A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 29, 2011
American music would have been a lot poorer had German immigrant Chris Strachwitz not gotten the weird notion to make trips to Texas to record bluesmen Lightnin’ Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb a half century ago and start his own record company to make these treasures available to the public.
Over the years, Strachwitz’s Arhoolie label has given us music by some of the most important blues, hillbilly, folk, zydeco, Cajun, Tex-Mex and gospel musicians known (or unknown) to humanity. Arhoolie albums are like musical DNA, building blocks of a musical heritage most of us take for granted. Its catalog has branched out to include music from Mexico and the Caribbean, but it’s the sound of the rural South that is the core of Arhoolie.
In honor of Arhoolie’s 50th anniversary, the company has given us Hear Me Howling! Blues, Ballads and Beyond. The package consists of four CDs, plus a book detailing Arhoolie’s history.
Mississippi Fred McDowell with Strachwitz
Most of the music — four hours and 40 minutes worth — has never been released before, and many of those songs that previously have seen the light of day had only been on LP decades ago. All the music here was recorded in Strachwitz’s adopted hometown of San Francisco, some in the pre-Arhoolie ’50s. Tony Bennett might have left his heart there, but Hear Me Howling shows that other musicians just left a lot of great recordings there.
Some of the musicians lived in the land of Rice-A-Roni, but many were passing through and were captured live at festivals, coffee-house concerts, and even house parties. Mississippian Skip James, for instance, was recorded at Strachwitz’s home. Can you imagine how cool it must have been to have Skip James in your living room, playing your piano and moaning his ghostly blues?
James isn’t the only major dude to appear in this collection. There are San Fran bluesman Jesse Fuller, Sonny Terry (born Saunders Terrell, no relation), Bukka White, Lonnie Johnson, zydeco deity Clifton Chenier, Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, Rev. Gary Davis, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Big Joe Williams and, of course, Hopkins and Lipscomb.
Some highlights of this collection include Hopkins’ “Up on Telegraph Avenue” — also recorded at Strachwitz’s house — which is a funny and lecherous encounter between the old blues codger and “a little hippie girl” in a miniskirt who offers herbal treats.
There are four Lipscomb songs here. This soft-spoken guitar picker is a Texan, but his music reminds me a lot of that of Mississippi John Hurt, especially the tune “Sugar Babe.”
Some of the most intense songs are by Big Joe Williams. His session was recorded shortly after he had been released from the psychiatric ward of the local jail. Thus he sings “Greystone (Alameda County Jail) Blues” with blood in his eye. And “Oakland Blues,” sung by his wife Mary Williams, sounds even more frightening.
There’s even a 1965 version of the anti-war classic “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” by an early version of Country Joe & the Fish. This was a pre-electric Fish that sounded like the West Coast cousin of Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band. One thing I learned from the Howling book — Joe McDonald was named by his leftist parents for Joseph Stalin, whose nickname was “Country Joe.” Maybe this was a Communist plot!
Those musicians mentioned are just the ones you’re likely to have heard of. Some of the most amazing performances here are by those who are mainly known to Arhoolie devotees and other serious lunatics. For instance there’s the Rev. Louis Overstreet, a Southerner who ended up in Arizona, preaching at a church called St. Luke’s Powerhouse Church of God in Christ. Overstreet played electric guitar with his hands and played a bass drum with his feet, backed by his four sons on vocals.
There’s K.C. Douglas, a singing garbage man — I’m not making this up — who lived in Berkeley. There are four tracks by Douglas here including the title song. Most of his contributions are acoustic numbers — my favorite, “I Know You Didn’t Want Me” features a band, including sax and piano.
I had actually heard of Toni Brown before. She was in an old female-fronted hippie band called the Joy of Cooking that made several albums in the post-flower-power era. But I never realized until now what a great country singer she was. Hear Me Howling has three songs credited to Brown, all of them sweet, soulful acoustic hillbilly tunes in which she sings like a young Kitty Wells.
There’s also “Charles Guiteau,” a fun little assassination ballad by Crabgrass, an old-timey string band of which Brown was a member. And there’s an acoustic Joy of Cooking song, “Midnight Blues,” though I prefer Brown’s country stuff.
Santa Fe’s most prominent folkie, the late Rolf Cahn, isn’t on this album. But there are songs by two of the women he loved — Barbara Dane and Debbie Green, so Cahn is here, howling in spirit.
Country, blues, and folk tunes make up the bulk of this collection. But the fourth disc includes some jazz from the Bay Area by acts like the Now Creative Arts Jazz Ensemble, guitarist Jerry Hahn, drummer Smiley Winter, and saxman Huey “Sonny” Simmons. Interesting stuff, but Chenier’s “Louisiana Rock” and Big Mama’s “Ball and Chain” are the highlights of disc four for me.
Strachwitz is pushing 80 now, but Arhoolie isn’t showing its age. As a foreigner, Strachwitz found the music of America wild and magical. We should thank him and Arhoolie for letting us here these crazy sounds through fresh ears.
Check out www.steveterrell.blogspot.com. Arhoolie on the airwaves: Hear a special Arhoolie set on The Santa Fe Opry 10 p.m. Friday on KSFR-FM 101.1.
Blog bonus: Here's my personal Top 10 favorite Arhoolie albums.
1 America’s Most Colorful Hillbilly Band Vol. 1 by Maddox Brothers & Rose: These southern immigrants to California had more fun than hillbillies ought to be allowed to have.
2 Pachuco Boogie: The lion’s share of the songs and indeed, the heart and soul of this CD belong to Edmundo MartÃnez Tostado, an El Paso native better known by his stage name: Don Tosti. Tosti — an accomplished jazzman who became a jump-blues icon of zoot-suit culture.
3 Louie Bluie Soundtrack: This is music from a quirky documentary made in the mid '80s by Terry Zwigoff, who is more famous for Crumb. It stars fiddler/mandolinist Howard Armstrong, who plays blues, gospel and jazz tunes — not to mention a German waltz and a Polish tune. As he explains in the movie, Armstrong was fluent in several languages, including Italian and a little Chinese, which, he said, helped him get gigs when he moved from Tennessee to Chicago.
4 Live at the Powerhouse Church of God by Rev. Louis Overstreet. An electric guitar-picking, bass-drum-pounding preacher whose church was in Phoenix. Most of this album was recorded by Strachwitz during church services in 1962. But the CD version has some bonus tracks, including several recorded at Overstreet's home in which the preacher plays acoustic guitar.
5 Big Mama Thornton with The Muddy Waters Band. Good basic Chicago blues, recorded in San Francisco. I’d have hated to have been the “hound dog” Big Mama sang about. But the “Black Rat” she lays in on this album sounds like he’s in worse trouble.
6 Good Morning Mr. Walker by Joseph Spence. Bahaman Spence was an amazing guitarist whose thick dialect made him sound like a wino from Mars when he sang his joyful tunes.
7 Sacred Steel. This style of gospel music began in the late 1930s in the House of God, an African- American Pentecostal denomination. Although the steel guitar became popular in House of God congregations that were not able to afford an organ or piano. Arhoolie has done several sacred steel compilations. The first one, release in 1997, features some of the giants of the genre including Willie Eason, The Cambell Brothers, Aubrey Ghent and Sonny Treadwell.
8 & 9 Calypsos From Trinidad: Politics, Intrigue and Violence in the 1930s; and The Roots of Narcocorrido. These collections, although representing different countries and different styles of music, both are collections of songs, many of them controversial, dealing with politics and crime.
10 Old Time Black Southern String Band Music by Butch Cage & Willie B. Thomas, Recorded back in 1960, but not released until five years ago, this is nothing but party music, at least the way they used to have parties in the rural South. I was too young to have been invited to this party, but this is the next best thing.
* Rock N' Roll '50s Blues EssentialsThis is a generous helping of blues and R&B. and one of those bargains you can find on eMusic that keep me coming back.
Just one problem. Many of the tracks were mislabeled. It looks as if there are duplicates of several songs, 11 in all. It's not eMusic's fault. The same album is listed on Amazon and iTunes with the same mistakes. It's probably the fault of the digital distributor.
This points to one of the problems with the digital age. Without an actual physical product in hand, it's way too easy to spread the wrong information about an album. And with obscure tracks, who'll know but the fanatics?
Using several internet sources, I was able to identify 6 of the mislabled songs. But 5 of them still stump me. I'm not sure of the artists on any of them. They are Track 2 (It might be called "Tommy T"), Track 6, which I'm pretty sure is called "Take the Hint"; Tracks 27, 28 and 37.If anyone has a clue, please let me know.
I stumbled across this while searching for some early stuff by Guitar Shorty, who played a benefit in Santa Fe last month for our mutual friend Kenny Delgado. In this collection I found an early tune by Shorty called "Ways of a Man." It's a funny little tune about all men basically being scumbags.
Among my other favorites here are "The Hunt" by Sonny Boy Williamson, which is a humorous novelty tune about coon dogs, the two (!) Ligntnin' Hopkins rockers and Jesse Knight's "Nothing But Money." If Big Joe Turner was the Boss of the Blues, Jesse sounds like his thug enforcer.
But the compilers might have saved their best for the first here. "Get Your Clothes and Let's Go" by Crown Prince Waterford probably sounded pretty risque back in the '50s. Now it's just crazy fun. (Unfortunately this opening song is one of the mislabled tracks.)
What is it about calypso that can even make a song about injustice, poverty and murder sound almost ... happy? You hear very little outrage or despair in these songs. The singers -- who have cool stage names like Growling Tiger, Roaring Lion, Tiger, Atilla the Hun and The Executor -- skewer their politicians with a wise, sly smile and wicked lyrics.
Somehow these singers pull off political protest without the self-righteousness of so many American folkies or the pre-fab poser rage of second-rate rappers.
Wouldn't it have been great if we'd had Lord Executor around here in New Mexico to sing "Treasury Scandal" during the whole Robert Vigil /Michael Montoya mess.
Of course, politicians in Trinidad often were not amused. In fact "Sedition Law" by King Radio deals with censorship of the calypso menace.
(Beware! There's lots of mislabeling on this album too. Among other thins, they took the "growling" and "Roaring" from the Tiger and the Lion. Get it together, e-Music!)
* Sanders' Truckstopby Ed Sanders. Here's further proof that I have unhealthy obsessions about music.
Back in my early years of college, I remember KUNM playing this funny faux-country song called "Jimmy Joe, The Hippybilly Boy." Sung by Ed Sanders, a founding member of The Fugs, it's about a long-haired country boy who meets a tragic end.
I'd looked for this for years but was unable to find it. I'm not sure what made me think of "Jimmy Joe" recently, but I looked up Sanders on eMusic and lo and behold ...
I probably should have just downloaded that song. It's still funny to me. There may be a couple of others -- For instance, "The Iliad," which is the tale of the legendary shit-kicking homophobe Johnny Pissoff. And maybe "Banshee," which is about one of Satan's demon lovers.
But most of the rest of the album doesn't hold up. The hippie humor is dated and Sander's fake hick accent gets annoying. If you want to hear really funny, really warped music about rednecks and hippies, check outTwisted Tales from the Vinyl Wastelands Volume 4: Hippie in a Blunder.
In Ed's defense though, you could argue that his work was a precursor to Mojo Nixon, Angry Johnny & The Killbillies and maybe even Southern Culture on the Skids (though none of the Hemptones can pick a guitar anything like SCOTS' Rick Miller can.)
There's some cross-cultural hijinx that would make 3 Mustaphas 3's heads spin. For instnace "Diew Sor Diew Caan" by Thong Huad & Kunpan basically is an Irish fiddle reel gone Siamese.
You can find direct influences from Western rock and pop in these grooves. Because none of the songs on this Soundways collection are sung in English, it's not as obvious as the Thai Beat a Go-Go collections where you find Siamese versions of songs like "Hit the Road Jack," "Lady Madonna" and Hank Williams' Kaw-Liga.
But on "Sao Lam Plearn," The Petch Phin Thong Band draws straight from "Jumping Jack Flash, " And in the middle of "Kai Tom Yum" by Kawaw Siang Thong, the melody seems to change to that of Leo Sayer's 1970s AM Radiio sap hit "More Than I Can Say." (But since Leo didn't release that song until the late '70s, Thong probably got the tune from the earlier version by Bobby Vee.)
For those who don't speak the language, the rueful laughter and dialog toward the end of "Kai Tom Yum" by Kawaw Siang Thong might sound sinister, like foreign mobsters about to commit some atrocity.
But it doesn't get anywhere as sinister as The Viking Combo Band's "Pleng Yuk Owakard" The title means "Space Age Music," but with its Dirty Dog bass, shouted lyrics, machine-gun drums and weirdo organ, it sounds like a murder after hours at a roller rink. (This song was included on Thai Beat a Go-Go Volume 1. Except there it's called "Phom Rak Khoon Tching Thing (I Really Do Love You)")
* Two songs fromBattle of the Jug Bands. I'd never heard of any of these groups on this album, released in 2000. But who cares? The beauty of jug band music is that anyone with the proper spirit (and in some cases, proper spirits) can play it. The album is connected with an actual annual event, the "Battle of the Jug Bands," which takes place in Minneapolis every weekend after the Superbowl.
I picked up jug band versions of "Kung Fu Fighting" by a group called Girls on Top and the Rolling Stones classic "Sweet Virginia" -- a natural for a jug band treatment -- by Hoakim Yoakim & The Eggwhites. More on this album next month.
* Hentch-Forth.Five featuring Jack Whiteby The Hentchmen. Back in 998 Detroit's Hentchmen, led by Farfisa fiend John Hentch (aka John Szymanski, aka Johnny Volare), had a bass player named Jack White who went on to become singer and guitarist for The White Stripes. Detroit’s Italy Records has remastered the album, originally released on vinyl only, and rereleased it on the same day The White Stripes’ new album, Icky Thump, was released. My favorite tracks here are “Some Other Guy,” in which White and Hentch harmonize like the early Beatles and “Psycho Daisies,” an obscure Yardbirds tune.
*April March Sings Along With The Makers . I'd never heard of Ms. March until Grindhouse. She sings the song "Chick Habit" during the closing credits. I'd assumed, despite the name, she was Japanese. She's not. Lots of people think she's French because she recorded an album of French pop tunes -- or at least tunes that sounded like French pop. But no, April's all American and this is nothing but good old garage punk fare with echos of "Psychotic Reaction." She sounds kind of like the gal in Daisy Chainsaw (remember "Love Your Money"?)
* Naughty Bawdy & Blue by Maria Muldaur. It was predetermined nearly 40 years ago that I would get this album -- first time I heard Maria, then with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, coo the words, "red rooster say cock-a-doddly-doo/ Richland woman say, `any dude'll do' ... "
She re-recorded "Richland Woman Blues" for an album of that title about five years ago -- and sounded, if anything more sexy than she did when she was a young woman.
Maria continues along that line in this collection of old classic-era blues songs from the likes of Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith and Victoria Spivey. She loves this stuff and that love is infectuous.
However lovers of naughty and bawdy music beware. The title of this album is an oversell. The bawdiness doesn't go much beyond double entendres like the ones in Hunter's "Handyman." There's no Lucille Bogan songs here or anything like the raunchy tunes found on collections like Please Warm My Weiner.
But for those of us with strong dirty imaginations, this album is just fine. Like a modern Sophie Tucker, Maria Muldaur is the last of the red-hot mammas.
*Live at Montreux 2004 by George Clinton & Parliament/Funkadelic . Thirty years beyond P-Funk's golden era, Clinton and his aging band of funky pranksters are just as tight and proficient as the old days. Actually this is a great companion to Live: Meadowbrook, Rochester, Michigan 12th September 1971, which I downloaded several months ago.
There's not a whole lot of surprises here -- Bop Gun" and "Atomic Dog" are as funk-filled as ever -- except the appearance of Clinton's granddaughter (!) Sativa, who offers some truly "naughty, bawdy and blue raps" on "Something Stank" and "Hard as Steel," and "Whole Lotta Shakin'," which actually is a medley of '50s rock tunes showing Clinton's love for that era.
My main complaint about this album is that there's no liner notes (a major drawback of downloading in general) and the credits found on the eMusic page (as well as the Allmusic entry) are threadbare. I want to know which of the original P-Funsters are playing here.
* Texas, 1986: Live at the Continental Clubby Sonic Youth. Anyone who has ever been to Austin's Continental Club knows it's a pretty small place. This had to be LOUD AS HELL! (No, the picture here isn't the Continental. I took this at the 1995 Lollapalooza in Denver.)
This was back when most of America -- myself included -- was unaware of Sonic Youth, a couple of years before Daydream Nation woke up to them. In fact this was right about the time of their album EVOL. They're grating and noisy, a little scary and driven. And of course "Expressway to Yr Skull" is pure majesty. What would we have done without them?
* Bad Blood In The City: The Piety Street Sessionsby James Blood Ulmer. Singer/guitarist Ulmer is a jazz man who has played with the likes of Ornette Coleman and Art Blakey. But in recent years his art has taken him deeper and deeper into the blues. I loved his 2005 album Birthright, but this new one is even more exciting. It was recorded in New Orleans' Piety Street Studios with a full band.
There are several covers of songs by Son House, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker and Junior Kimbrough, as well as originals, including songs inspired by Hurricane Katrina.
Ulmer's main strength is that he captures the mysteriousness of the blues. Even when the band is rocking, you can imagine Ulmer in a graveyard, sitting on a tombstone playing his guitar and shouting melodies that double as secret incantations and dark warnings.
*Paint The White House Black by The Dick Nixons. There's political commentary and then there's political commentary!
I first heard The Dick Nixons about 10 years ago on the Star Power compilation, a tongue-in-cheek celebration of those '70s K-Tell compilations advertised on late night T.V. This band covered the wimp-rock classic "One Tin Soldier," purposely confusing the legends of Tricky Dick and Billy Jack.
There's lots more Nixon songs on this CD, released in the early '90s when their hero was still alive. But what convinced me to download this wasn't the hilarious cargo-cult-like glorification of the disgraced 37th President. It was even the fact that the album was produced by Memphis wizard Jim Dickinson.
It's because there's a punk apocalypse cover of one of the greatest hits of New Mexico Music Commissioner Tony Orlando: "Knock Three Times." I'm waiting for the band to re-form as The Tony Orlandos.
*In C by Bang on a Can & Terry Riley. Back in my Dr. Strange days, Terry Riley's Rainbow in Curved Air provided the soundtrack to a memorable excursion into the Eternal Vishanti.
Riley, of course is considered a father of minimlism. This collaboration with Bang on a Can on one of his his influential compositions could be considered minimalism to the max. You've got a violin, mandolin, woodwinds, glockenspiel, cello, marimba and who knows what else, all playing off the note of C -- more more than 45 minutes.
It's mediatative without a trace of New Age mush, almost robotic in its pulsating rhythms, yet with undeniable soul.
PLUS:
*"Diamond in Your Mind" by Tom Waits with the Kronos Quartet. This is a single released from an upcoming album called Healing the Divide, a benefit for an organization that provides healtcare and insurance for impoverished Tibetan monks. This is an inspiration little song that Waits wrote for Solomon Burke a few years ago. Unlike some Kronos collaborations, the Quartet doesn't overwhelm Waits. In fact, you barely know they're there.
* Louie Bluie Film Soundtrack by Howard Armstrong. About 30 years ago, my pal Alec turned me on to a fun little LP called Martin, Bogan & Armstrong. It was an old African-American string band recorded in the early '70s.
It wasn't "blues," there there were some bluesy tunes there. It wasn't "jug band." These guys were playing mainly pop and jazz tunes of bygone eras. The players were old guys but all excellent musician -- and they were full of Hell. They'd been playing together in various combinations since the '30s under names such as The Tennessee Chocolate Drops and The Four Keys.
For instance, they start out with a straight version of the uptight WASPy frat song "Sweetheart of Sigma Chi" (which before, I'd only heard performed by The Lettermen!) before they slip into a parody that was popular in the '20s ("She's the sweetheart of six other guys.") But my favorite MB&A song was "Do You Call That Buddy," which has a line that stuck with me for years: "If I had a million doughnuts, durn his soul, I wouldn't even give him a doughnut hole."
Just a few years ago I found Martin, Bogan & Armstrong on CD, as part of a twofer with a subsequent album That Old Gang of Mine. But even more recently I discovered a documentary called Louie Bluie made in the mid '80s directed by Terry Zwigoff, who is more famous for Crumb. The title character of Louie turns out to be fiddler/mandolinist Howard Armstrong. Also featured here is guitarist, singer Ted Bogan -- who catches continual unmerciful ribbing from Armstrong throughout the film.
The film tells the story of Armstrong (who got the nickname of "Louie Bluie" from a tipsy mortician's daughter) To quote Roger Ebert, "The movie is loose and disjointed, and makes little effort to be a documentary about anything. Mostly, it just follows Armstrong around as he plays music with Bogan, visits his Tennessee childhood home, and philosophizes on music, love and life." And I love it.
This soundtrack album on Arhoolie captures some of the greatest moments of the film, as well as some that didn't make the final cut. There's a delightfully filthy version of "Darktown Strutter's Ball." There's blues, gospel and jazz tunes. Also, a German waltz and a Polish tune. Yes, Armstrong, as he explains in the movie, was fluent in several languages, including Italian and a little Chinese. This, he said, helped him get gigs when he moved to Chicago.
Included on this album are some old songs originally released on 78rmp records, including some with Yank Rachell, who appears in the movie. A couple of these feature Sleepy John Estes on vocals.
Armstrong died in 2003 at the age of 94.
*Unentitled by Slim Cessna's Auto Club. This band often is billed as a "country gothic" band. Led by Cessna, who shares vocal duties with sidekick Jay Munly, the Auto Club often takes the guise as sinners in the hands of an angry God.
But on this album, which some critics are saying is the group's most accessible, so many songs are so upbeat and happy sounding, I really don't think the "gothic" label does them justice.
True, they've that 16 Horsepower banjo apocalypse vibe going full force on the first song, "Three Bloodhounds Two Shepherds One Fila Brasileiro" a harrowing tale that deals with bloodhounds being set loose on some hapless target, perhaps an escaped prisoner.
However, the very next song takes off with an eye-opening, frantic, almost '90s ska-like beat. The music is fierce and thundering and not very "country." Then the following song "Thy Will Done" gets back to the banjo with an almost raga-like melody and some otherworldly whistle instrument I've yet to identify. The only thing this one lacks is Tuvan throat singers.
That old time religion is a major theme with the Auto Club. The 7-minute "Hallelujah Anyway" is a twisted tale of an arranged wedding. But even better is the closing song, "United Brethren," an emotional song of a preacher losing his congregation to another church -- just as his great-grandfather had experienced. It's not a problem most of us will ever face, but as Munly pleads, "Lord have mercy upon us ..." in his lonesome tenor with just an autoharp behind him, only the the most hard-hearted heathen would be unmoved.
* The Swan Silvertones 1946-1951. And speaking of spiritual crisis, the song "A Mother's Cry" on this album starts out with "Oh this world is in confusion .." -- and the listener isn't confused at all. It's the story of a mother whose son is fighting overseas. I would guess Korea.
Yes, those post WWII years covered by this album were confusing times indeed and, probably not coincidentally, great years for Black gospel music as well.
Take "Jesus is God's Atomic Bomb," another tune in this collection. The Silvertones sing, "Oh have you heard about the blast in Japan/How it killed so many people and scorched the land." But it gets scarier. "Oh it can kill your natural body, but the Lord can kill your soul ...'
Yikes! World in confusion indeed.
The Swan Silvertones was an a capella group led by the great Claude Jeter, a former coal miner from Kentucky who wrote many of the songs here, including the ones I mentioned. This album captured their years at King Records. They weren't as raw sounding as The Five Blind Boys of Mississippi. They didn't have the irresistible personality of Sister Rosetta Tharpe or the sweet grace of Mahalia Jackson. But the Silvertones were solid and credible. And even now, a respite for confusing times.
* The tracks I didn't get last month from Hannibalism!by The Mighty Hannibal. This is not your average obscure lost '60s soul-shouter compilation. This album contains the greatest anti-war song of the Vietnam era that you've never heard. Written and recorded in 1966, "Hymn #5" is a first-person tale of a scared soldier. It's a minor-key moan that sounds like one of the spookiest minor-key gospel songs you can imagine.
"I'm waaaaayyyy over here, crawling' in these trench holes, covered with blood. But one thing that I know, (chorus comes in) There's no tomorrow, there's no tomorrow ..."
There's a sequel that came four years later -- following a stint in prison by Hannibal for tax evasion -- another soldier's-eye-view of the war. It's good, but not a fraction as jolting as "Hymn #5."
I love Hannibal's early dance '60s tunes like "Jerkin' the Dog" (Settle down, Beavis!) and "Fishin' Pole." But I find his religious cautionary tales extremely fascinating. The moral of "The Truth Shall Make You Free" basically is that Jesus can help you kick heroin. Hardly original, but Hannibal sings with wild conviction. He was an addict for some years in the '60s. "There's nothin' I wouldn't do when I needed a fix/ I met the mother of my children goin', turning tricks," Hannibal testifies. And its dark psychedelic/Blaxplotation guitar touches and the "Pappa Was a Rollin' Stone" bass line make you wonder why the song and the singer didn't become better known.
Even wilder is the final song, "Party Life." What can you say about a song that starts out "There was a pimp by my house the other day ..." Next thing you know, said pimp has taken the singer's daughter and she ends up in a hospital in Kentucky in such bad mental condition she doesn't even recognize her own dad. Seriously, people, keep those pimps away from your home!
I haven't done this since right before I retired in late 2019, but there were
so many fine albums released in 2023 I've decided to make a Top 10 list this
year, even though this blog is my only platform.
Except I couldn't reduce it down to 10. So I'm giving you my Top 15. (In 2019,
I only did my "Top 8" because there was still more than a month to go before
in the year until I quit my job.)
So here you go, my favorites of 2023. These are listed by album title in alphabetical order. (I frequently have trouble choosing -- then sticking with -- a choice for number one.) I immediately noticed that this meant that my top three records present are in the country/bluegrass mode. So nice break there, you hillbillies. But if you aren't into country: 1) You can kiss my ass; 2) Just keep scrolling down.
By the way, all the song titles below are linked to the albums' various Bandcamp sites (except Marty Stuart's album, which isn't on Bandcamp), where you can listen to and BUY. (Yes, students, you should actually purchase music you like!)
Happy New Year, pendejos!
*All Bad
by Nick Shoulders. One reason I was hesitant in 2019 to do a full Top 10 albums list was because I sometimes late, late in the year, stumble upon a record so magical, it becomes an instant favorite. That was certainly the case in 2019 when in late, late December I stumbled upon an album called Okay, Crawdad by a backwoods crooner named Nick Shoulders. I discovered Crawdad too late for my final New Mexican column but just in time to include in theNashville Scene Country Music Critics Poll, published in January 2020. "I’ve been a fanatical fan of an Arkansas-born singer named Nick Shoulders for — at this writing — several days now," I wrote when submitting my list.
Shoulders has done two albums since then, Home on the Rage in 2021 and this one earlier this year. And yes, I'm still a fanatical fan of this nasal voiced bard of the Ozarks, who's apparently accepted Jimmie Rodgers as his personal savior. With his minimalist band, named for the album that first drew me to him, Shoulders' basic sound hasn't changed. There is still plenty of yodeling and whistling -- and some occasional mouth bow. And he keeps writing memorable tunes including the title song, the upbeat "It's the Best?" and "Won't Fence Us In," in which Shoulders reimagines the old Bing Crosby psuedo cowboy song, with a Joni Mitchell "Big Yellow Taxi" thematic twist.
Because Shoulders has carved a niche as a hillbilly environmentalist, he doomed any chance of being invited to perform with Kid Rock Hank Junior and Jason Aldean at the upcoming Rock the Country festival. Something tells me Nick doesn't care.
*
Altitude
by Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives. I'm going to try to write this blurb without mentioning The Byrds.
Oh shit, I can't do it.
With this record it's impossible not to recognize the impact that late-period Byrds has had on Stuart. Just listen to the opening instrumental "Lost Byrd Space Train ("Scene 1)" and it sounds as if he's non-verbally explaining how "Eight Miles High" led to Sweetheart of the Rodeo. You might even consider this a showcase of Stuart's knack of stretching the surly bonds of traditional country without once sounding as if he's abandoning his roots.
One of my greatest joys at a Marty Stuart show was when he did the garage-punk classic "Psychotic Reaction" as an encore a couple of years ago. I was slightly disappointed he didn't include that Count Five fave on this album, but there are plenty of strong, country-fried rockers on Altitude such as "Country Star," "Tomahawk" and especially "A Friend of Mine," which I've embedded below.
*Bluegrass Vacation by Robbie Fulks. Fulks albums frequently made my annual Top 10 lists. Even Fulks' genre exercises like his previous album with rockabilly matron Linda Gail Lewis and his latest one (in case the title didn't tip you off, this is a bluegrass album) are full of Fulks' heart and wit and usually have moment of transcendence. And that's true of Bluegrass Vacation, where Fulks is aided by bluegrass giants like Sam Bush, Alison Brown, John Cowan, Jerry Douglas, Sierra Hull, Tim O’Brien and Ronnie McCoury. (Mandolin man McCoury's presence here reminded me of his participation on a similar project, The Mountain by Steve Earle and The Del McCoury band in 1999.)
My favorite tracks here are "Molly and the Old Man," a celebration of a beautiful banjo picker and her father; "Let the Old Dog In," which, like Hank Williams' "Move it On Over," concerns a husband in the doghouse; and "Longhair Bluegrass," (embedded below.)
On this song, Robbie celebrates the bluegrass festivals his parents took him to when he was a teenager in the early '70s with "old men doin’ the buck and wing / Young gals skinny-dippin’ in the spring / While the singin’ and the fiddlin’ and the feedback filled the air / While Mom and Daddy were getting’ fried / I was sittin' there with my eyeballs wide ..." By the end of the number, Fulks name-checks the high priests of the "new wing" of Bill Monroe's church: Norman Blake, Tony Rice,Clarence White, John Hartford, The Nitty Gritty Dirt band, Earl Scruggs and his sons and David Grisman. These are the spirits that guide this delightful album.
* Chronicles of a Diamond
by Black Pumas. This record has to be the soul album of the year, and The Black Pumas, headed by singer Eric Burton and guitarist/producer Adrian Quesada, have to be the top soul group of this era.
And a little New Mexico True pride here, as Burton spent his childhood in Alamogordo and later attended New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. As theLas Cruces Sun News said in 2020, Burton has "gone from performing at house parties in Las Cruces to jamming on some of the largest stages in the world ..." (Check out this video from 2014 of Burton singing the song that would become The Black Pumas' signature song. at a Cruces open mic.)
Chronicles is the studio follow-up to The Pumas' self-titled 2019 debut (another record that would have been on my top albums had I not discovered it in late November of that year after I retired, buying it at a Pumas concert in San Antonio). While mainly sticking to the same basic slow groove as the first album, Burton and Quesada stretch out a little on tracks such as the upbeat, almost poppy "Ice Cream (Pay Phone)" (embedded below); the pounding "Gemini Sun"; and "Sauvignon," which Quesada kicks off with a spaghetti western guitar and Burton sings mostly in falsetto against a psychedelic backdrop.
* Creatures of Culture
by The Minks.This irresistible Nashville band was my major discovery of 2023. I caught them live at the American Music Festival in Chicago in early July, and was an instant fan. I loved their high-powered punk/pop/psych/garage sound and was captivated by the sweet, sassy vocals and big smile of singer Nikki Barber.
Album highlights include rockers like "Motorbike" (The Minks should consider doing a medley of this song and this one!); the slow and trippy country-tinged "Sweet Treat" and "Take It Easy" (embedded below), which thankfully is NOT an Eagles cover.
* Deano & JoDeano is Dean Schlabowske, a singer, guitarist and songwwriter in The Waco Brothers, and Jo is Jo Walston, singer of the Meat Purveyors. The two have been married for four years -- a match made at Bloodshot Records, or probably at the annual Bloodshot party at the Yarddog Gallery in Austin during South by Southwest, where traditionally the Purvs played immediately before The Wacos.
This album is a mixture of original tunes (my favorites being "Murlene," written by Deano, sung by Jo) and Deano's "My Evil Twin") plus covers of classic honky-tonk and bluegrass songs. The basic sound reminds me mostly of late '50s / early '60s country, that fabled era when (former Santa Fe resident and personal idol) Roger Miller was writing songs like "A Man Like Me" (embedded below); The Stanley Brothers were singing tunes like "Stone Walls and Steel Bars"; and Nashville stars like Porter Wagoner were still singing Hank Williams songs like "Tennessee Border."
On this album, Deano & Jon are aided by some quality musical pals such as Robbie Fulks, who plays guitar, Mark Rubin of The Bad Livers on stand-up bass and Austin fiddler Beth Chrisman.
Deano and Jo is nothing but a crazy fun hillbilly romp. And while I do love the latest Waco Brothers album (keep scrolling!) in my heart I love this one even more.
* Death is Forever
by The Dead Brothers. Not surprisingly this Swiss band -- who called themselves a "death blues funeral trash orchestra" always had an aura of death round them. That's even more true on this record, which was recorded in 2021, shortly before the death of singer and frontman Alain Croubalian. They always did sound like a world-weary, mournful Bizarro World Salvation Army band, a typical banjo/tuba/harmonium group with gypsy jazz and New Orleans second-line overtones. But because of Croubalian's passing, this album has that extra kick, a melodic testament to the fact that death don't have no mercy in this land.
As usual, most of the songs on their final album are Croubalian originals, some of my favorites including the delicate, ethereal "500 Horses," the snazzy, jazzy "Diamond Mind," and "Whalebone," which Tom Waits would have loved to have written. And there are a handful of songs from other sources here, including the oft-covered "Wayfaring Stranger," "I Wrote a Book," written by another singer who died too soon, Blaze Foley and "Amara Terra," a "work song of the olive harvesters of the Abruzzo region" popularized by Italian pop star Domenico Modugno and transformed by The Dead Brothers into a hymn-like dirge.
So, in tribute to his life, here's a hearty "Fare Thee Well" to the Dead Brother Supreme, Alain Croubalian:
* Get Behind the Wheel
by Eilen Jewell. Eilen is an artist who just seems to get better and better with age and continues to amaze and delight with her latest record. (Not only that, this former St. John's College student who began her performing career busking at the Santa Fe Farmers Market, put on an excellent free show on the Plaza this year, which was even stronger than her show at Tumbleroot in 2022.)
Though my favorite Eilen album still is Gypsy (2019). Get Behind the Wheel is pure gold. From Jerry Miller's nasty guitar licks and Eilen's desperate-sounding, moaning vocals that open the album on the smoldering "Alive" through the meandering, swampy blues of "The Bitter End," this work is a winner
Embedded below is one of my Wheel favorites, "Lethal Love."
* Glory
by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages. On their latest album, Barrence and band keep doing what they do best: play hard-charging, early-R&B fortified, garage/punk-informed rock 'n' roll. Though the term "party record' normally refers to X-rated comedy from the '50s and '60s -- and Barrence is no Redd Foxx or Rusty Warren -- "party record" is exactly what Glory is. I wish all the parties I get invited to were as fun as this album.
This actually is a return to form for Whitfield. His previous album, Songs from the Sun Ra Cosmos, credited to "The Barrence Whitfield Soul Savage Arkestra," was a tribute to the late jazz man/mystic who was born Herman Blount. That was a fun experiment, but I prefer his work with the actual
Savages, propelled by guitarist, former New Mexico resident, and longtime Whitfield collaborator Peter Greenberg and sax man Tom Quartulli.
Basically every glorious Glory song is joyful romp, and any one of them would make an excellent introduction for those not acquainted with Whitfield, though if forced to choose my favorite, it would be the short, punchy “Cape May Diamond,” (embedded below).
The ever prolific Dowd once again offers a tasty, if curious, mix of deconstructed, often discordant rock 'n' roll, Okie humor, fascinating madness and, ever so often, terrifying tales of people on the ledge. (All this and an album cover by Mekon/Waco Brother Jon Langford.)
Dowd's first solo album was called The Wrong Side of Memphis. The new one could be called "Return to Memphis," as it was recorded in that town, where Dowd has lived at least a couple of times in his youth. Heaven features several Memphis musicians, including singer and upright bass player Amy Lavere and her husband Will Sexton, who plays guitar on the record and produced it.
The sound of Memphis soul definitely permeates the album, but, as is the case with most of Dowd's influences, it's a mutated, otherworldly version of the sound. Probably the most striking example is the title song, slow somber death march of a tune punctuated by eery, spook-house soprano vocalizing.
On the other end, there are some downright whimsical tunes, bouncy little numbers that sound as if they might have come from the world of British Music Hall or maybe even some obscure foreign cartoon. These include "Pillow," "LSD" and "Black and Shiny Crow" (embedded below). At least the middle section. This remarkable journey to the center of Dowd's weirdness starts out with slow Randy Newman-like piano meditation. That only blasts a few seconds. Then he goes into a cartoony section. But right past the two-minute mark, the song turns into a jazzy blues (or maybe a bluesy jazz) vamp, which goes on for six minutes. Truly inspirational!
* The Men That God Forgot
by The Waco Brothers. Like creators of other favorite albums this year -- Robbie Fulks', Barrence Whitfield's and Deano & Jo's -- the Wacos are refugees from the old Bloodshot Records, the label was responsible for stretching the boundaries of the alt country scare of the '90s. Led by founding Mekon Jon Langford, who apparently starts a new band any time he has a spare moment, the Waco Brothers embodied the crazy spirit of Bloodshot. I mentioned the Yarddog SXSW parties up in the section on Deano & Jo. The Wacos almost always headlined that party and almost always blasted the audience into a blissful state of cosmic consciousness -- or at least, drunken joy.
Although they originally billed themselves as "insurgent country," there's actually not much "country" in The Men That God Forgot -- save a couple of songs like "Blowin' My Top" and "George Walked With Jesus" (both Deano songs). Even with the presence of Tracy Dear's mandolin (which he usually plays like a rhythm guitar instead of a lead instrument like you hear in bluegrass) and Jean Cooke's fiddle, the overall sound of the Wacos in recent years has been muscular, guitar-driven roots-rock.
But damned fine muscular, guitar-driven roots-rock.
I can't wait until the next time I see The Wacos (it's been too many years!) and hear them play some of these new songs like the title song, "The Best That Money Can Buy" and, my personal favorite, at least at the moment, "Backstage at the Boneyard" (embedded below).
* These Things Remain Unassigned
by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282.The subtitle of this compilation, the
San Francisco band's first release in more than 20 years, is subtitled
"singles, compilation tracks, rarities & unreleased recordings." And
indeed it's an odds 'n' sods collection with basically cut reminding me of
the mad genius of the Fellers.
My introduction to the Fellers was when I saw them live in the summer of 1991 at the Off Ramp which I described as "a dark little joint in an ugly part of Seattle." Yes, I was searching for "grunge" but I found something much crazier in the Fellers. When reviewing their album Lovelyville (which I purchased on cassette tape at that show) I noted the album "does not quite capture the intensity of a Thinking Fellers show." The group released many albums after Lovelyville, and while every one of them is full of inspired lunacy, they never matched the intensity I felt at that Seattle show.
It's hard to describe their alluringly strange sound. Yeah, you can hear strains of Captain Beefheart, a smudge of Ubu, a quick snort of The Residents and echoes of The Shaggs. (They do a sweet version of "Who Are Parents," which originally appeared on a Shaggs tribute album.) You might imagine Jad Fair fronting a local high-school metal group or a Martian marching band playing Tom Waits' most incomprehensible nightmares. On These Things, besides the Shaggs cover, this album also has a couple of tracks of the Fellers playing movie music from Rosemary's Baby (featuring sinister "la la las") and A Fist Full of Dollars
It's only a fantasy, but I would love it if the release of this collection -- the first Thinking Fellers album in more than 20 years! -- as a sign that the band will reunite. I can dream can't I?
* Tropical Breakdown
by Pierre Omer's Swing Revue. You'd never guess by listening to this upbeat, happy, jumpy album that Pierre Omer was once a member of The Dead Brothers. But indeed, he was a
This band has strong echoes of Django Reinhardt, as well as definite traces of the ghost of Cab Calloway and more recent purveyors of such sounds, like Dan Hicks and Squirrel Nut Zippers. Pretty much all the tracks will get your face smiling and feet moving.
I especially recommend the album opener "Atomic Swing"; "Leslie Kong," (an ode to the great Jamaican record producer; the slow, bluesy "L’amour a la Plage," which a bass line fans of Concrete Blonde's song "Bloodletting" should recognize; and the snappy "Just One Kiss" (embedded below)
* Trouble On Big Beat Street
by Pere Ubu. For most of this century it's hard not to think of Pere Ubu as a noir band. Not that you'd expect to hear music from David Thomas and his fellow noisemakers in a remake of Double Indemnity or Lady in the Lake, and not that you hear riffs from the soundtracks of such movies in Ubu's music. But it's obvious from the titles of most of the albums they've released since 2006's Why I Hate Women (which, according to Thomas, "... is based on the Jim Thompson novel that he never wrote but might have") that noir is in Thomas'' soul.
Since Why I Hate Women, Ubu has released records called Lady from Shanghai (2013) (the title borrowed from a 1947 Rita Hayworth / Orson Wells murder flick) and The Long Goodbye (2019), which was a Raymond Chandler novel. And back in 2013 Ubu released Carnival of Souls, the title coming from a noir-influenced 1962 horror movie.
And now we've got Trouble on Big Beat Street, which isn't named for any known film or pulp story, though the cover looks, at least at first glance, as if it could have been taken from some noir handbook -- some shadowy guy in a fedora coming out of a dark alley onto a street where the cobblestones seem to be camouflage for an alligator. (I suspect this is a reference to the song "Crocodile Smile," where Thomas declares, "...like a crocodile I will smile / Maybe like an alligator / I will see you later ..."
Like a great noir story, Big Beat Street is an atmospheric, cacophonic tour, full of apprehension, dread and occasionally some weird humor. At one point we go from walking down the street obsessed with a movie in your head ("Make me better off than bled... all over the sidewalk ..." and the next thing you know, you've got gum on your shoe and strange voices are mocking you like a bunch of bratty street urchins ("Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah ...")
As strange as the music is, Ubu sounds stronger than ever, though it occurs to me that I've probably said that before more than once. Maybe Thomas and crew are just getting better with age -- though certainly not more commercial.
Besides the ones mentioned above, my favorite songs here include the opening track "Love is Like Gravity," (embedded below), which sounds like sad trumpets, a scratchy guitar, a fluttering flute and Thomas' tortured voice lost in the woods and trying to call for help. "I light the fearsome night," he sings, "Oh, I like fearsome nights ..."
Then there's "Worried Man Blues," a dreamlike trip to Clarksdale, Mississippi in which Thomas discovers a Popeye's Fried Chicken right there at the crossroads where according to legend, Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. And working in that Popeye's are Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Alan Lomax and Bob Dylan. Then he starts singing an alien version of the old hillbilly song first made famous by The Carter Family. Thomas declares "I'm worried now, but I won't be worried long."
I don't believe him.
* Zango
by WITCH. By the cruelty of the English alphabet, this album last on this list. But not in my heart. And, had I listed my favorite concerts of the year, WITCH at Meow Wolf on Sept. 17 would have been at the top of the list.
I was excited a couple of years ago when I learned the documentary, We Intend To Cause Havoc, was playing in Santa Fe. Imagine the excitement on my pretty little face when I learned the band itself was coming to a small venue in Santa Fe.
For those who aren't familiar, WITCH arose in the newly independent Zambia in 1972 (!), led by a young man named Emmanuel Chanda, who went by the nickname Jagari. The nickname was inspired by the Rolling Stones resurrected from its decades of slumber, but the sound owed much more to James Brown (who performed there in 1970), rock 'n' roll and native African sounds.
The style became known as Zamrock, and WITCH was at the top of this vibrant scene. But as the '70s resurrected from its decades of slumber, economic and political turmoil basically killed that scene. And in the '80s, AIDS claimed the lives of most of the original band members. Chanda retired from music limelight and went to work as a gemstone miner and teacher.
The 2019 documentary led to the reformation of WITCH. The film's director Gio Arlotta, introduced Chanda to the guys who'd become the new rhythm section of WITCH, bassist Jacco Gardner and drummer Nico Mauskoviç, both from The Netherlands. Chanda added more instrumentalists and singers so WITCH could be "resurrected from its decades of slumber"
Recorded at DB Studios in Lusaka, Zambia, where most of the original band made their magic, Zango
is clearly rooted in '70s Zamrock -- plenty of wah-wah guitars -- but has incorporated more modern sounds as well. WITCH pulls that off without a hitch.
Standout tracks include the opener, "By the Time You Realize," a slow groove in which Chandra raps the lyrics and is joined by female vocalists in the sing-song chorus,; "Waile," which sounds like a prime candidate for the soundtrack of a remake of Shaft in Africa; and "Avalanche of Love," (embedded below), which features lady rapper Sampa the Great (she's pretty great) and a middle section that slows down into a quiet storm.
Then there's "Message from WITCH," which closes the album. Here Chandra, over a bass-heavy backdrop, talks about the power of Zamrock: “It unites beliefs/Conquers xenophobia/It laughs at hate speech/Ends sexism/It erases homophobia/Shatters antisemitism/Embraces every race.”
And checkthis Spotify list
for all the songs from these albums -- except for The Thinking
Fellers compilation, for which Spotify had only a couple of tracks from
previous compilations.
And if you're musically adventurous, play either of those lists on shuffle
mode.
Greetings from Austin, Texas, Live Music Capitol of the World.
Ever since I started going to the South by Southwest Music Festival nine years ago I've heard people complain about how big the festival has gotten. The general line is that back in the good old days it was a human-scale event in which unsigned, mainly local, bands showed off their stuff to grateful, mainly local, audiences and maybe a few music bizzer types. It was quaint and good and everyone had a great time.
But then it got ruined by people like me -- a decent local festival grew into Spring Break for the Industry with Austin becoming a hill country Fort Lauderdale with hoardes of unworthy outsiders clogging the streets; musicians corrupted by visions of greed kissing up to the music biz creeps with their cell phones and pony tails; long lines and high prices; another good thing done gone.
Normally I ignore such sentimental blather. But after a day of traffic jams all around Austin (much of which, in fairness, can't be pinned on SXSW), an oppressively long line to pick up the official SXSW badge, the huge crowds at most the venues and the throngs of revelers out on the downtown streets, I began to wonder if perhaps this thing hasn't grown out of hand, exploding beyond repair.
Or maybe I've just gotten old and feel like it's my turn to gripe about the passing of the good old days.
But even with the problems that come with what seem to be the bigger crowds, the basic pleasures that draw me back to Austin and SXSW -- the music, the food, and seeing old friends -- are still pleasurable.
My little entourage kicked off the festival with our usual ritual -- Frito Pies at the The Texas Chili Parlor, made famous in Guy Clark's "Dublin Blues." No Mad Dog Margaritas for me this year though. In fact this is my first SXSW since I gave up drinking. (Maybe that's why the long lines and big crowds seem worse to me.)
Wednesday nights are traditionally lighter than subsequent nights on big national talent. This gives festival goers a chance to check out new, unknown bands.
Last time I came here we started out seeing a local group called The Girl Robots, an artsy New Wavey band that was lots of fun. This year we decided to stick with the robot theme and check out The Baby Robots. They sound a lot like Sonic Youth, doing weird things with screeching feedback and odd guitar tunings. But they've also got a good garage sensibility and are well acquainted with the "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone" chord pattern. You can even hear a little Talking Heads in the Baby Robots. And just like people used to say the Talking Heads looked like Young Republicans, the Baby Robots are freshfaced youngsters who look like the kind of kids you'd trust to babysit your children.
We also checked out a few songs by a band from Mexico called Vaquero. These guys epitomize the concept of "crossover dreams." All their new songs seem to be in English. Basically a guitar band, who employ some elements of Flaming Lips syntho psychedelia in some songs, Vaquero creates some extremely beautiful and catchy melodies. One of my favorites was an instrumental in which the singer played a melodica. It sounded like the theme from an imaginary French movie.
I tried to check out Los Lonely Boys at the Austin Music Awards show at the Austin Music Hall. But the staff wouldn't let me in with my camera. I was sincere when I told them I wouldn't take any pictures. But that didn't get very far with these by-the-book volunteers. Can't really blame them for not buying my sincerity. After all, they have to deal with music industry folks all week.
So I headed east towards Stubbs BBQ, where unfortunately I was too late for the Von Bondies. However I was just in time for The International Noise Conspiracy. This is a politically-minded high-energy guitar-based band from Sweeden. They have black leather jackets like The Ramones, but their sound is colored by an electric organ that sounds right out of Steppenwolf.
At one point the singer told the crowd that he knows that Americans don't like Swedes coming over here and preaching to them about politics. "But what you do in America affects the whole world," he said. "So fuck you if you're going to vote for George Bush again!"
The crowd -- who I assume to be mostly American -- applauded wildly. (However, Bush might have the last laugh. If statistics hold up, only a fraction of the young people who were cheering will even bother to vote.)
Capping off the evening was an old favorite rocker, Joan Jett, who concentrated mainly on enthusiastic takes on her hits of yore -- "Bad Reputation," "I Hate Myself For Loving You" and, of course "I Love Rock 'n' Roll."
Queen Joan has a knack for choosing perfect cover songs -- Tommy James' "Crimson and Clover," Sly & The Family Stones' "Everyday People," The Replacements' "Androgenous." Her strangest one last night though was a rousing "Love is All Around" -- the theme from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. There is a Texas rock 'n' roll connection here though. It was written by Sonny Curtis, a Buddy Holly crony and sometimes Cricket. Curtis' other well-known song is "I Fought the Law (and The Law Won)."
Gotta hit the hay. Little Richard is giving the SXSW keynote address Thursday morning ....
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican April 12, 2018
One of my surprise favorite albums of the past few years was Boy in the Well by a trio of Colorado roots rockers called The Yawpers. I’d heard this group’s music several times, even saw them do a live set at the annual Bloodshot Records party at the Yard Dog Gallery in Austin a year or two before the album came out. I’d considered their music OK — tolerable, interesting in spots, but nothing that really knocked my socks off.
But then sometime in the late summer of 2017, I heard a couple of cuts from Boy in the Well, and something clicked. I went back and listened to the whole album, a collection of songs that told a strange story of the bastard son of an American soldier and French farm girl in World War I.
As I wrote in this column back then, I found traces of the Legendary Shack Shakers, the Gun Club, and ZZ Top. (I could list more possible audible ingredients: Mudhoney? Wilco? The James Gang?) In any case, I never did find those socks I’d been wearing that day.
So when the new Yawpers album, Human Question, sprang forth, I was looking forward to it, and just a little afraid I would be disappointed. That fear was unjustified. If anything, I like the new one even more than Boy in the Well.
Unlike their previous album, this is no concept album with a storyline to stick to, though at least a couple of cuts seem to be dealing with singer and chief Yawpers songwriter Nate Cook’s divorce. It’s just good, raw, blues-infused music. It grabbed me and refused to let go in the opening seconds of the locomotive onslaught of “Child of Mercy,” which deals with the putrid pangs of romantic collapse. “… a child of mercy, all the shades are drawn/Flies on the wall and all the furniture’s gone,” Cook sings.
This is followed by an even more brutal romp, “Dancing on My Knees,” which sounds like it came from the border of proto-metal and garage rock. Cook spits, “In the struggle since the altar/the world has taken shape/I’ve found the words I’m looking for but they came a little late .../I’m on to greener pastures/but my neck is in the weeds/I’ve taken all the medicine, but I’ve still got your disease.”
Things get weird in the playful, psychedelic-leaning “Earn Your Heaven.” Here, at the end of a crazed, funky wah-wah guitar solo, Cook shouts — for reasons that escape me — “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the crucifixion Harry Connick Jr.!” I’m not sure whether poor Harry is the one being crucified or if he’s just providing a musical backdrop for the spectacle.
While I mostly like the Yawper’s rowdier tunes, there are a handful of slower ones that are hard-hitting. One is the soul-soaked “Carry Me,” the type of song you could imagine being covered by Solomon Burke. It starts off quietly and builds to thunder. Somewhere toward the end of that road, there’s a heartbreaking sax solo as Cook screams in the background.
This song is followed by one of the craziest rockers on the record, “Forgiveness Through Pain,” featuring Cook’s rapid-fire vocals, distorted guitar noise from lead guitarist Jesse Parmet, and Alex Koshak’s bloodthirsty drums.
Between Human Question, the Flesh Eaters’ reunion (keep reading), and the latest Mekons record (yes, I’m still slobbering over Deserted), I’d have to say rock ’n’ roll is off to a great start this year.
Now I think I’d better go buy some new socks. Also recommended:
* I Used to Be Pretty by The Flesh Eaters. Here’s a band that rose up during the pioneer days of the great LA punk rock explosion of the early 1980s, a supergroup, really, that in some incarnations would include a who’s who of Southern California punk and roots rock.
The Flesh Eaters had a revolving door of a lineup through the years, but now frontman Chris Desjardins (known as “Chris D,” no relation to Chuck) is back with the same basic band that recorded the critically acclaimed, but still relatively obscure A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die, the group’s second album, released in the year of our Lord, 1981. Players include members of X (the band, not the brand) John Doe (bass) and D.J. Bonebrake (playing marimbas here); Dave Alvin (guitar) and Bill Bateman (drums) of The Blasters, and Steve Berlin of both Los Lobos and The Blasters (sax). Desjardins’ ex-wife and longtime Flesh Eater Julie Christensen also lends some vocals here.
So, yes, it’s a supergroup. And fittingly, the album is downright super. Desjardins — whose voice sounds as if he’s just woken up from a nightmare — and his cronies capture the spirit of the unique bluesy, noirish sounds they were making back at the dawn of the Reagan years. It’s a little more polished than A Minute to Pray, but still powerful and a little bit frightening.
There are some cover songs, including tunes we’ve previously heard by the likes of the Gun Club (another LA band frequently compared to The Flesh Eaters), The Sonics, and Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac. And there are re-recordings of a few old Flesh Eaters songs, including “Miss Muerte” and “Pony Dress.”
The best songs here are the ones where Desjardins and band get spooky and slinky like they do on “House Amid the Thickets,” where the combination of Alvin’s hard-knuckle blues guitar and Bonebrake’s marimba brings back memories of Frank Zappa’s Ruth Underwood period, and “The Youngest Profession,” on which Desjardins commands “Go crazy!” and both Alvin and Berlin do just that.
And speaking of spooky, the 13-minute “Ghost Cave Lament” is a grand finale and an instant epic. You will believe that flesh has been eaten in that cave.
1 America’s Most Colorful Hillbilly Band Vol. 1 by Maddox Brothers & Rose: These southern immigrants to California had more fun than hillbillies ought to be allowed to have.
3 Louie Bluie Soundtrack: This is music from a quirky documentary made in the mid '80s by Terry Zwigoff, who is more famous for Crumb. It stars fiddler/mandolinist Howard Armstrong, who plays blues, gospel and jazz tunes — not to mention a German waltz and a Polish tune. As he explains in the movie, Armstrong was fluent in several languages, including Italian and a little Chinese, which, he said, helped him get gigs when he moved from Tennessee to Chicago.
4 Live at the Powerhouse Church of God by Rev. Louis Overstreet. An electric guitar-picking, bass-drum-pounding preacher whose church was in Phoenix. Most of this album was recorded by Strachwitz during church services in 1962. But the CD version has some bonus tracks, including several recorded at Overstreet's home in which the preacher plays acoustic guitar.
6 Good Morning Mr. Walker by Joseph Spence. Bahaman Spence was an amazing guitarist whose thick dialect made him sound like a wino from Mars when he sang his joyful tunes.
7 Sacred Steel. This style of gospel music began in the late 1930s in the House of God, an African- American Pentecostal denomination. Although the steel guitar became popular in House of God congregations that were not able to afford an organ or piano. Arhoolie has done several sacred steel compilations. The first one, release in 1997, features some of the giants of the genre including Willie Eason, The Cambell Brothers, Aubrey Ghent and Sonny Treadwell.
8 & 9 Calypsos From Trinidad: Politics, Intrigue and Violence in the 1930s; and The Roots of Narcocorrido. These collections, although representing different countries and different styles of music, both are collections of songs, many of them controversial, dealing with politics and crime.
10 Old Time Black Southern String Band Music by Butch Cage & Willie B. Thomas, Recorded back in 1960, but not released until five years ago, this is nothing but party music, at least the way they used to have parties in the rural South. I was too young to have been invited to this party, but this is the next best thing.
