eMusic June

* Last Round by Holy Modal Rounders. If your image of American folk music is some wimpy, self-righteous dude with a guitar spouting tired political platitudes then you need a little Holy Modality in your life. Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber and all their friends and loved ones who drifted in and out of the Rounders, showed how truly subversive folk music can be.

 Like the title implies, this 1978 work was supposed to be the swan song for the Rounders. And in reality, it was their last album until a Stampfel/Weber reunion in 1999. (My theory on the real reason they got back together for the album Too Much Fun was to show the "alternative country" fans of that time how alternative country should really sound like.)

 Last Round includes some remakes of early Rounder "hits" like "If You Want to Be a Bird" (the original got almost famous for being on the soundtrack of Easy Rider. Here it's coupled with "Wild Blue Yonder."); "August 1967 (Hippies Call it STP)" (an ode to a motor oil treatment, I suppose); and "Euphoria," one of the Rounders' earliest songs. This tune was covered by just about every jugband revival groups of the '60s.

There's also some fresh madness, such as Stampfel's bluegrass/klezmer romp "Poison Sugar," the luaty faux Dixieland "Pink Underwear," an earnest Civil War-era "Year of Jubilo" (you should recognize the melody even if you don't recognize the title) and the fine sleaze rock of "Snappin' Pussy."

* The Capitol Years by Johnny Otis. L.A.-based Otis mostly is remembered for two things: 1) "Willie and the Hand Jive" and  2) his role as R&B bandleader, producer and talent scout who is responsible for discovering singers like "Little" Esther Phillips, Big Mama Thornton, Jackie Wilson, Hank Ballard, and Etta James -- who died only days after Otis last January.

That history itself justifies Otis' place in the rock 'n' roll pantheon. But many seem to forget that at one point Otis himself was being groomed as a star. He recorded for Capitol Records in the late '50s. Even though his only major hit from this period was the Bo Diddley influenced "Willie and the Hand Jive," this collection shows that he recorded several tunes that probably should have been much bigger than they were.

"Good Golly" (with its not so subtle allusion to Little Richard) is a fine mindless R&B workout, as is the case with "Hum Ding a Ling" and "Ring-a Ling." Another favorite is "Telephone Baby." (I'm not sure of the identity of the woman singing harmonies  and making sexy noises in the background. Perhaps Marci Lee?) But the craziest is "Three Girls Named Molly Doin' the Hully Gully."

Johnny works Screamin' Jay Hawkins' side of the street with "Castin' my Spell" (helped by singer  Marci Lee) and "Voodoo Woman," a slow blues. And there's a couple of "Hand Jive" sequels. "Willie Did the Cha Cha" puts a pseudo Latin beat on Otis' big hit. Meanwhile, "Crazy Country Hop" is an irresistible swampy "Willie" clone.

Some of these songs feature other vocalists. There's Mel Williams, who takes the lead on "Well, Well, Well," (with a beat that sounds like it's got some New Orleans in it) and a slow, greasy ballad "Little Angel." And then there's  Marie Adams & Three Tons of Joy doing a live R&B take of the old Tin Pan Alley chestnut "Ma He's Making Eyes at Me." I'm not sure if it's live or "fake live" but the screaming teenagers are an essential part of this recording.

*Maverick by George Thorogood & The Destroyers. I believe that Thorogood is one of the most underrated rockers of the '70s and '80s.

This album, which I used to have on cassette tape, is one of his best. Maybe his very best, since, after all, this is where his classic "I Drink Alone" came from. (True confession, I can't hear this song without my mind drifting back to this San Diego strip joint my cousin took me to and to the blonde miracle-in-silicone who danced to it. She truly made the song her very own.)

Thorogood always was a good John Lee Hooker interpreter. Earlier in his career he did a fine "Boogie Chillun" and a respectable "One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer." Here he tackles "Crawlin' King Snake." While it's nowhere near Hooker's original, Thorogood does a snarling, stripped down take on it.

And Thorogood is responsible for the second "Willie and the Hand Jive" I downloaded this month.

Other Thorogood  diamonds on this include "Gear Jammer" with its crazed slide guitar lead that now seems like a precursor to a thousand blues-band bashers; "Go Go Go," a lesser-known Chuck Berry song; and the title song, which yes, is the theme song for the old t.v.western starring James Gardner. Hank  Carter's rooty-toot sax makes this song.

* Cockadoodledon't by Legendary Shack Shakers. I downloaded this one not long before I saw the Shakers with their auxiliary group, the Dirt Daubers at Santa Fe Sol earlier this month.

This is one of their earliest albums, released back in 2002 when Joe Buck was still with them (before he devolved into Joe Buck Yourself)

Besides some crazed, hopped up J.D. Wilkes originals like "Pinetree Boogie," "Blood on the Bluegrass," "Help Me From My Brain" and "Shakerag Holler," there's some crazed, hopped-up covers like Slim Harpo's "Shake Your Hips," the classic "Bullfrog Blues" (the best version of this I've heard since Canned Heat's first album) and Benny Joy's "Wild Wild Lover."

This one's almost as fun as one of their concerts. But not quite.

Enjoy this video I shot at their Santa Fe show:

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, June 22, 2012 
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM 
Webcasting! 
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time 
Host: Steve Terrell 
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org
 OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Bad News by Johnny Cash
Rosa del Rio by Erik Ness
Pink Elephants by Wally Willette
The King of Fools by Bill & Bonnie Hearne with Buck Owens
Ubangi Stomp by Carl Mann
I've Got a Lot of Hiding Left to Do by James Hand
Stealin' Sugar by Ray Batts
That There Boogie by Karen Collins & The Backroads Band
Jug Town by Neil Hamburger
Little Floater by Elizabeth McQueen

Chug a Lug by Mojo Nixon & The World Famous Blue Jays
San Antonio Romero by Cathy Faber's Swingin' Country Band
Yearnin' Burnin' Heart by D.M. Bob & The Deficits
Alligators by Salty Pajamas
Swingin' from Your Crystal Chandeliers by The Austin Lounge Lizards
Tractors, Trucks and Trains by The Dirt Daubers
Burn Your Bra, Baby by Benny Johnson
Gee Baby by Great Recession Orchestra with Maryann Price
Ice Water by Glenn Barber

Turnip Greens by South Memphis String Band
Can You Blame the Colored Man by Banjo Joe (Gus Cannon)
Po' Black Sheep by Carolina Chocolate Drops
Year of Jubilo by Holy Modal Rounders
John Law Burned Downed the Liquor Store by Chris Thomas King & Colin Linden
She's In The Graveyard Now by Earl McDonald's Original Louisville Jug Band
You're Bound to Look Like a Monkey by Hank Penny
B.L.A.C.K. by South Memphis String Band

Follow the Drinking Gourd by Taj Mahal
Never Make Your Move Too Soon by James Luther Dickinson
Same God by The Calamity Cubes
Thy Burdens are Greater Than Mine by Hank Williams
Blue Ridge Mountain Blues by Martin, Bogan & Armstrong
Burnin' Flame by Stevie Tombstone
White Line Fever by Dale Watson
Some Girls by Martin Zellar  & The Hardways
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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TERRELL'S TUNEUP: A Clever Subversive Subtext

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
June 22, 2012

A couple of years ago a trio of roots-rock heroes — Contemporary blues growler Alvin Youngblood Hart, Jimbo Mathus (Squirrel Nut Zippers, etc.) and Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi All Stars) got together under the name South Memphis String Band and recorded a fun little acoustic album called Home Sweet Home, emulating the sound of old time string bands and jug bands of the 1920s and 30s like The Mississippi Sheiks, The Memphis Jug Band, Cannon’s Jug Stompers.

Like I said, it was fun and the talents of the three musicians worked amazingly. And, while many fans expected that record to be a one-off, happily they were wrong. The South Memphis String Band is back with a new member, bassist Justin Showah. And the new one is no sophomore slump. In fact, this one’s got an edge to it.

The central theme of Old Times There...  is race. This integrated  band confronts the topic head on, including songs new and old, including some using archaic, and, frankly, racist lyrics that are bound to shock the squeamish.

“Our aim is to unite the KKK and the NAACP in mutual hatred of SMSB,” Hart joked in the press release for the album. But the real purpose is to display these old attitudes and tensions, confront them head on, poke ‘em and play with them, and unveil some of the underlying truths some of these songs contained. “There was some steppin’ and fetchin’ going on back then,” Hart said, “but there was a clever subversive subtext to it.”

In some songs, the band treats race in a playful manner. “For instance in “B-L-A-C-K,” Dickinson sings one verse, “Some people don’t like their color, but I’m just crazy ‘bout mine / I know I’m white and I’m ugly, but I get by just fine.” In the next verse, Hart has the exact same tale to tell — except he’s black and ugly.

In the song “Turnip Greens,” Hart sings, “Say, the white folks go to college, and the nigra goes to field/ The white folks learn to read and write and the nigra learns to steal.” The song is credited to Sam Chatmon of The Mississippi Sheiks, an influential African American string band back in the 1920s.

Fans of Bob Wills might see a connection with the original lyrics of the western-swing classic “Take Me Back to Tulsa”: “Little bee sucks the blossom, big bee gets the honey / Darkie picks the cotton, white man gets the money.” True, archaic slurs like “nigra” and “darkie” are offensive. But both the Chatmon and the Wills song point out racial and economic injustice.

Booker T. before the MGs

A highlight of the album is a historical vignette recorded in the 20s by that old Jug Stomper Gus Cannon (and originally recorded under the name “Banjo Joe.”) “Can You Blame the Colored Man” is about Book T. Washington — the president of the Tuskegee Institute, visiting President Teddy Roosevelt in the White House in 1901.

Roosevelt is portrayed as cordial and generous: “When Booker knocked on the President’s door, ol’ Booker began to grin/ He almost changed his color, when ol’ Roosevelt said to come in / ‘We’ll have some dinner in a  little while.’”

This White House dinner was a momentous event in the nation’s history. There was anger and dismay among some Southern whites.

One paper, the Memphis Scimitar published an editorial a few days later saying:

“The most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States was committed yesterday by the President, when he invited a nigger to dine with him at the White House.

The Nashville American was more moderate in tone:

“The South refuses social recognition or equality to Booker Washington not because of any hatred of him, not because of his respectability, but in spite of it. It denies him social equality because he is a Negro. That is the South's reason. ... To accord social equality to Negroes of Booker Washington's stamp would be a leak in the dam. It would cause other Negroes to seek and demand the same recognition.”

“Now could you blame a colored man for makin’ them goo-goo eyes,” Hart sings.

Booker T. Washington in this song is as amazed as anyone that a former slave was being welcomed into The White House. According to the song, after the dinner Washington celebrated by hiring a horse and carriage to “take the whole town in.” Sings Hart, “He was drinkin’ wine/He was feelin’ fine.”

There’s another trip to the nation’s capitol here also. In “See the Uncle Sam” is about some Alabama kid who goes to Washington, D.C. to “see the Uncle Sam.” Mathus sings, “Oh when I get to Washington, I’m gonna shout and sing / Gonna holler at old Abe Lincoln and Martin Luther King.” Later there’s a sly reference to Leadbelly’s “Bourgeois Blues,” which was about another trip to Washington in which Leadbelly was treated with far less hospitality than was Booker T. Washington.

Not every song on Old Times There ... is racially charged. There’s some dandy instrumentals as well as some good-times tunes like “Just Like a Monkey,” which has the refrain “You’re bound to look like a monkey when you get old.” This one’s been recorded under various titles by lots of folks, my favorite being Hank Penny’s western-swing rendition.

Basically The South Memphis String Band has created a remarkable record that not only recreates a particular sound from a particular time, but forces a listener to confront what was going on in the world that gave birth to that music.

Quickie recommendation:

* Leaving Eden by The Carolina Chocolate Drops. If you like this Black string-band sound, you should acquaint yourself with this North Carolina trio of young African Americans. This is their latest album.

There are several fiddle and banjo songs here that know from the world of bluegrass — J.E. Mainer’s  “Run Mountain,” “I Truly Understand That You Love Another Man” (which has a discernible Irish undertow) and best of all “Ruby, Are You Mad at Your Man,” which is one of singer Rhiannon Giddens’ most soulful performances.

But nothing’s quite as much fun as “Po’ Black Sheep” a rowdy, stomping tune that makes me wish I’d been at the first party this song was ever played at.

BLOG BONUS

Enjoy some videos:

Here's one of my favorite Alvin Youngblood Hart songs:




Here's the Carolina Chocolate Drops performing a song from Leaving Eden




And here's the immortal Gus Cannon as "Banjo Joe."

Figures of Light This Week on Sound World

There's a special  Terrell's Sound World this Sunday night.

Wheeler Winston Dixon and Michael Downey of the mighty Figures of Light will be joining me by phone for a live interview.

Tune in.  The interview will start shortly after 10 p.m. Moutain Time Sunday

Check out my review of their latest album Drop Dead HERE

Joey Allcorn at Cowgirl Tuesday

UPDATE 6-19 8pm I just got word that the Joey Allcorn show at the Cowgirl is cancelled. Oh well, watch the videos anyway!

I just learned that honky tonk singer Joey Allcorn is going to play The Cowgirl tomorrow night, 8 p.m.

And it says on the Cowgirl website there's NO COVER!

I've played him many times on the Santa Fe Opry and hope to see him at the Cowgirl Tuesday.

Check out the videos below (and dig those tacky Tikis! The bar's called the Kreepytiki.)