THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE 911 CONSPIRACY BELIEVERS

Alexander Cockburn of Counterpunch has a very interesting article about the great 911 Conspiracy in Le Monde diplomatique:

What do we make of Osama bin Laden taking credit for the attacks? That he is still on the CIA payroll? And so it goes, on and on into the murk. But to what end? To prove that Bush and Cheney are capable of almost anything? Even though they haven’t shown the slightest degree of competence in anything? They couldn’t even manufacture “weapons of mass destruction” after US troops had invaded Iraq, when any box labelled WMD would have been happily photographed by the embedded press as conclusive testimony of the existence of WMDs. ...

The Twin Towers didn’t fall down because they were badly built as a consequence of corruption, incompetence, regulatory evasions by the Port Authority and because they had been struck by huge planes loaded with jet fuel. No, shout the conspiracists, they pancaked because scores of Cheney’s agents methodically planted demolition charges in the days preceding 9/11: a conspiracy of thousands, all of whom have held their tongues ever since, despite being party to mass murder.

This proves it. Cockburn is one of them!

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: SOLOMON COUNTRY

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
December 22, 2006


It seems only natural that Solomon Burke, the under-appreciated ’60s soul man, would record a top-notch country album. After all, way back when, as he was making the transition from gospel singer to R & B star, he first charted with a cover of a country song “Just Out of Reach (of My Two Empty Arms).” And one of his early hits was a high-charged take on “Down in the Valley.”

So Burke’s new album, Nashville, is something of a homecoming for the gentle giant. Produced by Buddy Miller, this is an album of country and country-flavored rock backed by some cool pickin’ Nashville cats — including Al Perkins on steel guitar, Sam Bush on fiddle and violin, and Miller on guitar. The album features several impressive duets with the likes of Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, and Pattys Loveless and Griffin.

It would have been an experience to be in the same room at the same time with Dolly and Solomon, such titans of American music. But Burke isn’t the type to be overwhelmed by mere mortal guest stars. It’s his vocal delivery that carries this album.

In fact, my favorite song here is the most stripped down — the opening cut, “That’s How I Got to Memphis.” This is a classic Tom T. Hall song. There are excellent covers of this tune by Kelly Willis and Miller. But, backed only by Miller’s acoustic guitar and Byron House’s stand-up bass, Burke makes the song his own. It sounds like a lonesome prayer.

But there are other breathtaking moments. The Dolly duet “Tomorrow Is Forever” is nice and churchy. Even prettier is Welch’s “Valley of Tears.” Gillian wrote the song, but she wisely keeps her background vocals low, letting Burke make love to the melody. “Everybody wants to send me down to the valley of tears,” he sings like a condemned man contemplating the lethal-injection table.

Burke seems to be having fun on this album. “You all done went hog crazy here,” Burke exclaims at the end of a riotous version of “Ain’t Got You,” (the Bruce Springsteen Tunnel of Love song) as the other people in the studio laugh. “What the heck was going on in this place here? Is you all got religion!”

But Nashville ends like it starts — on a somber note. “’Til I Get It Right” is a smooth countrypolitan-style song, complete with a string section. It’s about love, but on another level, it could be seen as a meditation on Burke’s career. “If I try my wings and try long enough, I’m bound to learn how to fly,” he moans.

He pretty much got this right.

Also recommended:
*After the Rain by Irma Thomas. “My house is a lonely house, but it once was a happy house,” Thomas sings on the album’s first song, “In the Middle of It All.” When she sings this song, an old Arthur Alexander tune, it’s not just a metaphor. Thomas’ New Orleans house was severely damaged last year in the big storm.

The album was recorded in Louisiana a few months after Katrina. The liner notes insist that all but one of the songs were selected before the catastrophe — despite the words of the opening track and the obvious connection in the closing number, Stevie Wonder’s “Shelter in the Rain.”

But there is a song directly about the great hurricane. This is “Another Man Done Gone,” a rewrite of an old folk song. In its original form, this was a terrifying song about kidnappings and lynchings, sung by blacks of the rural South. But Thomas created new verses. “Another storm has come, the people on the run ... the water’s at his door, he couldn’t stay no more ... I didn’t know his name, so many fled that day ... another thousand gone, running away from home.” It’s a snarling rootsy blues rocker with Sonny Landreth on slide guitar and Dirk Powell on fretless banjo.

This album is full of great songs. There’s a down-home version of Skip James’ “Soul of a Man” (featuring a guest appearance by Corey Harris on guitar); an aching country weeper written by one of my current favorites Eleni Mandell (”Another Lonely Heart”); and even a sad DWI song, “Flowers.” Written by Kevin Gordon and Gwill Owen, “Flowers” has verses concerning the victims of a drunk-driving accident and one just as sad about the family of the killer drunk.

One of my favorites here is a cover of Nina Simone’s anthemic signature “I Wish That I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free.” This won’t replace Nina’s version in our hearts and souls, but Irma gives it her all. And that’s a lot.

(Photo of Irma Thomas from Robert Mugge's film New Orleans Music in Exile.)

*Rise by Chris Thomas King. King is another Louisiana artist personally affected by last year’s hurricanes. He lost his home in New Orleans. The album is full of tunes with titles like “Baptized in Dirty Water,” “Like a Hurricane (Ghost of Marie Laveau),” and “Flow Mississippi Flow.”

The first song — “What Would Jesus Do?” — is sung from the perspective of a man who’s seen his wife swept away in the flood. He’s starving but he’s having moral qualms about looting. “Standing outside of Walgreens with a stone in my hand, I ask myself would Jesus understand.”

King takes you right back to those days of “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job,” in the song “Faith.”

“President Bush flying around/Oh, looking down from us from the air/They say he pity the poor people/But does he really care?”

But the album ends on a strangely optimistic note — a sweet cover of Louis Armstrong’s pop classic “What a Wonderful World” without a trace of irony.

IT'S STARTING ....

I got this e-mai from the first known Draft-Richardson group.

Amanda Cooper, Richardson's campaign manager (for governor! For Governor!) just told me she knows nothing about this.

Here's the press release:


NEVADANS CALL FOR RICHARDSON CANDIDACY

Form "Draft Richardson Committee"

Las Vegas , NV— Seventy prominent Nevadans called on New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson today to seek the Presidency in 2008.

"Nevada will be a lynch-pin in the Democratic Presidential nomination process in 2008 and many Nevadans believe Bill Richardson is the best choice to lead our party", stated "Draft Committee" Chairman Reynaldo Martinez, a resident of Incline Village, and former chief of staff to U.S. Senator Harry Reid. Earlier this year the Democratic National Committee (DNC) designated Nevada to be the second state to hold a nomination contest on January 19, 2008 following Iowa (caucus) January 14 and before New Hampshire (primary) January 22, and South Carolina (primary) January 29. Nevada will be a "caucus" state and the State Democratic Party will sponsor and organize the state-wide event. Martinez added, "Bill Richardson is the Favorite-Son of the West, and the West beginning with Nevada can lead the Democrats to the White House in 2008."

Joining Martinez as Co-Chairs of the "Draft Committee" are Hannah Irsfeld of Las Vegas, Judge John F. Mendoza of Las Vegas and Robert McGowan of Reno. Other notable Nevadans calling for Richardson to run include; Carlos Blumberg (Las Vegas), Jeff Taguchi (Las Vegas), John Henry Brebbia (Las Vegas), Dr. R.D. Prabhu (Las Vegas), Horacio Lopez (Las Vegas), Vicki Hulbert (N. Las Vegas), Lee Wastell (Las Vegas), Don Ellis (Henderson), Kim Ellis (Henderson), Eva Garcia (Las Vegas), John Medina (N. Las Vegas), Jose G. Troncoso (Las Vegas), Holly Johnson Troncoso (Las Vegas), Robert Agonia (Las Vegas), Larry Mason (Las Vegas), Marcelo Napoli (Las Vegas), Dr. Rene Cantu (Henderson), Dr. Letitia Medina Worth (Las Vegas), Dr. Lata Shete (Las Vegas), George T. Lopez (Las Vegas), Michael Pariente (Las Vegas), Sandy Ellis (Henderson), Bob Ellis (Henderson), Curtis Anderson (Las Vegas), Dr. Agustin Orci (Las Vegas), Alejandro Alverez (Las Vegas), Sylvia Lazos (Las Vegas), Pat Hodges (Las Vegas), Gloria Martinez Ferree (Henderson), Hugh Ferree (Las Vegas), Mary Geidlel (Las Vegas), Xavier Rivas (Las Vegas), Ismael and Monica Sanchez (Las Vegas), Linda Smith (Las Vegas), Troy Wade (Las Vegas), Fernando Romero (Las Vegas), Earl and Susan Greene (Las Vegas), James E. Rogers (Las Vegas), Harlane and Racquel Sumida (Henderson), Maria Sefchick (Reno), Marino De La Rosa (Reno), Geralda Miller (Reno), Rosemary Flores (Henderson), Vito De La Cruz (Reno), Gus Ramos (Las Vegas), Dr. Raquel Casas (Las Vegas), Lonnie Feemster (Sparks), Luisa Mendoza (Las Vegas), Mario Castro (Las Vegas), Miguel Castro (Las Vegas), Javier Trujillo (Las Vegas), Michael Reed (Reno), Theresa Navarro (Reno), Sherri Overstreet (Reno), Chris and Julie Wedge (Reno), Frederico Bannelos (Carson City), Rita McGeary (Reno), Luis and Emma Guzman (Sparks), Steve Heslop (Sparks), William Thorton (Reno), and Diane Sauer Martinez (Incline Village). The group includes African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, significant Democratic Party activists and environmentalists.

"We call on Governor Richardson to run for President. Nevada and America are ready for his leadership." Martinez concluded.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUNDUP: CAN THE DENVER DEM CONVENTION BE SALVAGED?

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
December 21, 2006

The Democratic National Committee’s decision this week to wait until the new year to decide where to hold the party’s 2008 national convention is good news for Western Dems who want the convention to be held in Denver.

So says Mike Stratton, a Colorado political consultant, lobbyist and political adviser for Gov. Bill Richardson.

Stratton, who is on a commission to select the next convention site, said he believes the delay gives Denver a 50/50 chance of being convention host. (He must go to the same bookie as Democratic U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, who gave the same odds recently to The Denver Post.)

“If they would have announced it last week, (the convention site) probably would have been New York,” he said in a telephone interview Wednesday. New York and Denver are the only two cities competing.

Richardson, U.S. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, virtually every elected Democrat in Colorado and other Western Dems are pushing to have the convention in the Mile High City, Stratton said.

An advantage for Bill?: Stratton — who said he hopes to work for Richardson’s campaign if the governor runs for president — said holding the convention in Colorado wouldn’t in itself help Richardson’s chances for the nomination.

“The convention’s probably going to be in late August or early September, so chances are the nomination will be locked up by then,” he said. “If it’s an unresolved situation and there are two or three candidates who don’t have a majority of delegates, then it would be a definite advantage for Governor Richardson. But it’s very unlikely that there wouldn’t have been a decision by that time.”

But, Stratton said, if Richardson is the nominee, there would be a “symbolic” advantage for Richardson to have the convention in a Western state.

“It would be an awfully good venue to kick off the general election,” he said, noting recent Democratic inroads in Western states like Colorado, Arizona and Nevada.

Trouble ahead: Even though he says Denver has even odds of being selected, Stratton said the city still faces some major obstacles in getting the nod.

The first is money. “The cost has gone up dramatically, mainly due to security,” he said.

Although the federal government reimburses about half the security cost for cities hosting political conventions, that check usually is in the proverbial mail for several months, Stratton said. So the city has to pay upfront costs, which run into tens of millions of dollars. There’s some doubt whether Denver can pull that off. “New York has a decided advantage in this area,” he said.

And then there’s the union problem.

Jim Taylor, head of Denver’s stagehand union, this week refused to sign a pledge not to strike during the convention.

Denver’s Pepsi Center, a large basketball and hockey arena, is owned by Denver Nuggets/Colorado Avalanche owner Stan Kroenke. The facility, which would serve as the convention venue, isn’t unionized.

Taylor has strong feelings about the Pepsi Center being anti-union. He’ll stand up to the bosses, even The Boss. According to the Denver Post, he picketed a Bruce Springsteen concert there a few years ago.

The DNC’s delay in announcing the convention city, it is hoped, will give the Democrats and the stagehands union time to work something out, Stratton said.

A happy, smiley guy: The latest national publication to weigh in on our governor’s presidential possibilities is the conservative National Review Online. Political editor Jonathan Martin goes through the litany of Richardson attributes — all the government posts he’s held, the Hispanic heritage, the boots ‘n’ bolos.


But the story isn’t a puff piece.

“(Richardson’s) style is why, in part, he’s dismissed by many observers,” Martin wrote. “Like another governor from the southwest who sought the presidency, Richardson is seen as being immature and unserious. As with President Bush, Richardson has an endless supply of charm and a politician’s preternatural gift for how to work a room and recall a face. But also like Bush, Richardson’s one-on-one abilities are diminished by his inability to mask, for example, showing disinterest when he isn’t interested.”

He quotes political analyst Stuart Rothenberg’s reference to Richardson’s “frat guy persona” and Hotline’s Chuck Todd, who said Richardson isn’t listed in the upper echelon of presidential contenders because “this Gov. Bill may resemble another Gov. Bill too much.”

Using a word frequently employed by pundits to describe Richardson, Martin asked the governor’s political jeffe Dave Contarino about the charge that Richardson is “undisciplined.” If that means “being a smiling, happy guy,” Contarino said, “we plead guilty.”

Speaking of conservative media: Just two weeks ago, all the governor’s men were blasting Fox News for taking Richardson’s comments about running for president “out of context.” They said he wasn’t really declaring his intention to run when, in an interview that aired Dec. 7, Richardson said, “I am running as an American who is proud to be Hispanic.”

But the guv made nice this week on Fox’s Your World with Neil Cavuto.

“Carl Cameron is a very good reporter,” he told Cavuto, referring to the reporter who conducted the original interview. “And I unfortunately made the mistake of answering a hypothetical question instead of saying ‘should I run, I will do this.’ And I didn’t do that, so there was all this confusion. And I’m not too upset about it. ... I think Carl Cameron and Fox News were doing their job, so I’m not upset at them. But it did cause a ruckus.”

Richardson reiterated he plans to announce a decision next month.

BEN LUJAN RE-ELECTED SPEAKER

I was too busy playing reporter instead of blogger so I'm hardly the first to report this ... but its true, Ben Lujan beat Rep. Kenny Martinez of Grants to stay on as speaker of the New Mexico House of Representatives.

Martinez was re-elected majority leader. Reps. Joe Cervantes and Gail Chasey withdrew their names for consideration. Martinez beat Rep. Mimi Stewart of Albuquerque.

Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton was re-elected Dem whip. She defeated a challenge by Rep. Joe Campos of Santa Rosa.

All House members interviewed said they didn't know the vote count on the speaker's race.

More in tomorrow's paper.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, December 17, 2006
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
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
The Happy Wanderer by Brave Combo
Gloria by Elastica
Mountain Side by Chris Whitley & The Bastard Club
The Moon is in The Gutter by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Boney Was a Warrior by Jack Shit
Blow the Man Down by Giant Sand
Betty's Body by The Residents
She Left Me With the Herpes by Tiny Tim
I'm A Christmas Tree by Wild Man Fischer

Elephant Gun by Beirut
Born to Be Wild by Fanfare Ciocarlia
Rock El Casbah by Racid Taha
Mustapha Dance by The Clash
Flat Foot Flewzy by NRBQ
Nightmare Song by Eleni Mandell
Christmas Boogie by Canned Heat & The Chipmunks

TOM WAITS SEGMENT
All songs by Tom Waits unless otherwise noted

Waitin' For Waits by Ritchie Cole
Lie to Me
Long Way Home
On the Road by TW with Primus
Big Black Mariah by John Hammond
God's Away on Business
The Return of Jackie & Judy
Swordfishtrombone
Little Man
Telephone Call From Istambul by Kazik Staszewski
Filipino Box Spring Hog
Day After Tomorrow
Innocent When You Dream
Goodnight Irene
SUBSTITUTE CLOSING THEME: Lucky Day by Tom Waits

eMUSIC DECEMBER

Here's my allotted 90 downloads from eMusic this month:

* Ludlow Garage 1970 by NRBQ. Big Al Anderson himself told me that the best guitarist NRBQ ever had was Steve Ferguson. Al's too modest, but Ferguson was damned good. This is a live recording from the Q's pioneer days. Lots of R&B, rockabilly and long jams with the spirit of Sun Ra hovering over Terry Adam's head.

*The American Song-Poem Christmas : Daddy Is Santa Really Six Foot Four? .
Do I have to remind everyone what song poems are? It's a glorious scam in which would-be lyricists are lured by little ads in the back of certain magazines to spend their hard-earned cash to have their words put to music by studio musicians who crank them out at amazing speeds. The results often are unintentionally hilarious and sometimes strangely touching. This is a Christmas collection with hits such as "Santa Claus Came on a Nuclear Missile," "Maury the Christmas Mouse" and "The Rocking Disco Santa Claus."

*Moondog , plus three stray tracks from Moondog's H'art Songs.. eMusic continues to be a great source for classic "outsider" music. The song-poems attest to thta, as do the the several Moondog albums available. Moondog , born Louis Hardin, was a blind, self-educated composer and performer who was born in Kansas but became notorious for performing his strange music on the streets of New York in the late '40s, sometimes wearing a horned Viking helmet. This 1956 album is heavy on percussion and sounds of traffic, croaking frogs and a crying baby. There's a Japanese lullaby, with kyoto, sung by Moondog's wife The H'art Songs I downloaded, which I don't like quite as much, features piano-based melodies that are oddly affecting.

*Good Morning Mr. Walker by Joseph Spence. Talk about a guy who made his own rules, Spence -- surely the best known singer to ever emerge from The Bahamas -- sang like your favorite drunken uncle. Between his accent and his funny mumbling, sometimes growling scat singing, don't bet your life on understanding all the lyris, even on familiar songs. But listen to that guitar. The man was a magician.

*Demons Dance Alone by The Residents. The first moments of the opening song, "Life Would Be Wonderful might make you think you downloaded some old Herb Albert song. It's actually sort of pretty. The songs on this album were written in 2001, shorty after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Maybe that's why it seems rather subdued for a Residents album. But don't worry. There's not much you could call mainstream here. I think my favorite tune here is "Betty's Body," which has lyrics like, "I see her every morning and watch her fingers forming ... I could be her lover, if it, if it weren't for Mother ..."

I also downloaded several free tracks from Freedom Haters Unite! A Bloodshot Records Sampler, Vol. 1 . My favorite being Paul Burch's "John Peel," a soulful tribute to the great BBC music show host.

BEN LUJAN PROFILE

My story in today's New Mexican about House Speaker Ben Lujan's battle to keep his position and what led to Rep. Kenny Martinez's challenge can be found HERE.

The sidebar about Lujan's life and career is HERE.

The state House Democrats meet Monday to vote on the speaker and other positions.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, December 15, 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
Brand New Heartbreak by Jeff Lescher & Janet Beveridge Bean
Aftermath U.S.A. by The Drive-By Truckers
Wired Ole Gal by The Gourds
I Blunder On by Gurf Morlix
Prozac by Ramsay Midwood
Shove it by Audrey Auld Merzera & Nina Gerber
If Your Poison Gets You by Frank Black
For Too Long by Eric Hisaw
The Only Law That Santa Claus Understood by Ted Lyons

Kiwi Moon by John Egenes
Worried Spirits by Howe Gelb
Valley of Tears by Solomon Burke with Gillian Welch
Faith by Chris Thomas King
Flowers by Irma Thomas
Gather the Family 'Round by Ed Pettersen
All I Want For Christmas is My Upper Plate by Homer & Jethro
Blue Christmas Lights by Chris & Herb

Grapevine by Tom Russell
Big Daddy's Rye by Artie Hill & The Long Gone Daddies
The Country is Young by Jon Langford
Officer Norris by Blaze Foley
Wild Man by Hasil Adkins
The Chokin' Kind by Waylon Jennings
The One You Slip Around With by Skeeter Davis
Here Comes Fatty Claus by Rudolph & Gang
Where It All Began by Mac Wiseman

Christmas in Jail by The Soul Deacons
Christmas in Jail by Chip Taylor
Christmas in Prison by John Prine
Man About Town by Tony Gilkyson
Miss Me by Eleni Mandell
Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground by Willie Nelson
Distant Land to Roam by Ralph Stanley
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: FIRE IN THE ORPHANAGE

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

He’s at the piano singing inebriated ballads after hours at a smoky little dive at the end of dirty little dead-end street. Fat bar girls in blue sequined gowns sleeping in patched Naugahyde booths. A couple of bankers on holiday, too drunk to leave their tables, half listening to the almost familiar tunes.

He’s playing a battered guitar around an illegal fire near the railroad tracks outside of town, singing songs of girls with golden hair he left behind. One tramp uses a rusty knife to rip into a shoplifted can of SpaghettiOs. Others in the circle sing along keep time clanking empty bottles of fortified wine.

He’s walking backward down the alley moving his arms like some wounded bird, leading the ragtag gospel band, the sour trumpets, the sad trombone, the rhythmless drum — a Salvation Army Band that somehow escaped salvation. He bellows his dark hymns above the din, an unholy cacophony for Jesus.

Such are the images evoked by the music of Tom Waits. His songs are like dispatches from an archetypal shadowland of underdog America, a place where a nation’s dreams go to die — but where a thousand more dreams are born.

On his new collection — the 3-disc Orphans: Brawlers, Brawlers & Bastards — Waits proves once again that truly he’s one of the immortals.

Apparently Orphans started out as a compilation of stray Waits tunes that have appeared on various various-artist collections, tribute albums (including Daniel Johnston, Bertolt Brecht and Walt Disney), soundtracks (from Pollock to Shrek 2) and other artists’ records (Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Sparklehorse and others). But the project grew, with Waits re-recording some old tunes and creating new ones. Thirty of the 54 songs here are new recordings, and only 14 have been available on other albums.

Waits’ wife and songwriting partner Kathleen Brennan once famously said that Waits’ songs can be divided into “Grand Weepers” and “Grim Reapers.” The first two discs roughly correspond with this. Brawlers mostly features Waits’ mutant blues and junkyard rockers. Bawlers consists mainly of his ballads, some of which indeed are wonderful tearjerkers.

This leaves Bastards, a glorious explosion of Waits’ experimental side, including spoken-word pieces (a Bukowski story, concert raps, jokes and shaggy dogs), his heart-of-Beefheart sonic craziness, lo-fi cries and other pictures from life’s weirder side.

At the moment, my favorite disc is Brawlers. The first four songs on this first disc are frankly the most convincing little rock ‘n’ roll set I’ve heard in ages. It starts out with an otherworldly rockabilly slugger called "Lie to Me," goes to a growling blues appropriately called “Low Down,” chugs down the track with a funky tune called “2:19” and ends up behind bars in “Fish in Jail,” which sounds like a voodoo insurgency.

Note: I’m writing this during daylight hours. Late at night I start leaning toward Bawlers. The lilting “Long Way Home” ranks up there Waits’ greatest love songs. And he turns The Ramones’ “Danny Says” into a truly gorgeous creature. “The Fall of Troy,” from the Dead Man Walking soundtrack, is as sad as powerful as ever. And his steel-guitar flavored cover of “Young at Heart” will make you believe that fairy tales may come true.

Of course, when I’m really feeling twisted, there’s Bastards, which includes “Army Ants,” a biology lecture on the life of insects with a stand-up bass and robotic guitar backdrop and “On the Road,” a collaboration with Primus that first appeared on a Jack Kerouac spoken word album.

One of the most memorable tunes here surprisingly is one that been performed by countess singers, “Goodnight Irene.” With its hobo chorus you almost can imagine Waits singing it on a boxcar, harmonizing with Leadbelly himself as the train blows its whistle, click-clacking into a tunnel of no return.

Bonus:
Steve Terrell’s Tom Waits List

Best Waits Album: The Mule Variations (1999)
Best Waits Song of the ‘70s: "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets To The Wind In Copenhagen)"
Best Waits Song of the ‘80s: “You’re Innocent When You Dream”
Best Waits Song of the ‘90s: “Filipino Box Spring Hog” (honorable mention: “Back in the Good Old World”)
Best Waits Song of the ‘00s: “The Day After Tomorrow”
Best “Grand Weeper”: “Georgia Lee”
Best “Grim Reaper”: “The Earth Died Screaming”
Best Waits spoken word piece: “Nighthawk Postcards from Easy Street”
Best Cover song Waits Has Done: “Phantom 309” (originally by Red Sovine)
Best Waits Duet: “This One’s From the Heart” with Crystal Gale (honorable mention: “That Feel” with Keith Richards)
Best Song About Waits: “Waiting for Waits” by Richie Cole
Best Waits sideman gig: Playing electric organ behind Roy Orbison on A Black and White Night.
Best Waits Cover by a Punk Rock Band: “I Don’t Want to Grow Up” by The Ramones
Best Waits Cover by a ‘50s Rocker: “Heart Attack & Vine” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
Best Waits Cover by a Country Artist: “Down There by the Train by Johnny Cash (honorable mention: “Murial” by Eleni Mandell)
Best Waits Cover by a Soul Singer: “The House Where Nobody Lives” by King Ernest
Best Waits Cover by a Gospel group: “Down in the Hole” by The Blind Boys of Alabama (honorable mention: “Train” by The Holmes Brothers)
Best Waits Cover by a Blues singer: “Murder in the Red Barn” by John Hammond, Jr. (from Hammond’s Wicked Grin, which is the best Waits tribute album)
Best Waits Cover by a Foreigner: “In The Neighborhood” by Kazik Staszewski (from Piosenki Toma Waitsa, a Waits tribute album by this Polish rocker.)
Worst Waits Cover: “Downtown Train” by Rod Stewart.
Best Waits Movie Appearance: Down by Law (honorable mention: Shortcuts)

You guessed it: I’ll do a Tom Waits tribute Sunday night on Terrell’s Sound World on KSFR, 90.7 FM. Sound World starts at 10 p.m., the Waits segment will start right after the 11th hour. The show streams live on the world wide interweb.