THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, March 25, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Back From the Shadows Again by The Firesign Theatre
Lookout Mountain by Drive-By Truckers
Won't Be Home by The Old 97s
Prison Walls by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies
Blood is Thicker Than Water by Shaver
High on a Mountain Top by Loretta Lynn
Eggs of Your Chickens by The Flatlanders

Green Green Grass of Home by Ted Hawkins
Karla Faye by Audrey Auld Mezera
Camelot Motel by Mary Gauthier
A-11 by Buck Owens
Down on the Corner of Love by Tracie Lynn
Down Where the Drunkards Roll by Richard & Linda Thompson
I Agree With Pat Metheny by Richard Thompson
Root Hog or Die by June Carter

Van Ronk by Tom Russell
Port of Amsterdam by Dave Van Ronk
My Name is Jorge by The Gourds
Ride by Marlee MacLeod
Heart Attack by The Moaners
Tiger Man by John Schooley
Husband and Wife Were Angry One Night by Charlie Poole
A Wild Cat Woman and a Tom Cat Man by Cliff Carlisle

A Satisfied Mind by Porter Wagoner
Electricity by Paul Burch
In Memory of Your Smile Ralph Stanley with Maria Muldaur
In the Jailhouse Now by Johnny Cash
It's Only Make Believe by John Wesley Harding & Kelly Hogan
When Idols Fall by Ronny Elliott
Has She Got a Friend by Nick Lowe
Here Comes That Rainbow Again by Kris Kristofferson
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

A VERY LUCKY MAN

I just got permission to post the complete lyrics to "An American is a Very Lucky Man," which I wrote about in last week's Tune-up

I guess I was wrong about the "chow-mein or borscht or pizza pie" verse being the last one in the song. Oh well ...

An American is a Very Lucky Man
by George Mysels and J. Maloy Roach
As performed by Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians

An American is a very lucky man, an American is a very lucky man.
He can walk along with his head up high and look the whole world in the eye,
An American is a very lucky man.

An American is a very lucky guy, he can eat chow-mein or borscht or pizza pie,
He can talk with an accent or a brogue but his Liberty's never out of vogue
He knows freedom, he's a very lucky guy.

Now a man who builds a house of wood and the man who welds a tank,
Are just as proud and just as good as the man who owns a bank.

An American is a very lucky man, He can always count on good old Uncle Sam,
And no one can tell him what to do, except the gal he's married to,
An American is a very lucky man.

Used by permission

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: WEIRD ECHOES FROM RURAL AMERICA

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
March 25 2005

There’s a rich source of wonderful music -- weird as America itself -- hiding within the nether regions of satellite television, the 9400s where you find low-budget, handmade channels featuring religious, educational, left-wing (Free Speech TV, World Link) programming -- television seemingly untouched by modern technical glitz.

The one I’m talking is RFD-TV, “Rural America’s Most Important Network,” up on channel 9409 (That’s Dish Network. It’s channel 379 on DirectTV. I don’t think it’s carried on cable tv around here.)

In between shows like Training Mules and Donkeys, Classic Tractor Specials and Prairie Farm Report, this Dallas-based network has a treasure trove of music shows featuring some musicians you’ll recognize, some that you’ve never even heard of.

RFD-TV shows a couple of classic and influential syndicated country music shows from the 1960s and ‘70s -- The Porter Wagoner Show and The Wilburn Brothers Show.

Both shows featured great guest stars as well hot little house bands.

I’ve caught a couple of old black-and-white Wagoner shows on RFD-TV lately. Wagoner usually sang a couple of solo tunes, but his main job was being the host, introducing other singers -- guests and regulars -- and stepping out of the way. His famous sequined suits played hell on the tv cameras of the day, offering occasional psychedelic distortion as the lights caught the sequins.

The shows I’ve caught recently were from the days before Dolly Parton was with Wagoner. Here his female counterpart was “Pretty Miss Norma Jean,” who had a sexy alto, singing songs like Charlie Louvins‘ “I Don’t Love You Anymore.”


Wagoner’s shows always featured a comic solo by Speck Rhodes, who played slap bass with the Wagon Master Band and sang funny songs like “Too Old to Cut the Mustard.” Rose dressed like a ventriloquist dummy -- checkered suit, bowler hat, bow tie. With his bowl-over-the-head haircut and blacked out front teeth (or were they blacked out? I swear the closer I look the more his mouth looks real) Rhodes was a bizarre throwback to vaudeville and medicine shows.

Wagoner had some extremely impressive guests. One recent show on RFD-TV featured Lefty Frizzell singing “Saginaw, Michigan” and “Always Late.” Another had Red Sovine, who performed a dead-child weeper called “Little Rosa.” The song had a lengthy and surely politically-incorrect speaking park that Sovine performed in a bad Chico Marx pseudo-Italian accent.

Speaking of impressive guest stars, the Wilburn Brothers segment I saw this week featured a young, beehived Loretta Lynn singing “Fist City” and a lesser-known song called “If Loneliness Can Kill Me.”

But also noteworthy on the show was a far less famous singer, a soulful guy named Vernon Oxford from Rogers, Ark. He sang a honky-tonk heartbreaker called “This Woman is Mine” and a truck driving tune called “Roll Big Wheels Roll.”

The Wilburns’ answer to Speck Rhodes was Harold Morrison, who wore a pink (!) checkered jacket and a red taxi driver cap. (Yes, this show was in color.) On this show he sang a raucous “Little Brown Jug,” laughing insanely throughout the whole song. But Morrison could really sing. He joined the Wilburns and Lynn on a moving hillbilly gospel song.

The Wilburns themselves -- Doyle and Teddy -- were an underrated act. Their harmonies remind me of a hardened version of The Everlys.

But old country shows aren’t the only ones offered by RFD-TV. A couple of weeks ago I caught a very enjoyable bluegrass program, The Cumberland Highlanders Show that featured Joe Isaacs and Stacy as guest stars. The Cumberland Highlanders, a Kentucky group, is the house band. Their web site says Ralph Stanley and James Monroe (Bill’s son, not the former president) have appeared as guest.

There’s a gospel show called Gospel Sampler, with a set designed like a country church. The one show I saw was spotty musically. Most of the music was too restrained, though I enjoyed a group called The McGruders, featuring a woman named Priscilla McGruder who sings as if she’s in a religious trance, frequently reaching an arm up to Heaven.

Strangest of all, RFD-TV apparently is the world television headquarters for polka music.

Polka star Jimmy Sturr has his own RFD-TV show. But the most fun is The Big Joe Polka Show featuring the portly Joe Siedlik, who is known for his vests that look like accordion keyboards. Big Joe seems to have a different colored cummerbund every time he introduces a new band.

The show is recorded live at various Midwestern venues. The camera often shows the dance floor. Sometimes there are only a handful of couples on the floor and few seem to be under the age of 65.

The quality of the bands vary widely. Some are pretty weak, though one band I recently saw on the show was as fun and energetic as Brave Combo or The Polkaholics. That’s The Chmielewski Funtime Band. It’s led by Florian Chmielewski, a former Minnesota state senator. But the real star is his son Jeff Chmielewski, who plays sax -- on one song, “The Chmielewski Twirl” he played it upside down -- and fiddle, where he sounds like the Doug Kershaw of polka.

After the show, I was googling to get more information on this amazing musician. I found a disturbing little news story that said Jeff Chmielewski, in 1999 was sentenced in federal court to 46 months in prison in connection with a scheme to undervalue slot machines sold in South Africa.

South African slot machines? Hunter Thompson couldn’t have dreamed this one up.

Could this be a new subgenre emerging -- outlaw polka?

The Wilburn Brothers Show was on when I first started writing this column Monday morning. But then came an actual bull auction for at least a couple of hours. (”Look at the cow wrecker on that one, boys.”) Anyone who’s ever heard one of these knows that auctioneering is a weird, hypnotic kind of American music itself.

Most of these shows are scheduled several times during the week. Check RFD-TV’s Web site for the schedule.

WORDS TO LIVE BY

I had planned to run a compilation of some of my favorite Quotes of the Day from the recent session in the big Legislature wrap-up package in last Sunday's New Mexican. It turned out there wasn't enough space.

That's why God gave us blogs. Here's those quotes:

“In our great state, we have a tradition of working together, Republicans and Democrats, side by side. We have our disagreements. We have our debates. Maybe sometimes I overdo it.”
— Gov. Bill Richardson in his State of the State address.

“Bill Richardson has become ... The Elvis.”
— Playwright/actor Charles Pike performing part of his play Elephant Murmurs in the Capitol before an audience that included the governor.

“His desire is to fund everything that will get him to New Hampshire on time, and not worry about the state of New Mexico along the way. It’s just a sad day for the kids of New Mexico.”
— Rep. Dan Foley, R-Roswell, reacting on the House floor to a line-item budget veto by Richardson that killed a $330,000 pilot project to provide free admission to school athletic events — in Roswell.

“You have always been a voice for the downtrodden. ... You have been almost like a God to them.”
— Sen. Phil Griego, D-San Jose, speaking in support of former House Speaker Raymond Sanchez, whose nomination to The University of New Mexico Board of Regents won unanimous Senate approval.

“I thought the governor’s airplane was the official state aircraft.”
— Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, during a committee debate on SB 13, which would designate the hot-air balloon as the official state aircraft. Richardson wants the state to buy a $4 million plane for the state.

“If the Legislature does not act on this bill and the governor does not sign this bill, I have to ask, ‘What are they afraid of?’ ”
— Sen. Steve Komadina, R-Corrales, regarding his SB 20, which would have established a program for voluntary drug testing for elected officials. The bill was killed.

“They made money the old-fashioned way. They got up at 4 a.m., drank alcohol and sat in line in their lawn chairs.”
— Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, offering a rousing defense of ticket scalpers in arguing against SB 988, which would have made scalping tickets to professional-sports events a misdemeanor.

“He’s not going to get in any trouble for being here, is he? I know there’s some places he can’t go.”
— Sen. Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, after another senator introduced former Rep. Max Coll, D-Santa Fe, who was sitting in the gallery. Jennings was apparently referring to a recent newspaper story about Coll not being welcome to attend a charitable event at the governor’s mansion.

“Egg-Suckin’ Dog/I’m gonna stomp your head in the ground/If you don’t stay out of my hen house/You dirty Egg-Suckin’ hound.”
— Sen. Shannon Robinson, D-Albuquerque, singing the chorus of a song popularized by Johnny Cash, after speaking against SB 432, which would authorize local animal-control authorities to seize and destroy dogs deemed dangerous. Despite Robinson’s vocal talent, the bill passed the Senate 22-15.

“Unless the wolf can read the statute, it confuses the heck out of me who is really responsible.”
— Senate President Pro-tem Ben Altamirano, D-Silver City, voicing concerns about SB 72, which would have outlawed wolves that have been released on federal lands from entering state or private lands. The Senate Conservation Committee tabled the bill.

“Wow, look at all these 900 numbers!”
Sen. Joe Carraro, R-Albuquerque, joking about a telephone bill that Senate Republican Leader Stuart Ingle, R-Portales, handed him during the floor debate on a measure concerning telephones in rural areas.

“The best place to have a heart attack is in a casino.”
— Rep. Tom Anderson, R-Albuquerque, talking to the House Government & Urban Affairs Committee about his HB 547, which would appropriate $250,000 to local governments for automatic external defibrillator programs.

“Love is the most powerful, the most powerful, the most powerful force in the universe.”
Sen. Mark Boitano, R-Albuquerque, speaking at a news conference about several Republican-sponsored bills aimed at keeping marriages intact.

“ ‘Love is in the air’ isn’t enough — laws need to be on the books.”
— Headline of Senate Republican news release announcing a news conference about proposed bills to strengthen families.

“Maybe we should put snipers out there. That seems to motivate.”
— Rep. Keith Gardner, R-Roswell, joking with the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee about how to get New Mexico voter turnout as high as that in the Iraqi elections.

“I know you’re trying to make this a homosexual issue. I’m trying to make this a marriage issue. It is a family issue. ... This is not attacking homosexuals.”
— Sen. Bill Sharer, R-Farmington, explaining his bill to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. He was responding to a reporter who asked how allowing same-sex couples to marry threaten heterosexual marriages.

KSFR FUNDRAISER

Been so busy with the Legislature and recovering from the Legislature, I haven't even made a plea for pledges for the KSFR Fundraiser .

In all modesty, we've become a great little station, and like the kid in the old Shake and Bake commercials used to say, "And I helped!"

Be sure to read Yasmin Khan's story in The New Mexican this morning (and while you're at it, somebody kick John Coventry's ass for calling the station "A bunch of Commies" in the comments section.)

If nothing else, a story in this week's Santa Fe Reporter illustrates the dastardly nature of commercial radio. Turns out that Rocque Ranaldi, who did KBAC's Friday night funk show and was the program director of 101.1 FM, "The New Mix" has been canned by his corporate masters at Clear Channel. (Sorry, The Reporter didn't put the story on its Web site.) I never heard 101.1, but I did tune into the funk show every now and then. Next to Lucky's Belvedere Lounge, it was KBAC's best show.

I like all the people I know at KBAC, but it irked me when they started calling themselves Santa Fe's "community radio" station a while back. (I think they cut that out.) And lots of people don't realize that KBAC's slogan "Radio Free Santa Fe" was lifted from KSFR 10 years ago in some kind of Satanic pact made with a former KSFR honcho in a moment of dementia. I still cringe whenever I think about that.

Like Eric Idle says, "Clear Channel's a dear channel ..."

So get your credit card out and support KSFR.

By the way, I'll be doing the Santa Fe Opry myself Friday, first time in three weeks. Tune in!