Terrell's Sound World Play List

Terrell's Sound World
Sunday, February 22, 2004
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
16 Candles by The Crests
Only 16 by Sam Cooke
There is No Time by Lou Reed
Fabrique by Stuubaard Bakkebaard
We Think You Are Very Brave by Ai Phoenix
Whisper in a Nag's Ear by Johnny Dowd
Heaven on Their Minds by Murray Head
Clyde the Glide by The Diplomats of Solid Sound

Time (Losing My Mind) by The Soul of John Black
Black Flowers by Fishbone
We Be's Gettin' Down by Graham Central Station
Be For Real by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes
Girl From the North Country by Howard Tate

Standing on the Verge of Getting It On by Funkadelic
Spread by Outkast
Kill the Messenger by The Bell Rays
People Get Up and Drive Your Funky Soul by James Brown
There's a Moon Out Tonight by The Capris
Love and Happiness by Living Colour
Sweetback's Theme by Earth, Wind & Fire

Drove Up from Pedro by Mike Watt & Carla Bouzulich
Meaning of Loneliness by Van Morrison
Land of Hope and Dreams by Bruce Springsteen
Until I Die by The Beach Boys
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Mr. Mainstream Pazz & Jop

I'm not sure who this guy is, but he has way too much time on his hands. (And apparently, so does my friend Chuck, who always seems to find this damned website each year.)

Anyway, every year for at least the past three or four years this funky dude does a mathematical analysis of the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll and ranks the participating critics as to how common their choices are.

What's shocking is that this year I rank 44 (out of more than 700!) in terms of picking popular choices. According to this guy's calculations, an average of 85.6 other critics voted for each of my selections.

The year before I ranked a respectable 435th.

Sorry for being so generic.

The Santa Fe Opry Play List

The Santa Fe Opry
Friday, Feb. 20, 2004
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Last Fair Deal Gone Down/Constanz by Jon Langford
Around the Bend by Dollar Store
(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Clifts of Dover by Jon Rauhouse's Steel Guitar Rodeo with Sally Timms
Baby Won't You Please Come Home by Anna Fermin's Trigger Gospel
Lyin' by Elizabeth McQueen
I'm Not From Here by James McMurtry
Pretty Good Guy by Fred Eaglesmith

Color of the Blues by George Jones
Loneliness is Eating Me Alive by Merle Haggard
Roll on Mississippi by Charlie Pride
Remember the Eagle by Luke Reed with Waylon Jennings and Bill Miller
Lone Star Blues by Bill Hearne
Oh Lonesome Me by Bobby Flores
Chinatown, My Chinatown by The Last Mile Ramblers
The Hucklebuck by The Riptones

Reprimand Our Love by Joe West
There Ought to Be a Law Against Dunny California by Terry Allen
Eggs For Your Chickens by The Flatlanders
Dam by Kasey Chambers
Call My Name by Paul Burch
Bow Down to Me by Julien Aklei

Hogs on the Highway by The Bad Livers
Midnight Sun by Rolf Cahn
Milk and Honey by Nels Andrews
Main Road by Lucinda Williams
Rustbelt Blues by Acie Cargill
Permanently Lonely by Willie Nelson
In Tall Buildings by John Hartford
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

Terrell's Tuneup: Music From The Pile

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican, Feb. 13, 2004

January and February are skimpy times for new CD releases. (Actually things slow down drastically in early November after the major companies’ Christmas season release schedule.) So this is a good time to look at some obscure discs that have been in my CD pile for awhile.

* The Soul of John Black. John Black isn’t a person, it’s a group consisting of John Bigham (guitar, vocals) and bassist Christopher Thomas (not to be confused with Chris Thomas King), two musical veterans who, as individuals, have worked with an impressive array of jazz, rock, and rap acts, from Miles Davis to Eminem to Marianne Faithful to Joshua Redman to Everlast to Betty Carter to Fishbone (of which Bigham was a member for eight years).

But the key word in the title is “soul.” This album is a refreshing contemporary take on good old soul music. Sure, it’s got some hip-hop and funk overtones, but like the best of Stevie Wonder or Al Green, the emphasis here is on catchy melodies and honest emotion rather than merely beat and rhythm.

And it does so without sounding retro.

The best songs here are about danger or women. Sometimes the two intersect.

The album starts off with a sparse, slow and menacing tune called “Scandalous (No. 9)” that introduces a narrator who is almost sick with obsessive jealousy (“It ain’t funny what can happen/ when you ain’t around … You got some folks who goin’ to peep/ tryin’ to creep up on yo’ good thing …”

This sets the mood for the next track, “Lost and Paranoid” which is more upbeat and has a fuller band sound with a female backup singer (Jonell Kennedy), a turntable and, yes, even a kazoo, tooted soulfully by Bigham. The lyrics live up to the title, with Bingham fleeing some unknown enemy: “I locked the door/pulled down the shades/ next thing I know the phone’s ringin’/ can’t seem to get away …” The song ends with Bingham repeatingly crying, “please,please, leave me alone!”

The danger becomes more specific in “The Odyssey,” which is the story of a fatal DWI wreck. “The top was down, the air was cool/ The only night was from the moon/ Her body was in flames/ I heard her call my name …”

“Supa Killer” is a Shaft-like latter-day Blaxploitation song that makes a lyrical -- as well a bass-riff -- reference to The Temptations’ “Runaway Child Running Wild.” The true star of this song though is the saxophone of Tracy Wannamae. He should have been used more on this album.

TSOJB isn’t afraid to get pretty. The brooding ballad “Joy” features a Bigham on acoustic guitar.

As vocal talents go, Bigham is no Al Green or Otis Redding. He’s probably closer to Prince -- and that’s not bad. He gets the job done. And most important, he and Thomas have written and performed some fine songs and made an album that never sags.

* Mercedes by Stuurbaard Bakkebaard. O.K. I’ll admit that lately I’ve been a sucker for weird European art rock from non-English-speaking countries. This lo-fi Dutch band certainly fits that bill.

There must be something about smoky, sometimes sinister music with a singer getting excited about things I can’t understand that appeals to me. Some of the lyrics are in English, though I still haven’t figured out what they are about.


Stuurbaard has good tastes in influences. You can hear echoes of Tom Waits, P.J. Harvey’s stranger stuff and maybe even a little Sparklehorse here.

SB can rock sloppy, as they do on the opening song “Clutch” and the mutant blues called “Earl’s Room.”

Some of the most interesting tunes here are the otherworldly acoustic songs that use a stand-up bass (which is bowed on the song “Brown”) and acoustic guitar. “Downfall,“ which features an accordion, sounds like a nightmare in a French café. The title song sounds like a Dutch bosa nova. And “Steel Talk” has a somewhat out-of-tune banjo playing over a clomping drum and a singer who sounds like he’s lived on a strict diet of Residents records.

*Let’s Cool One by The Diplomats of Solid Sound. This is a retro-sounding instrumental group, but no, it’s not surf music. The Diplomats, from landlocked Iowa, are far closer to Booker T. & The MGs than they are to Dick Dale.

Keyboardist Nate “Count” Basinger and guitarist Doug Roberson take turn on leads.

Like the title implies, the sound is basically cool. Close your eyes and you probably can imagine this music to be in the soundtrack of some ’60s action flick (or, depending on your mood, perhaps a porno film)

But somehow I keep waiting for the cool sounds to heat up. There’s a few songs featuring a sax here, and that helps. So I guess my criticism here is the same as with The Soul of John Black: When in doubt, use more sax.

Hear selections from the above CDs on the radio Sunday night on Terrell’s Sound World, 10-p.m to midnight Sunday on KSFR, 90.7 FM, Santa Fe Public Radio. Friday night is Steve Terrell’s Santa Fe Opry, same time, same station. Sorry, KSFR isn't on the web yet. But just you wait ...

Roundhouse Round-up: Pressure in the Halls of Power

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican

The clock is edging toward midnight Tuesday at the Roundhouse -- and edging ever closer to the noon Thursday cutoff when the session, as mandated by the state Constitution, must end.

The vote has just been taken on the food/medical tax repeal in the Senate. An ad-hoc coalition of five Democrats and 17 Republicans has just passed a substitute bill that sponsor Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, unabashedly described as a "tactical move."

Another Democrat, Tim Jennings of Roswell, has framed the substitute as a way to send a message to Gov. Bill Richardson, who only hours before had threatened -- and that's Richardson's word -- to call a special session if he doesn't get the tax bill he wants by the session's end.

The atmosphere in the hallway between the Senate gallery and the Senate lounge is understandably tense.

Various senators wander in and out of the gallery with dazed expressions brought on by the day's seemingly endless session. Standing in the hallway with stern expressions are Richardson spokesman Billy Sparks, House Speaker Ben Luján of Nambé -- who sponsored the original House Bill 625 that just got ravaged in the Senate -- and Luján's assistant Regis Pecos.

"This isn't over yet," passers-by keep whispering to reporters in the hall.

It seemed the vote was done, but the real work had just begun.

The word is the Senate will vote to reconsider the bill. To do so, someone who had voted with the majority would have to make the motion to reconsider.

If this is going to happen, conventional wisdom said, it will be one of five Democrats who voted for the Smith substitute -- Smith, Jennings, Michael Sanchez of Belen, Linda Lopez of Albuquerque and Lidio Rainaldi of Gallup.

With the shift of just one vote, the tally would be 21-21. Lt. Gov. Diane Denish would break the tie and go against the Smith substitute.

Immediately after the vote, the focus seems to be on Rainaldi, a kindly faced, grandfatherly, retired magistrate judge who some say resembles actor Abe Vigoda.

As Rainaldi emerges from the gallery, the speaker approaches him.

As the two walk down the hall together, I overhear Rainaldi say, "Let me explain something to you," to Luján. Unfortunately that's all I hear.

"The speaker is leaning on (Rainaldi) as hard as he knows how," Smith later tells reporters.

The speaker and the senator disappear for a few minutes. When Rainaldi comes back into the hallway, Sen. Phil Griego, D-San Jose, who voted against the Smith substitute, grabs him.

"Lidio, can I talk to you for a minute?" The two go into the Senate Lounge for several minutes. I don't think they're talking about the weather.

About 20 minutes later, a weary-looking Rainaldi is seen walking briskly down the outer hall.

He's polite as I try to get a word from him. But he doesn't slow down.

"No, nobody's pressuring me," the senator says, not very convincingly.

But asked whether he'd make the motion to reconsider, Rainaldi replies, "I don't know. I don't know what the bill is going to say."

Some wags said Rainaldi voted for the Smith substitute because the original bill didn't include gross-receipts taxes on dentists. He has a son who's a dentist.

This implies some new version of House Bill 625 is in the works.

Meanwhile Smith has no allusions that his substitute bill has much of a future.

He only introduced it to put a monkeywrench in the progress of the original bill, which he vehemently opposes. "I had 22 votes tonight, but I've been here long enough to know that could slip away," he tells reporters.

By Wednesday morning, Rainaldi no longer seems like the focus of arm-twisting. Rumors now center around Lopez or possibly Sanchez as the one who'd make the motion to reconsider.

Update: Shortly after 9 p.m. Wednesday on the floor of the Senate, Rainaldi made that motion. He and Sanchez would change their votes and vote against the Smith substitute Wednesday, though their votes were offset by Sen. Leonard Tsosie, D-Crownpoint and Sen. Joe Carrarro, R-Albuquerque changing their minds and voting for the substitute on Wednesday.

ARCHIVES BACK UP; MORE ON THE BONNIE HEARNE LOVEFEST

For several days my January archives were missing a few weeks worth of my wisdom-filled posts. That's the bad news. The good news is that the Blogger folks acted promptly and fixed it as of this morning.

That might not seem like a big deal to most of you readers, but considering the inept and unresponsive dolts who run the free site where I used to park my old web site (that's Dreamwater. Avoid them at all costs!), this place is a Godsend. There wasn't even a way to contact the Dreamwater jerks.

So thanks, Blogger or Blogspot or whoever you are.

Bonnie Hearne Benefit
Mark Sunday, March 7 on your calendar. That's the benefit for the ever lovely Bonnie Hearne, who's been plaugued with health problems in recent months. Half of the Santa Fe musicians you've ever heard of will be playing -- including yours truly. I'll be contributing one song to the show. (Note to self: get a substitute for Terrell's Sound World that night!)

For a complete list of musicians, go to the February archives and scroll down to the Feb. 1 entry.

The show starts at 6:00 p.m. and goes on till closing. Tickets are $20 -- and remember it's a good cause.

A day and a half left of the Legislature!

swt

New Junior Brown CD Coming!

My old Santa Fe High locker partner, Junior Brown (local folks still call him "Jamie") just signed a new record deal.

The "Kirksville, Indiana" reference below is only part of the story. Mr. Brown moved to Santa Fe in the late '60s, attended Mid High and Santa Fe High and was in several local bands including the psychedelic Humble Harvey (they played at my first DeMolay dance!) and more importantly, The Last Mile Ramblers, an "outlaw" country band who contributed to a good deal of the soundtrack to my drunken college years.

Sorry, Jamie, but I'm going to use this opportunity to re-publish your junior year photo from the 1970 SFHS yearbook (as well as a more recent photo I took not too many years ago)


For Immediate Release

For more information, please contact
Mike Wilpizeski: 718 459 2117 or mikew@telarc.com

JUNIOR BROWN SIGNS DEAL WITH TELARC
August 2004 Debut is His First Release in Over Three Years

February 16, 2004, Cleveland, OH - Telarc International Corporation, one of the world's leading independent recording companies, today announced the signing of an exclusive deal with guitarist/singer/songwriter Junior Brown to be inaugurated with an August 24, 2004, release (title to be announced).

Michael Bishop engineered Brown's Telarc debut - his first new recording in over three years - at the Tracking Room at Emerald Entertainment in Nashville, TN, in February. The album will also be released as an SACD in 5.1 Surround Sound.

"Junior is a fabulously talented entertainer and musician with lots of fans, which was the only consideration when it came to signing him to the label," says Telarc president Bob Woods. "The more eclectic the better these days, and we're truly excited that Junior decided to work with us."

Brown says, "I think we are coming into a time where music is less dependent on categories than it used to be. I think I'm the kind of artist that can't be categorized easily, and I believe Telarc is a label that's interested in the creativity of a performer. It's that focus that many labels have chosen to ignore more and more due to their emphasis on mass marketing over substance. The Telarc folks are great and supportive - I'm thrilled to be on the label."


Playing fiery rock-guitar licks and hardcore honky-tonk with equal aplomb on his self-styled double-necked "guit-steel" - a combination electric and steel guitar - Junior Brown is regarded as one of the most talented guitar players the world. Born in 1953 and raised in Kirksville, IN, Brown first learned to play the piano from his father and became a professional musician at the end of the '60s. A dream prompted him to create an instrument fusing a six-string guitar with its steel counterpart, and in 1985, he developed the "guit-steel," a double-necked guitar combining the standard instrument with the steel.

He made his long-awaited album debut in 1993 with 12 Shades of Brown,
which featured a tribute to his biggest influence, "My Baby Don't Dance to Nothing but Ernest Tubb." Guit With It followed later in the year, and like its predecessor, was met with considerable critical acclaim.

After a five-song EP, 1995's Junior High, Brown returned in 1996 with
Semi-Crazy.

The Long Walk Back followed two years later, and Brown released his
fifth album, Mixed Bag, in 2001.

Terrell's Sound World Play List

(Sorry it's late. Blame it on the state Legislature ...)

Terrell's Sound World
Sunday, February 15, 2004
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Electric Uncle Sam by Primus
Rope Bridge Crossing by John Parrish & P.J. Harvey
The Kid is a Witch by Stuurbaard Bakkebaard
Happy Man by Sparklehorse
Lamb by Kult
Garden of Delight by Johnny Dowd
Eternity Ahead by New Creation

The Cuban Bake by The Diplomats of Solid Sound
Nothing Lies Still Long by Pell Mell
Gritty Shaker by David Holmes
"H" is For Harlot by The Civil Tones
Jungle Drums by Esquivel
Inspector Jay From Delhi by Kalyanji & Anandji Shah
Surf Age by Jerry Cole & His Spacemen

Supa Killa by The Soul of John Black
Truck Turner by Isaac Hayes
Sweet Sticky Thing by The Ohio Players
Vibration by Terrance Trent D'Arby
Letitgo by Prince
Hide nor Hair by Ray Charles

You Only Live Twice by Nancy Sinatra
Chopper Squad by The Mekons
Staging the Plaguing of the Raised Platform by Cornershop
Make Believe Mambo by David Byrne
I'm Sorry by B.B. King & Bobby Bland
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

The Santa Fe Opry Play List

The Santa Fe Opry
Friday, Feb. 13, 2004
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Special Love by Rolf Cahn
I Fall to Pieces by Patsy Cline
Why You Been Gone So Long by Bill Hearne
That's What Makes the Jukebox Play by Roy Acuff
Baby Do You Love Me Still by The Flatlanders
Writing on Rocks Across the USA by Terry Allen

Kell Robertson Live in the Studio
Broke and Hungry
Marylou (Goodtime Gal)

(3 from Cool and Dark Inside CD)
Star Motel Blues
One Shot Can Kill the Music
Song For Roxy

Mary's Bar
Madonna on the Billboard
When You Come Down Off the Mountain
Take Your Fingers Off It

(end Kell set)

Pigsville by The Waco Brothers
Explain Away by Dollar Store
Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone by Charlie Pride
Steve McQueen/Give Me Three Steps by Drive-By Truckers
Hot Dog by Buck Owens
Valentine by Marlee MacLeod

What Went Wrong by Acie Cargill
Old Smokey by Greg Brown
St. Valentine by Joe Ely
Twang on a Wire by Kate Campbell
Is This My Happy Home by Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks
I'm Leavin' Now by Johnny Cash & Merle Haggard
A Voice From On High by Ricky Skaggs
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

Terrell's Tuneup: How I Love Them Old Songs

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican, Feb. 13, 2004

A close cousin of the “tribute” album is the “covers” album, in which singers or bands perform their versions of the songs that inspired them. In recent months I’ve received three such collections in the country/folk vein.

The most frequent criticism of tribute albums apply here: The covers are o.k., but the original versions are far superior. Yet all these new records have their own integrity and in many cases, it’s just great to know that people are still playing these great old songs.

* Twang on the Wire by Kate Campbell. Campbell is a singer-songwriter from the South who pays tribute here to Nashville’s pantheon of female singers from the early to mid 1970s. Most of these selections could be found on any cowboy bar jukebox during the Watergate era.

Twang is a low key affair, but it has a lot of heart. You can feel the love Campbell has for these tunes. She even finds the emotional core of country pop crossover ditties like Donna Fargo’s “Funny Face” and Taos resident Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden”.

(Those songs make me think about the “Outlaw” movement of that era. Not to detract from Waylon and Willie and the boys -- who I’ve always loved and always will -- but when you compare those songs to modern so-called-country radio fluff you have to wonder what the “outlaws” were rebelling about.)

Campbell does a creditable job covering the big three ladies of country of ‘70s country: Two Dolly Parton songs (“Touch Your Woman” and the teenage pregnancy horror tale “Down From Dover”); a relatively obscure one by Tammy Wynette (the stately “ ‘Til I Can Make it on My Own”); and one by Loretta Lynn (“Mississippi Woman, Louisiana Man” with alt country rocker Kevin Gordon taking Conway Twitty’s part.)

But my favorites here are two originally sung by a lesser-known artist, Jeannie Pruett. Campbell performs Pruett’s big hit, “Satin Sheets,” which is one of the finest examples of the country-girl-marries-rich-guy-but-learns-money-doesn’t-buy-happiness sub-genre.

But the other Pruett song here is a beautiful obscurity, “Honey on His Hands” is a powerful cheatin’ song and Campbell did us all a favor by reviving it.

The album ends with the title song, the lone original tune here. Here we get an image of a young Kate in her bedroom listening to records, being comforted and inspired by “angels with flattops, they play and they sing.”

Campbell does a good job here of honoring those big-haired angels.

*Countrysides by Cracker. This collection also consists of country covers (mostly) from the ‘70s (mainly). It’s a lot less earnest than Twang on a Wire and more fun loving. These are songs you’d drink beer and dance to while looking for love at a honky tonk. Campbell’s are the songs you’d drink whiskey and listen to after your honky tonk queen has stomped your heart.

Indeed Cracker, (which played in Santa Fe recently with singer David Lowrey’s other band Camper Van Beethoven), concentrates on hard-drinking outlaw anthems like Hank Williams Jr.’s “Family Tradition,” Jerry Jeff Walker’s Ray Wylie Hubbard-penned “Up Against the Wall Redneck Mothers” and Merle Haggard’s “The Bottle Let Me Down.”

And they even do Santa Fe resident Terry Allen justice, kicking off the album with a rowdy take on his “Truckload of Art.”

The lone original here, “It Ain’t Gonna Suck Itself” is a hilarious, scathing musical diatribe against Virgin Records (Cracker‘s former company) that could almost pass for a Texas Tornados tune.

But not everything on Countysides is drunk and disorderly. Lowrey sings a moving, accordion-sweetened version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Sinaloa Cowboys,” a tale of a meth lab tragedy. Their straightforward version of Dwight Yoakum’s “Buenos Noches from a Lonely Room” is downright pretty.

And Haggard’s “Reasons to Quit” is a melodic hangover in which a worried boozer takes assessment of his reckless life.

*Honey in the Lion’s Head by Greg Brown. The material Brown works here is of an older vintage than the Cracker and Kate Campbell albums. Here, the deep-voiced Iowa songwriter goes back to old folk tunes -- the most recent ones being Jim Garland’s “I Don’t Want Your Millions Mister” and Brown’s original “Ain’t No One Like You.”

This record has a lot in common with Dave Alvin’s Public Domain and Bob Dylan’s early ‘90s folk detour World Gone Wrong and Good As I’ve Been to You.

Honey is an all acoustic album, save a few electric guitar contributions from Bo Ramsey (he makes the lion growl on Brown‘s version of the Rev. Gary Davis‘ “Samson.”) It’s colored with banjos, mandolins and fiddles, not to mention a couple of singing Brown daughters.

Some of the material here is extremely familiar -- “Old Smokey,” “Down in the Valley,” “I Never Will Marry.” But Brown does an admirable job in making these old chestnuts ache.

Perhaps my favorite here is the last cut, an old hymn Brown sings with wife Iris DeMent. Jacob’s Ladder takes me right back to Methodist Youth Fellowship. Brown’s almost breezy arrangement makes a listener almost expect to hear the voice of Mississippi John Hurt chime in.

*Hey Santa Fe readers: Poet, picker, country singer and American ramblin’ man Kell Robertson will appear live tonight on The Santa Fe Opry 10 p.m. . That’s KSFR, 90.7 FM, Santa Fe Public Radio.

Kell, by the way, is the subject of a cover story this month in The Fringe, a free monthly Santa Fe "Alternative Arts & Culture Rag."

* Pazz & Jop: I was one of 500 or so music critics contributing to The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop poll. I see two participants named David Prince and I'm assuming one is my colleague from Santa Fe.

In the nearly 15 years I've been doing this poll, I think this is the first time that FIVE of my 10 album selections -- The New Pornographers, The White Stripes, Outkast, The Drive-By Truckers and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs -- made it into the poll's top 10. I feel so ... mainstream ...