THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT CDs CONDEMNED TO GRUESOME DEATH

I just received this e-mail from the wife of Jerry Lawson, former lead singer of The Persuasions, that classic a cappella band.

we just got word that there are 4,000 Persuasion Grateful Dead cds at a warehouse in Virginia. They are all going to be thrown away because they are not selling and they are taking up shelf space. There's a sleaze bag guy in the middle of it all and he says the only way he'll stop them from being scrapped is to find people who'll buy them in batches of 100 @$7 each... we don't know anyone who wants to spend $700 and own 100 cds... but if you think you'll ever need 100 gifts of Persuasion music through the years well here's your chance to get them below retail.. they'll be destroyed in a week or so unless we can guarantee him sales...

what a world....

For the record, I haven't heard The Persuasion's Grateful Dead CD, Might As Well. I did enjoy their Frank Zappa CD, Frankly A Cappella.

Strangely enough, I first came into contact with Jerry a few years when he e-mailed me over a bad review I wrote about The Persuasions' Beatles tribute. The music itself wasn't bad. I just didn't like the trend at the time of this great group being reduced to being an a cappella cover band of white classic-rock groups. Jerry's email wasn't disputing that. He acknowledged that all these tribute albums were forced upon them by the money men. He wanted to assure me that the group was working on an album of the kind of soul and gospel material that made us love them in the first place. And in 2003 the group released the excellent A Cappella Dreams, which unfortunately was to be the last Persuasions album. Jerry soon afterwards moved to Arizona and set out on a solo career.

If you know anyone who can help spare the lives of some these 4,000 innoent CDs contact Jerry Lawson.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, March 13, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Under My Thumb by Social Distortion
Bad Boy by The Beatles
Shortnin' Bread by The Cramps
Pagan Baby by Creedence Clearwater Revival
She Lives in a Time of Her Own by 13th Floor Elevators
F'!#in' Up by Neil Young
I've Got To Be Me by Iggy Pop
Keep on Lovin' Me, Baby by Ike Turner

Fear Song by Joy Harjo
Existentialist Polka by The Polkaholics
Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White by Brave Combo
George W. Bush Loves Poland by Kazik Staszewski
The Forest of No Return by Sun Ra
Ramblin' Gamblin' Man by Bob Seeger

DEATH PENALTY SET
Send Me to the 'lectric Chair by David Bromberg
Stack O'Lee Blues by Mississippi John Hurt
I've Just Got to Get a Message to You by The Bee Gees
Green Green Grass of Home by Dave Alvin
Long Black Veil by The Band
Sam Hall by Tex Ritter
Sam Hall by Black 47
The Mercy Seat by Nick Cave
Karla Faye by Mary Gauthier
Sing Me Back Home by Merle Haggard
Ellis Unit One by Steve Earle

Shining Pain by Soel
The Face of Love by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Eddie Vedder
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

RFDTV

I just watched an old black-and-white episode of The Porter Wagoner Show, featuring Left Frizzell (!!!) Norma Jean (Porter's featured female vocalist before Dolly came along) and the lovely and talented Speck Rose. Even though Lefty only sang about half of "Saginaw, Michigan" it was great.

I owe this to Helen, who yesterday morning stumbled across a wonderful bluegrass program The Cumberland Highlanders Show (the episode we saw had Joe Isaacs as a guest) on RFDTV, "Rural America's Most Important Network." It's on channel 9409 on Dish Network.

Before Porter this morning we caught the tail end of the Big Joe Polka Show (a music show I'd seen with my daughter a year or so ago.)

I notice RFDTV also has The Wilburn Brothers Show, Gospel Sampler, and other music shows that look promising.

Of course the focus is agriculture, not music on RFDTV. But sometimes that's interesting too. During a "comemrcial break" for Porter there was an interestingly little featurette on organic farming.

RFDTV is a nice human-scale network. Maybe someone will convince them to run old episodes of The Buck Owens Ranch.

THE SANTA FE OPRY

I didn't do the Santa Fe Opry Friday night due to my work covering the Legislature, so I won't be posting a playlist. I heard my substitute host Tom Knoblauch (who graciously agreed to fill in when I called him Friday morning) say he'd e-mail his list to me so I can post it later.

I did hear part of the show and it sounded great.

Next Friday Laurell Reynolds will fill in for me, That's the last night of the legislative session.

I'll be doing Terrell's Sound World Sunday, Tune in for the death-penalty songs.

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: OLD SPARKY'S TOP 10

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
March 11, 2005

If there were more singers and guitar pickers in the Roundhouse, the debate on capital punishment would have been settled years ago.

You look at the number of songs about the death penalty and you realize how lopsided the debate is in the hoary mists of song lyrics.

It goes back to my theory of crime-and-punishment songs in general: It never hurts a politician to advocate getting tough on criminals, locking ‘em up, and frying the really bad ones.

But the songs we know and love tell a different story. You rarely hear these law ‘n’ order sentiments in the lyrics of American music. There you hear mainly sympathy for the men workin’ on the chain gang, and even compassion for those on death row.

Here’s my top 10 favorite death penalty tunes.


1) “Ellis Unit One” by Steve Earle. Earle is an activist fighting the death penalty. He’s written several songs about the subject, but this one nailed it. The original version appeared on 1995’s Music From and Inspired By Dead Man Walking, but I personally prefer subsequent versions with background vocals by the gospel group The Fairfield Four.

The narrator of the song is a guy who works in the Texas prison where executions are conducted. “Well, I've seen ‘em fight like lions, boys/ I've seen 'em go like lambs/And I've helped to drag ‘em when they could not stand /And I've heard their mamas cryin' when they heard that big door slam/ And I've seen the victim's family holdin' hands.”

And by the end of the song, it’s getting to him. He’s dreaming of being strapped to the lethal injection table himself and feeling “something cold and black pullin' through my lungs.”

2) “Sing Me Back Home” by Merle Haggard. This was a big country hit for Hag in the late ‘60s. It’s got something going for it most of the songs here don’t: It’s based on actual people the singer knew while he was in San Quentin Prison who were executed. One was Caryl Chessman, a convicted serial rapist who Haggard -- and many others -- believed to be innocent.

Writing about Chessman’s execution in his autobiography My House of Memories, Haggard said , “On a hillside outside of prison, a group of people had gathered to sing gospel songs. Many were protesting capital punishment in general; others were protesting Chessman’s pending execution. Others just came to sing to a dead man walking to his grave.” The incident inspired the line, “I recall last Sunday morning a choir from off the street/came in to sing a few old gospel songs” from this song.

3) “Karla Faye” by Mary Gauthier. This tearjerker is about the 1998 execution of Karla Faye Tucker by the state of Texas. Gauthier’s Louisiana drawl is sweet as sugar, though by the end of the song it feels like you’ve been punched in the gut. Tasmania-born country singer Audrey Auld Mezera’s covers “Karla Faye” on her new album Texas.

4) “The Mercy Seat” by Nick Cave. This song, also covered by Johnny Cash, is one of Cave’s most intense, dealing both with the physical reality of death in the electric chair and the psychological breakdown of the condemned man in the days leading up to it.

5) “Green, Green Grass of Home” by Johnny Darrell. This song, later made more famous by Tom Jones, was popular on the country charts a couple of years before “Sing Me Back Home.” Until the last verse, the tune sounds like some sentimental drunk recalling the old folks back home. But then you find out he was only dreaming. “For there’s a guard and there’s a sad old padre/Arm in arm we’ll walk at daybreak …” He’ll be returning to the green, green grass of home -- only when he’s buried beneath it.

6) “Long Black Veil” This modern “folk” song, written by Danny Dill, has been recorded by Lefty Frizzell, Johnny Cash, The Band, The Chieftains (with Mick Jagger on vocals) It’s the story of a guy who gets the noose after being convicted of murder in a case of mistaken identity. “I spoke not a word, though it meant my life/I had been in the arms of my best friend’s wife.”

7) “I’ve Just Got to Get a Message to You” by The Bee Gees. A kindly preacher about to walk the last mile with the narrator of n this late ’60s Bee Gees hit. The narrator is ambivalent about his punishment: “Well, I did it to him, now it's my turn to die.” All he can think about is sending a last farewell to some unnamed loved one.

8) “Sam Hall” This tune is about a defiant criminal shouting taunts at his enemies from the gallows and bragging about his crimes. At one point it was a British Musical Hall number -- as covered by Richard Thompson in his 1000 Years of Popular Music -- though it had a previous life as song about Captain Kidd. Tex Ritter put Sam in the guise of an Old West outlaw. In the version by Irish/American rock group Black 47, Sam is an Irish Republican hero.

9) “Stack O’Lee Blues” by Mississippi John Hurt. There have been countless versions, but Hurt’s 1928 recording provides a rare pro-death penalty song. “Standing on the gallow, Stack O’ Lee did curse/The judge says `let’s kill him before he kills one of us,' ” he sings. The bad man who killed Billy DeLyons for a $5 Stetson hat is hardly a folk hero in Hurt’s version, which concludes, “At 12 o’clock they killed him/They was all glad to see him die.”

10) “Send Me to the Electric Chair” by Bessie Smith. This tune, circa 1928, is about someone who has murdered her lover and demands to be executed, showing no remorse. In the mid ‘70s David Bromberg, who revived the song in a neo-Dixieland style even better capturing its wicked humor.

Hear these songs on Terrell's Sound World, 10 p.m. - midnight (Actually I'll start this set right after the 11th hour) Sunday on KSFR, 90.7 FM, Santa Fe Public Radio.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: TO REFERENDUM OR NOT TO REFERENDUM

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
March 10, 2005

When introducing his bill to legalize medical marijuana last month, Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, noted that if this state had a ballot referendum system -- allowing voters to gather petitions to force issues to be decided by voters -- a law like his would have become a reality years ago.

By complete coincidence, later that very same day, Rep. Greg Payne, R-Albuquerque, announced that he was introducing legislation to amend the state constitution to bring about ballot initiatives.

In announcing what would become known as House Joint Resolution 3, Payne named voter identification and banning cockfights as examples of issues that might warrant referendum votes. Both issues, as usual, have been sandbagged in committee this year.

"Cockfighting demonstrates the need for referendum and initiative," Payne, who wants to ban chicken fights, said in an interview this week. :When an entrenched system can't or won't act, there needs to be some avenue for political redress."

If the HJR 3 passed the Legislature, state voters would have to approve it in the November 2006 election.

Under HJR 3, voters would need 5 percent of the total vote in the last gubernatorial race -- or 8 percent for constitutional amendments to get a question on the ballot in the next general election.

Action on Payne's joint resolution was postponed in the House Voters and Elections Committee to give him time to come up with a couple of amendments to satisfy concerns expressed by other lawmakers.

Payne said he probably would ask the committee to act on the bill later this week.

Despite his remarks about medical marijuana and ballot referendums, McSorley said this week he's undecided about having referendums in New Mexico.

"When I first came to the Legislature I was a big supporter," he said. "But I can see both sides of the issue now."

The way ballot initiatives are handled in California concerns McSorley. "They've turned referendum into a joke," he said. "In California a few wealthy individuals can pay for professional signature gatherers to get enough petitions, then run commercials to sway public policy."

McSorley said he'd like to study the differences between California's referendum laws and those of Arizona, where, he said, abuses don't seem as rampant.

Payne acknowledged that the referendum situation in California bothers some people. "But that's democracy," he said. "Democracy is messy and tough."

Dealing with big money in politics is a national problem, Payne said. "You have to make sure there's transparency in (campaign finance) reporting."

Both Payne and McSorley see referendums as a potential check-and-balance to an unresponsive Legislature.

Payne admits his measure probably has less of a chance of passing this year than a cockfighting bill. But referendums and initiatives, he said, is an idea bound to be discussed in future sessions.

My governor can whip your governor: California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would be a girlie man against New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson if the two ran against each other for president in 2008.

This is according to a poll conducted late last month of 800 registered voters across the country by pollsters Ed Rollins, a Republican, and Ed Reilly, a Democrat for Westhill Partners and The National Journal's Hotline.

According to the poll, Democrat Richardson would get 36 percent to Republican Schwarzenegger's 27 percent. Twenty-eight percent were undecided. There is a 3.5 percent margin of error.

Of course, such a contest is unlikely because Schwarzenegger, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Austria, is constitutionally barred from becoming president. And even if there was a great outcry to change the constitution, it would be pretty close to impossible to get an amendment ratified in time for the next election. And according to the same poll, Americans oppose such an amendment by a 65-29 percent margin.

Hotline conducts hypothetical 2008 match-ups each month. In January the Rollins/Reilly poll showed Sen. Hillary Clinton beating Florida Gov. Jeb Bush 45 to 37 percent.

Bingaman vulnerable?: New Mexico just made another Top 10 list. According to The National Journal, we're ranked eighth in the publication's "Most Likely to Switch Party Control" list of 2006 Senate races.

But after declaring U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman as "one incumbent who could get pushed into retirement," the publication says,

"it's shocking how uninterested Republicans seem to be in challenging him. One would think after Bush's impressive showing in the state, finding a legitimate candidate would be fairly easy. But apparently, Republicans are keeping their powder dry in the hopes Bingaman's colleague, Republican Pete Domenici, doesn't seek re-election in '08. Still, we think even a B-list recruit can give Bingaman a scare."

(Note: The only Republican who has announced he'll run against Bingaman -- former state Sen. and perennial state candidate Tom Benavides.)

ELIZABETH McQUEEN IN SANTA FE

I just got a press release saying Elizabeth McQueen & The Firebrands will be playing at the Cowgirl, Thursday March 24.

I recently reviewed Happy Doing What We're Doing, her new, cool little tribute to English pub rock, for Pasatiempo (you can find it at the end of THIS POST ) and have been playing her songs on The Santa Fe Opry.

Should be a great show. And hey, the Legislature will be over!