Sunday, March 20, 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
Leave the Capitol by The Fall
Clown Time is Over by Elvis Costello
Dummy by NRBQ
51-7 by Camper Van Beethoven
Big Shot in the Dark by Timbuk 3
Quiche Lorraine by The B52s
Let Loose the Kraken by The Bald Guys
Adventures Through Inner Space by The Bomboras
Experiment in Terror by Davie Allan & The Arrows
Scatter Shield by The Surfaris
Shredded Heat by Dick Dale
Cha Wow Wow by The Hillbilly Soul Surfers
H is for Harlot by The Civil Tones
The Casbah by Los Straightjackets
Who Got the Grady by The Diplomats of Solid Sound
The Godfather by Satan's Pilgrims
Jack the Ripper by Link Wray
Red River Valley by Brave Combo
Polka Enemy # 1 by The Polkaholics
Who'd You Like to Love Ya by Li'l Wally
Top of the Hill Polka by Nancy Hlad
Blue Polka by Rotondi
Do Something Different by Brave Combo
Nichts Nein Frankenstein by Das Furlines
Ten in One by Crow Hang
Weiner Dog Polka by Polkacide
My Singing Soul by Soel
The Last World of Fire and Trash by Joy Harjo
Cody by Mogwai
Lost in the Supermarket by The Afghan Whigs
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Monday, March 21, 2005
Saturday, March 19, 2005
THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST
Friday, March 18, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Substitute Host: Laurell Reynolds
OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Nashville Skyline Rag by Bob Dylan
I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink by Merle Haggard
I Am A Lonesome Fugitive by Roy Buchannan
Six Days On the Road by Graham Parsons and the Fallen
Angels
1952 Vincent Black Lightening by Richard Thompson
Mother Earth and Cheat by the Sadies
All Of You Fascists Are Bound To Lose by Woody Guthrie
I Need A Man To Love by Janis Joplin
Life of Ease by Steve Terrell
Lovesick Blues by Linda Ronstadt
Making Believe by Kitty Wells
Sometimes When I Get To Thinking by Buffy Sainte Marie
Me and My Uncle by Judy Collins
Tommorrow Is A Long Time by Sandy Denny
A Satisfied Mind by Porter Wagoner
The Man Who Couldn't Cry by Johnny Cash
Little Maggie by The New Lost City Ramblers
Hop High My Lulu Gal by Dirk Powell and Jim Miller
Walkin' Boss by Jerry Garcia and David Grisman
Give the Fiddler A Dram by the Holy Modal Rounders
Wild Bill Jones by the Highwoods String Band
Gentle On My Mind by John Hartford
To Love Somebody by the Flying Burrito Brothers
Leavin' On Your Mind by Patsy Cline
Sweet Dreams by Roy Buchannan
Saturday Clothes, Changes, and Too Late For Prayin' by Gordon Lightfoot
Stairway To Heaven by Dolly Parton
Sweet Old World by Lucinda Williams
Another Man Gone by Vera Hall
Alone With You by Faron Young
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Substitute Host: Laurell Reynolds
OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Nashville Skyline Rag by Bob Dylan
I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink by Merle Haggard
I Am A Lonesome Fugitive by Roy Buchannan
Six Days On the Road by Graham Parsons and the Fallen
Angels
1952 Vincent Black Lightening by Richard Thompson
Mother Earth and Cheat by the Sadies
All Of You Fascists Are Bound To Lose by Woody Guthrie
I Need A Man To Love by Janis Joplin
Life of Ease by Steve Terrell
Lovesick Blues by Linda Ronstadt
Making Believe by Kitty Wells
Sometimes When I Get To Thinking by Buffy Sainte Marie
Me and My Uncle by Judy Collins
Tommorrow Is A Long Time by Sandy Denny
A Satisfied Mind by Porter Wagoner
The Man Who Couldn't Cry by Johnny Cash
Little Maggie by The New Lost City Ramblers
Hop High My Lulu Gal by Dirk Powell and Jim Miller
Walkin' Boss by Jerry Garcia and David Grisman
Give the Fiddler A Dram by the Holy Modal Rounders
Wild Bill Jones by the Highwoods String Band
Gentle On My Mind by John Hartford
To Love Somebody by the Flying Burrito Brothers
Leavin' On Your Mind by Patsy Cline
Sweet Dreams by Roy Buchannan
Saturday Clothes, Changes, and Too Late For Prayin' by Gordon Lightfoot
Stairway To Heaven by Dolly Parton
Sweet Old World by Lucinda Williams
Another Man Gone by Vera Hall
Alone With You by Faron Young
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list
Friday, March 18, 2005
TERRELL'S TUNEUP: AN AMERICAN IS A VERY LUCKY MAN
As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
March 18, 2005
Listening to a batch of recent -- and fairly recent -- CDs in my never-ending pile of promos, I can’t help but be drawn back to a strange little song from my elementary school music class.
I’ve written about it before in this very column, but it continues to haunt me. It was a patriotic little ditty called "An American Is a Very Lucky Man."
For years, I didn’t know where the song came from. As far as I knew, it was written by some music teacher in Oklahoma City.
Through the magic of Google, I just learned that it was written by George Mysels and J. Maloy Roach, a songwriting team best known for the inspirational Perry Como hit "One Little Candle," and that at one point it was performed by Fred Waring -- I’m not sure with or without His Pennsylvanians.
Yes, like the Candle song, "Lucky Man" was dangerously corny, but it had a nice populist twist that made an impression: "The man who builds a house of wood and a man who welds a tank/ is just as proud and just as good as the man who owns the bank."
But it was the last verse, a celebration of cultural diversity, that I believe helped shape my wide tastes in music (as well as food.)
"An American is a very lucky guy/ He can eat chow mien or borscht or pizza pie ..."
By extension, that means you can enjoy polka, New Orleans jazz and strange strains of jazz fusion and ‘70s Blaxploitation soul -- as performed by Frenchmen.
I sure do. An American is a very lucky man.
*Let’s Kiss by Brave Combo. The Combo call this CD their “25th Anniversary Album.” It’s hard to believe the boys from Denton have been playing their high-energy mix of polka, rock and anything that crosses their collective mind for that long. But they sound as if they still love doing it.
This is a collection of newly recorded material. The liner notes say they’ll wait until their 50th anniversary to do a retrospective.
The Combo doesn’t break much new ground here. They still do a basic pumped-up polka beat driven home by the horn section of Jeffrey Barnes (clarinet and saxes) and Danny O’Brien (trumpet). Guitarist Carl Finch still has that goofy warble when he signs and bassist Bubba Hernandez specializes in those irresistible Mexican polkas.
And they still have a knack for crazy cover tunes. They do the old tune "Bumble Bee" (best known by The Searchers, but done best by Laverne Baker), complete with an instrumental section of "Flight of the Bumble Bee."
They make "Red River Valley" sound as if it were written for a polka band. Plus there’s two versions of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and a minute-long version of The Simpsons theme.
*Putomayo Presents New Orleans. The pantheon of New Orleans musical vast is so great it would be ridiculous to even try to represent it on one disc. Therefore, I have to quibble with the title of this CD.
And I’m irritated because the 35 or so pages of liner notes give precious little recording date information on the songs here.
But listening to the good-time music included on New Orleans, it’s hard to stay grumpy very long.
The emphasis of this compilation is on Crescent City jazz. You won’t find any Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, Clarence “Frogman” Henry or Neville Brothers. The only famous contributor from the New Orleans rock world here is Dr. John, who does a soulful “Basin Street Blues.”
Some of my favorites here are Louie and Louie -- Armstrong and Prima.
Satch’s “Tin Roof Blues” is a slow blues recorded in 1966, late in his career. It’s not nearly as powerful as his early recordings, but he could still blow.
Prima does a snazzy version of “Basin Street Blues,” complete with his trademark scat singing. Even though at two minutes it’s less than half as long as Dr. John’s version, Prima's is more satisfying.
One of the strangest cuts here is Dr. Michael White’s “Give it Up (Gypsy Second Line).” With White’s wailing clarinet, this tune suggests a connection between New Orleans jazz and klezmer.
*Memento by Soel. Close your eyes when you’re listening to this album and try not to visualize Richard Roundtree or Melvin Van Peebles or Pam Greer duking it out with The Man. This music could be straight out of some long lost Blaxploitation flick.
True, you can hear little modern touches of hip-hop and electronica here and there. It’s pretty obvious on the trippy cut called “Earth Mother” with its percussive loops of tablas and dub-like bass and on “To This World” with its relentless hip-hop funky drum loop.
But the spirit of movies like Shaft and music like “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” prevails through all the tracks of Memento. There’s even some vocal samples of the militant proto-rap group The Last Poets on a couple of songs.
Surprisingly this album primarily is the work of French hipsters. Trumpet player Pascal Ohse is the mastermind here, while his longtime collaborator Ludovic Navarre, aka St. Germain, is producer and musical director.
While there are samplers and synthesizers at work here, real live musicians carry the major load. Edouard Labor’s flute on “We Have Died Already” is downright hypnotic.
Ohse and Navarre have done a magnificent job absorbing the music of the Superfly era and synthesizing it into something timeless.
March 18, 2005
Listening to a batch of recent -- and fairly recent -- CDs in my never-ending pile of promos, I can’t help but be drawn back to a strange little song from my elementary school music class.
I’ve written about it before in this very column, but it continues to haunt me. It was a patriotic little ditty called "An American Is a Very Lucky Man."
For years, I didn’t know where the song came from. As far as I knew, it was written by some music teacher in Oklahoma City.
Through the magic of Google, I just learned that it was written by George Mysels and J. Maloy Roach, a songwriting team best known for the inspirational Perry Como hit "One Little Candle," and that at one point it was performed by Fred Waring -- I’m not sure with or without His Pennsylvanians.
Yes, like the Candle song, "Lucky Man" was dangerously corny, but it had a nice populist twist that made an impression: "The man who builds a house of wood and a man who welds a tank/ is just as proud and just as good as the man who owns the bank."
But it was the last verse, a celebration of cultural diversity, that I believe helped shape my wide tastes in music (as well as food.)
"An American is a very lucky guy/ He can eat chow mien or borscht or pizza pie ..."
By extension, that means you can enjoy polka, New Orleans jazz and strange strains of jazz fusion and ‘70s Blaxploitation soul -- as performed by Frenchmen.
I sure do. An American is a very lucky man.
*Let’s Kiss by Brave Combo. The Combo call this CD their “25th Anniversary Album.” It’s hard to believe the boys from Denton have been playing their high-energy mix of polka, rock and anything that crosses their collective mind for that long. But they sound as if they still love doing it.
This is a collection of newly recorded material. The liner notes say they’ll wait until their 50th anniversary to do a retrospective.
The Combo doesn’t break much new ground here. They still do a basic pumped-up polka beat driven home by the horn section of Jeffrey Barnes (clarinet and saxes) and Danny O’Brien (trumpet). Guitarist Carl Finch still has that goofy warble when he signs and bassist Bubba Hernandez specializes in those irresistible Mexican polkas.
And they still have a knack for crazy cover tunes. They do the old tune "Bumble Bee" (best known by The Searchers, but done best by Laverne Baker), complete with an instrumental section of "Flight of the Bumble Bee."
They make "Red River Valley" sound as if it were written for a polka band. Plus there’s two versions of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and a minute-long version of The Simpsons theme.
*Putomayo Presents New Orleans. The pantheon of New Orleans musical vast is so great it would be ridiculous to even try to represent it on one disc. Therefore, I have to quibble with the title of this CD.
And I’m irritated because the 35 or so pages of liner notes give precious little recording date information on the songs here.
But listening to the good-time music included on New Orleans, it’s hard to stay grumpy very long.
The emphasis of this compilation is on Crescent City jazz. You won’t find any Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, Clarence “Frogman” Henry or Neville Brothers. The only famous contributor from the New Orleans rock world here is Dr. John, who does a soulful “Basin Street Blues.”
Some of my favorites here are Louie and Louie -- Armstrong and Prima.
Satch’s “Tin Roof Blues” is a slow blues recorded in 1966, late in his career. It’s not nearly as powerful as his early recordings, but he could still blow.
Prima does a snazzy version of “Basin Street Blues,” complete with his trademark scat singing. Even though at two minutes it’s less than half as long as Dr. John’s version, Prima's is more satisfying.
One of the strangest cuts here is Dr. Michael White’s “Give it Up (Gypsy Second Line).” With White’s wailing clarinet, this tune suggests a connection between New Orleans jazz and klezmer.
*Memento by Soel. Close your eyes when you’re listening to this album and try not to visualize Richard Roundtree or Melvin Van Peebles or Pam Greer duking it out with The Man. This music could be straight out of some long lost Blaxploitation flick.
True, you can hear little modern touches of hip-hop and electronica here and there. It’s pretty obvious on the trippy cut called “Earth Mother” with its percussive loops of tablas and dub-like bass and on “To This World” with its relentless hip-hop funky drum loop.
But the spirit of movies like Shaft and music like “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” prevails through all the tracks of Memento. There’s even some vocal samples of the militant proto-rap group The Last Poets on a couple of songs.
Surprisingly this album primarily is the work of French hipsters. Trumpet player Pascal Ohse is the mastermind here, while his longtime collaborator Ludovic Navarre, aka St. Germain, is producer and musical director.
While there are samplers and synthesizers at work here, real live musicians carry the major load. Edouard Labor’s flute on “We Have Died Already” is downright hypnotic.
Ohse and Navarre have done a magnificent job absorbing the music of the Superfly era and synthesizing it into something timeless.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
TOP O' THE FOOD CHAIN TO YA!
Happy Saint Pat's and go stróice cúnna ifrinn do bhall fearga!
I got that little Gaelic gem from an Irish curse generator.
And go n-ithe na péisteoga do dhea-chlú to you all.
(Thanks to my friend, Dana in Albuquerque!)
ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: STUDY HALL
As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
March 17, 2005
Here's a modest proposal for future legislation: a memorial to direct a study about the effects on state government of studies directed by the Legislature.
Every year our lawmakers pass measures that don't actually do anything but ask some state agency to study some particular issue.
Here's a sample of some of the studies that both chambers of the Legislature have agreed upon so far:
* House Joint Memorial 63, sponsored by Rep. Debbie Rodella, D-San Juan Pueblo, requests the State Commission of Public Records conduct a written study to document Chimayó chile's cultural, traditional and industrial connection to present ways of living in Chimayó and surrounding communities.
* House Bill 684, sponsored by Rep. Kandy Cordova, D-Belen, would ask the state Department of Health to conduct a study on gambling addiction and its relation to suicide and bankruptcies. (Because this is a bill, with an appropriation of $110,000, it would have to be signed by the governor.)
* Senate Joint Memorial 15, sponsored by Sen. Steve Komadina, R-Corrales, asks the State Parks Division to study boating safety education programs.
And here's one that feeds a paranoia I didn't even know I had:
* HJM 75, sponsored by Rep. Richard Vigil, D-Ribera, which directs the Regulation and Licensing Department to study the elevator industry. It turns out there's no state agency responsible for making sure the elevators in this state are operating or maintained correctly.
I think I'll take the stairs, at least until they do this study.
Besides the studies that have passed both chambers, there's plenty still creeping through the legislative process.
And just last week, Sen. Mary Jane Garcia, D-Doña Ana, frustrated at not being able to pass her bill to ban cockfighting, said she might introduce a last-minute memorial to ask the state to study the socio-economic effects of cockfighting on the state. So far, that measure hasn't seen the light of day.
Two state cabinet secretaries interviewed Wednesday said they don't feel put upon by all these calls for studies.
"You don't have to do these studies," said Health Secretary Michelle Lujan Grisham, noting that most of them come in the form of memorials, which are non-binding. "But these express a clear legislative intent and our job is to respond."
But both Grisham and Human Services Secretary Pam Hyde said they sometimes worry whether their respective departments have the expertise needed to conduct some of the studies they are asked to conduct.
Frequently, the secretaries noted, this year's study turns into next year's legislation. This happened with the state telemarketing bill that passed the Legislature two years ago.
"These studies are usually topics that constituents have raised with legislators," Hyde said. "It's an appropriate way of raising an issue for public discussion."
St. Jeff?: Last week in this column, I quoted a recent National Review article that claimed U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman is one of the most vulnerable senators up for re-election next year.
Bingaman's office responded by sending a poll conducted earlier this year by New Mexico Research and Polling Inc., that basically showed Bingaman to be pretty darn popular in this state.
According to the poll, 67 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of Bingaman - 29 percent saying "very favorable," 38 percent saying "somewhat favorable." Only 14 percent said they have an unfavorable opinion of the Democrat. Even a healthy majority of Republicans - 60 percent - have a favorable opinion of Bingaman, the poll said.
The same poll showed U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici to have a total of 68 percent favorable rating with 20 percent saying they have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican senator.
Most of the questions in the poll dealt with environmental and energy issues.
The poll was commissioned by Green and Associates, a New Mexico public-policy consulting firm, said Research and Polling president Brian Sanderoff. A random sample of 500 voters statewide were interviewed by telephone between Jan. 26 and Feb. 1. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percent.
Sanderoff said the numbers indeed look good for Bingaman's re-election effort.
Another indication that Bingaman might not be that vulnerable, Sanderoff said, is that there is not a "long line of people" waiting to challenge him. So far only former state Sen. Tom Benavides, a perennial candidate who at various stages of his career has run as a Democrat an independent and most recently as a Republican, has said he'll challenge Bingaman.
March 17, 2005
Here's a modest proposal for future legislation: a memorial to direct a study about the effects on state government of studies directed by the Legislature.
Every year our lawmakers pass measures that don't actually do anything but ask some state agency to study some particular issue.
Here's a sample of some of the studies that both chambers of the Legislature have agreed upon so far:
* House Joint Memorial 63, sponsored by Rep. Debbie Rodella, D-San Juan Pueblo, requests the State Commission of Public Records conduct a written study to document Chimayó chile's cultural, traditional and industrial connection to present ways of living in Chimayó and surrounding communities.
* House Bill 684, sponsored by Rep. Kandy Cordova, D-Belen, would ask the state Department of Health to conduct a study on gambling addiction and its relation to suicide and bankruptcies. (Because this is a bill, with an appropriation of $110,000, it would have to be signed by the governor.)
* Senate Joint Memorial 15, sponsored by Sen. Steve Komadina, R-Corrales, asks the State Parks Division to study boating safety education programs.
And here's one that feeds a paranoia I didn't even know I had:
* HJM 75, sponsored by Rep. Richard Vigil, D-Ribera, which directs the Regulation and Licensing Department to study the elevator industry. It turns out there's no state agency responsible for making sure the elevators in this state are operating or maintained correctly.
I think I'll take the stairs, at least until they do this study.
Besides the studies that have passed both chambers, there's plenty still creeping through the legislative process.
And just last week, Sen. Mary Jane Garcia, D-Doña Ana, frustrated at not being able to pass her bill to ban cockfighting, said she might introduce a last-minute memorial to ask the state to study the socio-economic effects of cockfighting on the state. So far, that measure hasn't seen the light of day.
Two state cabinet secretaries interviewed Wednesday said they don't feel put upon by all these calls for studies.
"You don't have to do these studies," said Health Secretary Michelle Lujan Grisham, noting that most of them come in the form of memorials, which are non-binding. "But these express a clear legislative intent and our job is to respond."
But both Grisham and Human Services Secretary Pam Hyde said they sometimes worry whether their respective departments have the expertise needed to conduct some of the studies they are asked to conduct.
Frequently, the secretaries noted, this year's study turns into next year's legislation. This happened with the state telemarketing bill that passed the Legislature two years ago.
"These studies are usually topics that constituents have raised with legislators," Hyde said. "It's an appropriate way of raising an issue for public discussion."
St. Jeff?: Last week in this column, I quoted a recent National Review article that claimed U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman is one of the most vulnerable senators up for re-election next year.
Bingaman's office responded by sending a poll conducted earlier this year by New Mexico Research and Polling Inc., that basically showed Bingaman to be pretty darn popular in this state.
According to the poll, 67 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of Bingaman - 29 percent saying "very favorable," 38 percent saying "somewhat favorable." Only 14 percent said they have an unfavorable opinion of the Democrat. Even a healthy majority of Republicans - 60 percent - have a favorable opinion of Bingaman, the poll said.
The same poll showed U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici to have a total of 68 percent favorable rating with 20 percent saying they have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican senator.
Most of the questions in the poll dealt with environmental and energy issues.
The poll was commissioned by Green and Associates, a New Mexico public-policy consulting firm, said Research and Polling president Brian Sanderoff. A random sample of 500 voters statewide were interviewed by telephone between Jan. 26 and Feb. 1. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percent.
Sanderoff said the numbers indeed look good for Bingaman's re-election effort.
Another indication that Bingaman might not be that vulnerable, Sanderoff said, is that there is not a "long line of people" waiting to challenge him. So far only former state Sen. Tom Benavides, a perennial candidate who at various stages of his career has run as a Democrat an independent and most recently as a Republican, has said he'll challenge Bingaman.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
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.
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.
Sunday, March 13, 2005
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
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.
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.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
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.
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.
Friday, March 11, 2005
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.
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.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
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,
(Note: The only Republican who has announced he'll run against Bingaman -- former state Sen. and perennial state candidate Tom Benavides.)
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.)
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
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!
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!
HUNTER HUNTED?
I didn't know Dr. Thompson ( one of my co-workers did) but I bet he absolutely would hate being the subject of a lame-brain conspiracy theory.
According to fervered whispers all over the internet, Thompson was rubbed out because he "was working on stories dealing with a homosexual callboy (or programmed sex slave?) ring in the Bush White House and the demolition of the World Trade Center."
The bastards!
Actually I think this Sept. 11 and sex ring talk is just a misinformation ploy to draw attention away from the real killer:
Courtney Love!
According to fervered whispers all over the internet, Thompson was rubbed out because he "was working on stories dealing with a homosexual callboy (or programmed sex slave?) ring in the Bush White House and the demolition of the World Trade Center."
The bastards!
Actually I think this Sept. 11 and sex ring talk is just a misinformation ploy to draw attention away from the real killer:
Courtney Love!
Monday, March 07, 2005
TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST
Sunday, March 6, 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
Jack Pepsi by TAD
Territorial Pissings by Nirvana
Who You Driving Now by Mudhoney
Know Your Rights by The Clash
Slaves & Bulldozers by Soundgarden
Rape Me by Richard Cheese
Smells Like Teen Spirit by Sara DeBell
Making Fun of Bums by Too Much Joy
The Summer of '91 by ... and You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
Superheros of BMX by Mogwai
Cocaine Blues by Wayne Kramer & The Pink Fairies
Lullabye to My Nightmares by They Might Be Giants
She's a Lady by Tom Jones
Deaf Woman's Vagina by John Trubee & The Ugly Janitors of America
Pipeline by Anthrax
Blacktop by Pell Mell
Swamp Stomp by The Diplomats of Solid Sound
Gangster of Love by Eddie Turner
King of the New York Streets by Dion
Me and the Boys by NRBQ
Last Night on Earth by The Mekons
Operator, Help Me by Stan Ridgway
I Hear They Smoke the Barbecue by Pere Ubu
Dead and Lovely by Tom Waits
Friend by Ana da Silva
Jason's List by Howe Gelb
Where or When by Frank Sinatra with Count Basie & The Orchestra
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
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
Jack Pepsi by TAD
Territorial Pissings by Nirvana
Who You Driving Now by Mudhoney
Know Your Rights by The Clash
Slaves & Bulldozers by Soundgarden
Rape Me by Richard Cheese
Smells Like Teen Spirit by Sara DeBell
Making Fun of Bums by Too Much Joy
The Summer of '91 by ... and You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
Superheros of BMX by Mogwai
Cocaine Blues by Wayne Kramer & The Pink Fairies
Lullabye to My Nightmares by They Might Be Giants
She's a Lady by Tom Jones
Deaf Woman's Vagina by John Trubee & The Ugly Janitors of America
Pipeline by Anthrax
Blacktop by Pell Mell
Swamp Stomp by The Diplomats of Solid Sound
Gangster of Love by Eddie Turner
King of the New York Streets by Dion
Me and the Boys by NRBQ
Last Night on Earth by The Mekons
Operator, Help Me by Stan Ridgway
I Hear They Smoke the Barbecue by Pere Ubu
Dead and Lovely by Tom Waits
Friend by Ana da Silva
Jason's List by Howe Gelb
Where or When by Frank Sinatra with Count Basie & The Orchestra
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Saturday, March 05, 2005
THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST
Friday, March 4, 2005
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Cohost: Laurell Reynolds
OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Then I'll Be Moving On by Mother Earth
California Cotton Fields by Gram Parsons
Play Together Again Again by Buck Owens with Emmylou Harris
Delilah by Jon Langford
I Drink Too Much by Cornell Hurd
Mr. Scarecrow by The Shiners
When I Paint My Masterpiece by Emmylou Harris
Sad Mountain by Boris McCutcheon
Girl Scout Cookies by The Blazettes
Girl Scout Cookies by NRBQ
Patent Medicine by Dr. West's Medicine Show & Junk Band
Buckskin Stallion by Jimmie Dale Gimore & Mudhoney
Honey Babe Blues by Vassar Clements with Maria Muldaur
Ball and Chain by Audrey Auld Mezera
Wings of a Dove by Dolly, Tammy and Loretta
White Lightnin' by George Jones
Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone by Charley Pride
If You've Got To Go by The Flying Burrito Brothers
Close Up the Honkey Tonks by the Flying Burrito Brothers
Panama Hat by Michael Hurley
The Waitress Song by Freakwater
My One Desire by Freakwater
Hesitation Blues by The Holy Modal Rounders
Out of My Head & Back In My Bed by Loretta Lynn
Pack Up Your Sorrows by Johnny & June Carter Cash
Mole In the Ground by The Holy Modal Rounders
That Lovin You Feelin' by Roy Orbison and Emmylou Harris
That's the Way Love Goes by Lefty Frizzell
Pretty Penny by Miranda Brown
Lottie by Ronny Elliott
Since I Met You Baby by Jerry Lee Lewis
Let's Leave Me by Rex Hobart & The Misery Boys
Old Paint by Loudon Wainwright III
It's Four in the Morning by Faron Young
Act of Faith by Stan Ridgway
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Now Webcasting
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Cohost: Laurell Reynolds
OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Then I'll Be Moving On by Mother Earth
California Cotton Fields by Gram Parsons
Play Together Again Again by Buck Owens with Emmylou Harris
Delilah by Jon Langford
I Drink Too Much by Cornell Hurd
Mr. Scarecrow by The Shiners
When I Paint My Masterpiece by Emmylou Harris
Sad Mountain by Boris McCutcheon
Girl Scout Cookies by The Blazettes
Girl Scout Cookies by NRBQ
Patent Medicine by Dr. West's Medicine Show & Junk Band
Buckskin Stallion by Jimmie Dale Gimore & Mudhoney
Honey Babe Blues by Vassar Clements with Maria Muldaur
Ball and Chain by Audrey Auld Mezera
Wings of a Dove by Dolly, Tammy and Loretta
White Lightnin' by George Jones
Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone by Charley Pride
If You've Got To Go by The Flying Burrito Brothers
Close Up the Honkey Tonks by the Flying Burrito Brothers
Panama Hat by Michael Hurley
The Waitress Song by Freakwater
My One Desire by Freakwater
Hesitation Blues by The Holy Modal Rounders
Out of My Head & Back In My Bed by Loretta Lynn
Pack Up Your Sorrows by Johnny & June Carter Cash
Mole In the Ground by The Holy Modal Rounders
That Lovin You Feelin' by Roy Orbison and Emmylou Harris
That's the Way Love Goes by Lefty Frizzell
Pretty Penny by Miranda Brown
Lottie by Ronny Elliott
Since I Met You Baby by Jerry Lee Lewis
Let's Leave Me by Rex Hobart & The Misery Boys
Old Paint by Loudon Wainwright III
It's Four in the Morning by Faron Young
Act of Faith by Stan Ridgway
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list
Friday, March 04, 2005
TERRELL'S TUNEUP: KEEPING THE PROMISE OF MTV
As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
March 4, 2005
Stan Ridgway’s new DVD Holiday in Dirt -- a compilation of video versions of all the songs from his 2002 album of the same name -- is a rewarding visual and audio experience. It also gives a viewer a glimpse at what might have been had MTV lived up to its original promise.
Some of us who probably were too old for rock ‘n’ roll by the early ‘80s but tried to keep up with it anyway saw the birth of MTV as the dawn of some truly exciting possibilities. (Other rockers my age saw MTV as a harrowing sign of the apocalypse -- and they probably were closer to correct. But indulge me here.)
What a wonderful idea, it seemed at the time: Imaginative filmmakers taking off on music and creating strange tales and crazy imagery.
“Music videos” had been around for years, though nobody called them that until MTV.
I still remember watching the “promotional films” for The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” on tv in early 1967. Between the alluring, alien sounds of “Strawberry Fields” and the images of The Beatles jumping around in the blurry, unusual lighting twisted my teenage head off.
Then came David Bowie’s “The Jean Genie,” and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Devo’s bizarre manifesto The Truth About Devolution and Michael Nesmith’s Elephant Parts … And then the floodgates opened with MTV.
And MTV did show some promise in those early days. Remember the twitchy, bespectacled David Byrne in the Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” ? The tacky, but undeniably hilarious special effects of “You Might Think” by The Cars? The Clash wielding huge boom boxes like bazookas, dancing around as images of war, oppression and poverty flash in the video of “Radio Clash” ?
But before the new wore off MTV, the whole concept seemed to turn sour. Videos soon became unimaginative and over-produced as most popular music of the ‘80s. The subversive, avant garde videos of the early days became rarer and rarer as videos became more obviously what the music bizzers intended them to be all along -- advertisements for their products.
Through the years there have been occasional music video masterpieces -- Nirvana’s dark “Heart Shaped Box,” directed by Anton Corjbin comes to mind. And Prince’s recent “Musicology” video with the little kid transformed by his dad’s soul records.
But basically the music video deteriorated into glossy footage of mugging pop stars. Who needs it?
Holiday in Dirt, however shows that there’s hope for the beleaguered artform of the music video. After all, he was there at the beginning. Barbecued iguana was a popular menu item on early MTV, thanks to Ridgway’s old band, Wall of Voodoo and their video of “Mexican Radio.”
Basically what he did was pay various directors $500 each to create videos based on the songs from the album. The project apparently was in the works for a few years, as Ridgway has released another album, Snakebite, since then.
Holiday in Dirt, the album, was itself an odds-and-sods compilation of songs -- outtakes, soundtrack material, B-sides, etc. -- spanning more than a decade. So the different visions of the directors seems natural.
You’ve got the surreal, computer-generated cartoons of Jim Ludtke on “Operator Help Me,” Ridgway’s ode to paranoia and aging. (Ludtke is most famous for his videos of San Francisco avant garde rockers, The Residents.)
Chuck Statler, the director of Devo’s influential first video, does the video for Ridgway’s goofball version of Charlie Rich’s “Behind Closed Doors.” It involves a creepy dummy, an even creepier ventriloquist and a set that looks like the infamous dancing dwarf sequence in Twin Peaks.
There’s a World War I recreation by director Rudi Tuzla on the song “After the Storm”; Steve Hanft’s appropriate film-noirish interpretation of “Bing Can’t Can’t Walk,” a song about a mob bone-breaker; a frightening fashion show by David Moe’s film of the stinging techno-jazz tune “Brand New, Special and Unique” and two different visions of Hollywood decay (by directors Rick Fuller and Phil Harder) in the two versions of “My Beloved Movie Star.”
And you get to see Ridgway and director Carlos Grasso wrestle during an angry confrontation at the end of “End of the Line.”
My favorite one is Katherine Gordon’s sentimental video for the country waltz “Act of Faith.” A depressed looking guy stares at his clothes spinning in the crowded Laundromat dryer and watches them become grainy, badly-colored 8mm home movies of endless highways and a laughing dancing hippie couple. As we return to the man in the laundromat at the end of the song, the man’s yearning and regret is nearly tangible.
Music videos just don’t stir emotions like this anymore. I wish more quality musicians would instigate projects like this.
Not recommended:
*Here Come the ABCs by They Might Be Giants. Granted I’m not really qualified to review this DVD. After all, I’m over five years old.
But these boring songs and not-that-interesting graphics -- including cartoons, puppets and a little live action -- just don’t compare with the standard-setting inspired kiddie craziness of the long lamented Pee-wee’s Playhouse.
Back in the ‘80s I’d happily get up at 8 a.m. on Saturdays to watch Pee-wee with my daughter. I can’t imagine any kid of mine trying to wake me up for Here Come the ABCs.
This ABC stuff is slick, safe stuff you can see on "educational" t.v. It's the kind of clean, safe kiddy programming that actual children only enjoy until they're old enough to learn how to change the channel. It’s hard to believe that TMBG would be associated with it. After all, they made some of the craziest, most fun videos of the late ’80s and early ’90s.
As for the music -- there’s a perfectly good song about the alphabet that ends with “Now I’ve learned my ABCs/Tell me what you think of me.” These new songs were as unnecessary as they are tedious. This doesn’t even compare with their last stab at children’s music No!.
BONUS!
MY ORIGINAL REVIEW OF THE CD HOLIDAY IN DIRT
As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Feb. 15, 2002
Stan Ridgway is an acquired musical taste that far more people ought to acquire.
His new CD, Holiday in Dirt, a collection of outtakes, mostly from the 90s, is a must-have for certified Ridgway fans. And for potential cult members, it would be a great place to start.
Lets put it bluntly. Ridgway is one of the finest songwriters working today, a highly literate, often funny, sometimes kinda creepy storyteller who spins tales of sad drifters, barflies, con men, small-time hustlers and lowlifes with high hopes. His damaged but determined characters will haunt you long after the CD player is turned off.
So many critics compare Ridgway's lyrics to Raymond Chandler (I think it was Greil Marcus who started it) that it's just about become a cliche. It's time for something new. So lets throw this one out and see if it sticks: Stan Ridgway is the Harry Dean Stanton of rock n roll. It's not hard to imagine Ridgway songs bouncing around the mind of the henpecked private detective Johnnie Farragut in Wild at Heart. The hapless Bud in Repo Man could have driven straight out of a Ridgway ballad.
Ridgway's music is not easy to categorized. Starting out as the quirky singer for the quirky L.A. New Wave band Wall of Voodoo, you can still hear a little "Mexican radio -- the spaghetti-Western guitars, the coffee percolator drum machines -- in his work 20 years later.
But Ridgway's solo work draws from a wide array of sources - jazz, country, soundtrack music, show tunes and synth pop among them. His musical trademarks are his lonesome harmonica, which appears in many songs and, more importantly, his voice - a nasally tenor that would fit perfectly on many of his shadowy characters.
Holiday in Dirt begins with one of Ridgway's most impressive songs, "Beloved Movie Star." The subject matter - a washed-up actress helpless to stop youth and beauty from slipping away from her - has appeared in rock songs before (the Velvet Underground's "New Age," Concrete Blonde's "Jenny I Read").
But Ridgway's tune - with its stately harp flourishes and Stan singing in a near worshipful voice as if he's the last one on Earth who believes in the fading star - makes this an instant classic.
"Beloved Movie Star Redux," which ends the album (if you dont count the "hidden" track, a hilarious golden-throat deconstruction of Charlie Rich's "Behind Closed Doors" -- say, is that a karaoke track here?) is a rougher and more acoustic mix. (And as Ridgway points out in the liner notes, you can hear the family dog, Bart, barking in the background.)
At first I didn't like it as much as the first version. Ridgway starts out singing in a lower octave and later switches when its obvious it doesn't work. But the more I listen to it, I think "Redux" has more heart.
"Bing Can't Walk," the tale of a Mafia bonebreaker, is a prime Ridgway crime song. It's got production and a nasty organ by Mitchell Froom and all sorts of classic Ridgway electronic gimcrackery - plus perhaps his best harmonica work on the album.
Another standout is "Brand New Special and Unique," which started out as a song for Ridgway's underrated mid-90s band Drywall. It features a wicked sax by Don Bell, a near hip-hoppy rhythm, cool-cat bass and ghostly background voices provided by the singer's wife, Pietra Wexstun.
This is followed by an ominous, fuzzed-up little rocker called "After the Storm," which sounds even closer to a garage band than Ridgway's amusing though not vital ode to his teenage rock memories, "Garage Band 69."
But Ridgway does far more than create creep shows and peep shows. He's perfectly capable of creating gorgeous melodies. "Amnesia" is a heartfelt love song, while "Act of Faith" is a sweet waltz featuring Stan strumming an acoustic guitar. The melody sounds like a cowboy tune or a traditional Irish song.
Stan Ridgway is one of those "just world" artists. You know, "in a just world, Stan Ridgway (or Richard Thompson/The Mekons/GillianWelch/Johnny Dowd)would be as big as Kenny G (or Garth Brooks/Britney Spears/Limp Biskit).
But somehow just having music like Ridgway's available makes the world seem a little more just.
March 4, 2005
Stan Ridgway’s new DVD Holiday in Dirt -- a compilation of video versions of all the songs from his 2002 album of the same name -- is a rewarding visual and audio experience. It also gives a viewer a glimpse at what might have been had MTV lived up to its original promise.
Some of us who probably were too old for rock ‘n’ roll by the early ‘80s but tried to keep up with it anyway saw the birth of MTV as the dawn of some truly exciting possibilities. (Other rockers my age saw MTV as a harrowing sign of the apocalypse -- and they probably were closer to correct. But indulge me here.)
What a wonderful idea, it seemed at the time: Imaginative filmmakers taking off on music and creating strange tales and crazy imagery.
“Music videos” had been around for years, though nobody called them that until MTV.
I still remember watching the “promotional films” for The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” on tv in early 1967. Between the alluring, alien sounds of “Strawberry Fields” and the images of The Beatles jumping around in the blurry, unusual lighting twisted my teenage head off.
Then came David Bowie’s “The Jean Genie,” and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Devo’s bizarre manifesto The Truth About Devolution and Michael Nesmith’s Elephant Parts … And then the floodgates opened with MTV.
And MTV did show some promise in those early days. Remember the twitchy, bespectacled David Byrne in the Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” ? The tacky, but undeniably hilarious special effects of “You Might Think” by The Cars? The Clash wielding huge boom boxes like bazookas, dancing around as images of war, oppression and poverty flash in the video of “Radio Clash” ?
But before the new wore off MTV, the whole concept seemed to turn sour. Videos soon became unimaginative and over-produced as most popular music of the ‘80s. The subversive, avant garde videos of the early days became rarer and rarer as videos became more obviously what the music bizzers intended them to be all along -- advertisements for their products.
Through the years there have been occasional music video masterpieces -- Nirvana’s dark “Heart Shaped Box,” directed by Anton Corjbin comes to mind. And Prince’s recent “Musicology” video with the little kid transformed by his dad’s soul records.
But basically the music video deteriorated into glossy footage of mugging pop stars. Who needs it?
Holiday in Dirt, however shows that there’s hope for the beleaguered artform of the music video. After all, he was there at the beginning. Barbecued iguana was a popular menu item on early MTV, thanks to Ridgway’s old band, Wall of Voodoo and their video of “Mexican Radio.”
Basically what he did was pay various directors $500 each to create videos based on the songs from the album. The project apparently was in the works for a few years, as Ridgway has released another album, Snakebite, since then.
Holiday in Dirt, the album, was itself an odds-and-sods compilation of songs -- outtakes, soundtrack material, B-sides, etc. -- spanning more than a decade. So the different visions of the directors seems natural.
You’ve got the surreal, computer-generated cartoons of Jim Ludtke on “Operator Help Me,” Ridgway’s ode to paranoia and aging. (Ludtke is most famous for his videos of San Francisco avant garde rockers, The Residents.)
Chuck Statler, the director of Devo’s influential first video, does the video for Ridgway’s goofball version of Charlie Rich’s “Behind Closed Doors.” It involves a creepy dummy, an even creepier ventriloquist and a set that looks like the infamous dancing dwarf sequence in Twin Peaks.
There’s a World War I recreation by director Rudi Tuzla on the song “After the Storm”; Steve Hanft’s appropriate film-noirish interpretation of “Bing Can’t Can’t Walk,” a song about a mob bone-breaker; a frightening fashion show by David Moe’s film of the stinging techno-jazz tune “Brand New, Special and Unique” and two different visions of Hollywood decay (by directors Rick Fuller and Phil Harder) in the two versions of “My Beloved Movie Star.”
And you get to see Ridgway and director Carlos Grasso wrestle during an angry confrontation at the end of “End of the Line.”
My favorite one is Katherine Gordon’s sentimental video for the country waltz “Act of Faith.” A depressed looking guy stares at his clothes spinning in the crowded Laundromat dryer and watches them become grainy, badly-colored 8mm home movies of endless highways and a laughing dancing hippie couple. As we return to the man in the laundromat at the end of the song, the man’s yearning and regret is nearly tangible.
Music videos just don’t stir emotions like this anymore. I wish more quality musicians would instigate projects like this.
Not recommended:
*Here Come the ABCs by They Might Be Giants. Granted I’m not really qualified to review this DVD. After all, I’m over five years old.
But these boring songs and not-that-interesting graphics -- including cartoons, puppets and a little live action -- just don’t compare with the standard-setting inspired kiddie craziness of the long lamented Pee-wee’s Playhouse.
Back in the ‘80s I’d happily get up at 8 a.m. on Saturdays to watch Pee-wee with my daughter. I can’t imagine any kid of mine trying to wake me up for Here Come the ABCs.
This ABC stuff is slick, safe stuff you can see on "educational" t.v. It's the kind of clean, safe kiddy programming that actual children only enjoy until they're old enough to learn how to change the channel. It’s hard to believe that TMBG would be associated with it. After all, they made some of the craziest, most fun videos of the late ’80s and early ’90s.
As for the music -- there’s a perfectly good song about the alphabet that ends with “Now I’ve learned my ABCs/Tell me what you think of me.” These new songs were as unnecessary as they are tedious. This doesn’t even compare with their last stab at children’s music No!.
BONUS!
MY ORIGINAL REVIEW OF THE CD HOLIDAY IN DIRT
As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Feb. 15, 2002
Stan Ridgway is an acquired musical taste that far more people ought to acquire.
His new CD, Holiday in Dirt, a collection of outtakes, mostly from the 90s, is a must-have for certified Ridgway fans. And for potential cult members, it would be a great place to start.
Lets put it bluntly. Ridgway is one of the finest songwriters working today, a highly literate, often funny, sometimes kinda creepy storyteller who spins tales of sad drifters, barflies, con men, small-time hustlers and lowlifes with high hopes. His damaged but determined characters will haunt you long after the CD player is turned off.
So many critics compare Ridgway's lyrics to Raymond Chandler (I think it was Greil Marcus who started it) that it's just about become a cliche. It's time for something new. So lets throw this one out and see if it sticks: Stan Ridgway is the Harry Dean Stanton of rock n roll. It's not hard to imagine Ridgway songs bouncing around the mind of the henpecked private detective Johnnie Farragut in Wild at Heart. The hapless Bud in Repo Man could have driven straight out of a Ridgway ballad.
Ridgway's music is not easy to categorized. Starting out as the quirky singer for the quirky L.A. New Wave band Wall of Voodoo, you can still hear a little "Mexican radio -- the spaghetti-Western guitars, the coffee percolator drum machines -- in his work 20 years later.
But Ridgway's solo work draws from a wide array of sources - jazz, country, soundtrack music, show tunes and synth pop among them. His musical trademarks are his lonesome harmonica, which appears in many songs and, more importantly, his voice - a nasally tenor that would fit perfectly on many of his shadowy characters.
Holiday in Dirt begins with one of Ridgway's most impressive songs, "Beloved Movie Star." The subject matter - a washed-up actress helpless to stop youth and beauty from slipping away from her - has appeared in rock songs before (the Velvet Underground's "New Age," Concrete Blonde's "Jenny I Read").
But Ridgway's tune - with its stately harp flourishes and Stan singing in a near worshipful voice as if he's the last one on Earth who believes in the fading star - makes this an instant classic.
"Beloved Movie Star Redux," which ends the album (if you dont count the "hidden" track, a hilarious golden-throat deconstruction of Charlie Rich's "Behind Closed Doors" -- say, is that a karaoke track here?) is a rougher and more acoustic mix. (And as Ridgway points out in the liner notes, you can hear the family dog, Bart, barking in the background.)
At first I didn't like it as much as the first version. Ridgway starts out singing in a lower octave and later switches when its obvious it doesn't work. But the more I listen to it, I think "Redux" has more heart.
"Bing Can't Walk," the tale of a Mafia bonebreaker, is a prime Ridgway crime song. It's got production and a nasty organ by Mitchell Froom and all sorts of classic Ridgway electronic gimcrackery - plus perhaps his best harmonica work on the album.
Another standout is "Brand New Special and Unique," which started out as a song for Ridgway's underrated mid-90s band Drywall. It features a wicked sax by Don Bell, a near hip-hoppy rhythm, cool-cat bass and ghostly background voices provided by the singer's wife, Pietra Wexstun.
This is followed by an ominous, fuzzed-up little rocker called "After the Storm," which sounds even closer to a garage band than Ridgway's amusing though not vital ode to his teenage rock memories, "Garage Band 69."
But Ridgway does far more than create creep shows and peep shows. He's perfectly capable of creating gorgeous melodies. "Amnesia" is a heartfelt love song, while "Act of Faith" is a sweet waltz featuring Stan strumming an acoustic guitar. The melody sounds like a cowboy tune or a traditional Irish song.
Stan Ridgway is one of those "just world" artists. You know, "in a just world, Stan Ridgway (or Richard Thompson/The Mekons/GillianWelch/Johnny Dowd)would be as big as Kenny G (or Garth Brooks/Britney Spears/Limp Biskit).
But somehow just having music like Ridgway's available makes the world seem a little more just.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
SELF-SERVING PLUG
The Santa Fe Reporter this week graciously including this very blog in their list of local blogs.
I just found out that Reporter editor Julia Goldberg has her own blog.
Thanks for the plug, guys.
And I do forgive you for never choosing me as one of the Hunks of Santa Fe.
I just found out that Reporter editor Julia Goldberg has her own blog.
Thanks for the plug, guys.
And I do forgive you for never choosing me as one of the Hunks of Santa Fe.
ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: EMOTIONAL ISSUES
As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
March 3, 2004
Any debate over a bill dealing with abortion gets emotional. But one state senator during this week's floor debate over Senate Bill 126 - which would require doctors to notify parents when a minor girl seeks an abortion - took the debate to a new emotional level.
Sen. Diane Snyder, R-Albuquerque, made a passionate speech against the bill - the only Senate Republican to speak in opposition. Her statement laid open many of the intense conflicts people have about the abortion issue in general and the parental notification issue in particular.
She talked about a friend who died from a "back alley" abortion in the days before Roe vs. Wade made abortion legal and safe for women.
She mocked the contention by bill supporters that the bill would bring families together. Instead, she said, it would result in confused and frightened teenage girls going to unlicensed and dangerous abortionists. Or send girls from dysfunctional families to violent confrontations by irate parents.
But then Snyder surprised - and undoubtedly disappointed - many listeners by saying she would vote for the bill. For political reasons, she admitted.
Snyder said if she voted against it, a more conservative Republican would likely defeat her in the next primary election.
But her Northeast Heights district "is a swing district; it's not hard right," she said, so a Democrat would likely triumph in the general election.
Snyder told the Senate that keeping the seat Republican was more important than her vote on the bill - which, she predicted, would die in the House as has happened in past sessions. (It's been referred to the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee, which earlier in the session tabled a similar House bill.)
In a literal way, her vote didn't make a difference. The bill passed the Senate 29-10. But some might argue that voting her conscience might have emboldened other senators - Republicans and Democrats - who believe the same as Snyder but voted for the bill out for political survival.
Talking to a reporter Wednesday, Snyder said there are other Republicans in the Senate who share the same conflicts about parental notification.
Snyder said the fact that she grew up in a small town - Shamrock, Texas - helped shape her view on the issue.
"Back then (if a young woman got pregnant out of wedlock), she'd either just 'go away for a visit' or go to a back-alley abortionist," Snyder said.
While SB 126 has provisions for a pregnant teenager to get a court order to bypass parental notification, Snyder said that would never work with small-town girls. "In a small town, girls would never go to the courthouse to talk to a judge about this," she said. "It would be on the front page of the paper. Everyone in the world would know."
"Families that have good relations don't need this bill," Snyder said. "Families who don't would be hurt by it."
Snyder said so far there have been no repercussions from the GOP regarding her speech.
More moral issues: On another emotional issue debated in the Legislature this week, five House Republicans broke ranks with the majority of GOP lawmakers and voted to pass House Bill 576, which would repeal the death penalty and replace it with life in prison without parole.
The five are W.C. "Dub" Williams of Glencoe, Brian Moore of Clayton, and Teresa Zanetti, Larry Larranaga and Justine Fox-Young, all of Albuquerque.
All but Fox-Young signed on as co-sponsors of the bill, introduced by Rep. Gail Beam, D-Albquerque. Williams and Zanetti have been co-sponsors of anti-death penalty bills in previous sessions.
Moore was the only Republican to speak on the bill during the House floor debate. He said his main concern was the possibility of executing an innocent person. "Death is so final," he said. "I just don't see having a death penalty."
Larranaga told a reporter Wednesday that he has always opposed capital punishment and that he sees his position as consistent with his anti-abortion philosophy. "I'm pro-life from conception to natural death," he said.
Fox-Young said she supported the bill because it provides life in prison without parole for those convicted of some murders. She declined to discuss her opinion on capital punishment itself.
Moore, Larranaga and Fox-Young all said they hadn't received any significant backlash from their party or constituents over their votes.
So far no Republican senator has publicly expressed support of the bill, which will be heard in the Senate Rules Committee.
"We're working on it," one lobbyist for the bill said.
"I've talked to some (GOP) senators about it who are thinking about it," Larranaga said.
March 3, 2004
Any debate over a bill dealing with abortion gets emotional. But one state senator during this week's floor debate over Senate Bill 126 - which would require doctors to notify parents when a minor girl seeks an abortion - took the debate to a new emotional level.
Sen. Diane Snyder, R-Albuquerque, made a passionate speech against the bill - the only Senate Republican to speak in opposition. Her statement laid open many of the intense conflicts people have about the abortion issue in general and the parental notification issue in particular.
She talked about a friend who died from a "back alley" abortion in the days before Roe vs. Wade made abortion legal and safe for women.
She mocked the contention by bill supporters that the bill would bring families together. Instead, she said, it would result in confused and frightened teenage girls going to unlicensed and dangerous abortionists. Or send girls from dysfunctional families to violent confrontations by irate parents.
But then Snyder surprised - and undoubtedly disappointed - many listeners by saying she would vote for the bill. For political reasons, she admitted.
Snyder said if she voted against it, a more conservative Republican would likely defeat her in the next primary election.
But her Northeast Heights district "is a swing district; it's not hard right," she said, so a Democrat would likely triumph in the general election.
Snyder told the Senate that keeping the seat Republican was more important than her vote on the bill - which, she predicted, would die in the House as has happened in past sessions. (It's been referred to the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee, which earlier in the session tabled a similar House bill.)
In a literal way, her vote didn't make a difference. The bill passed the Senate 29-10. But some might argue that voting her conscience might have emboldened other senators - Republicans and Democrats - who believe the same as Snyder but voted for the bill out for political survival.
Talking to a reporter Wednesday, Snyder said there are other Republicans in the Senate who share the same conflicts about parental notification.
Snyder said the fact that she grew up in a small town - Shamrock, Texas - helped shape her view on the issue.
"Back then (if a young woman got pregnant out of wedlock), she'd either just 'go away for a visit' or go to a back-alley abortionist," Snyder said.
While SB 126 has provisions for a pregnant teenager to get a court order to bypass parental notification, Snyder said that would never work with small-town girls. "In a small town, girls would never go to the courthouse to talk to a judge about this," she said. "It would be on the front page of the paper. Everyone in the world would know."
"Families that have good relations don't need this bill," Snyder said. "Families who don't would be hurt by it."
Snyder said so far there have been no repercussions from the GOP regarding her speech.
More moral issues: On another emotional issue debated in the Legislature this week, five House Republicans broke ranks with the majority of GOP lawmakers and voted to pass House Bill 576, which would repeal the death penalty and replace it with life in prison without parole.
The five are W.C. "Dub" Williams of Glencoe, Brian Moore of Clayton, and Teresa Zanetti, Larry Larranaga and Justine Fox-Young, all of Albuquerque.
All but Fox-Young signed on as co-sponsors of the bill, introduced by Rep. Gail Beam, D-Albquerque. Williams and Zanetti have been co-sponsors of anti-death penalty bills in previous sessions.
Moore was the only Republican to speak on the bill during the House floor debate. He said his main concern was the possibility of executing an innocent person. "Death is so final," he said. "I just don't see having a death penalty."
Larranaga told a reporter Wednesday that he has always opposed capital punishment and that he sees his position as consistent with his anti-abortion philosophy. "I'm pro-life from conception to natural death," he said.
Fox-Young said she supported the bill because it provides life in prison without parole for those convicted of some murders. She declined to discuss her opinion on capital punishment itself.
Moore, Larranaga and Fox-Young all said they hadn't received any significant backlash from their party or constituents over their votes.
So far no Republican senator has publicly expressed support of the bill, which will be heard in the Senate Rules Committee.
"We're working on it," one lobbyist for the bill said.
"I've talked to some (GOP) senators about it who are thinking about it," Larranaga said.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
GOODNESS GUSSIE!
So you thought you would be safe at Sirius, Howard Stern...
If you assumed that freedom of speech had a safe haven in pay-television and radio services -- which currently aren't under FCC "decency" standards -- THINK AGAIN!
This from The Washington Post:
The Reuters account of the story quotes Stevens saying, "No one wants censorship."
Whew! I guess there's nothing to worry about. You had us going there for a minute, Ted.
If you assumed that freedom of speech had a safe haven in pay-television and radio services -- which currently aren't under FCC "decency" standards -- THINK AGAIN!
This from The Washington Post:
Currently, the Federal Communications Commission has the authority to fine only over-the-air radio and television broadcasters for violating its indecency regulations, which forbid airing sexual or excretory material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., when children are most likely watching.
But Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) told a group of broadcasters yesterday that he wants to extend that authority to cover the hundreds of cable and satellite television and radio channels that operate outside of the government's control. In addition to basic cable channels such as ESPN, Discovery and MTV, that would include premium channels such as HBO and Showtime and the two satellite radio services, XM and Sirius.
"We put restrictions on the over-the-air signals," Stevens said after his address to the National Association of Broadcasters, according to news reports confirmed by his staff. "I think we can put restrictions on cable itself. At least I intend to do my best to push that."
The Reuters account of the story quotes Stevens saying, "No one wants censorship."
Whew! I guess there's nothing to worry about. You had us going there for a minute, Ted.
Monday, February 28, 2005
TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST
Sunday, February 27, 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
Act Naturally by Buck Owens with Ringo Starr
Celluloid Heroes by The Kinks
New Age by The Velvet Underground
My Beloved Movie Star by Stan Ridgway
Everyone's Gone to the Movies by Steely Dan
Burn, Hollywood, Burn by Public Enemy with Ice Cube and Big Daddy Kane
No Business Like Show Business by Ethel Merman
You're a Whole Different Person When You're Scared by Warren Zevon
White Rabbit by The Jefferson Airplane
Tomorrow Never Knows by The Beatles
Hothead by Captain Beefheart
Sinister Exaggerator by The Residents
Worlds Apart by ...and You Will Know Us by The Trail of Dead
It's a Gas by Alfred E. Newman
Jesus Will Fix It For You by Sonny Treadway
Father In Jesus' Name by Aubrey Ghent
The March by Robert Randolph
Hollering by Rev. Craig Pringle with The Campbell Brothers
If I Couldn't Say a Word by Lamar Nelson
I Need Thee by Rayfield "Ray Ray" Holloman
Movies Are a Mother to Me by Loudon Wainwright III
Confusion Illusion by Eddie Turner
Lone Wolf by The Eels
Hunted by Freaks by Mogwai
Hospital Window by Ana da Silva
Fairytale in the Supermarket by The Raincoats
Manitoba by Frank Black & The Catholics
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
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
Act Naturally by Buck Owens with Ringo Starr
Celluloid Heroes by The Kinks
New Age by The Velvet Underground
My Beloved Movie Star by Stan Ridgway
Everyone's Gone to the Movies by Steely Dan
Burn, Hollywood, Burn by Public Enemy with Ice Cube and Big Daddy Kane
No Business Like Show Business by Ethel Merman
You're a Whole Different Person When You're Scared by Warren Zevon
White Rabbit by The Jefferson Airplane
Tomorrow Never Knows by The Beatles
Hothead by Captain Beefheart
Sinister Exaggerator by The Residents
Worlds Apart by ...and You Will Know Us by The Trail of Dead
It's a Gas by Alfred E. Newman
Jesus Will Fix It For You by Sonny Treadway
Father In Jesus' Name by Aubrey Ghent
The March by Robert Randolph
Hollering by Rev. Craig Pringle with The Campbell Brothers
If I Couldn't Say a Word by Lamar Nelson
I Need Thee by Rayfield "Ray Ray" Holloman
Movies Are a Mother to Me by Loudon Wainwright III
Confusion Illusion by Eddie Turner
Lone Wolf by The Eels
Hunted by Freaks by Mogwai
Hospital Window by Ana da Silva
Fairytale in the Supermarket by The Raincoats
Manitoba by Frank Black & The Catholics
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Saturday, February 26, 2005
THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST
Friday, February 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
I Ain't Living Long Like This by Waylon Jennings
Bad News by Johnny Cash
Gallo de Cielo by Joe Ely
Dirty Drawers by Vassar Clements with Elvin Bishop
Hogtied Over You by Billy Bacon & The Forbidden Pigs with Candye Kane
18 Wheels of Love by Drive By Truckers
Valentino's Dream by Ronny Elliott
Pardon Me, I've Someone to Kill by Lonesome Bob
Dirty Little Secret by Elizabeth McQueen & The Firebrands
Mr. and Mrs. Used to Be by Ernest Tubb & Loretta Lynn
Sober and Stupid by Fortytwenty
All Over Again by Susie Salley
Love Rollercoaster by Cornell Hurd
Empty House, Dawn and Twilight by Rex Hobart & The Misery Boys
Endless Sleep by Jody Reynolds
Zuni Mountain Ramble by Raising Cane
Footprints in the Snow by Bill Monroe
Old Rattler by Grandpa Jones
Chicago by Ramsay Midwood
Ode to Billy Joe by Bobbie Gentry
Walk Through the Fire by Mary Gauthier
There Stands the Glass by Jack Neal
Port of Amsterdam by Dave Van Ronk
Over Yonder by Steve Earle
Sing Me Back Home by Edith Frost
Here Comes a Regular by Nathan Hamilton
Pyramid of Tears by Alejandro Escovedo
On the Banks of the Rio Grande by Blind James
One of the Unsatisfied by Lacy J. Dalton
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list
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
I Ain't Living Long Like This by Waylon Jennings
Bad News by Johnny Cash
Gallo de Cielo by Joe Ely
Dirty Drawers by Vassar Clements with Elvin Bishop
Hogtied Over You by Billy Bacon & The Forbidden Pigs with Candye Kane
18 Wheels of Love by Drive By Truckers
Valentino's Dream by Ronny Elliott
Pardon Me, I've Someone to Kill by Lonesome Bob
Dirty Little Secret by Elizabeth McQueen & The Firebrands
Mr. and Mrs. Used to Be by Ernest Tubb & Loretta Lynn
Sober and Stupid by Fortytwenty
All Over Again by Susie Salley
Love Rollercoaster by Cornell Hurd
Empty House, Dawn and Twilight by Rex Hobart & The Misery Boys
Endless Sleep by Jody Reynolds
Zuni Mountain Ramble by Raising Cane
Footprints in the Snow by Bill Monroe
Old Rattler by Grandpa Jones
Chicago by Ramsay Midwood
Ode to Billy Joe by Bobbie Gentry
Walk Through the Fire by Mary Gauthier
There Stands the Glass by Jack Neal
Port of Amsterdam by Dave Van Ronk
Over Yonder by Steve Earle
Sing Me Back Home by Edith Frost
Here Comes a Regular by Nathan Hamilton
Pyramid of Tears by Alejandro Escovedo
On the Banks of the Rio Grande by Blind James
One of the Unsatisfied by Lacy J. Dalton
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list
Friday, February 25, 2005
TERRELL'S TUNEUP: HOLY COW, IT'S SACRED STEEL!
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
February 25, 2005
I’ve said it before. If any church around here played music as exhilarating and wonderful as that found on the album Sacred Steel Instrumentals, I’d go to church. It’s loud, lively, sometimes heart-breaking, sometimes crazy -- and I can’t imagine anyone sitting quietly in their pews while it’s being played. It’s rock ‘n’ roll in everything but name.
Fortunately for me, there are no House of God congregations in Santa Fe, so I’m off the hook.
The House of God, for those who have not been touched by the spirit of sacred steel, is an African- American Pentecostal denomination where the music originated in the 1930s.
Florida is where some of the most revered sacred steel players come from -- though probably the best known, Robert Randolph, learned to play steel guitar at a House of God church in New Jersey.
The steel guitar -- yes that wonderful instrument that puts the cry in the best cry-in-your-beer country songs -- is the main instrument of sacred steel. The old-fashioned lap steel, then later the amplified pedal steel became popular in House of God congregations that couldn’t afford an organ or piano.
Like some arcane religious mystery, sacred steel stayed a virtual House of God secret for some 60 years, unknown to most to most of the outside world until about 10 years when Arhoolie Records began releasing sacred steel albums.
This record is a compilation featuring cuts from previous Arhoolie compilations and CDs by noted masters like The Campbell Brothers, Aubrey Ghent and Sonny Treadway.
I have the feeling that Arhoolie compiled this one with the neophyte in mind. Thus there are many familiar titles among the selections -- “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” (performed here by Ghent) “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” (by Lonnie “Big Ben” Bennett) “When the Saints Go Marching In” (by Willie Eason), “Down by the Riverside” (done by The Campbell Brothers as part of a medley.)
But even these are well-worn tunes, these guys play them as if they were fresh revelations. If you haven’t heard sacred steel before, you’ll be amazed at the power still in them.
Though I love the wild hip-shakin’ songs, some of my favorite ones here are slow and meditative. That’s the case with “End of My Journey” by The Campbell Brothers.
Meanwhile, Robert Randolph’s “Without God” starts off that way, but nearly four minutes into it, he and the band erupt into a righteous frenzy. (Randolph walks in two musical worlds -- his sacred steel church music and his rocking “secular steel,” which has become a hit with the jam-band crowd.)
So much contemporary gospel music is just as overproduced, stale and bloodless as hot new country or lite jazz. Sacred steel, by contrast is rootsy, soulful and live. And one healthy sign is that while some of the sacred-steel icons are getting up in age, others, like Randolph, Rayfield “Ray Ray” Holloman and Lamar Nelson, are in their early 20s. (Holloman was 16 when he recorded “I Need Thee,” included here.)
I just hope Arhoolie keeps it up, making sure there’s plenty of new sacred steel available.
Also Recommended:
*Livin’ With the Blues by Vassar Clements. Although the fiddle was an integral part of jug bands and string bands that were early manifestations of what we now call “blues,” the instrument has been rare in blues as we‘ve known it for the past 50 years or more. With but a few exceptions -- Don “Sugarcane” Harris, Papa John Creach --you just don’t here the fiddle in blues.
But that didn’t stop veteran fiddler Clements from putting together a classy album of blues-based material.
It’s not surprising that he would record a blues album. Clements, who started out more than 50 years ago with Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, long ago slipped the surly bonds of bluegrass. He’s used the phrase “hillbilly jazz” in a couple of albums and called another one Backporch Swing.
And longtime Clements fans know that the blues seeped into his bow years ago. Listen to his playing on The Grateful Dead‘s “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleloo” or on “Trail of the Buffalo” with the hippie-grass super group Old and In the Way.
So Clements sounds right at home on this new album collaborating with the likes of Charlie Musselwhite, Elvin Bishop, Maria Muldaur, Norton Buffalo and Roy Rogers playing songs by Skip James, Robert Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson and Tampa Red.
Almost all the instruments here are acoustic. The credits make special note that Rogers plays an “amplified Martin guitar” on “Phonograph Blues.”
But it’s not just country blues covered here. The material ranges from the New Orleans style of “Mambo Boogie” (Dave Matthews -- no not that Dave Matthews plays piano) to a hillbilly-soul cover of Booker T’s signature “Green Onions,” featuring Musselwhite on harmonica.
Some of favorites here are the ones sung by Muldaur, whose voice has only gotten richer since her early ‘70s “Midnight at the Oasis” heyday. She belts out “Honey Babe Blues” and one called “I Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle.”
Then there’s the contributions of Bishop, who rose to fame in the ’70s with songs like “Stealin’ Watermelons” and “Struttin’ My Stuff.“ In case you’d forgotten how much fun Bishop is, check out “Dirty Drawers” and the cool funky “That’s My Thing” from this record.
*Rise by Eddie Turner. Fans of bluesman Otis Taylor should be familiar with Turner's psychedelic guitar. Turner along with bassist Kenny Passarelli, formed the backbone of Taylor’s band on all his albums.
All but the last one, that is. For reasons of which I’m not sure, Taylor didn’t use his longtime sidemen for last year’s Double V. And as far as I’m concerned, the album suffered for it.
But Turner and Passarelli are together on Turner’s new solo album.
This album is crawling with Santa Fe musicians. It’s produced by Passarelli (a longtime Santa Fe resident, who also plays bass and keyboards), Mark Clark plays drums, Alex Maryol makes a guest appearance. And the whole shebang was recorded at Stepbridge Studios.
Rise doesn’t rise to the intensity of Turner’s best work with Taylor. Turner’s an amazing picker, but he’s no match for Otis as a lyricist or singer.
Still, the album is a worthy. Turner and crew take their music seriously and the result is truly innovative blues.
Some of my favorites here are instrumentals. “Resurrection,” for instance, features Turner dueling with himself, slide guitar vs. electric guitar. It almost could be described as a shorter, more downhome version of Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain.”
“The River” is a guitar boogie featuring Turner and Maryol that through the magic of tape loops keeps adding more layers.
Other notable tunes are “Confusion Illusion,” the closest thing here to a protest song (and Passarelli plays a mean, jazzy organ here) and “Sin” which could almost be described as a psychedelic spiritual. It’s almost a capella, except the guitar and organ rumbling in the background.
And speaking of psychedelic, Turner just might have saved his best for the last here with “Secret.” With revved-up, trip hoppy percussion ghostly vocal parts fade in and out.
The free world really didn’t really need another cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary.” And the same thing could be said of Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s “Gangster of Love,” except that Turner’s take on it is such a good-time rollick, it’s worth it.
February 25, 2005
I’ve said it before. If any church around here played music as exhilarating and wonderful as that found on the album Sacred Steel Instrumentals, I’d go to church. It’s loud, lively, sometimes heart-breaking, sometimes crazy -- and I can’t imagine anyone sitting quietly in their pews while it’s being played. It’s rock ‘n’ roll in everything but name.
Fortunately for me, there are no House of God congregations in Santa Fe, so I’m off the hook.
The House of God, for those who have not been touched by the spirit of sacred steel, is an African- American Pentecostal denomination where the music originated in the 1930s.
Florida is where some of the most revered sacred steel players come from -- though probably the best known, Robert Randolph, learned to play steel guitar at a House of God church in New Jersey.
The steel guitar -- yes that wonderful instrument that puts the cry in the best cry-in-your-beer country songs -- is the main instrument of sacred steel. The old-fashioned lap steel, then later the amplified pedal steel became popular in House of God congregations that couldn’t afford an organ or piano.
Like some arcane religious mystery, sacred steel stayed a virtual House of God secret for some 60 years, unknown to most to most of the outside world until about 10 years when Arhoolie Records began releasing sacred steel albums.
This record is a compilation featuring cuts from previous Arhoolie compilations and CDs by noted masters like The Campbell Brothers, Aubrey Ghent and Sonny Treadway.
I have the feeling that Arhoolie compiled this one with the neophyte in mind. Thus there are many familiar titles among the selections -- “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” (performed here by Ghent) “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” (by Lonnie “Big Ben” Bennett) “When the Saints Go Marching In” (by Willie Eason), “Down by the Riverside” (done by The Campbell Brothers as part of a medley.)
But even these are well-worn tunes, these guys play them as if they were fresh revelations. If you haven’t heard sacred steel before, you’ll be amazed at the power still in them.
Though I love the wild hip-shakin’ songs, some of my favorite ones here are slow and meditative. That’s the case with “End of My Journey” by The Campbell Brothers.
Meanwhile, Robert Randolph’s “Without God” starts off that way, but nearly four minutes into it, he and the band erupt into a righteous frenzy. (Randolph walks in two musical worlds -- his sacred steel church music and his rocking “secular steel,” which has become a hit with the jam-band crowd.)
So much contemporary gospel music is just as overproduced, stale and bloodless as hot new country or lite jazz. Sacred steel, by contrast is rootsy, soulful and live. And one healthy sign is that while some of the sacred-steel icons are getting up in age, others, like Randolph, Rayfield “Ray Ray” Holloman and Lamar Nelson, are in their early 20s. (Holloman was 16 when he recorded “I Need Thee,” included here.)
I just hope Arhoolie keeps it up, making sure there’s plenty of new sacred steel available.
Also Recommended:
*Livin’ With the Blues by Vassar Clements. Although the fiddle was an integral part of jug bands and string bands that were early manifestations of what we now call “blues,” the instrument has been rare in blues as we‘ve known it for the past 50 years or more. With but a few exceptions -- Don “Sugarcane” Harris, Papa John Creach --you just don’t here the fiddle in blues.
But that didn’t stop veteran fiddler Clements from putting together a classy album of blues-based material.
It’s not surprising that he would record a blues album. Clements, who started out more than 50 years ago with Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, long ago slipped the surly bonds of bluegrass. He’s used the phrase “hillbilly jazz” in a couple of albums and called another one Backporch Swing.
And longtime Clements fans know that the blues seeped into his bow years ago. Listen to his playing on The Grateful Dead‘s “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleloo” or on “Trail of the Buffalo” with the hippie-grass super group Old and In the Way.
So Clements sounds right at home on this new album collaborating with the likes of Charlie Musselwhite, Elvin Bishop, Maria Muldaur, Norton Buffalo and Roy Rogers playing songs by Skip James, Robert Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson and Tampa Red.
Almost all the instruments here are acoustic. The credits make special note that Rogers plays an “amplified Martin guitar” on “Phonograph Blues.”
But it’s not just country blues covered here. The material ranges from the New Orleans style of “Mambo Boogie” (Dave Matthews -- no not that Dave Matthews plays piano) to a hillbilly-soul cover of Booker T’s signature “Green Onions,” featuring Musselwhite on harmonica.
Some of favorites here are the ones sung by Muldaur, whose voice has only gotten richer since her early ‘70s “Midnight at the Oasis” heyday. She belts out “Honey Babe Blues” and one called “I Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle.”
Then there’s the contributions of Bishop, who rose to fame in the ’70s with songs like “Stealin’ Watermelons” and “Struttin’ My Stuff.“ In case you’d forgotten how much fun Bishop is, check out “Dirty Drawers” and the cool funky “That’s My Thing” from this record.
*Rise by Eddie Turner. Fans of bluesman Otis Taylor should be familiar with Turner's psychedelic guitar. Turner along with bassist Kenny Passarelli, formed the backbone of Taylor’s band on all his albums.
All but the last one, that is. For reasons of which I’m not sure, Taylor didn’t use his longtime sidemen for last year’s Double V. And as far as I’m concerned, the album suffered for it.
But Turner and Passarelli are together on Turner’s new solo album.
This album is crawling with Santa Fe musicians. It’s produced by Passarelli (a longtime Santa Fe resident, who also plays bass and keyboards), Mark Clark plays drums, Alex Maryol makes a guest appearance. And the whole shebang was recorded at Stepbridge Studios.
Rise doesn’t rise to the intensity of Turner’s best work with Taylor. Turner’s an amazing picker, but he’s no match for Otis as a lyricist or singer.
Still, the album is a worthy. Turner and crew take their music seriously and the result is truly innovative blues.
Some of my favorites here are instrumentals. “Resurrection,” for instance, features Turner dueling with himself, slide guitar vs. electric guitar. It almost could be described as a shorter, more downhome version of Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain.”
“The River” is a guitar boogie featuring Turner and Maryol that through the magic of tape loops keeps adding more layers.
Other notable tunes are “Confusion Illusion,” the closest thing here to a protest song (and Passarelli plays a mean, jazzy organ here) and “Sin” which could almost be described as a psychedelic spiritual. It’s almost a capella, except the guitar and organ rumbling in the background.
And speaking of psychedelic, Turner just might have saved his best for the last here with “Secret.” With revved-up, trip hoppy percussion ghostly vocal parts fade in and out.
The free world really didn’t really need another cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary.” And the same thing could be said of Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s “Gangster of Love,” except that Turner’s take on it is such a good-time rollick, it’s worth it.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP:FEAR & LOATHING FOREVER
“When a jackrabbit gets addicted to road running, it is only a matter of time before he gets smashed -- and when a journalist turns into a politics junkie he will sooner or later start raving and babbling in print about things that only a person who has Been There can possibly understand.”
-- Hunter S. Thompson from Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72.
1972 was a major year in my personal political development.
It was the year of my first anti-war demonstration at the University of New Mexico — an adrenalin-charged and tear gas-soaked week that still gets me riled and antsy.
It was the first year in which people between the ages of 18 and 20 were legally eligible to vote. I was 19 and I voted as part of that youth vote that some — wrongly — predicted would be huge enough to oust Richard Nixon.
And one thing that helped make the year bearable were the regular mondo gonzo campaign dispatches from Hunter Thompson published in Rolling Stone.
Thompson’s bad-craziness exit this week prompted me to pick up my well-worn first edition paperback (price tag: $1.75) of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72, which I‘ve always thought to be his greatest work, despite the greater infamy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Reading all the praise and final respects for Thompson from mainstream press folk around the country struck me as ironic. Though Thompson had plenty of friends among non-gonzo journalists, he didn’t think much of the establishment political press.
“The most consistent and ultimately damaging failure of political journalism in America has its roots in the clubby/cocktail personal relationships that inevitably develop between politicians and journalists — in Washington or anywhere else they meet on a day-to-day basis,” Thompson wrote in the introduction of Campaign Trail. “When professional antagonists become after-hours drinking buddies, they are not likely to turn each other in … especially for the `minor infractions of rules that neither side takes seriously; and on the rare occasions when Minor infractions suddenly become Major, there is panic on both ends.”
Many of us envied Thompson’s fearlessness and reckless freedom shown in Campaign Trail. Who among us doesn’t fantasize about blurting out — in print — pejoratives like “evil swine,” or “treacherous geek” or “corrupt old ward-heeler” when describing some of the politicos we cover? (Note to politicos: You know who you are.)
But while many of us admired Thompson, few, if any, actually emulate him either in writing or antics. Here in New Mexico some of our judges come a lot closer to Hunter Thompson than our journalists.
The ‘72 race was Thompson‘s high-water mark for political writing. His subsequent stabs at writing about presidential campaigns seemed half-hearted and weary.
I remember trying to trudge through his late ‘80s book Generation of Swine, a collection of his columns about national politics. His observations there seemed like warmed-over conventional wisdom spiced up with familiar Thompsonisms like “money-sucking animals,” and “greed-crazed lunatics.”
Some believe Thompson by the end had become a sad parody of himself. Many believe his legendary drug and booze intake eventually fried his spirit and diminished his talent.
But for one glorious stretch 35 years ago, Thompson single-handedly cut through the crap of politics and journalism, revealed disturbing truths and made his work seem like twisted fun. For that he should be honored.
Remembering Campaign ‘72: New Mexico voted for Nixon over Democrat George McGovern — as did every state but Massachusetts.
But there was weirdness in the air earlier that year. In the June primary there were enough renegade Republicans here who voted for Paul McCloskey — an anti-war congressman from California — that New Mexico sent the only delegate to that year’s Republican convention who didn’t vote for Nixon. (That was Tom Mayer, an author from Española who taught creative writing at The University of New Mexico.)
The most surreal political event I attended that year — not counting the war demonstrations — was an Albuquerque airport rally for Democratic vice presidential candidate Sargent Shriver. The main draw wasn’t Shriver but singer Richie Havens, who explained to the crowd that he personally didn’t intend to vote because he refused to give control of his life to anyone. Not the message the organizers wanted.
At the rally, then-Gov. Bruce King urged the crowd to “knock on doorbells for George McGovern.” The cowboy governor then introduced actor Dennis Hopper, who read Rudyard Kipling’s poem If.
Ring of Fred: Thumbing through Campaign Trail '72, I found a Thompson reference to New Mexico political figure — Fred Harris, a former state Democratic chair who then was a U.S. senator from Oklahoma. Describing a press conference to announce the formation of a National Youth Caucus, Thompson wrote, “Harris didn’t say much; he just sat there looking like Johnny Cash …”
Monday, February 21, 2005
GOODNIGHT, DOCTOR
I just learned that Hunter Thompson killed himself. CLICK HERE
He hadn't written a great book since 1972 and probably hadn't uttered a coherent sentence in 20 years.
But this hurts.
I tried to read some book of political columns by him back in the '80s but found it sadly boring. Not very funny and even less insightful. Thompson had set the standard years before, but he never met it again.
I remember seeing him on Letterman about that time in the late 80s. He was drunk and mumbling and wasn't even funny. I felt sorry for him. Of course, I was drunk and probably mumbling myself that night. Maybe I was looking in a mirror.
When I was a student teacher back in 1976, a girl in my English class asked me if I could recommend a "book about drugs." She was a very straight, clean-cut kid and very sincere. The little devil on my shoulder whispered in my ear. I loaned her my dog-eared copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
(Lord have mercy, can you imagine the firestorm a teacher would face today if he loaned a crazy, drug-soaked, profanity-laced book like Fear and Loathing to an innocent young student and the parents complained? WHAT KIND OF MESSAGE ARE YOU SENDING TO THE CHILDREN????!??!?!!)
A few days later, she returned it and thanked me. "That was the saddest book I've ever read," she replied. "Especially the last chapter."
Note to today's youngsters: Back then when a kid described something as "sad," it wasn't slang for something uncool, annoying or slightly unpleasant. She meant SAD, as in sorrowful. Fear and Loathing had moved her.
At the time I was puzzled. To me Thompson was a hilarious hero, a rebel grabbing the establishment bull by the horns.
So I re-read the book.
And I learned she was correct. It is a sad book. By the last chapter, Thompson knows that not only is everything good about the '60s gone, probably for good, but he himself is a defeated man.
I'm glad he had one more great book in him. I'm glad Johnny Depp immortalized him in that movie. (What happened, Billy Murray? You blew it!) I'm glad he co-wrote that song with Warren Zevon.
Good night, doctor. You were our friend. You weren't like the others.
He hadn't written a great book since 1972 and probably hadn't uttered a coherent sentence in 20 years.
But this hurts.
I tried to read some book of political columns by him back in the '80s but found it sadly boring. Not very funny and even less insightful. Thompson had set the standard years before, but he never met it again.
I remember seeing him on Letterman about that time in the late 80s. He was drunk and mumbling and wasn't even funny. I felt sorry for him. Of course, I was drunk and probably mumbling myself that night. Maybe I was looking in a mirror.
When I was a student teacher back in 1976, a girl in my English class asked me if I could recommend a "book about drugs." She was a very straight, clean-cut kid and very sincere. The little devil on my shoulder whispered in my ear. I loaned her my dog-eared copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
(Lord have mercy, can you imagine the firestorm a teacher would face today if he loaned a crazy, drug-soaked, profanity-laced book like Fear and Loathing to an innocent young student and the parents complained? WHAT KIND OF MESSAGE ARE YOU SENDING TO THE CHILDREN????!??!?!!)
A few days later, she returned it and thanked me. "That was the saddest book I've ever read," she replied. "Especially the last chapter."
Note to today's youngsters: Back then when a kid described something as "sad," it wasn't slang for something uncool, annoying or slightly unpleasant. She meant SAD, as in sorrowful. Fear and Loathing had moved her.
At the time I was puzzled. To me Thompson was a hilarious hero, a rebel grabbing the establishment bull by the horns.
So I re-read the book.
And I learned she was correct. It is a sad book. By the last chapter, Thompson knows that not only is everything good about the '60s gone, probably for good, but he himself is a defeated man.
I'm glad he had one more great book in him. I'm glad Johnny Depp immortalized him in that movie. (What happened, Billy Murray? You blew it!) I'm glad he co-wrote that song with Warren Zevon.
Good night, doctor. You were our friend. You weren't like the others.
TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST
Sunday, February 20, 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
You Don't Love Me Yet by Roky Erickson
The End (Again) by The Hollis Wake
Terrier by The Moaners
I'm Finding It Harder to Be a Gentleman by The White Stripes
Curly Hair by Doo Rag
Bad Girl by The New York Dolls
Hard Drivin' Man by The J. Geils Band
We Have a Savior by The Shaggs
Pull Your Clothes Off by Junior Kimbrough
You Better Run by Iggy & The Stooges
I'm Leaving by Junior Kimbrough/Go Gittas
Do the Rump by The Black Keys
Sad Days, Lonely Nights by Spiritualized
I Feel Good Again by Junior Kimbrough & Charlie Feathers
Done Got Old by Buddy Guy
PRESIDENTS DAY SET
Crazy Words, Crazy Tune by Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band
Booth Killed Lincoln by Bascom Lamar Lunsford
Mr. Garfield by Johnny Cash
Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Poor Man's Friend by Willie Eason
Eisenhower Blues by J.B. Lenoir
PT-109 by Jimmy Dean
Knee Deep in the Big Muddy by Pete Seeger
Nixon's Dead Ass by Russell Means
Read My Lips by A Thousand Points of Night
The President's Penis is Missing by Drive-By Truckers
President's Day by Loudon Wainwright III
All These Things by Art Neville
Mrs. O'Leary's Cow by Brian Wilson
Help Me Make It Through the Night by Mark Eitzel
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
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
You Don't Love Me Yet by Roky Erickson
The End (Again) by The Hollis Wake
Terrier by The Moaners
I'm Finding It Harder to Be a Gentleman by The White Stripes
Curly Hair by Doo Rag
Bad Girl by The New York Dolls
Hard Drivin' Man by The J. Geils Band
We Have a Savior by The Shaggs
Pull Your Clothes Off by Junior Kimbrough
You Better Run by Iggy & The Stooges
I'm Leaving by Junior Kimbrough/Go Gittas
Do the Rump by The Black Keys
Sad Days, Lonely Nights by Spiritualized
I Feel Good Again by Junior Kimbrough & Charlie Feathers
Done Got Old by Buddy Guy
PRESIDENTS DAY SET
Crazy Words, Crazy Tune by Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band
Booth Killed Lincoln by Bascom Lamar Lunsford
Mr. Garfield by Johnny Cash
Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Poor Man's Friend by Willie Eason
Eisenhower Blues by J.B. Lenoir
PT-109 by Jimmy Dean
Knee Deep in the Big Muddy by Pete Seeger
Nixon's Dead Ass by Russell Means
Read My Lips by A Thousand Points of Night
The President's Penis is Missing by Drive-By Truckers
President's Day by Loudon Wainwright III
All These Things by Art Neville
Mrs. O'Leary's Cow by Brian Wilson
Help Me Make It Through the Night by Mark Eitzel
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Saturday, February 19, 2005
THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST
Friday, February 18, 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
Poison by The Waco Brothers
Gimme a Ride to Heaven, Boy by Terry Allen
You Ain't Nothin' But Fine by Elizabeth McQueen & The Firebrands
When the Hammer Comes Down by House of Freaks
Elizabeth Cotton's Song by The Moaners
Shake Sugaree by Elizabeth Cotton with Brenda Evans
Junkyard in the Sun by Butch Hancock
I Don't Hear Freedom Ring Anymore by Ronny Elliott
What Did the Deep Sea Say? by Dave Alvin
We Never Killed Each Other (But Didn't We Try?) by Dallas Wayne
(I've Got a Woman In) San Angelo by Cornell Hurd
Why Henry Drinks by Drive-By Truckers
This Ol' Cowboy by The Marshall Tucker Band
Maricopa Mountain by Dave Insley & Rosie Flores
I'm a Nut by Leroy Pullens
Four Walls of Raiford by Lynyrd Skynyrd
I Was Drunk by Alejandro Escovedo
She Never Spoke Spanish to Me by Joe Ely
Out on the Streets (Junk is Still King) by Gary Heffern
Bound for Glory by Raising Cane
Gunfight in Durango by Chatham County Line
I'm Not a Communist by Grandpa Jones
Mike the Can Man by Joe West
Help Me Make it Through the Night by Sammi Smith
Lonesome Valley Blues by Eric Carlson
Lonesome Valley by Jon Dee Graham
Lakes of Ponchartrain by Peter Case
I've Just Destroyed the World by Willie Nelson
If I Could Only Fly by Merle Haggard
Come Fly Away by Jimmie Dale Gilmore
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list
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
Poison by The Waco Brothers
Gimme a Ride to Heaven, Boy by Terry Allen
You Ain't Nothin' But Fine by Elizabeth McQueen & The Firebrands
When the Hammer Comes Down by House of Freaks
Elizabeth Cotton's Song by The Moaners
Shake Sugaree by Elizabeth Cotton with Brenda Evans
Junkyard in the Sun by Butch Hancock
I Don't Hear Freedom Ring Anymore by Ronny Elliott
What Did the Deep Sea Say? by Dave Alvin
We Never Killed Each Other (But Didn't We Try?) by Dallas Wayne
(I've Got a Woman In) San Angelo by Cornell Hurd
Why Henry Drinks by Drive-By Truckers
This Ol' Cowboy by The Marshall Tucker Band
Maricopa Mountain by Dave Insley & Rosie Flores
I'm a Nut by Leroy Pullens
Four Walls of Raiford by Lynyrd Skynyrd
I Was Drunk by Alejandro Escovedo
She Never Spoke Spanish to Me by Joe Ely
Out on the Streets (Junk is Still King) by Gary Heffern
Bound for Glory by Raising Cane
Gunfight in Durango by Chatham County Line
I'm Not a Communist by Grandpa Jones
Mike the Can Man by Joe West
Help Me Make it Through the Night by Sammi Smith
Lonesome Valley Blues by Eric Carlson
Lonesome Valley by Jon Dee Graham
Lakes of Ponchartrain by Peter Case
I've Just Destroyed the World by Willie Nelson
If I Could Only Fly by Merle Haggard
Come Fly Away by Jimmie Dale Gilmore
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list
Friday, February 18, 2005
TERRELL'S TUNEUP: ROCKING & MOANING
As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Feruary 18, 2005
In recent years a minimalist rock ‘n’ roll sound has emerged. Thanks mainly to The White Stripes and The Black Keys, we have the power duo -- just guitar and drums.
There were antecedents, of course. Back in the late ‘80s there was House of Freaks, a guitar-drum duo that had a high energy, yet very melodic sound. In the mid ‘90s there was Doo Rag, an Arizona blues twosome that sounded like Hound Dog Taylor caught in a meth lab explosion.
One might even argue that the true forefather of the power duo was Lee Michaels, whose band, for a time in the early ‘70s, consisted of only himself (on keyboards) and a drummer.
A new addition to the guitar/drums sound movement is The Moaners, the new band led by singer/guitarist Melissa Swingle, the force behind the late, lamented Trailer Bride. They’ve got a new album on Yep Roc called Dark Snack.
Joined by drummer Laura King, Swingle rocks and roars with a power rarely heard in more country sounding Trailer Bride. Dark Snack’s very first tune, “Heart Attack” starts out with a blast of feedback screech, as if to announce, “Warning: This is not a Trailer Bride album.”
(Could economics rather than artistic aesthetics have something to do with Swingle‘s new band? “A 4-piece band just won’t make ends meet/ tonight, baby, it’s you and me,” she sings on “Hard Times.” )
And yet, there’s much about The Moaners that will appeal to Trailer Bride fan’s -- namely Swingle’s voice, that unique, laconic, cool-as-a-raspberry-Slurpee North Carolina drawl, and Swingle’s writing.
She pays tribute to folk/blues icon Libby Cotton by retitling a strong, grinding version of “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad” as “Elizabeth Cotton’s Song,” and to southern author Flannery O’Connor in “Flannery Said.”
“You can't get any poorer than dead / Yeah that's what Flannery said," Swingle sings over her distorted guitar.
The Moaners get political on “Hard Times,” which features a spacey quasi-jug band guitar riff .
“Why do they love to fight these wars?/ Hard times keep me pacing the floor/ It’s hard to proud to be American/ when our country’s being run by rich, greedy men,”
And yet she gets goofy and playful on the hard crunching “Terrier,” where she discusses the advantages and disadvantages of various breeds of dogs.
“Hound dogs are lazy but they ain’t mean/ poodles are pussy, they don’t bother me/ beagles are stinky, I wouldn’t have one/ but there’s just one kind to stay away from …”
Of course, the funniest line in the song is when Swingle snaps, “Get off my leg.”
The last song on Dark Snack, “Chasing Down the Moon,” is a slow ethereal instrumental, less than two minutes long, featuring Swingle’s musical saw sounding like a distant ghost. It only goes to show, ou can take the girl out of Trailer Bride, but you can’t take Trailer Bride out of the girl.
Also Recommended
*Sunday Nights: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough by Various Artists. One trouble with many tribute albums -- blues tributes in particular -- is that the various artists involved tend to be too reverent towards the subject of the tribute. Fortunately this isn’t the case with this Fat Possum tribute to the late Mississippi blues giant.
Of course Kimbrough, who died in 1998 at the age of 67, never lent himself to conventional reverence. His songs were rough and often outright lecherous, and even when he sang about the ravages of age, as he did on “Done Got Old” you can tell his biggest regret was that he was no longer as credible as he was when he sang songs like “Pull Your Clothes Off.”
The contributors here aren’t Kimbrough’s blues peers, but acts from the alternate rock universe. Fat Possum honcho Matthew Johnson is forthright on the CD cover when he says the main purpose of this is to turn on more people to Kimbrough’s music -- much of which is available on Fat Possum.
I’ll second his motion -- go acquaint yourself with Kimbrough’s primitive, hypnotic blues -- though this album has enough good tracks to stand on its own.
Sunday Nights starts and ends with wild versions of Kimbrough’s “You Better Run,” both done by the reformed Iggy & The Stooges. It’s a crazed fantasy in which the singer rescues a rape victim, who later declares her love for him. It’s fun and raucous, even the slower, longer second version, in which Iggy risks the ire of the political-correctness police as he sings “Come along a baby, there’s a whole lot of rapin’ goin’ on.”
Most of the selections are done in this spirit -- loud raunchy guitars, primitive beats -- you know you’re in trouble when the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion has one of the mellower songs on an album.
Standout performances include The Fiery Furnaces’ psychedelic stomp version of “I’m Leaving,” Spiritualized’s “Sad Days and Lonely Nights,” which starts out with what sounds like a mellow melodica but builds up to a punched-up frenzy and Mark Lanegan’s slow-moving but dangerous “All Night Long.”
The only disappointments are Entrance and Cat Powers’ too precious and ultimately rumpless “Do the Romp,” and the two versions of “Done Got Old.”
While Jim White’s is more inventive in its Beckish kind of way with its weird tape loops, and the Heartless Bastards rock hard, neither actually sound like it’s being sung by someone fearing the advance of age. For that, check out Buddy Guy’s cover a few ago on his Sweet Tea album.
*Happy Doing What We’re Doing by Elizabeth McQueen & The Firebrands. Before there was punk rock in Great Britain, there was something called “pub rock.” Pioneered by bands like Brinsley Schwarz, Eddie & The Hotrods and Ducks Deluxe, championed by the veteran Dave Edmunds and serving as the breeding grounds for Nick Lowe, Graham Parker, Squeeze, and Elvis Costello, pub rock was an energetic mix of blues, early rock ’n’ roll, a touch of honky tonk and a whole lot of soul.
On paper it might sound like good old American bar band music. But there was something intrinsically English about the best pub rock, sometimes the melodies, sometimes the chord changes, sometimes just the attitude.
In this record, named after a Brinsley Schwarz tune, Texas country rocker Elizabeth McQueen celebrates the pub rock era, covering tunes by the above listed artists plus more obscure pub bands like Eggs Over Easy (which actually was an American band living in England) and Dr. Feelgood.
With her clear, strong, unaffected voice, McQueen (who sometimes gigs locally at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame) makes these 30-year-old songs sound fresh and vital.
McQueen’s best performances here include “All I Need is Money” (originally by Eddie & The Hotrods), which rocks like The Sir Douglas Quintet; Edmunds’ “A-1 on the Juke Box,” which could be an anthem for all alt country rockers ignored by Nashville; and Rockpile’s “You Ain’t Nothin’ But Fine,” which features a cool steel guitar solo by Jimmy Murphy.
And McQueen proves she’s got the knack for this style with “Dirty Little Secret,” which sounds like a long lost Costello or Parker , but actually it’s an original.
Feruary 18, 2005
In recent years a minimalist rock ‘n’ roll sound has emerged. Thanks mainly to The White Stripes and The Black Keys, we have the power duo -- just guitar and drums.
There were antecedents, of course. Back in the late ‘80s there was House of Freaks, a guitar-drum duo that had a high energy, yet very melodic sound. In the mid ‘90s there was Doo Rag, an Arizona blues twosome that sounded like Hound Dog Taylor caught in a meth lab explosion.
 |
| Melissa Swingle with Trailer Bride |
A new addition to the guitar/drums sound movement is The Moaners, the new band led by singer/guitarist Melissa Swingle, the force behind the late, lamented Trailer Bride. They’ve got a new album on Yep Roc called Dark Snack.
Joined by drummer Laura King, Swingle rocks and roars with a power rarely heard in more country sounding Trailer Bride. Dark Snack’s very first tune, “Heart Attack” starts out with a blast of feedback screech, as if to announce, “Warning: This is not a Trailer Bride album.”
(Could economics rather than artistic aesthetics have something to do with Swingle‘s new band? “A 4-piece band just won’t make ends meet/ tonight, baby, it’s you and me,” she sings on “Hard Times.” )
And yet, there’s much about The Moaners that will appeal to Trailer Bride fan’s -- namely Swingle’s voice, that unique, laconic, cool-as-a-raspberry-Slurpee North Carolina drawl, and Swingle’s writing.
She pays tribute to folk/blues icon Libby Cotton by retitling a strong, grinding version of “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad” as “Elizabeth Cotton’s Song,” and to southern author Flannery O’Connor in “Flannery Said.”
“You can't get any poorer than dead / Yeah that's what Flannery said," Swingle sings over her distorted guitar.
The Moaners get political on “Hard Times,” which features a spacey quasi-jug band guitar riff .
“Why do they love to fight these wars?/ Hard times keep me pacing the floor/ It’s hard to proud to be American/ when our country’s being run by rich, greedy men,”
And yet she gets goofy and playful on the hard crunching “Terrier,” where she discusses the advantages and disadvantages of various breeds of dogs.
“Hound dogs are lazy but they ain’t mean/ poodles are pussy, they don’t bother me/ beagles are stinky, I wouldn’t have one/ but there’s just one kind to stay away from …”
Of course, the funniest line in the song is when Swingle snaps, “Get off my leg.”
The last song on Dark Snack, “Chasing Down the Moon,” is a slow ethereal instrumental, less than two minutes long, featuring Swingle’s musical saw sounding like a distant ghost. It only goes to show, ou can take the girl out of Trailer Bride, but you can’t take Trailer Bride out of the girl.
Also Recommended
*Sunday Nights: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough by Various Artists. One trouble with many tribute albums -- blues tributes in particular -- is that the various artists involved tend to be too reverent towards the subject of the tribute. Fortunately this isn’t the case with this Fat Possum tribute to the late Mississippi blues giant.
Of course Kimbrough, who died in 1998 at the age of 67, never lent himself to conventional reverence. His songs were rough and often outright lecherous, and even when he sang about the ravages of age, as he did on “Done Got Old” you can tell his biggest regret was that he was no longer as credible as he was when he sang songs like “Pull Your Clothes Off.”
The contributors here aren’t Kimbrough’s blues peers, but acts from the alternate rock universe. Fat Possum honcho Matthew Johnson is forthright on the CD cover when he says the main purpose of this is to turn on more people to Kimbrough’s music -- much of which is available on Fat Possum.
I’ll second his motion -- go acquaint yourself with Kimbrough’s primitive, hypnotic blues -- though this album has enough good tracks to stand on its own.
Sunday Nights starts and ends with wild versions of Kimbrough’s “You Better Run,” both done by the reformed Iggy & The Stooges. It’s a crazed fantasy in which the singer rescues a rape victim, who later declares her love for him. It’s fun and raucous, even the slower, longer second version, in which Iggy risks the ire of the political-correctness police as he sings “Come along a baby, there’s a whole lot of rapin’ goin’ on.”
Most of the selections are done in this spirit -- loud raunchy guitars, primitive beats -- you know you’re in trouble when the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion has one of the mellower songs on an album.
Standout performances include The Fiery Furnaces’ psychedelic stomp version of “I’m Leaving,” Spiritualized’s “Sad Days and Lonely Nights,” which starts out with what sounds like a mellow melodica but builds up to a punched-up frenzy and Mark Lanegan’s slow-moving but dangerous “All Night Long.”
The only disappointments are Entrance and Cat Powers’ too precious and ultimately rumpless “Do the Romp,” and the two versions of “Done Got Old.”
While Jim White’s is more inventive in its Beckish kind of way with its weird tape loops, and the Heartless Bastards rock hard, neither actually sound like it’s being sung by someone fearing the advance of age. For that, check out Buddy Guy’s cover a few ago on his Sweet Tea album.
*Happy Doing What We’re Doing by Elizabeth McQueen & The Firebrands. Before there was punk rock in Great Britain, there was something called “pub rock.” Pioneered by bands like Brinsley Schwarz, Eddie & The Hotrods and Ducks Deluxe, championed by the veteran Dave Edmunds and serving as the breeding grounds for Nick Lowe, Graham Parker, Squeeze, and Elvis Costello, pub rock was an energetic mix of blues, early rock ’n’ roll, a touch of honky tonk and a whole lot of soul.
On paper it might sound like good old American bar band music. But there was something intrinsically English about the best pub rock, sometimes the melodies, sometimes the chord changes, sometimes just the attitude.
In this record, named after a Brinsley Schwarz tune, Texas country rocker Elizabeth McQueen celebrates the pub rock era, covering tunes by the above listed artists plus more obscure pub bands like Eggs Over Easy (which actually was an American band living in England) and Dr. Feelgood.
With her clear, strong, unaffected voice, McQueen (who sometimes gigs locally at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame) makes these 30-year-old songs sound fresh and vital.
McQueen’s best performances here include “All I Need is Money” (originally by Eddie & The Hotrods), which rocks like The Sir Douglas Quintet; Edmunds’ “A-1 on the Juke Box,” which could be an anthem for all alt country rockers ignored by Nashville; and Rockpile’s “You Ain’t Nothin’ But Fine,” which features a cool steel guitar solo by Jimmy Murphy.
And McQueen proves she’s got the knack for this style with “Dirty Little Secret,” which sounds like a long lost Costello or Parker , but actually it’s an original.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: A BREAK FROM SOUND-BITE POLITICS
As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
Feb. 17, 2004
We live in an era of sound-bite politics. Policy debate too often is reduced to noisy Crossfire-like exchange of talking points and sloganeering. Public interaction with public officials frequently consists of hand-picked supporters asking pre-screened, softball questions.
Considering that, something refreshing happened at the Roundhouse this week.
Two state senators from the social-conservative wing of the Republican Party - Bill Sharer of Farmington and Mark Boitano of Albuquerque - did something that too few politicians do these days. They went out among the public and had civil, but very serious, conversations with people who they know passionately oppose their political philosophy.
The occasion was a Valentine Day press conference featuring GOP lawmakers talking about a package of bills they would encourage the institution of marriage and discourage divorce in the state.
Among the proposals: Reducing the $25 marriage license fee for couples who take marriage education programs; requiring 10 percent of federal welfare funds received by the state be used to encourage two-parent families; requiring divorcing couples with children -- or those in which one spouse doesn't want a divorce -- go to pre-divorce counseling classes; and spending $200,000 to community groups and religious organizations for a range of educational programs and advertising campaigns to promote marriage.
The issue of gay marriage wasn't even mentioned by the senators and other speakers at the press conference itself.
But it was very much on the minds of a majority of audience members. Monday also was Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Lobbying Day at the capitol.
Dozens of those who came to lobby against bills that would prohibit same-sex marriage - including SB 587, sponsored by Sharer - showed up to the Republican event on the west side of the Roundhouse. The speakers looked out to a crowd with large signs reading "Love = Love" and "All Love is Equal" and a poster with photos captioned "The Faces of Gay and Lesbian Families."
To fully appreciate this, you've got to realize how radically different this scene was from the typical Roundhouse "news conference." Usually these exercises are preaching-to-the-choir pep rallies where the audience consists primarily of true believers who applaud at all the right places.
This event had every potential of becoming just another screaming battle in the culture war.
It didn't.
There was a couple of instances of mild heckling from a few in the crowd. And a few times when a speaker said something about strengthening marriage, some audience members responded, "for us too."
"I didn't feel much hostility at all," Boitano said immediately after the event. But heck, he had just received loud applause from both straights and gays in the crowd when he concluded his talk by saying love is the most powerful force in the universe.
Sharer later told me he was prepared for much worse. "I thought they might throw tomatoes at us," he said. I think he was only half-joking.
Nobody threw anything, but several people wanted to let the senators know how they felt about same-sex marriage and how legislation would affect their lives and their families.
They approached both Sharer and Boitano, and some interesting conversations ensued.
Despite the friendly tone of Monday's encounters, it's not likely anyone changed his or her mind on the issue.
The activists will continue to fight Sharer's bill. And Sharer and Boitano still are going to vote to define marriage as being only between a man and a woman -- though Sharer held out the possibility he could back Sen. Cisco McSorley's SB 576, which would establish "domestic partnership" licenses that would give unmarried couples the same rights and benefits of married couples.
At one point Monday, Mary Ellen Capek, a lesbian who was married to her partner in Canada, asked Sharer: "How do we get past stereotypes?"
I can't help but think both sides made some steps in that direction that day.
Feb. 17, 2004
We live in an era of sound-bite politics. Policy debate too often is reduced to noisy Crossfire-like exchange of talking points and sloganeering. Public interaction with public officials frequently consists of hand-picked supporters asking pre-screened, softball questions.
Considering that, something refreshing happened at the Roundhouse this week.
Two state senators from the social-conservative wing of the Republican Party - Bill Sharer of Farmington and Mark Boitano of Albuquerque - did something that too few politicians do these days. They went out among the public and had civil, but very serious, conversations with people who they know passionately oppose their political philosophy.
The occasion was a Valentine Day press conference featuring GOP lawmakers talking about a package of bills they would encourage the institution of marriage and discourage divorce in the state.
Among the proposals: Reducing the $25 marriage license fee for couples who take marriage education programs; requiring 10 percent of federal welfare funds received by the state be used to encourage two-parent families; requiring divorcing couples with children -- or those in which one spouse doesn't want a divorce -- go to pre-divorce counseling classes; and spending $200,000 to community groups and religious organizations for a range of educational programs and advertising campaigns to promote marriage.
The issue of gay marriage wasn't even mentioned by the senators and other speakers at the press conference itself.
But it was very much on the minds of a majority of audience members. Monday also was Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Lobbying Day at the capitol.
Dozens of those who came to lobby against bills that would prohibit same-sex marriage - including SB 587, sponsored by Sharer - showed up to the Republican event on the west side of the Roundhouse. The speakers looked out to a crowd with large signs reading "Love = Love" and "All Love is Equal" and a poster with photos captioned "The Faces of Gay and Lesbian Families."
To fully appreciate this, you've got to realize how radically different this scene was from the typical Roundhouse "news conference." Usually these exercises are preaching-to-the-choir pep rallies where the audience consists primarily of true believers who applaud at all the right places.
This event had every potential of becoming just another screaming battle in the culture war.
It didn't.
There was a couple of instances of mild heckling from a few in the crowd. And a few times when a speaker said something about strengthening marriage, some audience members responded, "for us too."
"I didn't feel much hostility at all," Boitano said immediately after the event. But heck, he had just received loud applause from both straights and gays in the crowd when he concluded his talk by saying love is the most powerful force in the universe.
Sharer later told me he was prepared for much worse. "I thought they might throw tomatoes at us," he said. I think he was only half-joking.
Nobody threw anything, but several people wanted to let the senators know how they felt about same-sex marriage and how legislation would affect their lives and their families.
They approached both Sharer and Boitano, and some interesting conversations ensued.
Despite the friendly tone of Monday's encounters, it's not likely anyone changed his or her mind on the issue.
The activists will continue to fight Sharer's bill. And Sharer and Boitano still are going to vote to define marriage as being only between a man and a woman -- though Sharer held out the possibility he could back Sen. Cisco McSorley's SB 576, which would establish "domestic partnership" licenses that would give unmarried couples the same rights and benefits of married couples.
At one point Monday, Mary Ellen Capek, a lesbian who was married to her partner in Canada, asked Sharer: "How do we get past stereotypes?"
I can't help but think both sides made some steps in that direction that day.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
ANOTHER SANTA FE FAR REPORTER
I'm not the only Santa Fe contributor to the Freeform American Roots (FAR) radio chart any more. I'm joined by Kathleen Brandon, musical director and co-owner (with her husband Steve Bumpous) of the new KWRP, 101.5.
Kathleen plays a mix of alt country, bluegrass, blues, southern rock and other music that made America great. (Except late night when they switch to classic rock, for reasons of which I'm not quite certain.)
I just checked out their web site and within the past few minutes they've played:
Give them a listen. (But not during my shows!)
By the way, other New Mexico FAR reporters include Steve Scott & Denise DeLeon whose show The Real Deal is aired Saturdays on KFUN in Las Vegas and Tom Funk of KGLP in Gallup whose Green Chile Revival & Medicine Show airs Saturday afternoons. And though El Paso officially is in Texas, we in New Mexico know different, so I should include Dan Alloway of KTEP. I've actually appeared on his Saturday night show, Folk Fury.
I just wish Carl, Barry and Marilyn of KUNM's Home of Happy Feet -- a true inspiration of my Santa Fe Opry -- would hook up with FAR.
Kathleen plays a mix of alt country, bluegrass, blues, southern rock and other music that made America great. (Except late night when they switch to classic rock, for reasons of which I'm not quite certain.)
I just checked out their web site and within the past few minutes they've played:
The Resentments - Rich Man's War
Tres Chicas - In a While
Robinella & The C C Stringband - Man Over
Reckless Kelly - Baby's Got a Whole Lot More
Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Watching The Detectives
Give them a listen. (But not during my shows!)
By the way, other New Mexico FAR reporters include Steve Scott & Denise DeLeon whose show The Real Deal is aired Saturdays on KFUN in Las Vegas and Tom Funk of KGLP in Gallup whose Green Chile Revival & Medicine Show airs Saturday afternoons. And though El Paso officially is in Texas, we in New Mexico know different, so I should include Dan Alloway of KTEP. I've actually appeared on his Saturday night show, Folk Fury.
I just wish Carl, Barry and Marilyn of KUNM's Home of Happy Feet -- a true inspiration of my Santa Fe Opry -- would hook up with FAR.
Monday, February 14, 2005
TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST
Sunday, February 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
Valentine by Concrete Blonde
Laredo (Small Dark Something) by Jon Dee Graham
Reptilia by The Strokes
Crawl Through the Darkness by The Von Bondies
Berlin by Dickie B. Hardy
Time Warp/Brain Damage by Link Wray
Psychedelic Love by Big Ugly Guys
Valentine by The Replacements
The Ring by The Hangdogs
Wedding Day by Alejandro Escovedo
Ballad of the Soldier's Wife by Kazik Staszewski
Hard Times by The Moaners
Truth Doesn't Make a Noise by The White Stripes
I'm Leaving by The Fiery Furnaces
Brand New Special and Unique by Stan Ridgway
You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover by Bo Diddley
Memphis by Jerry Lawler
Nothing is Impossible (from Zakhmee Soundtrack)
Chunga's Revenge by Frank Zappa
Soulsville by Isaac Hayes
Just Step Sideways by The Fall
Robby, The Cook, and 60 Gallons of Booze by Louis & Bebe Barron
Please Warm My Weiner by Bo Carter
My Funny Valentine by Elvis Costello
Hashish in Marseilles by The Mekons
Two Circles by Sraddha
The Kindness of Strangers by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Blue Valentines by Tom Waits
Where or When by Dion & The Belmonts
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
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
Valentine by Concrete Blonde
Laredo (Small Dark Something) by Jon Dee Graham
Reptilia by The Strokes
Crawl Through the Darkness by The Von Bondies
Berlin by Dickie B. Hardy
Time Warp/Brain Damage by Link Wray
Psychedelic Love by Big Ugly Guys
Valentine by The Replacements
The Ring by The Hangdogs
Wedding Day by Alejandro Escovedo
Ballad of the Soldier's Wife by Kazik Staszewski
Hard Times by The Moaners
Truth Doesn't Make a Noise by The White Stripes
I'm Leaving by The Fiery Furnaces
Brand New Special and Unique by Stan Ridgway
You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover by Bo Diddley
Memphis by Jerry Lawler
Nothing is Impossible (from Zakhmee Soundtrack)
Chunga's Revenge by Frank Zappa
Soulsville by Isaac Hayes
Just Step Sideways by The Fall
Robby, The Cook, and 60 Gallons of Booze by Louis & Bebe Barron
Please Warm My Weiner by Bo Carter
My Funny Valentine by Elvis Costello
Hashish in Marseilles by The Mekons
Two Circles by Sraddha
The Kindness of Strangers by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Blue Valentines by Tom Waits
Where or When by Dion & The Belmonts
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Sunday, February 13, 2005
HEY LORETTA!
I caught Loretta Lynn and Jack White on The Grammy Awards. Loretta's Van Lear Rose won -- rightfully -- country album of the year. White noted that it won without any airplay on (so-called) country radio.
I normally don't put much stock in The Grammys, but hey, when they're, right, they're right. And this is the second time in recent years the Grammys picked a top country album that had virtually no country radio play, the previous one being O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack.
When will these soulless radio twits learn?
Saturday, February 12, 2005
THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST
Friday, February 11, 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
Payday Blues by Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks
A-1 on the Jukebox by Elizabeth McQueen
St. Valentine by Joe Ely
Wasted by Laura Cantrell
Country Darkness by Elvis Costello
Blacklisted by Neko Case
Junko Partner by The Hindu Love Gods
Tiger Love and Turnip Greens by Duane Eddy
Train Kept a Rollin' by Paul Burlison
Violent Love by Cornell Hurd with Dee Lannon
Harder Than Your Husband by Frank Zappa with Jimmy Carl Black
There Ought to Be a Law Against Sunny California by Terry Allen
Where's the Dress by Joe Stampley & Moe Bandy
The President's Penis is Missing by Drive-By Truckers
Wanted Man by Johnny Cash
The Marriage Song by The Stumbleweeds
You Don't Miss Your Water by Jerry Lee Lewis
Too Many Parties and Too Many Pals by Hank Williams
On a Real Good Day, I'm the World's Best Friend by Robbie Fulks
2000 Man by The Gourds
A Beautiful Thing by The Handsome Family
Tramp on Your Street by Billy Joe Shaver
Right or Wrong by Wanda Jackson
If I Kiss You by Lynn Anderson
Back in My Home Town by Frank Hutchison
The Blue Girl Says Yes by Ronny Elliott
Better Word for Love by Big Al Anderson
Take Me by George Jones
Rough and Rocky by Michael Hurley
Lead Me On by Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn
The Last Letter by Waylon Jennings
Everybody Needs Love by Robyn Hitchcock
The End by Justin Trevino
Valentine's Day by Steve Earle & The Fairfield Four
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list
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
Payday Blues by Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks
A-1 on the Jukebox by Elizabeth McQueen
St. Valentine by Joe Ely
Wasted by Laura Cantrell
Country Darkness by Elvis Costello
Blacklisted by Neko Case
Junko Partner by The Hindu Love Gods
Tiger Love and Turnip Greens by Duane Eddy
Train Kept a Rollin' by Paul Burlison
Violent Love by Cornell Hurd with Dee Lannon
Harder Than Your Husband by Frank Zappa with Jimmy Carl Black
There Ought to Be a Law Against Sunny California by Terry Allen
Where's the Dress by Joe Stampley & Moe Bandy
The President's Penis is Missing by Drive-By Truckers
Wanted Man by Johnny Cash
The Marriage Song by The Stumbleweeds
You Don't Miss Your Water by Jerry Lee Lewis
Too Many Parties and Too Many Pals by Hank Williams
On a Real Good Day, I'm the World's Best Friend by Robbie Fulks
2000 Man by The Gourds
A Beautiful Thing by The Handsome Family
Tramp on Your Street by Billy Joe Shaver
Right or Wrong by Wanda Jackson
If I Kiss You by Lynn Anderson
Back in My Home Town by Frank Hutchison
The Blue Girl Says Yes by Ronny Elliott
Better Word for Love by Big Al Anderson
Take Me by George Jones
Rough and Rocky by Michael Hurley
Lead Me On by Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn
The Last Letter by Waylon Jennings
Everybody Needs Love by Robyn Hitchcock
The End by Justin Trevino
Valentine's Day by Steve Earle & The Fairfield Four
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list
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TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST
Sunday, May 12, 2024 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM, 101.1 FM Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrell Email...
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