THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, July 20, 2007
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

Now Simulcasting 90.7 FM, and our new, stronger signal, 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Good BBQ by The Riptones
Come on Home to Houston by Cornell Hurd
Moon Gone Down by The Gourds
Long Haired Country Boy by Charlie Daniels
Waymore's Blues by Waylon Jennings with John Anderson
Wolverton Mountain by Southern Culture on the Skids
Old Black Joe by Jerry Lee Lewis
Shake That Thing by Big Al Anderson
She Got the House by NRBQ

Peach Blossom by Hundred Year Flood
Starry Eyes by Roky Erickson with Luanne Barton
You're Humbuggin' Me by Lefty Frizzell
Philadelphia Lawyer by Rose Maddox
Scraps From Your Table by Hazel Dickens
Happy Hour by Ted Hawkins
Gimme a Ride to Heaven by Terry Allen

Phantom Riders by King Richard & The Knights
Wicked Game by The Surf Lords
Old Chunk of Coal by Billy Joe Shaver
Worthless by Tony Gilkyson
Wildcat Tamer by John Schooley
Eleven Cent Cotton by Porter Wagoner
The Night Porter Wagoner Came to Town by Tabby Crabb
Back Home by Dolly Parton

Up the Country Blues by Maria Muldaur
I'm So Lonesome Without You by Hazeldine
Prodigal Son by John Egenes
Don't Go Back to Sleep by Patty Booker
Next Time You're Drifting My Way by ThaMuseMeant
Mean Old Wind Die Down by North Mississippi Allstars
Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

BACK TO REALITY

Yes, Santa Fe is REALITY ...

I'm back from my vacation to Texas. We visited my daughter and son-in-law, made a side trip to Waco to see the Branch Davidian compound (I always make my children visit crime scenes and massacre sites) and the not-so-fabulous Dr. Pepper Museum (cheap pricks don't even give free samples!)

And we got to see Hundred Year Flood at the Saxon Pub.

Check out my FLICKR site for my vacation photos. (Thanks to FLICKR I don't have to come to your house and give you a personal slide show.)

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: SWAMP DIGGITY DOGG!

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
July 20, 2007

Nobody has ever accused Swamp Dogg of being too subtle. The cover of his new album, Resurrection, features a picture of the singer nailed to a cross, clad only in an American flag loincloth and a cap that reads "Witness Protection Program." Above his head a sign reads "Program Failure."

Yep, it’s a Swamp Dogg album all right, and it’s Swamp Dogg through and through, with songs of love, lust, and cranky political ranting.

While the notion of “cult artist” is overused, it fits Swamp Dogg (aka Jerry Williams). While he’s been releasing records for nearly 40 years, he’s never been a mainstream success. As he said in a June 2007 interview in the London newspaper The Guardian, “I’m not a down-and-out R & B singer. I’m not a used-to-be because I never was. I am so glad now that I didn’t become a great R & B hit in the ’60s, because I may still be in the ... ’60s, running around singing ‘Baby You’re My Everything’ and ‘I’m the Lover Man.’”

One of the things I love most about this singer is that he embodies so many contradictions. He’s known as a musical renegade and iconoclast who bolted the big-label, music-industrial complex and started his own independent label (Swamp Dogg Entertainment Group) years before it was fashionable. And yet his music, instrumentally at least, is basically conservative — old-fashioned, late ’60s/early ’70s soul that sounds as if George Clinton, Prince, and hip-hop never happened.

Although Dogg’s a soulster through and through, his biggest songwriting success is “She’s All I Got,” a country hit for Johnny Paycheck in the early ’70s.

And then there’s the matter of his lyrics. You’d probably expect him to be a fire-breathing, radical militant judging by the cover of this album; the titles of some of the songs (“America is Bleeding” and “They Crowned an Idiot King,” a one-fingered salute to the current chief executive); and his comfort with casual profanity and liberal use of the N word (Swamp Dogg obviously didn’t go to the recent NAACP “funeral” for the offensive epithet).

It’s true Swamp Dogg is anti-war and anti-Bush, and he believes racism is alive and well in modern America. But from his lyrics you also learn he opposes abortion and gay marriage, doesn’t like Mexican immigrants using Civil Rights-era slogans, and wants to keep God in the Pledge of Allegiance.

By my count, his politics are pretty close to those of Merle Haggard, which I personally find far more fascinating than those of the straight paint-by-numbers, talking-point liberal or conservative.

The 12-minute title song is a tour de force of Swamp Dogg’s political theory. Starting off with the rumbling of thunder he evokes the days of slavery, comparing it with the crucifixion. He praises Martin Luther King Jr. as “the messenger.”

Soon some of his social conservatism becomes apparent. Swamp Dogg denounces the welfare system, saying it encourages fatherless families. He blasts drugs, espousing a just-say-no policy. “You don’t have to do nothing about it, just leave it the hell alone and it will go away/It’s a proven fact that if a product is not being consumed the supplier will soon move on to other things.”

Swamp Dogg offers some sound economic advice to African Americans (or anyone else for that matter): “Start putting $10 to $15 a week into a savings account until it becomes big enough to buy a six-month certificate of deposit at 9 percent then continuously roll it over and don’t touch it and buy no damned Christmas presents!”

He also advises his people to put aside frivolous reading and “read a copy of Black Enterprise, Forbes, Money, and Fortune/Discover what the upscale black is doing and what the white man is planning to build in a year on the same site where you’re renting.”

He works himself into an emotional frenzy by the end of the song. “I will see you when you come out of the tomb!” he shouts. “ I will see you when you rise!”

Besides politics, the other major topic on Resurrection is love, specifically his recent marriage. “Today I Got Married” is a string-sweetened, tinkly-piano tribute to his wife, with a refrain that goes, “She knows how to fight to funk/She knows how to lift a [N word] up.” He promises to “do the things that make a marriage work/Bring my money home, get my lovin’ at home, and spend more time in church.”

This is a man who is passionate about and believes in everything he sings. It makes his music a true pleasure.


Also recommended:

* Bad Blood in the City: The Piety Street Sessions by James Blood Ulmer. Here’s another 60-something black musician who has a way with angry protest songs.

Ulmer is a jazzman who has played with the likes of Ornette Coleman and Art Blakey. But in recent years his art has taken him deeper and deeper into the blues. I loved his 2005 album Birthright, but this new one is even more exciting. It was recorded in New Orleans’ Piety Street studios with a full band.

Ulmer performs several fresh-sounding covers of songs by Son House, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, and Junior Kimbrough. But New Orleans — particularly, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina — is never far from Ulmer’s mind. Songs include “Survivors of the Hurricane,” “Katrina,” “Let’s Talk About Jesus,” and “Backwater Blues,” a traditional blues number that in Ulmer’s hands sounds like a prophecy.

Ulmer’s main strength is that he captures the mysteriousness of the blues. Even when the band is rocking, you can imagine the husky-voiced singer in a graveyard, sitting on a tombstone, playing his guitar, and shouting melodies that double as secret incantations and dark warnings.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, July 15, 2007
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Now Simulcasting 90.7 FM, and out new, stronger signal, 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org


(This is the pre-recorded show I left for Sunday. Tom Adler filled in for me on The Santa Fe Opry Friday.)

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Conquest by The White Stripes
Fire Engine by 13th Story Elevators
Memos from Purgatory by The Chesterfield Kings
My Dawgy Heap by The A-Bones
Pinon Lurker by The Gluey Brothers
Come Back Baby by Rev. Beat Man & The Unbelievers
Step Aside by Sleater-Kinney
Mi Saxophone by Al Hurricane

Forty Dollars by The Twilight Singers
Big Shoe Head by Buick MacKain
Lonesome Cowboy Bill by The Velvet Underground
Ask The Angels by Patti Smith
Where Were You by The Mekons
Road Runner by Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers
Motorcycle Irene by Moby Grape
Violenza Domestica by Mr. Bungle

Budokan Tape Try (500 Tapes High) by The Boredoms
Moon I'm Coming Home by Pere Ubu
I'm Insane by Sonic Youth
I Live in a Split Level Head by Napoleon XIV
The Torture Never Stops by Frank Zappa

Love is All Around by The Troggs
Sad Days, Lonely Nights by James Blood Ulmer
Hookers in the Street by Otis Taylor
Hiawatha by Laurie Anderson
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

COLD TURKEY

Julia recently wrote about taking a "mini-vacation" from the internets, as did Mario.

Looks I'm doing the same thing -- but not on purpose. I took off for my vacation yesterday and even though I got my laptop into its carrying case, I never got it to the car. I discovered that fact when checking into a motel in Abilene last night.

I'm in the motel lobby now. Fortunately I had the Terrell's Tune-up (immediately below) prepared to go.

But for the most part I'll be without the Internet for the next week or so. And for someone as addicted as me, that's going to be a challenge.

Wish me luck ....

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: A GOOD THUMPIN'

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
July 14, 2007

I was prepared to be disappointed by The White Stripes’ new album, Icky Thump.

It’s not just because Jack White somehow turned into a movie-star-dating, model-marrying rock star. It was the music. After four exciting, enchanting, and exuberant albums, the band’s 2005 effort, Get Behind Me Satan, was a frustrating mess that never quite jelled. And White’s subsequent side project, The Raconteurs, was just plain bland.

Oh well, I figured, maybe it was time for The White Stripes to fade away. Four good-to-great albums isn’t a bad run for a band, especially for a duo — a duo! — performing high-charged, Zepped-out covers of old Son House and Robert Johnson tunes. And besides, Jack White will always have that album he produced for Loretta Lynn and those cool hillbilly songs on the Cold Mountain soundtrack. You can’t take those away from him.

So I was just hoping that the new album wouldn’t do any permanent damage to The White Stripes’ memory.

Guess what? As Hazel, would say, Icky Thump is a doozy. Jack and his ex-wife, Meg, have returned to their basic guitar/drum attack. In fact, some songs, like the nasty slide-guitar-driven “Catch Hell Blues,” seem to be a conscious return to the Stripes’ early sound. However, many songs are fortified by touches of instrumental weirdness that show the Whites looking forward.

Jack sounds truly happy to be here, playing his guitar like a maniac and warbling like the reincarnation of Marc Bolan hopped up on trucker crank. Meg is playing drums less like Moe Tucker and more like the Mighty Thor.

On the first song, the title track, I was almost afraid the Stripes were going political by interjecting themselves in the immigration debate. In the middle of lyrics about a “redheaded señorita” in Mexico comes a provocative verse: “White Americans, what?/Nothing better to do?/Why don’t you kick yourself out/You’re an immigrant too.”

Not that I mind political songs, but that wouldn’t seem to be a strength of the Stripes. This verse seems to be an anomaly on this album. People are going to remember the song for the crazy balloon-rubbing guitar noises and the explosive drums. There don’t seem to be other overt political themes unless “St. Andrew (This Battle Is in the Air)” is an oblique reference to Iraq.

I’m having fun spotting subtle salutes to older songs. The hook on “300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues” might remind you of the Allman Brothers’ “Midnight Rider,” while the acoustic guitar chords on “Effect & Cause” is right out of The Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women.”

Did I say something about instrumental weirdness? “Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn” features some Cold Mountain mandolin and droning bagpipes (not to mention Meg’s drums, which make a subliminal suggestion that a Scottish army is about to come down from the hills and pillage the town). That’s immediately followed by “St. Andrew (This Battle Is in the Air),” another bagpipe-and-drum song with Meg reciting some strange prayer (“This battle is in the air/I’m looking upwards/St. Andrew, don’t forsake me”) and White blasting bizarre, electronically altered guitar licks straight out of The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows.”

But even this pair of tunes isn’t as delightfully strange as “Conquest,” a twisted cover of an old Patti Page song. Jack and Meg, aided by trumpeter Regulo Aldama, turn the song into an electric bullfight. White pours himself into the melodramatic lyrics, “The hunted became the huntress, the hunter became the prey” (making the final “became” into a five- or six-syllable word). But I think the Frank Zappa-like Munchkins-in-the-dungeon background vocals are my favorite part of the song.

At this writing my favorite song on Icky Thump is “Rag and Bone,” a partly sung but mostly spoken tune in which we find Jack and Meg scavenging for old junk — “a broken trumpet or a telephone ... turntables and gramophones.” It’s not clear if they’re supposed to be cruising yard sales or just going through trash outside peoples’ houses. Whatever the case, a listener wants to be with them. During the song Jack goes into a rap (with Meg responding, “Uh huh,” in agreement) that could almost be interpreted as the band’s philosophy of music as well: “It’s just things that you don’t want, I can use ’em. Meg can use ’em. We’ll do something with ’em. We’ll make something out of ’em. We’ll make some money out of ’em at least.”

I hope they make lots of money and stick around for a long time.

Also recommended:



*Listen My Friends: The Best of Moby Grape. MG is a San Francisco Summer of Love band whose name is spoken with reverence in rock criticdom — or at least without the condescending sneer reserved for other bands of the hippie era. And in truth, the Grape deserves major respect. The group’s first, self-titled album (pictured here) was nothing short of a masterpiece, and the songs “Omaha” and “Hey Grandma” from that album are timeless rockers that still thrill those with ears to hear, while “8:05” is a sweet heartbreaker that ranks with the finest of country rock.

Unfortunately, after that wild creative burst things started falling apart for MG. Part of that was due to singer/guitarist Skip Spence’s descent into schizophrenia.

The follow-up Wow was sprawling and self-consciously artsy but had some great moments. Their subsequent work was almost completely forgettable.

This collection includes six impeccable songs from the first album (including those named above) and some of the better tunes from Wow, including the brilliant “Murder in My Heart for the Judge” and “Can’t Be So Bad,” a rampaging blues number that slows down at the end of every verse for some inexplicable days-of-old-when-knights-were-bold trumpets.

Most of the remaining songs are pretty mediocre except “Sweet Ride (Never Again),” which shows traces of the first album’s spark, and Spence’s “Seeing,” which starts slow and builds into an intense psychedelic workout.

I just wish that Sony/BMG would have instead rereleased Moby Grape and Wow, now available only in overpriced versions on the obscure San Francisco Sound label.

eMUSIC JULY

* Hentch-Forth.Five featuring Jack White by The Hentchmen. Back in 998 Detroit's Hentchmen, led by Farfisa fiend John Hentch (aka John Szymanski, aka Johnny Volare), had a bass player named Jack White who went on to become singer and guitarist for The White Stripes. Detroit’s Italy Records has remastered the album, originally released on vinyl only, and rereleased it on the same day The White Stripes’ new album, Icky Thump, was released. My favorite tracks here are “Some Other Guy,” in which White and Hentch harmonize like the early Beatles and “Psycho Daisies,” an obscure Yardbirds tune.

Hey, does this all sound familiar? I just reviewed this in Terrell's Tune-up a couple of weeks ago.


*April March Sings Along With The Makers . I'd never heard of Ms. March until Grindhouse. She sings the song "Chick Habit" during the closing credits. I'd assumed, despite the name, she was Japanese. She's not. Lots of people think she's French because she recorded an album of French pop tunes -- or at least tunes that sounded like French pop. But no, April's all American and this is nothing but good old garage punk fare with echos of "Psychotic Reaction." She sounds kind of like the gal in Daisy Chainsaw (remember "Love Your Money"?)



* Naughty Bawdy & Blue by Maria Muldaur. It was predetermined nearly 40 years ago that I would get this album -- first time I heard Maria, then with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, coo the words, "red rooster say cock-a-doddly-doo/ Richland woman say, `any dude'll do' ... "

She re-recorded "Richland Woman Blues" for an album of that title about five years ago -- and sounded, if anything more sexy than she did when she was a young woman.

Maria continues along that line in this collection of old classic-era blues songs from the likes of Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith and Victoria Spivey. She loves this stuff and that love is infectuous.

However lovers of naughty and bawdy music beware. The title of this album is an oversell. The bawdiness doesn't go much beyond double entendres like the ones in Hunter's "Handyman." There's no Lucille Bogan songs here or anything like the raunchy tunes found on collections like Please Warm My Weiner.

But for those of us with strong dirty imaginations, this album is just fine. Like a modern Sophie Tucker, Maria Muldaur is the last of the red-hot mammas.

*Live at Montreux 2004 by George Clinton & Parliament/Funkadelic . Thirty years beyond P-Funk's golden era, Clinton and his aging band of funky pranksters are just as tight and proficient as the old days. Actually this is a great companion to Live: Meadowbrook, Rochester, Michigan 12th September 1971, which I downloaded several months ago.

There's not a whole lot of surprises here -- Bop Gun" and "Atomic Dog" are as funk-filled as ever -- except the appearance of Clinton's granddaughter (!) Sativa, who offers some truly "naughty, bawdy and blue raps" on "Something Stank" and "Hard as Steel," and "Whole Lotta Shakin'," which actually is a medley of '50s rock tunes showing Clinton's love for that era.

My main complaint about this album is that there's no liner notes (a major drawback of downloading in general) and the credits found on the eMusic page (as well as the Allmusic entry) are threadbare. I want to know which of the original P-Funsters are playing here.

* Texas, 1986: Live at the Continental Club by Sonic Youth. Anyone who has ever been to Austin's Continental Club knows it's a pretty small place. This had to be LOUD AS HELL! (No, the picture here isn't the Continental. I took this at the 1995 Lollapalooza in Denver.)

This was back when most of America -- myself included -- was unaware of Sonic Youth, a couple of years before Daydream Nation woke up to them. In fact this was right about the time of their album EVOL. They're grating and noisy, a little scary and driven. And of course "Expressway to Yr Skull" is pure majesty. What would we have done without them?





* Bad Blood In The City: The Piety Street Sessions by James Blood Ulmer. Singer/guitarist Ulmer is a jazz man who has played with the likes of Ornette Coleman and Art Blakey. But in recent years his art has taken him deeper and deeper into the blues. I loved his 2005 album Birthright, but this new one is even more exciting. It was recorded in New Orleans' Piety Street Studios with a full band.

There are several covers of songs by Son House, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker and Junior Kimbrough, as well as originals, including songs inspired by Hurricane Katrina.

Ulmer's main strength is that he captures the mysteriousness of the blues. Even when the band is rocking, you can imagine Ulmer in a graveyard, sitting on a tombstone playing his guitar and shouting melodies that double as secret incantations and dark warnings.


*Paint The White House Black by The Dick Nixons. There's political commentary and then there's political commentary!

I first heard The Dick Nixons about 10 years ago on the Star Power compilation, a tongue-in-cheek celebration of those '70s K-Tell compilations advertised on late night T.V. This band covered the wimp-rock classic "One Tin Soldier," purposely confusing the legends of Tricky Dick and Billy Jack.

There's lots more Nixon songs on this CD, released in the early '90s when their hero was still alive. But what convinced me to download this wasn't the hilarious cargo-cult-like glorification of the disgraced 37th President. It was even the fact that the album was produced by Memphis wizard Jim Dickinson.

It's because there's a punk apocalypse cover of one of the greatest hits of New Mexico Music Commissioner Tony Orlando: "Knock Three Times." I'm waiting for the band to re-form as The Tony Orlandos.



*In C by Bang on a Can & Terry Riley. Back in my Dr. Strange days, Terry Riley's Rainbow in Curved Air provided the soundtrack to a memorable excursion into the Eternal Vishanti.

Riley, of course is considered a father of minimlism. This collaboration with Bang on a Can on one of his his influential compositions could be considered minimalism to the max. You've got a violin, mandolin, woodwinds, glockenspiel, cello, marimba and who knows what else, all playing off the note of C -- more more than 45 minutes.

It's mediatative without a trace of New Age mush, almost robotic in its pulsating rhythms, yet with undeniable soul.

PLUS:

*"Diamond in Your Mind" by Tom Waits with the Kronos Quartet. This is a single released from an upcoming album called Healing the Divide, a benefit for an organization that provides healtcare and insurance for impoverished Tibetan monks. This is an inspiration little song that Waits wrote for Solomon Burke a few years ago. Unlike some Kronos collaborations, the Quartet doesn't overwhelm Waits. In fact, you barely know they're there.

*2007 Pitchfork Music Festival Sampler Here are 17 free tracks, (including "Kill Yr Idols" from the Sonic Youth album above.)

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, July 8, 2007
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Now Simulcasting 90.7 FM, and out new, stronger signal, 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Penny & The Young Buck by The Gluey Brothers
Stealing Kisses by The Dirty Novels
Teddy Picker by The Arctic Monkeys
Hang on Sloopy by The Remains
Crimson & Clover by Joan Jett
Bits and Pieces by The Dave Clark Five
Little Sister by The Runaways
I'm Cramped by The Cramps

Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn/St. Andrew (This Battle is in the Air) by The White Stripes
Smothered in Hugs by Guided by Voices
Sweet Ride (Never Again) by Moby Grape
Lazy White Boy by Nashville Pussy
Bad Man by The Reigning Sound
Sameday by J. Mascis & The Fog
Shakin' All Over by Johnny Kidd & The Pirates
No More Hotdogs by Hasil Adkins

Resurrection by Swamp Dogg
Commit a Crime by James Blood Ulmer
Atomic Dog by George Clinton
Is That religion by Cab Calloway

Handy Man by Maria Muldaur
Way Down in The Hole by The Blind Boys of Alabama
Did Deeper by The Dynamites featuring Charles Walker
Storm Coming by Gnarls Barkley
Lonley Just Like Me by Arthur Alexander
Diamond in Your Mind by Tom Waits & The Kronos Quartet
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, July 6, 2007
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
Now Simulcasting 90.7 FM, and our new, stronger signal, 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org


OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
In the Jailhouse Now by The Grevious Angels
Amarillo Highway by Terry Allen
Why Do I Feel Like Running? by Big Al Anderson & The Balls
White SIlver Sands by James Luther Dickinson
Mac Attack by Ronnie Dawson
Promenade by The Gourds
Honky Tonk Hell by Webb Wilder
Hesitation Blues by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Satan's River by Porter Wagoner
Waltz of the Angels by Bill Hearne's Roadhouse Revue
The One-Way Hula by Patty Booker
Bluebird by Dallas Good
Jack of Diamonds by The Tarbox Ramblers
A Couple More Years by Jerry Lee Lewis with Willie Nelson
The Wrong Direction Home by Dolly Parton
Crawdad Hole by Big Bill Broonzy

WOODY GUTHRIE TRIBUTE
(Woody was born July 14, 1912. I won't be here that week but wanted to commemorate his 95th birthday.)

Bufallo Skinners by Woody Guthrie
Do Re Mi By John Mellencamp
Pretty Boy Floyd by The Byrds
I Ain't Got No Home by Bruce Springsteen
Vigilante Man by Ry Cooder
Dust Bowl Refugee by James Talley
California Stars by Billy Bragg & Wilco
Pastures of Plenty by Woody Guthrie


I Want to Be With You Always by Lefty Frizzell
A Ghost I Became by Richmond Fontaine
Wish You Were Beer by ThaMuseMeant
Strange Things Happening Everyday by Michelle Shocked
I'm Gonna Change My Ways by Peter Case
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: SANTA FE IS THEIR HOME

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
July 6, 2007

Santa Fe not only is home to many worthy pickers and singers hustling gigs at local bars and coffeehouses but also to a much smaller number of musicians with national or international followings who have made their reputations elsewhere and aren’t active participants in the local music scene.

Two of these, Big Al Anderson and Terry Allen, have dandy new albums that ought to make Santa Feans proud to live in the same city and inspire local listeners to pressure both of them to play some gigs here.

Anderson — who has a house in Santa Fe as well as a home in Nashville — is best known for his 22 years as the lead guitarist and sometimes singer for NRBQ. He’s responsible for some of that band’s greatest songs including “Riding in My Car,” “What a Nice Way to Go,” “It Comes to Me Naturally,” “It Was an Accident,” and “Better Word for Love.”

Pawn Shop Guitars by Big Al Anderson & The Balls is something of a departure from Anderson’s previous solo effort, After Hours. That aptly named album was a showcase for his mellower, prettier, jazzier side. The new one, however, is mainly Balls-out (sorry) roadhouse rock.

That’s clear from the first song, “Something in the Water,” which starts out with Anderson singing excitedly over a drumbeat, “She don’t look like her mother, nothin’ like her father/How else can you explain it/Must be something in the water.” Then the rest of the band comes in, churning out a lusty tribute to a “little Dixie chicken” who grew into a “Mississippi queen.”

“Poor Me,” featuring pedal steel guitar and some crazy slide guitar, shows Anderson’s country side. It’s a joy ride to a honky-tonk. “Drinkin’ on the Weekend” also has country overtones, though it rocks a lot harder.

The title song is a musician’s sweet memory of his early days “bangin’ on chunks of wood.” The refrain is exuberant — “We’re all gonna be stars/Chicks, beers and bars/Pawn shop guitars” — but not as exuberant as Anderson and his band jamming their collective hearts out. You can even hear strains of Hendrix in the song’s fading moments.

There are some quieter tunes too. “Just a Thought,” co-written with Delbert McClinton and Sharon Vaughn, is slow, blue-eyed soul with tremolo guitar and Memphis-style horns. And “Airstream” is a pretty paean to a chrome motor home.

Though most of the material here consists of good-time tunes, there’s one song with seriously dark overtones. “Bigger Wheel” musically sounds like a long-lost John Hiatt song. Starting out as a rather bombastic lost-love tune, “Wheel” turns more sour: “I just ain’t no good at this/I’m tired of being afraid/ Took a lifetime coming to the decision that I’ve made,” Anderson sings. When the narrator talks about “surrendering” to “the bigger wheel,” is he talking about suicide or some kind of spiritual grace?

I’ll leave that to the theologians. All I know is it’s great to hear Big Al rocking.
(This CD is available only at Al's Web site.)

Americana Master Series: Best of the Sugar Hill Years by Terry Allen is set for release Tuesday, July 10. The title is a little misleading. The “Sugar Hill Years” includes almost all of Allen’s recording career, especially since the company has been rereleasing his earlier work and even many of his most obscure music projects. It would have worked just calling it “The Best of Terry Allen” even though it lacks a few cuts I believe should have been included.

If you’re not familiar with this Lubbock Mafia godfather, this CD is a decent way to introduce yourself. (On the other hand, if you are familiar with him, chances are you’re a zealot like me and already own all his CDs, so this one is not necessary.)

Allen is not just a musician; he’s a visual artist as well — a painter, sculptor, and installation artist. His music basically is good old country rock. Since his 1979 album Lubbock (On Everything), he has employed primarily West Texas musicians — most notably steel-guitar great Lloyd Maines — in his Panhandle Mystery Band. He tells hilarious though usually poignant stories about characters mainly from the Southwest.

Probably most of the songs here would be mandatory choices for an Allen best-of. I can’t imagine any such record not starting off with “Amarillo Highway.” (The song’s refrain, “I’m a panhandlin’, man handlin’, post-holin’, high-rollin’, Dust Bowlin’ daddy,” will have to be on Allen’s tombstone.) You couldn’t do this without “Gimme a Ride to Heaven Boy.” (Is it really Jesus or a common carjacker? I’ll leave that to the theologians too.)

And, of course, you couldn’t do it without “New Delhi Freight Train,” which was recorded by the original Little Feat in the 1970s. This is the rocked-out Lubbock (On Everything) original version, not the one recorded with East Indian musicians on Allen’s The Silent Majority.

Great choices that aren’t so obvious to include on this collection are “Peggy Legg,” a twisted song about a one-legged woman on the dance floor (a duet with Jo Carol Pierce), and “The Doll,” an outraged meditation on materialism (“our lord and savior, Jesus Cash”) featuring Middle Eastern instruments.

I would have included songs like “There Oughta Be a Law Against Sunny Southern California” (one of Allen’s finest rockers), “Room to Room” (a duet with Lucinda Williams), and “Ain’t No Top 40 Song” (undistilled rage and violence). But take a listen to this CD, and if you’re hungry for more, seek out those tunes.

Photo notes: The Big Al shot is from his 2006 South by Southwest showcase. Terry Allen is pictured above with Joe Ely at a Santa Fe Brewing Company show last year.