Friday, April 08, 2011

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 8, 2011
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
Tex-Mex Mile by The Gourds
Heavy Breathin' by Cornell Hurd
Hallelujah Anyway by Slim Cessna's Auto Club
Callin' In Twisted by The Rev. Horton Heat
Party Dolls and Wine by Eddie Spaghetti
Window Up Above by The Blasters
Roadside Attractions by Marcia Ball
I Miss My Boyfriend by Folk Uke with Shooter Jennings

Six Days on the Road by Taj Mahall
Don't Push Me Too Far by Deke Dekerson
Hambone by Rayburn Anthony
Devil's Right Hand by The Highwaymen
Honky Tonkers Don't Cry by Dale Watson
Treat Her Right by The Riptones
Sparkling Brown Eyes by Webb Pierce
There Stands the Glass by Gal Holiday
Darktown Strutter's Ball by Howard Armstrong

Footprints in the Snow by Bill Monroe & The Bluegrass Boys
Are You Washed in the Blood by Red Allen
Don't Make Me Go To Bed and I'll Be Good by Mac Wiseman
Tragic Romance by The Stanley Brothers
1952 Vincent Black Lightning by Del McCroury Band
Love and Wealth by Earl Scruggs
Salty Dog Blues by Curley Seckler
Lonesome and Dry as a Bone by Joe Diffie
Gosh I Miss You All the Time by Jim & Jesse
Steamboat Whistle Blues by John Hartford

Whiskey Flats by E. Christina Herr & Wild Frontier
Cross My Heart by Martin Zellar
Where's Eddie? by Drive-By Truckers
(Now And Then) There's A Fool Such As I by John Doe & The Sadies
Never Could Walk the Line by Eric Hisaw
Presently In The Past by Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks
Old Rub Alcohol Blues by Doc Boggs
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Stayin' Revived

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 8, 2011


No, it wasn’t just a fad. The most recent “soul revival” began erupting some time after the beginning of the new century. As I’ve said before, at any given time in the past few decades there has probably always been some kind of soul music revival going on somewhere.

And as far as I’m concerned, that’s a good thing.

Sharon Jones has come as close to mainstream success as any independent artist can achieve these days. She and her label mates at Daptone Records keep cranking out exciting music. Bettye LaVette is now getting the recognition she deserved in the late ’60s.

Meanwhile, the likes of Lee Fields, Charles Walker and The Dynamites, Wiley and The Checkmates, J.C. Brooks and The Uptown Sound, and The Diplomats of Solid Sound — not to mention soul crazies like King Khan and The Shrines — roam the planet.

The cool thing, especially with some of the younger warriors in this movement (if you can call it that), is that the best of them aren’t out to merely re-create those glorious Stax/Volt days of yore. You’ll hear the energy of punk rock, the rawness of gutbucket blues, and all sorts of stray influences that keep the sound vital and refreshing.

Here are some recent rock ’n’ soul-drenched CDs that have had me in a cold sweat lately:

* Scandalous by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. This highly anticipated album by the Austin band is the follow-up to the group’s acclaimed 2009 debut, Tell ’Em What Your Name Is. In a recent interview with The Boston Globe, the producer of the album, Jim Eno (also the drummer of Spoon), said he consciously emphasized The Honeybears’ punk influence.

Indeed, several songs sound more like hard rock than sweet soul. “Jesus Took My Hand,” for instance, sounds less like gospel than Black Keys-style minimalist blues-rock. The same is true with “You Been Lyin’,” on which Lewis is backed by a Dallas gospel group called The Relatives.

“The Ballad of Jimmy Tanks,” dominated by the guitars of Zach Ernst and Lewis, sounds like a pumped-up take on some long-lost, primal Junior Kimbrough song. And speaking of blues, it would appear that Lewis and the band had Mississippi in mind on the song “Messin’.” This one owes a lot to Elmore James and John Lee Hooker.

There is a cover song on the album — a passionate take on “Since I Met You Baby.” This song, written by Texas bluesman Ivory Joe Hunter, has been passed back and forth between blues, country, and rock artists for decades. Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, Freddy Fender, Sam Cooke, and even Bobby Vee have taken their turn with this classic. The Honeybears do a slow, swaying take on the tune as Black Joe shouts the lyrics.

But don’t think this band has forgotten its soul roots. “Booty City” gives the Honeybear horn section and everyone else in the band a good workout. “Livin’ in the Jungle,” driven by the horns and a scratchy guitar hook, could be a funky cross between “Gimme Shelter” (the Merry Clayton version of the Stones song) and the Guns N’ Roses hit with a similar name.

Hands down, my favorite song here is the hilarious “Mustang Ranch,” a tale about young Black Joe getting his “ham glazed” during a visit to a legal whorehouse in Nevada. Not only is the story funny, but it’s probably the rockingest track on the whole record.

Unfortunately, when I bought this CD (yes, I’m a critic who frequently buys music!), I didn’t pick up the deluxe edition, which contains four extra songs, including a hard-rocking version of Robert Johnson’s “Stop Breaking Down.” Oh well, that’s why God created downloading.

Check out www.blackjoelewis.com. There you’ll find a link to iTunes, which sells several tracks by Lewis at the South by Southwest Festival last month.

* No Time for Dreaming by Charles Bradley. Although Bradley is more than twice Black Joe Lewis’ age, Lewis has recorded more records than Bradley. Bradley is in his 60s, and this is his first album. He’s knocked around for years from New York to Maine to Alaska to California and back, playing gigs in local bands but mainly earning his living as a cook.

So he’s a late bloomer, but I like this flower. His voice is rough and gritty and more than a little world-weary. His band is a tight little group that seems to be well-versed in the records of Otis Redding and Al Green.

The album starts off with a terse little apoc-soul-liptic tune called “The World Is Going Up in Flames.” A bass line that almost suggests reggae throbs as stuttering horns punctuate Bradley’s growls and moans.

This and the song “Why Is It So Hard,” which starts out with the musical question, “Why is it so hard to make it in America?” might suggest a modern take on Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. (There’s also “Trouble in the Land,” a barely-over-a-minute instrumental that sounds a little like Hugh Masekela’s “Grazin’ in the Grass” — except for the police siren in the background.)

Most of the songs, however, don’t deal with sociopolitical issues. Bradley is usually pleading with lovers in doomed love affairs. And there’s plenty of autobiography here, too. In fact, the climax of No Time is “Heartache and Pain,” which tells the story of Bradley’s brother being shot and killed by a family member.

“I woke up this morning, my mama she was crying/ So I looked out my window/Police lights were flashing/People were screaming so I ran out to the street/A friend grabbed my shoulders and said these words to me/‘Life is full of sorrow. So I have to tell you this/Your brother is gone.’”

He shouts about heartaches and pain, and you believe him.

Blog Bonus:

Here's The Relatives playing with Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears last month at SXSW

Thursday, April 07, 2011

Grammys Shelve Native American and Other Awards

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 7, 2011


In what will undoubtedly be seen as a blow to American Indian musicians in New Mexico, the Recording Academy announced Wednesday that there will no longer be a Grammy Award for Native American music.
Robert Mirabal

The move is part of a major consolidation of Grammy categories announced in Los Angeles. Instead of the 109 categories awarded this year, next year there will be only 78 categories.

“It ups the game in terms of what it takes to receive a Grammy and preserves the great esteem (in) which it’s held in the creative community, which is the most important element,” Recording Academy President and CEO Neil Portnow told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

“This is really disappointing,” said Harlan McKosato of Albuquerque in a telephone interview Wednesday. McKosato, who writes a column on Indian issues for The New Mexican but is best known for hosting the syndicated radio show Native America Calling, has served on the committee that screens entries for the Native American Grammy.

“The Native American category was always in peril,” McKosato said. A major problem was that sometimes there were barely enough entries in a year to qualify, he said. (The minimum was 25 albums.) Only “traditional” Native music was eligible, so Indian rock, blues or jazz bands didn’t qualify, McKosato said.

Also disappointed at the news was Claude Stephenson, the state folklorist and a member of the state Music Commission.

“We were trying to get them to create more categories,” Stephenson said.

The Native American music category was introduced to the Grammys in 2001. In the past 11 years, several albums by New Mexico artists and recordings at New Mexico events won the Grammy for best Native American recording.

Robert Mirabal of Taos Pueblo won in 2008 for his album Totemic Flute Chants. Black Eagle, a Jemez Pueblo drum group, won in 2004 for its album Flying Free.

In 2001 and this year, the Native American Grammy went to various-artist albums recorded live at the annual Gathering of Nations PowWow in Albuquerque.

Black Eagle of Jemez Pueblo
Albums by Native American musicians can still be nominated, but they would compete in a newly created category called “Regional Roots Music,” which also will include traditional Hawaiian and Cajun/zydeco albums — two other categories that were deleted.

Some of the other categories that will disappear are Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel, Traditional Gospel Album, Tejano, NorteƱo, Children’s Spoken Word, Chamber Music, Classical Crossover and Latin Jazz. There will no longer be separate categories for best male and female singers in pop, country or R&B.

“All categories will remain, they’ll just be found in different genres,” Portnow told the Los Angeles Times. “The message isn’t about cutting, it’s about changing the way we present the awards. We welcome all artists who make music in the Grammy process, it’s just going to look a little different.”

The Times said the changes “ “implicitly acknowledge a widespread complaint by industry observers and casual fans that the number of categories had become bloated and unwieldy.”

Sunday, April 03, 2011

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, April 3, 2011
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

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

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Mustang Ranch by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
Chicken Baby by The Monsters
No Reason to Complain by The Alarm Clocks
Snake Pit by Hipbone Slim & The Knee-Tremblers
Love by Country Joe & The Fish
Survive or Die by Nekromantix
Your Haunted Head by Concrete Blonde
Pumpin' For the Man by Ween

Run Run Run by Velvet Underground
Ballad Of The Fogbound Pinhead by Thee Headcoats
Powder Keg by The Fall
Theme From Cheers by Titus Andronicus
Step Aside by Sleater-Kinney
Desdemona by John's Children
Matador by Pinata Protest
Do You Know What I Idi Amin by Chuck E. Weiss with Tom Waits

Wogs Will Walk by Cornershop
Shuffling Spectre by Dan Melchior und Das Menace
One Night of Sin by Simon Stokes
I Can't Hide by The Fleshtones
Monster Blues by Dex Romweber
You Gotta Work by Nathaniel Meyer
Psycho Daisies by The Hentchmen
Loose by Buick MacKane
Pucker Up Buttercup by Paul "Wine" Jones

Brand New memory by Exene Cervenka
Crawdad Hole by Big Jack Johnson
Why Is It So Hard by Charles Bradley
Mama Don't Like My Man by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Johnny Mathis' Feet by American Music Club
Love Letters Straight From Your Heart by Kitty Lester
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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Saturday, April 02, 2011

A Song That Crossed Enemy Lines

UPDATED
 "The krauts ain't following ya too good on 'Lili Marlene'
tonight, Joe. Think somethin' happened to their tenor?"
Cartoon by Bill Mauldin
Here's a little tune I just stumbled upon while looking for something else on YouTube. I remember this melody chiefly as the song they used to play while all the kids skipped out to do square dances during every end-of-the-year May Festival at Nichols Hills Elementary School in the '60s .

But the history of this tune called "Lili Marleen" runs much deeper than that. The lyrics originally were written during World War One by a German soldier. But by 1939 it had been made into a song and was recorded by a German pop singer named Lale Anderson.

It was a hit and was broadcast over Radio Belgade for the benefit of German soldiers. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels got sick of it and, like the Nazi he was, ordered the station to stop playing the record.. But apparently there were so many requests for it from Axis troops all over Europe, Herr Goebbels relented, and Radio Belgrade began using it as its sign-off song every night.

But it's not just the Germans who loved it. It quickly became popular with British soldiers fighting in North Africa . Versions came out in different languages , English, French, Italian, Spanish, probably others.

The lyrics speak of a young soldier on sentry duty, pining for his faraway sweetheart, Lili Marleen. That's a feeling that cuts across all cultures, even on battlefields.

Here's some versions of the song. First here's Lale Anderson, singing it in 1939



Here's German New Wave queen Nina Hagen dueting with Greek singer Nana Mouskouri.



And here's one from the early '90s from an Estonian band called Vennaskond.



And here's a version by Polish rocker Kazik Staszewski



And yes, it has been done in English. (Thanks, Randy!) Here's Marlene Dietrich




(This post was updated 12-5-16 to replace a video that had vanished and to add Zuch Kazik's and Marlene Dietrich's versions. Then it was updated 6-18-20 to replace a bunch of vanished videos.)

For more deep dives into songs, check out The Stephen W. Terrell Web Log Songbook

Friday, April 01, 2011

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 1, 2011
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
Back from the Shadows Again by The Firesign Theatre
Stupid Texas Song by Austin Lounge Lizards
The Weakest Man by Drive-By Truckers
What's Goin' On With Grandpa by The Possum Posse
That's Why I Ride by Gal Holiday
Big Mamou by Waylon Jennings
Lover Please by Kinky Friedman
She's Gone Away by The Blasters
Piss Up a Rope by Ween

Anything Goes at a Rooster Show (Rooster Anthem) by The Imperial Rooster
Reefer Load by Scott H. Biram
Monkey Rag by Asylum Street Spankers
Have You Seen Your Mother Baby Standing in the Shadows by The Hickoids
The Unballed Ballad Of The New Folksinger by Slim Cessna's Auto Club
Each Night I Try by Robbie Fulks
Hogs On The Highway by Bad Livers
I Hate These Songs by Dale Watson


APRIL FOOLS SET 
Foolin' Around by Buck Owens
A Such Such As i by Marti Brom
I'd Rather Be Your Fool Johnny Paycheck
100 Percent Fool by The Derailers
The Fool by Zeno Tornado & The Boney Google Brothers
Fool About You by Ronnie Dawson
Fool About You by Sleepy LaBeef
Honey You Had Me Fooled by The Defibulators
Fool For You by Joe Swank & The Zen Pirates
Doin' What Comes Easy to a Fool by Junior Brown
Fool I Am by Pat Fergusson

Break This Fool by The Texas Saphires
Genitalia of a Fool by Cornell Hurd
That Kind of Fool by Jerry Lee Lewis & Keith Richards
Big Fool by Ronnie Self
Jealous Fool by Jimmy Breedlove
Life of a Fool by Paul Burch
Fools Fall in Love by Butch Hancock
Married Man's A Fool by Ry Cooder
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

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

New Peter Case Rarities Collection Coming


It's a compilation of outtakes, demos, etc. It's called The Case Files, and it's coming May 10.

According to the press release there's even a collaboration with Stan Ridgway. The collection covers his solo career, 1985-2010.

Can't wait? Here's one of the songs, "Round Trip Stranger Blues." (Click to listen, right click to download)

PETER CASE

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, April 28, 2024 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM, 101.1 FM  Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Terrel...