Friday, March 2, 2018 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
I Won't Go Huntin' With You, Jake (But I'll Go Chasin; Wimmin) by Jimmy Dean
Sweet Love on My Mind by Ray Condo & His Hard Rick Goners
King of Sleaze by Mojo Nixon
Pine Grove Blues by Mama Rosin
Diggy Liggy Lo by Doug & Rusty Kershaw
Honky Tonk Queen by Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys
Out There a Ways by Waco Brothers
Truth or Dare by Salty Pajamas
Driftwood 40-23 by Hickoids
The Bottle Never Lets Me Down by Sarah Shook & The Disarmers
I Will Stay With You by Emily Kaitz with Ray Wylie Hubbard
[Background Music: High Noon by Duane Eddie]
The Weald & The Wild by The Tillers
I Like the Way by The Imperial Rooster
Oklahoma Stars by Turnpike Troubadours
Go Ahead Baby by Jessica Lee Wilkes
Rain and Snow by J.D. Wilkes
San Antonio Stroll by Tanya Tucker
[Background Music: Gear Shiftin' by Pete Drake]
Nitty Gritty by Southern Culture on the Skids
Gas Girl by The Bottle Rockets
The Wine Flowed Freely by Stonewall Jackson
Down the Mississippi by Dad Horse Experience
Snake Farm by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Hippies and Cowboys by Cody Jinks
Cocaine Blues by Dave Van Ronk
[Background Music: Beneath the Willow by Bashful Brother Oswald]
Ring of Fire by Steve Ortiz y Mas Tequila
Leave That Junk Alone by Johnny Cash
I'll Trade You Money for Wine by Robbie Fulks
Empty Bottle by Calamity Cubes
Say It's Not You by George Jones & Keith Richard
Seven Bridges Road by Mother Earth CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Want to keep this hoedown going after I sign off at midnight? Check out The Big Enchilada Podcast Hillbilly Episode Archive where there are hours of shows where I play music like you hear on the SF Opry.
Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, aka Josef Stalin, the Fearless Leader of the Soviet Union (technically the general secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR) for 30 years suffered a stroke on March 1, 1953. He never recovered. Just four dayslater, in the words of American country singer Ray Anderson, "Stalin kicked the bucket."
Apparently country singers, including a couple of America's best-known hillbilly stars, had a thing for Stalin, Here's a 1951 "tribute" from Roy Acuff:
A year before that, Hank Williams himself weighed in on the Stalin question. (Unfortunately, Hank died two months before Stalin did.)
Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith wasn't nearly as famous as Roy Acuff or Hank Williams, but with his band The Crackerjacks, he had a thing or two to say about Stalin in 1950.
But let's let Ray Anderson have the last word. Here's his 1953 novelty hit:
American gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was born Fe, 28, 1906.
According to the Internet Index of Tough Jews, he was "a gangster who through a combination of movie star looks, murderous prowess and visionary instincts with respect to Las Vegas, established himself as one of the most enduring figures in American pop culture. "
(Personally, I just like the fact that there's an "Internet Index of Tough Jews.")
For Siegel's birthday here's a scene from Boardwalk Empire in which Siegel, portrayed by Michael Zegen, is being held hostage by Nucky Thompson's organization. Faithful readers should recognize the song.
Welcome to the freakishly delightful new episode of The Big Enchilada. It's a mutant sock hop for the Frog Girl and her swinging cohorts, rockin' and rollin' to a spectacular line-up. Party til you croak!
Sunday, Feb. 25, 2018 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
The Beast is You by The Electric Mess
Get Into Yours by Mudhoney
Anything That Moves by The Dwarves
One More Time by He Who Cannot Be Named
Necrophiliac in Love by Blood Drained Cows
Don't Curse the Darkness by The Bonnevilles
Flesh Eating Cocaine Blues by Daddy Long Legs
I Don't Wanna by Flying Over
Just Like Me by Paul Revere & The Raiders
(Background Music; Flight of the Bumble Bee by Al Hirt)
Sex Billy by Pocket FishRmen
Bad Betty by The Sonics
Pain by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Johnny Gillette by Simon Stokes
30 Seconds Over Tokyo by Rocket From the Tombs
The Cosed Circuit by Kult
The Man Whose Head Expanded by The Fall
(Background Music; Taxi Driver by Bernard Herrmann)
I'm Horny, I'm Stoned by The Doors
Teenage Barbarian by Rattanson
A Cutie Named Judy by The Sloths
Wade in Bloody Water by The Grannies
Lovin' Machine by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Evil Hoodoo by The Seeds
Dead Moon Night / Burn the Fires by Dead Moon
(Background Music; Blue's Theme by Davie Allan & The Arrows)
Baron Samedi by The Dead Brothers
Talkin' at the Same Time by Tom Waits
Sorry Somehow by Husker Du
Love Me by Flat Duo Jets
In That Great Gettin' Up Morning by Mahalia Jackson CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
There's a brand new Big Enchilada Podcast epsiode -- Frog Girl & Friends -- creeping around the Internet. So, keep the party going after I sign off at midnight Go to The Big Enchilada Podcast which has hours and hours of music like this.
Friday, Feb. 23, 2018 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
Never Be Your Darlin' by The Backsliders
Ruby Get Back to the Hills by Hank 3
A Real Country Song by Dale Watson Artificial Flowers by Cornell Hurd
Mean Blue Spirit by The Dead Brothers
That's the Day by Dad Horse Experience
He Kept to Himself by Ramblin' Deano
Highway Cafe by Kinky Friedman & The Texas Jewboys
It's Movin' Day by Charlie Poole
(Background Music: Cow Cow Voodoo by Clothesline Revival) PRESIDENTS SONGS
FDR in Trinidad by Ry Cooder
Mr. Garfield by Norman & Nancy Blake
Ex-Presidents Waltz by David Massengill
Over You by Sarah Shook & The Disarmers
La Prision de Folsom by Steve Ortiz y Mas Tequila
Have You Ever Been Lonely (Have You Ever Been Blue?) by Ernest Tubb
(Background Music: Roustabout by Clothesline Revival)
Five Brothers by Marty Robbins
Divorce Me C.O.D. by Wayne Hancock
Big Fake Boobs by The Beaumonts
I Ain't Got Nobody by Merle Haggard
Heartache by the Number by Ray Price
Linda on My Mind by Conway Twitty
You've Never Been This Far Before by Freakwater
This Cat's in the Doghouse by Rosie Flores & The Pine Valley Cosmonauts
Tear-Stained Eye by Son Volt
I Really Don't Know Me Anymore by Clay Blaker
(Background Music: Crawdaddio by Clothesline Revival)
When You Awake by The Band
With a Vamp in the Middle by John Hartford
Drifting Too Far from the Shore by Jerry Garcia, David Grisman & Tony Rice
Thirteen Silver Dollars by Colter Wall
To Know Her is To Love Her by David Bromberg
Passin' Through by Gary Heffern CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Want to keep this hoedown going after I sign off at midnight? Check out The Big Enchilada Podcast Hillbilly Episode Archive where there are hours of shows where I play music like you hear on the SF Opry.
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican Feb. 23, 2018
I’m a few days late in celebrating Presidents’ Day, but that inconvenient fact shouldn’t detract from this important American holiday. Actually, the holiday celebrated on the third Monday of February is still officially called “Washington’s Birthday,” though George’s actual birthday is Feb. 22. So I’m only a day late.
In honor of George and Abe and all the others, I’d like to present several tunes about past chief executives of this great land of ours.
* “Crazy Words, Crazy Tune” aka “Washington at Valley Forge” by The Jim Kweskin Jug Band. As it is performed by the greatest of the ’60s neo-jug bands, a listener might naturally think this tune is a surreal take on the life of the first president. The song starts out, “Washington at Valley Forge/Freezing cold but up spoke George/Said vo-doe-de-o, vo-doe-de-o, doe/Crazy words, crazy tune/All that George could croon and swoon.”
In the bridge, Kweskin tells of the father of our country playing his ukulele and shouting “red hot mama.”
Now that’s presidential!
The song actually goes back to 1926. It was written by Jack Yellen and Milton Ager (the men behind such ’20s hits as “Ain’t She Sweet” and “Hard Hearted Hannah”). In its original form, as recorded by Irving Aaronson and the Commanders, the “Washington at Valley Forge” part doesn’t appear until much later, sandwiched between couplets about Napoleon and Patrick Henry.
The original tune centers around a guy whose uke-playing neighbor, who I don’t believe is George Washington, is driving him nuts. I don’t know whether Kweskin rearranged the song himself or picked up this version from a more obscure source (more obscure than Irving Aaronson and the Commanders). Whatever the case, I salute his patriotism for putting George first.
* “James K. Polk” by They Might Be Giants. Ever so often, John Flansburgh and John Linnell write songs as if they’re moonlighting as writers for elementary school textbooks. “Why Does the Sun Shine?” is one of those. But the one they wrote about our 11th president — which appeared on their 1996 album Factory Showroom — is my favorite of these.
It’s also one of the few songs I know that uses the phrase “manifest destiny.”
The Johns sing: “Austere, severe, he held few people dear/His oratory filled his foes with fear/The factions soon agreed/He’s just the man we need/To bring about victory/Fulfill our manifest destiny/And annex the land the Mexicans command.”
* “Mr. Garfield” by Johnny Cash. There have been songs written about all four of our presidents who were assassinated. Strangely, the one I like best is about the president I know the least about, James Garfield, who was elected in 1880 and killed in 1881. Cash, who recorded it in the mid-’60s for his Sings the Ballads of the True West album, didn’t write the song. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott has the songwriting credit on this album, but there is a 1949 Library of Congress recording by banjo man Bascom Lamar Lunsford, who said he first heard it in 1903.
Wherever it came from, Cash makes the song his own, supplying a childlike wonder at the thought of someone shooting a great man like Garfield (“Charlie Guiteau done shot down a good man, good man”), as well as a very subtle shade of humor — as humorous as you can get in a song about a political assassination — especially in the conversation between the president and his wife, as Garfield urges the missus to find another husband if he kicks it.
* “FDR in Trinidad” by Atilla the Hun. The first version I ever heard of this classic calypso tune was the one by Ry Cooder in the early ’70s. It’s good, but it doesn’t match the sincerity and enthusiasm of the original by the Hun (Raymond Quevedo), which commemorates Franklin D. Roosevelt’s trip to the Caribbean island in 1936.
This is how folks in foreign lands used to react to visiting U.S. presidents:
“Struck by his modest style/We was intrigued by the famous Roosevelt smile/No wonder everybody was glad/At the great honor shown Trinidad.”
Barack Obama, who visited the land of the hummingbird in 2009, was the first — and so far the only — president since Roosevelt to go there. But if any songs were written about that 2009 trip, I haven’t heard them.
* “The Ex-President’s Waltz” by David Massengill. This sardonic tune by the Tennessee-born folkie first appeared in a 1985 edition of theFast Folk Musical Magazine.
It has an irreverent verse for each living ex-president at the time: Jimmy Carter (“Once he was president, but now he’s a saint/Once he was president, but now he ain’t”); Gerald Ford (“Oh the president came to my country club to play in a charity game/But you had to watch out when he teed off/He was known to cripple and maim”); Richard Nixon (“Oh the president came to my library to autograph his latest book/With his 4 o’clock shadow and sweat on his lip/He assured us he’s still not a crook”).
There’s one for John F. Kennedy (“Oh for the days of Camelot/The president sure had a ball/From Nikita Khrushchev to Marilyn Monroe/By God, he screwed them all”), and one for the then-current president, Ronald Reagan (“Send him to Hollywood, give him a pass/Once he was president, you know the rest”).
Maybe I’m showing my age by liking this song so much. A lot of youngsters probably don’t remember Khrushchev or Carter, much less President Ford’s golfing mishaps. But that’s history, kids. My only problem is trying to figure why LBJ got left out of this little party.
