SUNDAY POLITICS

Here's a link to Anne Constable's story on Bill Richardson in Iowa.

I did a sidebar of the high and low points of the Richardson campaign so far this year.

Closer to home, here's a story about Marty Chavez attacking Tom Udall over his vote on the national labs budgets.

RICHARDSON'S EARLIEST RACES

My stories about Bill Richardson's first political campaigns ran in today's New Mexican --- as did this 1978 photo of Richardson's weirded beardo stage (which I believe was shot by my old colleague Barbaraellen Koch.)

The story of Richardson's impressive if unsuccessful race against Manuel Lujan in 1980 can be found HERE.

The story of his hard-fought and controversial primary battle against Tom Udall, Roberto Mondragon and others can be found HERE .

More is coming in the next two days inThe New Mexican.

Speaking of politics, there's a new blog for Santa Fe County Democrats, Ward 47-A. Check it out HERE.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, November 30, 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
Hill Country Hot Rod Man by Junior Brown
Maybellene by Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriquez
Riders in the Sky by Dick Dale
Undo the Roght/Somebody's Back in Town by The Flying Burrito Brothers
Red Rumor Blues by Ronny Elliot
Flash of Fire by Hoyt Axton
Thumbelina by Albert & Gage

November by The Rockin' Guys
Jack Ruby by Camper Van Beethoven
Lee Harvey by The Asylum Street Spankers
He Was a Friend of Mine by The Byrds

San Francisco by Ted Hawkins
I Made a Mess of This Town by Scott Miller & The Commonwealth

The Girl on Death Row/Psycho by T. Tex Edwards & Out on Parole
Strangler in the Night by Albert De Salvo (The Buggs)
The Boston Strangler by Johnny Legend
Dolores by Eddie Noack
The Rubber Room by Porter Wagoner
Down in the Wrecking Yard by The Legendary Stardust Cowboy
Way Out in the World by C.W. Stoneking
O'Reilly at the Bar by Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks
Collegiana by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Coffee Blues by John Sebastian & David Grisman
My Walking Stick by Leon Redbone
Cruelle Tendresse by Les Primitifs du Futur
Old Pine Box by The Dead Brothers
Wildwood Fkower by Amy Nelson & Cathy Guthrie
Thanksgiving by Loudon Wainwright III
No Expectations 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: MURDER MADNESS & COUNTRY MUSIC

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 23, 2007

One of the rough edges of country music that has been almost completely smoothed out by Nashville tastemakers in recent decades is the great tradition of hillbilly madness/murder songs. Sure, you can sing proudly about putting your boot in the orifices of approved enemies of the state, but you won’t find the likes of Willie Nelson’s “I Just Can’t Let You Say Goodbye” or even Marty Robbins’ slightly milder “Laura (What’s He Got That I Ain’t Got)” on today’s safe and sanitized country radio.

The world of alternative country, of course, always has had an odd fascination with the dark side of country music.

But before anyone had ever heard the term “alt country,” a band of misfits called T. Tex Edwards & Out on Parole released Pardon Me, I’ve Got Someone to Kill, consisting of honky-tonk tales of crime and psychosis. Originally released in 1989 on the Sympathy for the Record Industry label, it’s been re-released recently by Saustex, based in Texas. The sound definitely is lo-fi — tinny even — but Pardon Me is a real kick.

To start with, the album contains some well-known classics of the sub-subgenre. There’s the title song, which originally was recorded by Johnny Paycheck. Here the narrator calmly tells a barroom buddy that he’s about to commit a crime of passion.

Edwards does a respectable take on the late Porter Wagoner’s horror tale, “The Rubber Room.” If there’s an Out on Parole reunion, I suppose they could do “Committed to Parkview,” an exploration of a similar theme penned by Johnny Cash and sung by Wagoner this year on his final album, Wagonmaster.

And Edwards does a pretty good version of “Psycho,” which was written by the great blind bard Leon Payne (best known for writing Hank Williams’ “Lost Highway”). A one-hit country wonder named Jack Kittel recorded perhaps the definitive version of this black-humor honky-tonker. Elvis Costello also recorded a version back in the ’80s, though I first heard it done by ex-Angry Samoan Gregg Turner here in Santa Fe. The narrator is talking to his mother, talking about killing a couple, about his crazy dreams, and his doubts about his sanity. “I woke up in Johnny’s room, mama/Standing right there by his bed/With my hands around his throat, mama/Wishing both of us were dead.” But is his mother really listening?

Considering that Edwards doesn’t have the voice of Johnny Paycheck, Porter Wagoner,or even Jack Kittel, the true gems of this album are the obscurities, oddities, and little-known novelty tunes. They include “The Girl on Death Row,” written by none other than Lee Hazelwood (I don’t think he ever sang this with Nancy Sinatra); “LSD Made a Wreck of Me,” a cautionary drug tale (“I started using LSD, it gave me quite a kick/Better than booze and easy to use/But it made me mentally sick”); and “Dolores,” a sad saga of a hapless serial killer who accidentally murders his own sweetheart. If only she’d listened to him and stayed inside!

The weirdest one here is “Strangler in the Night,” which has lyrics allegedly written by Albert DeSalvo, believed by many to be “the Boston Strangler.” When DeSalvo was in prison, a Cambridge record company actually released a spoken-word single with greasy ’50s-style slow-dance rock (reportedly by a Boston band called The Bugs) behind someone with a good radio voice reciting DeSalvo’s lyrics: “I don’t know a woman/And yet I crave on/My mind tells my body/Don’t just stand there, get one!” (You can find an MP3 of the original HERE.)

My one complaint about Pardon Me is that the liner notes should be better. We should know more about Johnny Legend, who wrote the song “Smitty” (and also ballads about the Boston Strangler, the Black Dahlia killing, etc.), and about where these other songs came from. But even without satisfying your inquiring mind, these songs are a twisted delight.

Also Recommended:
* Satisfied by John Sebastian & David Grisman. After immersing myself in the tasty but gruesome T. Tex Edwards album for the purposes of writing this review (the things I go through for you people!), a little nice music sounds pretty good and clears the palate. And good music doesn’t get much nicer and friendlier than this recent collaboration between mandolin master Grisman and former Lovin’ Spoonful frontman Sebastian.

These guys played together with Maria Muldaur and other future stars of folk in The Even Dozen Jug Band more than 40 years ago.
According to the liner notes, they hadn’t seen much of each other in 40-some years. But on this album they sound like they’ve been playing together forever.

My favorite songs are covers of Mississippi John Hurt: “I’m Satisfied,” plus “Coffee Blues,” the song that gave Sebastian’s famous band its name (“I’ve just got to have me my lovin’ spoonful”).

* The Other Side of the Mirror: Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965 by Bob Dylan. Every few years, I guess, the rock ’n’ world needs another excuse to get all hot and bothered at the holier-than-thou folkie purists who got so hot and bothered over Dylan “going electric.”

This DVD contains that magic moment at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when Dylan came onstage with members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band with their (shudder) electric instruments.

While the folkie hecklers deserve all the scorn they’ve received, watching Dylan’s crazed version of “Maggie’s Farm” captured here shows why they were shocked. Dylan and his band are ablaze. He wasn’t singing about freedom anymore; he was living it.

ROUNDHOUSE ROUND-UP: FUN WITH POLLS

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
November 22, 2007

A new SurveyUSA poll on the New Mexico U.S. Senate race, performed on behalf of KOB-TV, confirms results of some other polls that have floated around in recent days.

Basically, U.S. Rep. Tom Udall is ahead of everyone in both the Democratic primary (where he has a near 2-to-1 edge over Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chávez) and the general election (where he’s leading Republican Reps. Heather Wilson by 15 points and Steve Pearce by 14 points.)

In the GOP primary, according to this poll, Wilson beats Pearce by 19 points. In a general election matchup, Wilson is ahead of Chávez by only 1 point. Pearce would defeat Chávez by 10 percentage points.

Where it gets fun is when you look at the demographic groups supporting the various candidates. In the Republican primary, Wilson is beating Pearce among Republicans who call themselves conservatives and those who call themselves moderate.

But here’s the surprise: Pearce — the man from Hobbs who has perfect or near-perfect ratings from a wide spectrum of conservative interest groups — is mopping up the earth with the more moderate Wilson among Republicans who identify themselves as liberals. He’s winning the liberal wing of the state GOP 70-18 percent.

One has to wonder: How many times did they call Dave Cargo?

But seriously, only 4 percent of the 500-plus New Mexico Republicans interviewed by SurveyUSA called themselves liberal.

On the Democratic side, Udall is ahead of Chávez in every demographic group except voters between the ages of 18 and 34. There, Chávez has a 4-point advantage. Maybe it’s all that fancy Internet stuff Chávez has been doing, such as his recent online town hall.

Udall has a 1-point lead among Hispanics.

The automated poll was conducted last weekend. A total of 1,737 registered voters were called. The margin of error was 2.5 percent in the general election questions, 4 percent in the Democratic primary questions and 4.4 percent in the Republican primary questions.

Meanwhile, back in Iowa: The ABC News/Washington Post poll of Iowa voters caused a stir this week — mainly because it had Sen. Barack Obama edging out front-runner, Sen. Hillary Clinton, for the first time.

Gov. Bill Richardson is in a distant fourth place, behind Sen. John Edwards. As in other recent Iowa polls, Richardson is returning to low double digits (11 percent here) after slipping for several weeks.

But again, the real fun is in the breakdown of the numbers.

There’s one issue in which the 500 likely Democratic caucus-goers polled say Richardson is the best qualified: immigration. A full quarter of those polled say Richardson is the best candidate on this issue. Obama comes in second with 22 percent.

Unfortunately for Richardson, only 2 percent of the Democrats surveyed said immigration is the most important issue. The most important issue for Democrats, according to the poll, is Iraq, which got 33 percent. Only 15 percent said Richardson is the best candidate on this issue.

Richardson tied for second with Edwards on the question of which candidate had the best experience. They each got 16 percent. However, Clinton led this question with 38 percent of those polled.

While newspaper and magazine profiles about Richardson almost inevitably mention the fact he holds the world’s hand-shaking record, this poll shows Richardson should be shaking more hands in Iowa.

Thirty-three percent of Democrats polled said they’d met one of their party’s 2008 candidates. But of those, only 22 percent said they’d met Richardson. Again, he’s in fourth place in this category. The leader here is Obama. More than half of those who said they’d met a candidate said they’d met the Illinois senator.

Birthday boy: Richardson undoubtedly shook lots of hands last Friday at a birthday party thrown for him by Andrew and Sydney Davis in Santa Fe. (His actual birthday was the day before, but he was busy that night at the Democratic debate in Las Vegas, Nev.)

According to those who were there, the place was crowded with politicians, government officials and a couple of Hollywood types, including producer Taylor Hackford and Scottish actor Gerard Butler.

Also spotted were Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, state Democratic Chairman Brian Colon, congressional candidate Don Wiviott and state House contender Brian Egolf.

Tom Udall was there — and was acknowledged by the birthday boy. But apparently not Marty Chávez. Could that have any political significance?

The Davises are best known for building a 26,000-square-foot residential complex on a hill overlooking Hyde Park Road. The mansion is still under construction, so the party was held at their current Santa Fe home. Andrew Davis is known to be a generous contributor to state and local Democrats. However, a check of federal election records shows he’s contributed not only to Richardson’s presidential campaign this year, but also to Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Guiliani.

I smell a rat!: While enjoying the aroma of your turkey and pumpkin pie on this Thanksgiving day, say a little prayer for the workers at the state Child Support Enforcement field office in Santa Fe.

On Wednesday, several workers had to work in different offices because the smell was so bad. One employee said there were dead mice in the old building’s ventilation system.

A spokeswoman for the state Human Services Department confirmed the agency had to call an exterminator to get rid of the dead rodents.