THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, February 13, 2009
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Funnel of Love by Wanda Jackson with The Cramps
Sucker for a Cheap Guitar by Ronnie Dawson
Wild and Free by Hank Williams III
Out There a Ways by The Waco Brothers
Hesitation Blues by Willie Nelson & Asleep at the Wheel
Tough Tough Tough by Andy Anderson
White Trash Girl by Candye Kane
Adios Mexico by Joe "King" Carrasco & Texas Tornados
Dallas Alice by Doug Sahm

California Blues by Alejandro Escovedo with Jon Langford
21 Days in Jail by The Blasters
Give That Love to Me by Ray Campi
Why I'm Walkin' by Johnny Paycheck
Crazy Mixed Emotions by Rosie Flores
Firewater Seeks Its Own Level by Butch Hancock & Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Deep as Your Pockets by Amber Digby
Handyman by C.W. Stoneking
Beer by Asylum Street Spankers

How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live by The Del-Lords
Brother Can You Spare a Dime by Dr. John with Odetta
Hollis Brown by Thee Headcoats
Busted by Ray Charles
Artificial Flowers by Cornell Hurd featuring Blackie White
Going Down This Road Feeling Bad by Doc Watson
Why Do You Bob Your Hair, Girls? by Ann Magnuson

Tangled Up in Love by The Rifters
Willie the Weeper by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Lucille by The Beat Farmers
Loudmoth Cowgirls by Kim & The Cabelleros
Magnificent Seven by Jon Rauhouse
Green Green Grass of Home by Ted Hawkins
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: MUSICAL STIMULUS PACKAGE

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
February 13, 2009

You want a silver lining for this economic crisis? Here's one: hard times often produce great songs. This is a Top 10 list of my favorite tunes about poverty and economic stress.

Steve Terrell's musical stimulus package

1. "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" This Great Depression classic (also known as "Buddy Can You Spare a Dime?"), written in 1931 by Yip Harburg and Jay Gorney — who used a melody based on a Russian lullaby — is the story of a down-and-out World War I veteran. "Half a million boots went slogging through hell, and I was the kid with the drum." Bing Crosby's is the best-known version, but Rudy Vallee also had a hit with it about the same time. But for my dime, the greatest version ever was a bluesy one done in 1992 by Odetta and Dr. John on a charity compilation CD called Strike a Deep Chord: Blues Guitar for the Homeless. Harburg, by the way, went on to write all the lyrics for the songs in The Wizard of Oz.

2. "Busted." The first line tells it all: "My bills are all due and the baby needs shoes, and I'm busted." Harlan Howard wrote it, and Johnny Cash was the first to record it, but the most glorious bust of all was Ray Charles' big-band version in 1963. I'm also fond of the Hazel Dickens hillbilly version on her album Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People.

3. "Inner-City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)." This was the angriest song on Marvin Gaye's masterpiece What's Going On. It's the last song on the album, a five-plus-minute cry of frustration about poverty, war, and "trigger-happy policemen."

4. "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?" This song was written and recorded in 1929 by West Virginia singer Blind Alfred Reed. According to legend, Reed died of starvation in 1956. Ry Cooder covered this song on his first album, as did Bruce Springsteen just a couple of years ago. But the best version is the rocked-up rendition by The Del-Lords in the '80s.

5. "The Ballad of Hollis Brown." Back in the early '60s, Bob Dylan ripped this murder-suicide from the headlines. I don't know the true story, but in the song, farmer Brown is driven to the desperate deed by starvation. "You looked for work and money/And you walked a rugged mile/Your children are so hungry/That they don't know how to smile." The original version is probably the best, but also worthwhile are covers by the Neville Brothers, Thee Headcoats, and The Pretty Things.

6. "Artificial Flowers." Bobby Darin had a hit in 1960 with this song from a Broadway musical called Tenderloin by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick — who would become famous for Fiddler on the Roof. Tenderloin is about a crusading minister in 1890s New York, and this song tells of the need for some serious crusading.

"With paper and shears, with some wire and wax/She made up each tulip and mum/As snowflakes drifted into her tenement room/Her baby little fingers grew numb. ... They found little Annie all covered in ice/Still clutchin' her poor frozen shears/Amidst all the blossoms she had fashioned by hand/And watered with all her young tears."

Darin turned it into an upbeat swing that belied the horrible story, perhaps to emphasize the "happy ending," in which Annie goes to heaven and gets to wear real flowers.

7. "Hard Times Come Again No More." Stephen Foster wrote this in 1854. Hard times, he says, have "lingered around his cabin door." He also admonishes the well-off not to ignore the poverty around them. "While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay/There are frail forms fainting at the door." This tune has been recorded by Dylan, Cash, and Mavis Staples. But my favorite is by a bunch of New Mexico misfits, the Bubbadinos. Mark Weber croaks it with soul, as the Bubbas, backing him on guitar, banjo, tuba, and clarinet, sound like a Salvation Army band in the drunk tank. The overall effect is oddly dignified. It's on the album The Band Only a Mother Could Love. (Check out zerxpress.blogspot.com and click on "The Bubbadinos.")

8. "Rag Doll." Not only is this haunting tune by The Four Seasons one of the finest — if indeed not the finest — single ever produced in the history of popular music, the story of how the song came to be is stirring. In his online column "Classic Tracks," Dan Daley quotes Four Seasons member and songwriter Bob Gaudio:

"I was driving into [Manhattan] for a session and I got stopped at Eleventh Avenue, which back then seemed like the longest traffic light in the world, like three minutes long. ... If you got stopped there, you'd have these homeless people come up and try to wash your windshield for spare change. I saw this hand come up to my windshield and connected to it was a woman whose clothes were all tattered and who had this dirty face, like something out of Oliver. .. I didn't have any change on me. All I had was a ten-dollar bill, so I gave it to her. I drove off and saw her in the rearview mirror just staring at it. That image stayed with me."


9. "I'm Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad." Woody Guthrie is often credited for this song, which plays on the archetype of the happy-go-unlucky hobo. But there are versions that go back to the 1920s — and, I suspect, further. My favorite version is Doc Watson's 1973 take, in which the protagonist is plagued by hard luck, cruel jailers, shoes that don't fit, and climates that don't fit his clothes. He's determined though, and he "ain't gonna be treated this way."

10. Sorry, I can only afford nine.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, February 8, 2009
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Bless You by The Devil Dogs
Lover's Gold by The Dex Romweber Duo
Preacher and the Bear by The Big Bopper
Rebellious Jukebox by The Fall
If I Had a Son by Lone Monk
Coffee Date by Wild Billy Childish & The Musicians of the British Empire
Wildcat Tamer by John Schooley & His One-Man Band
One Monkey Don't Stop No Show by Big Maybelle
Cleo's Mood by Junior Walker & The All-Stars
Dead on Arrival by Jay Reatard
Vanity Surfing by Jesus H. Christ & The Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse

My Soul is a Witness by Alvin Youngblood Hart with Sharon Jones
Death Trip by The Stooges
Lap Dance by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion with Andre Williams
Nudist Camp by Ross Johnson
Madhouse by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Dog Meat by The Flamin' Groovies

LUX INTERIOR TRIBUTE
All songs by The Cramps unless otherwise noted

Zombie Dance
Garbage Man
Voodoo Idol
Riot in Cell Block #9 by Wanda Jackson with The Cramps
Bend Over I'll Drive
Shortnin' Bread by The Ready Men
Papa Satan Sang Louie
Can Your Pussy Do the Dog by The Rockin' Guys

Rockin' Bones
Thee Most Exalted Potentate of Love
Green Fuz by Green Fuz
TV Set
Can't Hardly Stand It by Charlie Feathers
She Said by Hasil Adkins
Sunglasses After Dark
Miniskirt Blues by The Cramps with Iggy Pop
Bikini Girls With Machine Guns
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, February 6, 2009
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Muleskinner Blues by The Cramps
I'm Not That Kat Anymore by Terry Allen
Daddy Was a Preacher, Mama Was a Go Go Girl by Southern Culture on the Skids

Jean Arthur

Marie by Martin, Bogan & Armstrong
I'll Sail My Ship Alone by Cornell Hurd with Tommy Alverson
Mustang Kid by Andy Anderson
Soakin' Wet by Amber Digby
That Little Ol' Winedrinker Me by Miss Leslie
Jean Arthur by Robbie Fulks
You're the Reason Our Kids are Ugly by Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn

Changing All Those Changes by Buddy Holly
Crying, Waiting, Hoping by Marty Stuart & Steve Earle
Skip a Rope by The Kentucky Headhunters
All the Way to Jericho by The Gourds
Time Bomb by The Old 97s
The Golden Inn Song by The Last Mile Ramblers
Junkyard in the Sun by Butch Hancock
Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town by Walter Brennan

Mud/Another Bottle by Rev. Payton & His Big Damn Band
My Baby in the CIA by The Asylum Street Spankers
Sharon by David Bromberg
T'es Pas La Meme by The Pine Leaf Boys
Pine Grove Blues by Mama Rosin
Girl Called Trouble by The Watzloves

Waiting Room by Zeno Tornado & The Boney Google Brothers
Sweet Mary Alice by Possessed by Paul James
I'm Happy by Rev. Beat-Man
Ghost of Hollywood by John Egenes
She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye by Jerry Lee Lewis
Another Place I Don't Belong by Big Al Anderson
Hank Williams' Ghost by Darrell Scott
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: AL & SONNY ON FILM

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
February 13, 2009


Robert Mugge has been making documentaries about his favorite musicians since the mid-’70s. His first was George Crumb: Voice of the Whale, a portrait of the American avant-garde composer. That was soon followed by a movie about Alabama’s most famous space alien, Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise.

The thing I like best about Mugge docs is that the music is never shortchanged. He often lets an entire song play, allowing the music to speak for itself. And while he gives his subjects lots of leeway to tell their stories, Mugge’s interview segments go straight to the core.

Two long out-of-print Mugge movies from the 1980s about very different titans of American music were recently released on DVD by Acorn Media: Gospel According to Al Green (the 25th-anniversary edition) and Sonny Rollins: Saxophone Colossus.The Green movie is one of the finest musical biographies I’ve ever seen.

It opens with Green in a recording studio, picking a guitar, and playfully toying with a song that mainly consisted of the lyrics, “I love you ... I love you with all my heart.” He grins as he reaches the high notes, subliminally invoking the ghost of Sam Cooke. He makes it look so easy. Viewers can’t help but be mesmerized.

The scene shifts to Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., where a tuxedo-clad Green is escorted to the stage by military personnel, and with full band and backup chorus, leads the crowd in a hallelujah gospel stomp. After cutting away for an interview segment, we return to the base, with Green putting his stamp on The Impressions’ “People Get Ready.” He works the crowd and brings down the spirit.

In a 2005 interview, Mugge told me that “the sacred-secular conflict clearly represents both the heart and the soul of Al Green. ... This is a film about love, about the connections between soul music and gospel, and about a man who flew too close to the sun, got his eyeballs burned, and has been singing ever since with fire coming out of his mouth.” (Mugge repeats this almost word-for-word in a director-reflections feature on the new DVD.)

The singer’s conflicts between his big-time soul-star lifestyle and his religious upbringing were starting to tear at him by the mid-’70s. Green’s experience with this battle culminated in violence — on a hellish night in 1974 when a spurned girlfriend threw a pot of boiling grits in his face as he was bathing, causing second-degree burns. She then went into a bedroom and shot herself. Following the suicide, Green became an ordained minister. By the end of the ’70s, he had turned his back on secular music.

Mugge told me that his filmed interview with Green was one of the first times Green publicly talked about some of his darker times.

“Some of his longtime musicians were in the control room of his studio, basically standing there with their mouths hanging open,” the director said. “I learned from them afterward that Al had spoken to me of things that, to their knowledge, he had never discussed with anyone. Naturally, the so-called ‘hot-grits incident’ was, for him, the most painful subject for him to address. But I had the sense that he really did want to talk about it that day — to get the matter out on the table, to let people know exactly what had happened, and then to be done with it.”

But Mugge wouldn’t let his movie become a glorified version of VH1’s Behind the Music. Remember, “gospel” means “good news,” and Gospel According to Al Green is the story of a man who has become comfortable with his contradictions. He laughs when talking about crowds of women trying to rip off his clothes in his early days. He does a version of his hit “Let’s Stay Together” with no hint of compromise. (Those who have seen Green’s shows in recent years know he freely mixes his secular hits with his gospel music.)

Toward the end of the movie, Mugge takes us to Green’s Full Gospel Tabernacle church in Memphis, where Green still preaches — and if this film is any indication, gives amazing musical services — most Sundays.

The new DVD features the above-mentioned Mugge interview, plus an audio version of Mugge’s complete interview with Green, some concert excerpts, and more than an hour of an Al Green church service.

As a film, Sonny Rollins: Saxophone Colossus doesn’t quite measure up to the Green documentary, which was made just a couple of years before. Mugge spends too much time with a trio of near-worshipful jazz critics who don’t shed much light on Rollins’ music. And he spends way too much time on Rollins’ collaboration with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony in Tokyo.

About the last half of the film deals with the world premiere of the sax man’s Concerto for Tenor Saxophone and Orchestra on May 18, 1986. I guess this is just a little too highfalutin for my taste. I’d much rather watch performances like the 15-minute “G-Man” that opens the movie. Shot at an outdoor concert in upstate New York, this footage — and to a lesser extent the excepts from “Don’t Stop the Carnival,” shot at the same show, that end the film — inspired me to seek out Rollins’ album G-Man, which features some of the performances here.

In general, I’d much rather see and hear Rollins in a red sweater backed by a small combo (Clifton Anderson on trombone, Mark Soskin on piano, bassist Bob Cranshaw, and drummer Marvin Smith) in a park than Sonny all gussied up in a tux with a full orchestra in a concert hall.

A December 2005 profile of Robert Mugge I wrote can be found HERE.