THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 22, 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
Better Everyday by The Waco Brothers
I've Always Been Crazy by Carlene Carter
I Must Be High by Wilco
Interstate City by Dave Alvin
Arizona Siritual by Terry Allen
Johnnie Armstrong by Michael Martin Murphey
El Corrido de Emilio Naranjo by Angel Espinoza

John Paul the Peacemaker by Acie Cargill
Po' Boy by Bob Dylan
Tallacatcha by Alvin Youngblood Hart
Grapevine by Tom Russell
Sweet Rosie Jones by Jim Lauderdale
Mental Cruelty by Buck Owens & Rose Maddox
Rita by Vincent Craig
Incident in Juarez (Los Rubboardistas)by Cornell Hurd

Silver Dollar by Bone Orchard
How Lew Sin Ate by Dr. West's Medicine Show & Junk Band
Beer Ticket Rag by Devil in the Woodpile
No Swallerin' Place by June Carter
Monkey on a String by Charlie Pool
The Prune Waltz by Adoph Hofner
Old Rattler by Grandpa Jones
Drivin' Nails in My Coffin by Larry Welborn
Mike the Can Man by Joe West

Chili Fields by Lenny Roybal
Love is No Excuse by Justin Trevino with Miss Norma Jean
Billy Joe by Audrey Auld Mezera
Street Walking Woman by Shaver
Linda on My Mind by Conway Twitty
So Round So Firm by Eddie Pennington
Church on Fire by Kev Russell
Give My Love to Rose by Johnny Cash
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: RISING TO THE DIGITAL AGE

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 22, 2005

Zimbabwe maestro Thomas Mapfumo has battled the old apartheid-style government of Rhodesia. He has openly attacked the corrupt dictatorship of Robert Mugabe -- a move that forced him into exile from his native land.

And now he’s challenging the music industry itself by releasing his latest album -- plus a previously unreleased live album -- exclusively on the Internet in the form of MP3 downloads.

Mapfumo’s new Rise Up! and his 1991 Afropop Worldwide Presents Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited, Live in New York are available at www.CalabashMusic.com, an extremely cool world music site known for their “fair trade” policy.

That means the recording artists get 50 percent of what you pay for downloading their songs.

Despite the Recording Industry Association of America’s hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing in claiming that illegal downloading rips off the poor artist, the big companies that make up the RIAA don’t pay anywhere near 50 percent. (And in fact countless performers and songwriters long ago lost their rights to their own music -- see my "Jazzmen" post below -- so don’t let the suits guilt trip you.)

Calabash charges 99 cents a track, so the complete Rise Up! will cost you just under $11, while the complete live album will cost less than $12 -- but this is for nearly two hours of music.

Both these albums of part of what Calabash is calling The Mapfumo Files -- 15 albums going back to the ‘80s that you can download as a set for $99.

The way of the future?

Releasing albums exclusively on the Internet reminds me of an old line by The Firesign Theatre: “If you asked for this record in the stores, they’d think you were crazy!”

Mapfumo, according to his publicists, is the first “world music” artist to release an album exclusively in MP3 form. The world’s a big place, so it’s nearly impossible to tell if that’s entirely true -- though it’s safe to say that he’s the first major world-beat star to do so.

He’s not the first name artist to do it though. That honor belongs to They Might Be Giants, who in 1999 released Long Tall Weekend exclusively on eMusic.

Despite the success of music downloading services like iTunes, I’m not sure lucrative a proposition it is to release entire albums exclusively as downloads. It’s hard to name any notable artists besides Mapfumo and TMBG who have done it.

In fact, some editors and critics in the world music realm reportedly balked at Mapfumo’s move, some saying that some of their writers are so computer-challenged they can‘t handle it, others saying that downloading is too much of a hassle.

“I am quite dismayed by this turn of events and the future it presages,” one editor whined. “Please consider the dinosaurs still left roaming the earth.”

While the technophobic implications here seem overblown, there are some points to consider. While more and more people do have computers these days, there are still many fans and potential fans who don’t. For these folks, download-only albums are more than a “hassle.”

And even for some with computers there are glitches. Unless you have a high-speed connection, downloading an album takes forever. (I usually start downloading right before I go to bed.)

And a few of the Mapfumo downloads I had to do over because the ends of the tracks somehow got clipped off by the time they reached my computer. Fortunately, Calabash doesn’t charge for re-downloading.

I’m of two minds on the issue of download-only albums. On one hand I like the idea of musicians bypassing the record companies, having more control of their products and taking a bigger cut of the profits. I also like the convenience of being able to click on a song and have it in my computer ready to burn instantly. (OK, with dial-up, it’s not really instant, but you get the point.)

On the other hand, doing away with finished manufactured products -- hard copies, cover art, liner notes, etc. -- is another nail in the coffin of old-fashioned record stores.

I love browsing through a great record store, gazing at all the colorful covers, trying to read as much information as CD packages allow, checking out the new releases, the used section, the bargain bins, listening to what the clerks are playing …

But maybe I’m being nostalgic here. Even before downloading music became a big issue, the reality of the locally-owned, independent record stores was grinding to a halt. Santa Fe hasn’t had a great one for years, since Rare Bear folded.

So maybe Web-exclusive albums are the way of the future. I just hope artists like Mapfumo and not the corporations benefit.

Mapfumo’s albums

No matter how it got to my ears, Mapfumo’s Chimurenga music is a joy. With out-front guitar and mbiras -- the plinking Zimbabwean instrument in which more than 20 metal keys are mounted to a hardwood soundboard -- and Mapfumo’s call-and-response with his female vocalists


No, I don’t speak Shona, Mapfumo’s language, so I don’t really know what he’s singing about. But even without the benefit of lyrics it’s obvious that Rise Up! has a somber tone. Maybe I’m reading too much into the fact that he’s been living in this country (Eugene, Ore. To be exact) for five years. But there seems to be a sadness permeating the sweet grooves of this album.

Live in New York on the other hand is far more energetic. It was recorded with Mapfumo’s band Blacks Unlimited, several of whom have since died.

The set starts off slow with “Nyamaropa,” a mbira song, but picks up quickly. My favorite here probably is “Jo Jo,” which starts off with a blast of the horn section and eventually melts into a glorious 10-minute jam.

THE SPEED OF SOUND

Back in the summer of 1970, just weeks after National Guard troops killed four students at an anti-war demonstration at Kent State University, the song "Ohio" became a hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Neil Young wrote the lyrics, according to some accounts, the day of the killing and soon afterward got the rest of the guys in the studio. Within mere days, "Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming" was blasting over radios all over this great nation.

This quick musical response to big news stories doesn't happen much anymore. (Can you imagine "Ohio" getting past today's Clear Channel taste setters?)

But in the past two weeks two songs paying tribute to the life of Pope John Paul II.

Just today Stan Ridgway sent folks on his e-mail list a link to a free MP3 of "Buried the Pope (Blues for John Paul)."

Despite the funny picture, this is an earnest and sincere song in which Stan calls the late pontiff, "a man of peace and hope."

The other Pope song came out even quicker. Last Friday I received an CD from Chicago singer/songwriter/picker/poet Acie Cargill. It's a 5-song EP and among those to whom he pays tribute is John Paul II in a song called "John Paul the Peacemaker."

I can't find the EP on Acie's Web site, but if you scroll down to "singles & Shorts" section, you can buy a single of the song.

Unlike Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in 1970, Stan and Acie aren't going to get much airplay with their respective pope tunes. But I'll play Acie's tonight on The Santa Fe Opry and Ridgway's Sunday night on Terrell's Sound World. Both shows start at 10 p.m. Moutnain Daylight Time on KSFR, 90.7 FM.

WHEN JAZZMEN AGE

NPR's All Things Considered has been running a disturbing series by reporter Felix Contreras this week about what happens to jazz musicians when they age.

On Wednesday night Contreras talked with Little Jimmy Scott and others who have lost out on royalties.

This is infuriating when you consider all the record industry's non-stop whining that internet downloading (and a few years ago used CDs) hurt artists because it denies them royalties. In truth, the music industry has done more harm to artists and their royalties than downloading ever could.

Other stories in the series can be heard HERE and HERE.

The last installment is tonight. KUMN has been playing these after 6 p.m.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: GIGGING LIEBERMAN

As published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 21, 2005

Gov. Bill Richardson had some fun at the expense of fellow Democrat Joe Lieberman in a speech to The Associated Press in San Francisco Monday.

"Did you see that kiss that the president gave Lieberman after the State of the Union?" Richardson asked. "Turns out that was the farthest Lieberman has ever gotten with a goy."

Though he used to get rather defensive with the New Mexico press about his habit making his state police drivers go way over the speed limit, in front of a national press audience, Richardson he made a joke out of a well-publicized 2003 incident.

"Sen. Lieberman got me in trouble too," Richardson said. "You may have read in The Washington Post ... that I was seen driving 100 mph going to one of Sen. Lieberman's fund raisers. I was just trying to get there while Lieberman was still a Democrat."

Emulating Gary: Richardson is still a Democrat, but lately he seems to be taking on some traits of a Republican - namely his predecessor, Gary Johnson.
Earlier this year Richardson was honored by the conservative/libertarian think tank, The Cato Institute, who named Richardson the most fiscally responsible Democratic governor in the U.S. The Cato folks used to be wild for Johnson.

And on Tuesday, the gov's office announced that the nation's most fiscally responsible Democratic governor is having lunch Friday with magazine publisher Steve Forbes -- who was Gary Johnson's candidate for president in 2000."

Forbes is trying to get state business leaders to sponsor a special economic development supplement in upcoming issues of Forbes Magazine and Forbes International Magazine.

Filibuster follies: One of the most partisan sore spots in Congress these days is the possibility that Senate Republicans -- frustrated with Democrats blocking some of President Bush's candidates for federal judgeships -- might seek to end the right of senators to filibuster judicial nominees.

Democrats, who are the minority party in the Senate, vehemently oppose this threatened change, which has been dubbed "the nuclear option."

New Mexico senators are divided on the issue. Democrat Jeff Bingaman is against doing away with the judicial filibuster, while Republican Pete Domenici has been convinced that the "nuclear option" might be necessary.

But Republicans point out that 10 years ago the filibuster shoes were on the other feet.

In 1995, Bingaman was one of 19 senators to support a proposal that would have limited filibusters.

At that time, all Republicans in the Senate, including Domenici, voted against the rule change.

So why have our senators done an apparent do si do on the filibuster issue?

Jude McCartin, a spokeswoman for Bingaman, said Wednesday that the measure her boss voted for is different than the measure sponsored a decade ago by Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa and Joe Lieberman, D-Connecticut.

The Harkin-Lieberman amendment "would have closed debate on progressively lower thresholds starting with three-fifths and gradually reducing the votes needed to a simple majority," McCartin said.

Under that proposal, a senator could still hold up legislation or a nomination by 57 days, she said.

"The Harkin proposal was in response to general legislative gridlock," McCartin said, noting that the Dems were the minority party in the Senate back then too.

She said in that particular Congressional session, "there had been twice as many filibusters as there were from 1789 to 1960. We do not have that kind of general gridlock. About 95 percent of Bush's judicial nominees have been confirmed and the federal courts now have the lowest vacancy level since the Reagan administration."

But Republicans say that doing away with judicial filibusters has become necessary because, they say, Democrats have abused the system in holding up some Bush choices.

"Sen. Domenici, being a member of the minority party for much of his career has a good understanding of guarding against trampling the rights of minority party members," said Domenici spokesman Matt Letourneau.

But, he said, judicial filibusters "have not been part of the process." Until the George W. Bush administration, he said, the last time a judicial nominee was filibustered was in the late 1960s, when Republicans successfully opposed President Johnson's nomination of Abe Fortas as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

"It took him a long time to get to where he'd go along with the nuclear option," Letourneau said. "Even today Sen. Domenici would like to see a resolution of this problem without having to resort to that."

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, April 17, 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
Pay Day Loans by The Winking Tikis
Matchecka (At Mty Mothers remix) by The Warsaw Village Band
Faraway by Sleater-Kinney
Bu$leaguer by Pearl Jam
Yes by Manic Street Preachers
Revolution Part 1 by The Butthole Surfers
Nasty Boogie by Champion Jack Dupree

Earthquake Weather by Beck
Justine Allright by Heavy Trash
Elves by The Fall
Hell Rules by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282
Hende Baba by Thomas Mapfumo
Everybody Knows That You Are Insane by Queens of the Stone Age
Get Off the Air by The Angry Samoans
Winner of the Zoo by Romz Record Crew

Lookin' Down the Road by Lou Reed
25th Century Quaker by Captain Beefheart
Advance Romance by Frank Zappa with Captain Beefheart
The FCC Song by Eric Idle

Crime Scene Part 1 by The Afghan Whigs
Swingin Party by The Replacements
You Are So Beautiful by Al Green
O Children by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Glisten by Howe Gelb
Evil Will Prevail by The Flaming Lips
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

BLACKING OUT THE GENERAL

One thing I've learned during my 25 years in journalism: You get accused of the damnedest things.

Just yesterday a strange Internet accusation came to my attention. It's on a web forum for supporters of Gen. Wesley Clark. (The 2008 election is closer than you think, folks ...)

A forum member known as "KayCeNM" posted my Roundhouse Round-up column about Gov. Bill Richardson on Saturday Night Live.

In introducing it, KayCeNM said:

Steve Terrell is the one that blacked out our General in our local paper. I've never forgiven him for hat.

I did what??????????

How was General Clark "blacked out" in the paper? During the New Mexico presidential caucus season in late 2003-early 2004, I remember writing stories when Clark had a press conference in the governor's office then toured the local food bank; when Gert Clark appeared at a rally; when Jamie Koch and a couple of other staffers jumped ship from the doomed Gephardt campaign and went to work for Clark; and covering a meeting of Clark campaign workers at Tiny's Lounge.

This plus countless mentions in various stories when I called to get reactions from the various campaigns. Plus there were stories about the Clark campaign in The New Mexican by the Associated Press and other writers.

One bit of coverage preserved here in this very blog is a post-caucus column recalling Roberto Mondragon singing "Decolores" at a Clark rally at the Inn at Loretto.

If my purpose was to "black out" Clark coverage, I did a pretty lousy job at it.

I tried to find an e-mail link for KayCeNM but wasn't successful. I'm interested in hearing KayCe's side of the story about me "blacking out" the general.