TERRELL'S TUNEUP: BEST of 2006

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
December 29, 2006

It’s just a gut feeling at this point, but when compiling this list of top albums of 2006, I’m starting to think that the digital revolution in music has begun to take its toll on the album as an art form. Sure there was plenty of great music out there this year — there always is when you know where to look for it.

And yes, dear yuppies, the word is still album not CD. A CD is just the medium, while the album is a collection of songs in any medium, vinyl or not. Sorry, that’s just a pet peeve. My fear is that not only could CDs go extinct but albums as well.

An entire generation of music lovers is thinking in terms of individual downloads rather than the album. It’s as if the novel became obsolete, replaced by, well, chapters.

The truth is, nothing really stood out as “album-of-the-year” quality to me until Tom Waits released Orphans, his sprawling three-disc extravaganza. Funny thing is, this project holds together as a unified work — kind of like a three-ring circus — even though it started off as a collection of outtakes and stray songs from soundtracks, tribute albums, and other scattered projects.

So while we still have “albums,” let’s celebrate the best of them. Here are my favorites of 2006:


1. Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards by Tom Waits. His songs are dispatches from an archetypal shadow land of underdog America, a place where a nation’s dreams go to die — but where a thousand more dreams are born. He bellows skid-row serenades that seemingly spring from cheap back-alley dives, hobo jungles, storefront churches, and grimy bus stations. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll say, “What the hell was that?”





2. Goodbye Guitar by Tony Gilkyson. Most solo albums by sidemen only prove that most sidemen deserve to remain sidemen. But this album proves there are major exceptions to that rule. Gilkyson — a former member of X and Lone Justice — made an album in which all 11 songs are winners. It’s solid roots rock with some stomping honky-tonkers here and a magnificent dirge of self-loathing called “My Eyes.”








3. Gulag Orkestar by Beirut. Like Gilkyson, Zach Condon is a former Santa Fe resident who slipped the surly bonds of New Mexico. While most American musicians his age are inspired by punk rock or hip-hop, Condon was set aflame by the soundtracks of Eastern European movies and the Balkan brass bands he heard while bumming around overseas. He created a unique sound with slightly off-kilter trumpets, accordion, rat-a-tat drums and — for reasons not explained — a ukulele. Not to mention his vocals, which sound far too world-weary for a 20-year-old.




4. Snake Farm by Ray Wylie Hubbard. Here’s a bluesy stomp-dance of a record, heavy on slide guitar and raunchy licks. With Hubbard’s songs of reptile ranches, God, the devil, heartaches, damnation, and redemption, it’s spiritual in its own peculiar way, almost like the Book of Revelation as interpreted by Hank Williams and Howlin’ Wolf.








5. Powder Burns by The Twilight Singers. Like Greg Dulli’s best work, the sound is big — guitars, keyboards, and drums work into crescendos — and he works his voice into inspired frenzies. Sometimes, you don’t notice that he’s been screaming until the song starts to fade.







6.Nashville by Solomon Burke. This is something of a country homecoming for Burke, who was cutting soul versions of country songs nearly a half-century ago. “That’s How I Got to Memphis,” the classic Tom T. Hall song sounds as if it was written for Burke. And on Gillian Welch’s “Valley of Tears,” he sings like a condemned man contemplating the lethal-injection table.








7. Bitter Tea by The Fiery Furnaces. While the Furnaces don’t really sound like anyone else, you could spend an afternoon trying to trace the influences. The music changes from song to song — and often several times within a song. Electronic madness bounces off an old-timey tack piano. Sugar-pie-honey-bunch Motown hooks slither below. Eleanor Friedberger’s voice seems like an earthly anchor for a ship tossed into a stormy, unpredictable musical sea.


8. Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, & Chanteys by various artists (produced by Hal Willner). How could I not include an album featuring wild and rasty tunes by Nick Cave, Richard Thompson, Lou Reed, and Stan Ridgway? It even has Pere Ubu’s David Thomas croaking “What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?” But the most gloriously obscene and most hilarious “pirate” song here is Loudon Wainwright III’s “Good Ship Venus.”








9. I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Kick Your Ass by Yo La Tengo. Yo La happily is all over the place, strolling down some strange avenues of pop sounds. Sometimes the group sounds like Sonic Youth, sometimes closer to Fleetwood Mac. Actually Yo La reminds me of a lo-fi, punkier version of NRBQ.






10. Zoysia by The Bottle Rockets. The title is a type of grass used in suburban lawns, fittingly because the image of suburban lawns is at the metaphorical center of this album by Brian Henneman and his trusty band of blue-collar rockers. It’s a loose-knit concept album about yearning for normalcy and moderation — yearnings not normally associated with rock ’n’ roll. But in these strife-ridden times, Henneman makes it sound attractive.





Honorable Discharge
* Why I Hate Women by Pere Ubu
* Last Days of Wonder by The Handsome Family
* The Longest Meow by Bobby Bare Jr.
* Good Bread Alley by Carl Hancock Rux
* Blue Angel by Hundred Year Flood
* After the Rain by Irma Thomas
* After Hours by Big Al Anderson
* The Town and The City by Los Lobos
* Modern Times by Bob Dylan
* Bahamut by Hazmat Modine

RICHARDSON IN ARG POLLS

Our governor has yet to make a splash in the polls of four early primary/caucus states, according to the latest from the New Hampshire-based American Research Group.

As you'll see HERE, Richardson is polling at one percent in Iowa, South Carolina and even in New Mexico's kinda neighbor, Nevada. In New Hampshire he's at 2 percent. That means he's made basically no traction there so far despite his numerous visits in the past year and a half. At this point he's even being outpolled by Dennis Kucinich.

Hillary Clinton is leading the Democrats in all four states, including South Carolina and Iowa, which are supposed to be John Edwards strongholds.

On the GOP side, Rudy Guiliani and John McCain dominate in all four states. McCain's ahead in South Carolina, which was his Waterloo in 2000.

The good news for Richardson -- and the other single-digit pack -- is that the primaries are still a year away.

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By the way, if you haven't guessed already, I'm off work this week, so there's no Roundhouse Roundup today.

There will, however, be a Terrell's Tuneup tomorrow, where you'll see my picks for top albums of the year.

I'm doing both my radio shows this week -- The Santa Fe Opry on Friday night and Terrell's Sound World on New Year's Eve. I pre-recorded that one, which will feature selections from my top albums. Both shows start at 10 p.m. Mountain time and stream on KSFR.

ON GERALD FORD AND JAMES BROWN

Wonkette has an amusing "conspiracy theory" about the death of President Ford coming right on the heels of James Brown's passing. It's tied in with Ronald Reagan dying in 2004 right after Ray Charles -- obviously the work of an evil anti-soul cabal.

The whole thing takes me back to the glorious rant of Little Jack Horton, the circus midget and Charles Bukowski crony who served as narrator for Tom Russell's Hotwalker CD last year.

"You know, goddamn it, Ronald Reagan dies recently and they fly the flag half-mast. Well did they fly it half-mast for Ray Charles? Did they fly it half mast for Johnny Cash? Declare a national holiday? These people moved to changed the daily lives of more people than these goddam politicians, who are just grifters and scum... One nation under God and Johnny Cash, Hank Williams and Ray Charles, goddamn it!”

JAMES ON T.A.M.I. SHOW

James Brown - Prisoner of Love/Please Please Please


It's just a grainy YOUTUBE clip, but here's nine minutes of James' T.A.M.I. show performance.

UPDATE: Jan. 14, 2007 .Thanks to Conrad for pointing out that the old link to this was kaput. I've put in a new valid link of the same clip.

THE BIG FLASHBACK: JAMES BROWN 1999

I'm still stunned about the death of The Godfather.

I just located the story I did for The New Mexican when I saw James at the Pit in Albuquerque in 1999.

In James' memory:

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
October 7, 1999

ALBUQUERQUE During the middle of James Brown's concert at The Pit Tuesday, the singer known as The Hardest Working Man in Show Business spent a good deal of time in front of the drummers, his back turned to the audience.

Sometimes it looked as if he was conducting the band, but in the hands of the capable 14-piece outfit called The Soul Generals, the music seemed to take care of itself.

Sometimes it seemed as if Brown was spending that time recharging his psychic batteries. Every so often he'd turn around and let loose one of his patented shouts ``Hit me!'' or ``Good God, ya'll!'' or he'd do a little dance just a snapshot of the crazy-legged soul gymnastics he was capable of when he was but a young man, but it still drives a crowd wild.

Or maybe he was just contemplating the James Brownness of it all, the music giving rise to powerful memories.

Imagine the jumble of images passing through the mind of James Brown as the music plays. ``The Big Flashback'' he might call it, as he recalls shining shoes in front of that radio station he'd later own; Bobby Byrd; The Famous Flames, Please, Please, Please!; shaking off his cape in the T.A.M.I. Show movie back in the '60s and screaming for redemption; ``Maceo!'' (He's got a new sax player now and he's great too, but you know sometimes James still has to shout ``Maceo!''); stopping riots in smoldering ghettos of the '60s; Cold Sweat!; ``Spotlight on James Brown, ya'll! He's the King of them all, ya'll!''; embracing Nixon and ``Black Capitalism'' in '68; ``Hot Pants!''; trying to outrun the cops on that South Carolina highway; ``Hit me!''; Living in America!; all the stages, all the wives, all the drugs, the jails, all the music; ``It's Star Time....''

The Big Flashback. Good God, ya'll!

The Albuquerque audience consisted of 50-ish My Generation folk, some of whom brought their children; teens and young adults, many of whom came to know The King of Soul from samples on rap records; people dressed all swanky, as well as the T-shirt-and-jeans set; black, white, Hispanic and Indian.

There was something kind of sad about the fact that an ``oldies'' radio station was sponsoring Brown's Albuquerque show. Although indeed most of his ``hits'' are old enough to run for president, and even though he's 66 years old (some say more), and even though all but a smidgeon of his material Tuesday was from the '50s, '60s and 70s, nobody wants to think of James Brown as an oldie but goodie. At the very least, he's one of the great innovators of popular American music. And some of us believe he's a supernatural force offering a glimpse into a higher realm.

It didn't seem right that some cheeseball had sold advertising space and put banners for a local limousine company and some business called cyber-somethingorother on the stage of The Godfather of Soul.

But then again, James Brown has always been a big-time update of old Southern traveling burlesque revues or even medicine shows the warm-up numbers by the band, the seemingly worthless female singer who sang three boring songs just to add to the anticipation, the ritualistic ``Star Time!'' intro, the three sexy dancers who took the stage every so often Tuesday.

Heck, Brown even had a stage magician come out in the middle of the show to perform dumb tricks as the band vamped behind him. You almost expected him to start pitching King Flour biscuits or Doc VanDexter's Tizzic Tincture.

But the real magic was performed by Brown himself.

If he didn't play all the hits, he played enough to satisfy: "Cold Sweat," "It's A Man's Man's Man's World", "Try Me," "Pappa's Got a Brand New Bag" and the obligatory "I Got You (I Feel Good)," (which unfortunately has lost some of its power after years of use in floor wax commercials.) Once or twice he forsook the microphone to play an ultra-funky electric organ, a talent many didn't realize he had.

By the final tune an extended jam that started out as Sex Machine and built into a blast of undiluted cosmic funk he proved that James Brown is still Soul Brother Number One.