popular song from the show is "Mack the Knife." It's been covered by many of the greats of American music. And also by Dee Snider. But seriously, I get a kick out this version. (And that's Lee Rocker of The Stray Cats on standup bass!)
Indeed, "Mack" is such a big one, it deserves a double shot. Here is The Doors doing it to introduce another Brecht -Weill song, "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)"
