THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, June 16, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
I'm Ragged but I'm Right by George Jones
Slash From Guns 'n' Roses by I See Hawks in L.A.
The Night Miss Nancy's Ann's Hotel For Single Girls Burned Down by Hank Thompson
Cry Like a Baby by Hacienda Brothers
Helium Heart by Lonesome Brothers
Down on the Riverbed by Dave Alvin
Mohave High by Tony Gilkyson
Red Neck, Blue Collar by James Luther Dickinson

Long Gone by The Rivet Gang
It's Surprising What the Lord Can Do by The Del McCoury Band
To Ramona by The Flying Burrito Brothers
The Dolphins by Panama Red
Travelin' Man by David Bromberg
Sputnik 57 by The Minus Five
Old and In the Way by Hazel Dickens

Expose by Guy Clark
Ohoopee River Bottomland by Larry Jon Wilson
Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes by Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man) by Sam Bush
Cookville Kid by Porter Wagoner
I Love You So Much It Hurts Me by Floyd Tillman with Connie Smith
Blind by The Bottle Rockets
Beautiful William by The Handsome Family
Pappa's Jumpin' by Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys

Sign on the Wall by Fred Eaglesmith
Help Me Make it Through the Night by Bruce Robinson & Kelly Willis
Honeychild by Susan Cowsill
Holes by Jon Dee Graham
A Teardrop on a Rose by Hank Williams
Wings of a Dove by Lucinda Williams & Nanci Griffith
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: HIS NAME IS PRINCE, HE IS STILL FUNKY

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 16, 2006


Here’s the deal on Prince: I’ve liked just about every Prince album I’ve ever heard. (I confess, I’ve heard very little from the decade or so between Emancipation and Musicology.)


But I haven’t loved a Prince album since his Batman soundtrack back in 1989. I’ll argue that that’s his most unjustly underrated work, and I’m surprised that more artists haven’t sampled Jack Nicholson, as The Joker, proclaiming, “This town needs an enema!”

As for Prince’s latest, 3121, I can’t say I love it. But I do like it, and I like it a little more with each listening. Like Musicology, which immediately preceded it, 3121 is a fine showcase of everything that makes Prince the Prince he is: wild funk workouts, sultry soul ballads, unbridled weirdness, unabashed self-indulgence and sly, self-effacing humor.

The title song starts off like some twisted, midperiod Talking Heads groove. Prince, aided by a chorus of altered funk-Munchkin voices (his own, of course), sings about a place that’s magically hedonistic. “Take your pick from the Japanese robes and sandals/Drink champagne from a glass with chocolate handles/Don’t you wanna come? 3121.”

So what exactly is 3121? Don’t ask me. It sounds like an address, but knowing Prince, there’s probably some esoteric numerology going on here. My favorite guess is one I found on a Prince fan site that quotes the New Living Translation of the Bible’s Psalm 31:21. “Praise the Lord, for he has shown me his unfailing love. He kept me safe when my city was under attack.” But someone else there guesses it’s a PIN for an ATM.

The next song is downright hilarious. “Lolita” deals with the ever-present rock ’n’ roll danger of jail bait. But here Prince takes the moral high ground, refusing Lolita’s advances, surprising himself in the process. “Cool together, yes I must admit/Long time ago, we’d be the shhh ... uh oh.” The funniest part is the call-and-response section, when Prince asks the “fellas” just “How bad is this girl?” Then he asks Lolita herself: “Then what you wanna do?/(Anything you want?)/Then come on, let’s dance/(Dance?!)” The girl (actually Prince, again in altered voice) is dismayed.

So this is the same guy who inspired Tipper Gore’s children’s crusade against raunch in rock 20 years ago? Don’t worry; he hasn’t become a complete prude. He gets downright prurient in “Black Sweat,” bragging, “You’ll be screaming like a white lady when I count to three.” And in the next song, he’s seducing a woman in “a room of incense and candles.”

The final cut, “Get on the Boat,” is nothing short of irresistible. It sounds almost like salsa, but it’s got gospel overtones — an old-fashioned joyful call for loving one another and unity: “Get on the boat now/We got room for a hundred more,” Prince sings. Instead of sounding corny, the song is so high-energy it’s exhilarating.

And it’s an impressive little band Prince has assembled. James Brown’s sax man Maceo Parker blows here, as does Dutch sax princess Candy Dulfer. Longtime Prince cohort Sheila E. does her trademark Latin percussion assault. And Prince’s own piano solo sounds like he’s auditioning for the Afro-Cuban All Stars.

Unfortunately not all the songs reach this level. There are too many slow ones, like the MOR religious statement called “Beautiful, Loved and Blessed.” And then there’s “Te Amo Corazón,” which sounds like Prince is trying to get a foothold in the “romantico” Latin radio format.

But don’t be too quick with the skip button. Prince is still capable of surprising his listeners and rescuing a weak song. For instance, “The Dance” starts out like an overblown, mediocre ballad. But by the end, the singer works himself into an inspired emotional tizzy, alternately pleading with and threatening his lover, and the monologue melts into delicious self-parody: “Oh baby, I can find another just like you anywhere/Oh baby, they might not have your hips girl/Or all that pretty hair/But at least they won’t spend all day in the mirror.”

I don’t know what boat Prince is on, but it’s great to see he’s still afloat.

Also recommended:

* Different Strokes by Different Folks by Sly & The Family Stone (and different folks). When I first played this CD, I thought it was a tribute album. There are all these different singers and rappers doing Sly songs — though you keep hearing familiar voices and instrumentals by Sly and his old band.

But no, it’s not a tribute album in the usual sense of the word. These are actually “14 Sly and the Family Stone classics reimagined by today’s hottest stars.” In other words, those great old songs like “Dance to the Music,”“I Want to Take You Higher,” and “Family Affair” have been remixed and regurgitated.

For years I’ve had a bizarre fantasy of “reimagining” the song “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before,” adding my voice to those of Willie and Julio, as if I were one of their pals.

Actually, the idea’s not new. Years ago a character who called himself “Orion,” with the help of producer/con man Shelby Singleton, “reimagined” hits by Elvis and other Sun Records giants. Then there were those musical séances in which Hank Williams Jr. and Natalie Cole performed “duets” with their long-dead fathers.

In the case of Different Strokes, however, Sly himself produced this tampering with his landmark recordings. And I’m surprised I like them as much as I do. How could you not like a team-up of Public Enemy’s Chuck D with soul demiurge Isaac Hayes (and younger singer D’Angelo) on “Sing a Simple Song”?

While rappers and contemporary R & B artists dominate this project, there are exceptions. “I Want to Take You Higher” features Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler and sacred-steel jam-bander Robert Randolph, both of whom do the tune justice. And “You Can Make It If You Try” has bluesman Buddy Guy and John Mayer turning the song into a snazzy little guitar pull.

No, these new versions never will take the place of the old Sly hits. But most of them are a lot of fun.

ART APPRECIATION

Dogs Playing Poker and the Two Kings



O.K., I just wanted to try this YouTube deal. (This one's for John Yeager.)

KEEP ON TRUCKIN'

State Land Commissioner Pat Lyons got some heat for his campaign pickup truck. (CLICK HERE, then scroll down to about the middle of the page.)

Now his Democratic opponent, Jim Baca, has a campaign truck of his own.

MELVIN AND HOWARD AND STUART

A lawyer I've known for nearly 20 years is representing Melvin Dummar in his new effort to win part of Howard Hughes' estate. Below is my quick account of the case in today's New Mexican. And here's a story that appeared in The Wall Street Journal. CLICK HERE

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 15, 2006


No, it’s not a remake of the 1980 movie Melvin and Howard. It’s real life.

A New Mexico lawyer, who used to practice in Santa Fe, is representing the Utah man who inspired that film in a new effort to win part of the late billionaire Howard Hughes’ fortune — $156 million.

Stuart Stein said Wednesday that new evidence has emerged to justify a new claim by Melvin Dummar.

Dummar, 61, contends that in 1967 he picked up a bloody and haggard man on a lonely Nevada road. The man, Dummar says, identified himself as Hughes. Dummar said he agreed to drive him to Las Vegas.

Dummar, a former gas station operator, originally made the claim following the eccentric billionaire’s death in 1976. In 1978 a jury in a Nevada probate court case determined that an alleged Hughes will, which named Dummar as a beneficiary, was not admissible in court.

The new lawsuit was filed this week in federal court. Dummar claims William Rice Lummis, a cousin of Hughes, and former Hughes executive Frank William Gay got witnesses to lie when they said Hughes never left the suite at The Desert Inn in Las Vegas, where the reclusive Hughes laid low for years.

The new suit cites new evidence uncovered by Gary Magnesen, a former FBI agent who wrote a book about Dummar's claim. In The Investigation, Magnesen said he spoke with Hughes' former pilot, Robert Deiro, who confirmed taking his boss to the Cottontail Ranch brothel at Lida Junction, Nev.

According to the new lawsuit, Deiro was sworn to secrecy while working for Hughes. But recently he came forward and said he took Hughes to the brothel one night late in December 1967. The pilot said he fell asleep and couldn't find Hughes after he woke up.

Dummar claims he found Hughes t when he pulled off on a dirt road to relieve himself. After refusing medical help, Dummar said the stranger asked for a lift to Las Vegas and Dummar took him there, dropping him off behind the Sands Hotel and giving him some pocket change.

"On the way to Las Vegas, he told me who he was, but I didn't believe him. I thought he was just a bum or a prospector or something, and I didn't really believe that he was Howard Hughes," Dummar said at a press conference in Salt Lake City this week.

Dummar said he did come to believe it was Hughes, and that about eight years later a handwritten will leaving him 1/16th of Hughes' estate was delivered to his gas station.

The pilot, Stein said, claims that Hughes frequented the services of a prostitute named “Sunny,” who was known for having a diamond inset in one of her teeth. The pilot claims he transported Hughes to the Cottontail Ranch and another brothel to enjoy the company of “Sunny,” Stein said.

Stein has set up a toll-free number for anyone with information on the prostitute or other aspects of the case. That number is 877-460-0100.

“I spoke to one of the jurors in the original case,” Stein said. “He said that had he known that Hughes frequently left the hotel, he might have decided the other way.”

Stein said he was retained after he interviewed author Magnesen on his radio show earlier this year. Stein has a weekly show about estate planning on KKOB AM that airs 7 am Saturdays.

Another Santa Fe connection to the Dummar suit, Stein said, is a local woman who once worked for Hughes and was acquainted with Hughes. The woman, who Stein declined to name, is a possible witness, he said.

Stein perhaps is best known locally for representing former Municipal Judge Tom Fiorina during his investigations by the state Judicial Standards Commission in the 1990s. He now lives in Albuquerque.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: GOP QUESTIONS PATSY PAC

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
June 15, 2006


New Mexico’s Republican delegation on Wednesday complained to the Federal Elections Commission about a political-action committee started by Congresswoman Heather Wilson’s Democratic opponent, Attorney General Patricia Madrid.

“It appears that Patricia Madrid has violated federal campaign-finance laws that prohibit the use of “soft money” in a federal election campaign,” says the letter to the FEC signed by Wilson, Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Steve Pearce.

The PAC, called Justice For America, raised nearly $500,000 between May 2005 and October 2005, when Madrid announced her candidacy for Congress. The PAC spent nearly $125,000 between May 2005 and this May and has about $492,000 in the bank.


The PAC was visibly raising money just a month before Madrid announced her candidacy. On Sept. 15, the committee hosted former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards at a $1,000-per-ticket fundraiser in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque.

Under federal law, a candidate for a federal office can’t use money raised for a state PAC. A spokeswoman for the Madrid campaign said that money is “frozen” and has never been used for the congressional race.

But the Republican trio said in their FEC complaint that some of the expenditures “seem to have benefited Madrid and her campaign (for Congress).”

Specifically, the delegation mentions $17,000 in payments to a Washington, D.C., political-consulting firm called Lake, Snell, Perry and Mermin between June 2005 and last September. There also is a Jan. 17, 2006, payment to the firm for $49.64 for “conference calls.”

Madrid campaign manager Caroline Buerkle said none of the firm’s services were for the congressional race. The conference calls took place before Madrid announced for Congress, Buerkle said.

Even if the PAC is dormant, the Republicans argued, Madrid’s husband, Michael Messina, is the chairman of the PAC. This indicates Madrid still has some level of control of the funds, the complaint says.

Part of the FEC complaint reads as if it was meant for eyes beyond the FEC bureaucrats who will deal with the complaint. In fact, at least one part sounds like an attack ad.

Referring to Justice for America, the complaints says, “Virtually all of its donors were wealthy lawyers, corporations or affluent businessmen, most of whom donated thousands of dollars, in excess of any federal limits.”

Madrid spokeswoman Heather Brewer said the complaint shows Wilson is “grabbing at straws” and trying to divert attention from the fact that she has returned only a fraction of the money that embattled former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay donated to her.

Since her first election in 1998, Wilson received nearly $47,000 from DeLay's political-action committee. Last year, she returned the $10,000 she'd collected from DeLay's PAC in June after DeLay was indicted on state charges in Texas. But she didn’t return the $36,959 she received from DeLay between 1998 and 2003. Wilson campaign officials have said she won't return that money.

Black-rubber clouds: If the sky seems dark over Albuquerque this afternoon, it might not be the weather.


A group calling itself PAC505 plans to protest today’s visit by President Bush by tethering some 200 helium-filled black balloons over buildings and homes.

“The balloons will be sufficiently large and elevated to significantly alter the skyscape of downtown and the greater metropolitan area,” PAC505’s Web site says.

“The Black Balloon Fiesta represents a new mode of peaceful political action,” the site says. “In an era when progressives are, for whatever reasons, less inclined to take to the streets and protest, PAC505 is formulating new ways of providing them with a unified voice.”

I guess that beats snorting tear gas and dodging police birdshot, like I remember from my Albuquerque protest days a few decades ago.

Bush is going to Albuquerque to help raise money for Wilson’s campaign.

It’s not clear who makes up PAC505. No names appear on the Web site and no one has filed with the FEC. We’re not sure whether the rubber and helium industries are contributors.

The Madrid campaign says it’s not associated with this PAC. But the state Democratic Party apparently has embraced the idea. “The balloons are symbolic of Wilson's reference during the Republican National Convention when she called George W. Bush her ‘beacon,’ ” a state party news release said.

NET NEUTRALITY and UDALL

I published a story in today's New Mexican about Congressman Tom Udall catching grief from Democrats as well as his Republican opponent over his vote last week on the telecommunications bill known as the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act.

Here's what Democracy For New Mexico had to say about the vote:
CLICK HERE

Udall's GOP opponent Ron Dolin doesn't have his statement on this issue posted on his Web site yet. Some of his comments are included in my story.

A little background on the issue:

The COPE Act is opposed by a wide-reaching, diverse umbrella group called the Save the Internet Coalition, whose include groups like The American Civil Liberties Union, The Christian Coalition, Moveon.org, Common Cause, Parents Television Council, U.S. PIRG (Public Interest Research Group), The American Library Association and Gun Owners of America.

According to the coalition’s Web site, net neutrality is “the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet.”

According to the coalition, companies like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner “want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. They want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video — while slowing down or blocking their competitors.”

This would be the end result of the COPE Act, the coalition says.

“These companies have a new vision for the Internet,” the Web site says. “Instead of an even playing field, they want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services — or those from big corporations that can afford the steep tolls — and leave the rest of us on a winding dirt road.”

Here's the House vote on the COPE Act: CLICK HERE

Here's the link to an OpenSecrets.org page on Udall's contributors: CLICK HERE