THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 5, 2013 
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
Long Road Home by Wayne Hancck
Let's Elope Baby by Kelli Jones-Savoy
Overunderstimulated by The Imperial Rooster
Sweeter Than the Scars by Shinyribs
Burn the Place to the Ground by The Dinosaur Truckers
Julia Belle Swain by The Howlin' Brothers
The Other Life by Shooter Jennings
Harder Than Your Husband by Frank Zappa with Jimmy Carl Black
That's Alright Mama by The Country Blues Revue

Frogs by The Handsome Family
You Can Come Crying to Me by Carla Olson with Juice Newton
He Calls That Religion by Maria Muldaur
Jesus Triology by The Electric Rag Band
Hesitation Blues by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
New Old Blue Car by Peter Case

76 Years Young on Saturday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HAG!

I'll Fix Your Flat Tire Merle by Pure Prairie League
All My Friends Are Gonna Be Strangers by Merle Haggard
Swinging Doors by Justin Trevino & Johnny Bush
My Own Kind of Hat by Rosie Flores
Sweet Georgia Brown by Johnny Gimble with Merle Haggard
If You've Got the Money, I've Got the Time by Merle Haggard
Today I Started Lovin' You Again by Rufus Thomas
You Don't Have Very Far to Go by Lucinda Williams
Someday We'll Look Back by Merle Haggard

The Band Played On by Richard Thompson & Christine Collister
Took the Children Away by Roger Knox & The Pine Valley Cosmonauts
Walk Through This World With Me by Don Rich
The Cold Hard Truth by George Jones
The Apathy Waltz by Junior Brown
Queenie's Song by Terry Allen
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Like the Santa Fe Opry Facebook page 

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Bitter Tears from Australia

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
April 5, 2013

Back in the mid-’60s, when I was but a lad, my mom, knowing how much I liked Johnny Cash, gave me an unusual album. It was called Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian.

Unlike the other Cash records I had, there were no big radio hits on this one. It had to be one of the angriest county albums released on a major label in the ’60s — or, come to think of it, ever. The songs were all about broken promises, broken lives, damned rivers, and damned peoples.

And yet, there was some wicked humor in at least one song, a “tribute” to a certain notorious Indian fighter: “I can tell you, buster, I ain’t a fan of Custer/And the general he don’t ride well any more.” Like most the songs on the album, “Custer” was written by Peter La Farge, son of the late Santa Fe writer Oliver La Farge.

There’s a recently released CD that deals with the plight of indigenous people, and it’s not about American Indians: Stranger in My Land by Aborigine singer Roger Knox (backed by Chicago’s Pine Valley Cosmonauts). The stories told take place in different locales than those on Bitter Tears, but many of the themes are similar.

Knox has been performing and recording in the land down under for more than 30 years. This collaboration with the Cosmonauts, a loose-knit country-rock collective headed by Jon Langford (best known for his work in The Mekons and The Waco Brothers) is his American debut.

The teaming was instigated by Langford, who first read about Knox in a book by Australian author Clinton Walker called Buried Country, which chronicles Aboriginal country musicians. In a recent Chicago Tribune interview, Langford said that the book “really struck a chord in me, that black people in Australia would use basically a white American music form as a way of telling their stories.”

For this album Langford gathered an impressive bevy of guests including fellow Mekon Sally Timms, R & B codger Andre Williams, and American country giant Charlie Louvin (who died since he contributed his vocals to the song “Ticket to Nowhere”). Kelly Hogan, Will Oldham, and Tawny Newsome added some vocals, and The Sadies, a Canadian band that has collaborated with Langford before, became honorary Cosmonauts.

There are several sentimental wish-I-was-back-home tunes here, a familiar theme in American country music. There is “Home in the Valley” (with sweet harmonies by Timms) and “Blue Gums Calling Me Back Home,” in which Knox gets nostalgic about “a land where the kangaroos and emus roam.”

In “The Land Where the Crow Flies Backwards,” Dave Alvin and Knox’s son Buddy swap electric-guitar leads as Knox tells about a previous career herding cattle and admits to the harsh brutalities of the cowboy’s life: “The mosquitoes and flies torment you, and the sun beatin’ down so hard/You might think it’s a hell of a place, but to me, it’s my own back yard.” In “Streets of Tamworth,” he longs for “didgeridoos droning in the night,” “the taste of porcupine,” and being where “the white man’s ways won’t bother me no more.”

There are also some scathing political songs. “Warrior in Chains” is about an Aborigine inmate who commits suicide in an Australian prison. (Knox, as well as many of the songwriters whose works are on this album, spent some time within the Australian corrections system.) “Brisbane Blacks” deals with alcoholism among the Aborigines. “Wayward Dreams” is about the destruction of tribal customs because they don’t fit into the white man’s “wayward scheming dreams.”

And most heart-wrenching of all is “Took the Children Away,” written by Archie Roach. This is about the cruel Australian policy of taking Aborigine children from their homes in an attempt to assimilate them into the white culture. The policy officially ended around 1970.

My favorite song is “Scobie’s Dream,” a lighthearted tune about a drunk with severe d.t.’s. Poor Scobie hallucinates about an animal hoedown — “dancin’ kangaroos,” “two black crows playing the old banjo,” “Mr. Bandicoot in a gabardine suit dancing with a little brown pig,” etc. — for a whole week. The song, written by Dougie Young, is described in the liner notes as about “a jailbird and a drunk.” It exemplifies country music’s proud tradition of finding weird humor in even the most tragic situations.

Also recommended:

* My World Is Gone by Otis Taylor. Many of the best songs on My World Is Gone, like the material on Roger Knox’s album, deal with the plight of tribal people — in Taylor’s case, American Indians. The Denver bluesman is aided by Mato Nanji of Indigenous, a Native blues-rock band, on about half the tracks.

The most memorable “Indian songs” here are the title cut, a slow lament featuring Nanji’s guitar and fiddle by Anne Harris; “Sand Creek Massacre Mourning,” which deals with a 1864 attack by the Colorado militia (and a company of New Mexico volunteers) on Cheyenne and Arapaho villages in which mostly women and children were slaughtered; “The Wind Comes In,” featuring some tasty interplay between Nanji’s guitar, Brian Juan’s electric organ, and Taylor’s banjo; and the quick-paced “Lost My Horse,” a re-recording of a song that first appeared on Taylor’s 2001 album White African.

As usual, Taylor’s lyrics are sparse, repetitive, and short on detail. The words provide a loose framework, and he lets the instruments create the mood. Sometimes only Taylor seems to know what the song is actually about.

For instance, I had no idea what “Girl Friend’s House” was about until I read the liner notes: “After catching his wife in bed with her girlfriend, the husband decides he wants to join in.” I listened to the song a couple of more times to try and catch some juicy details, but alas, I could find none.

Blog Bonus:

Here's Roger Knox with the Pine Valley Cosmonauts live in San Francisco. Sally sounds especially lovely here.

One Hundred Years of Muddy Waters!

Muddy Waters was born 100 years ago today.

It oughtta be a national holiday, dammit!

Muddy might not have realized it at the time, but truly he helped get America's mojo working.

He died in 1983, but his music lives on.

So even though we don't get the day off, show your patriotism and take a few minutes off work and watch these videos. You owe it to Muddy. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to America.

Happy birthday Mr. Morganfield.

Here's Muddy on television in Europe in 1960 with Sonny Boy Williamson, and a band featuring Willie Dixon and others



Here's Muddy around the same time at the Newport Jazz Festival


And here's Muddy with a bunch of British guys in the early '80s.

The Question Mark Interview

In case you missed my live interview with the one and only Question Mark of Question Mark & The Mysterians, you can listen to it here through the magic of Mixcloud.

The actual interview starts about 20 minutes into the show following some hard thumping garage rock (including some of the bands I saw at The Detroit Breakdown at Lincoln Center in New York in 2010 -- where I saw Question Mark & The Mysterians for the first time ever. (There's also a little fumbling when I was having trouble getting the telephone to come out over the air.)

Be sure to listen to the end, or you'll miss the story of how Question Mark was nearly crushed to death by Meat Loaf in a rollaway bed.

So wake your friends, slap your neighbors and listen to this crazy stuff.

Terrell's Sound World 03-31-13 Question Mark Interview by Steve Terrell on Mixcloud

And while you're at my Mixcloud site, enjoy some of my other radio shows and podcasts posted there.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, March 31, 2013 
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(at)ksfr.org

 OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Motorhead with Me by Nobunny
Rock 'n' Roll Victim by Death
Detoit Breakdown by The Gories



I Need Somebody / Got To by Question Mark & The Mysterians
Question Mark Interview (Avasilable online HERE)
96 Tears by Aretha Franklin
Question Mark Interview conclusion



Howlin' For My Woman by King Salami & The Cumberland 3
Geraldine by The A-Bones
Mama Get the Hammer by Barrence Whitfield
Bad Rap by Joe "King" Carrasco & The Crowns
Break the Spell by Gogol Bordello
Bonnie by The Rodeo Carburettor
Hold by Hips by Dengue Fever
Peter Cottontail by The Bubbadinos

Sal-a-Faster by Swamp Dogg
Swamp Dogg's Hot Spot by Andre Williams
After the Rain by Mission of Burma
Woman by Jim Carrol with Lee Renaldo, Lenny Kaye and Anton Sanco
Run Through the Jungle by Link Wray
Murder in My Heart for the Judge by Moby Grape
96 Tears by Big Maybelle
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Like the Terrell's Sound World Facebook page

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

A Song for Every Year in My Life

My friend Chuck sent an e-mail yesterday to a select group of cronies telling how another friend of his, who will turn 50 this year, made a list of his favorite songs for every year he's been alive. Chuck decided to try it himself and issued a challenge for us to do the same.

I grumbled at first because I have 10 years on all these guys. But in the end I couldn't resist.

So here's what I came up with:

1953 How Much is That Doggy in the Window by Patti Page (OK, I had crappy taste before I turned one!)
1954 Work with Me Annie by Hank Ballard & The Midnighters
1955 16 Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford
1956 Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis Presley
1957 Peggy Sue by Buddy Holly
1958 Yakety Yak by The Coasters
1959 Mack the Knife by Bobby Darin



1960 He'll Have to Go by Jim Reeves
1961 Baby It's You by The Shirrels
1962 Having a Party by Sam Cooke
1963 Hot Pastrami With Mashed Potatoes by Joey Dee & The Starlighters
1964 Rag Doll by The Four Seasons
1965 Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones
1966 96 Tears by Question Mark & The Mysterians
1967 White Rabbit by The Jefferson Airplane
1968 Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf
1969 Born on the Bayou by Creedence Clearwater Revival


1970 Instant Karma by John Lennon
1971 Someday We'll Look Back by Merle Haggard
1972 Freddy's Dead by Curtis Mayfield
1973 Sail on Sailor by The Beach Boys
1974 I'm a Ramblin' Man by Waylon Jennings
1975 Gloria  by Patti Smith
1976 Isn't She Lovely by Stevie Wonder
1977 Psycho Killer by The Talking Heads
1978 The Beat by Elvis Costello & The Attractions
1979 Rock Lobster by The B52s

1980 Hot Head by Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band
1981 Marie, Marie by The Blasters
1982 Mexican Radio by Wall of Voodoo
1983 In a Big Country by Big Country
1984 Sharkey's Day by Laurie Anderson
1985 Don't Slander Me by Roky Erikson
1986 The Old Main Drag by The Pogues
1987 One Time, One Night by Los Lobos
1988 Love and Mercy by Brian Wilson
1989 The Future by Prince



1990 Bikini Girls with Machine Guns by The Cramps
1991 Jack Pepsi by TAD
1992 Youth Against Fascism by Sonic Youth
1993 50 ft Queenie by P.J. Harvey
1994 Where Did You Sleep Last Night by Nirvana
1995 Plenty Tuff and Union Made by The Waco Brothers
1996 The Curse of Milhaven by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
1997 Dancing With the Women at the Bar by Whiskeytown
1998 Tallacatcha by Alvin Youngblood Hart
1999 Filipino Box Spring Hog by Tom Waits


2000 Cast No Shadows by The Mekons
2001 Ruination day by Gillian Welch
2002 No Confidence by Simon Stokes
2003 Sink Hole by Drive-By Truckers
2004 Be My Love by NRBQ
2005 Goin' on Down to the BBQ by Drywall
2006 My Eyes by Tony Gilkyson
2007 American Wedding by Gogol Bordello
2008 Wreck My Flow by The Dirtbombs
2009 Lover's Curse by The A-Bones






2010 Psycho by Nick Curran & The Lowlifes
2011 It's Mighty Crazy by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
2012 Black Mold by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

Try it yourself and feel free to post in comments section.

Update 8:38 p.m. Just noticed that I'd left out 1985 in original version. Sorry, Roky! Also I corrected the "126 Tons" that a couple of folks were kind enough to point out.

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, March 29, 2013 
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
Red Red Robin by Rosie Flores
Polka de Nalgas by The Imperial Rooster
Big Time by The Howlin' Brothers
Scobie's Dream by Roger Knox & The Pine Valley Cosmonauts
Sunshine Special by Roy Acuff
My Old Man Boogie by The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
Hog-tied Over You by Tennessee Ernie Ford & Ella Mae Morse
Sure-Fire Kisses by Goldie Hill & Justin Tubb
She's My Five Foot Five by Joel Savoy
Owls by The Handsome Family

Cappuccino Boogie by Wayne Hancock
Ramblin' Man by Waylon Jennings
Wild and Lonesome by Shooter Jennings with Patty Griffin
Honey You Had Me Fooled by The Defibulators
And in Time by Country Blues Revue
Saved by The Band
Lament by The Gourds
The Man That Wrestles the Bear by Southern Culture on the Skids

Old Spur Line by Legendary Shack Shakers
Drinkin' My Baby Goodbye by Charlie Daniels
Much Too Young for Young by Barney Burcham
Root Beer by Buck Owens
Whiskey by Scott H. Biram
If You Don't Love the Lord by The Beaumonts
Muleskinner Blues by The Cramps
I Just Can't Let You Play Goodbye by Willie Nelson
Don't Remember Me by The Misery Jackals

She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye by Swamp Dogg
Huckleberry Blues by Otis Taylor
The Sunny Side of the Moon by Johnny Dilks & The Vistacion Valley Boys
8:05 by Carla Olson & Peter Case
Kansas Waltz by The Calamity Cubes
Were You There When They Crucified My Lord by Johnny Cash
The Pilgrim by Steve Earle
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Like the Santa Fe Opry Facebook page 

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE
Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Swamp Dogg Rising

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
March 29, 2013

Great news for fans of the soul man known as Swamp Dogg: Alive/Naturalsound records has just re-released Mr. Dogg’s first two albums, Total Destruction to Your Mind and Rat On! Both have been out of print for years.

I know there are members of the cult of Swamp Dogg among my readership. But there’s a good chance that the vast majority of readers have no idea who he is.

Born Jerry Williams in Portsmouth, Virginia, more than 70 years ago, he began recording in the mid-1950s under the name of Little Jerry and later “Little Jerry Williams.” His Swamp Dogg persona didn’t emerge until 1970 with Total Destruction to Your Mind. Rat On! followed the next year.

Despite having a wonderful, sometimes piercing high voice, Swamp Dogg managed never to become a mainstream success. His biggest success is probably being the co-writer — along with fellow soul-belter Gary “U.S.” Bonds — of “She’s All I Got,” a huge country hit for Johnny Paycheck in the early ’70s.

But Swamp Dogg was intent on forging his own path in the music world. Years before it was fashionable, he bolted the big labels and started his own independent company, Swamp Dogg Entertainment Group, even though that meant leaner record sales and relative obscurity.

Another possibility is that these albums didn’t go platinum because of the covers, which were punk-rock in spirit years before punk.

The cover of Total Destruction features a fuzzy photo of Swamp in his underwear with what might be a saucepan on his head, sitting on what looks like a garbage truck. Rat On! has a picture of Swamp Dogg wearing a snazzy black-and-white pimp cap and matching shirt and riding a large white rat the size of a horse.

(The strange, sometimes off-putting Swamp Dogg album covers never stopped. His 2003 record If I Ever Kiss It … He Can Kiss It Goodbye shows Swamp Dogg in a rather conservative suit surrounded by oversized disembodied tongues and lips. Then in 2007 there was Resurrection, which had a cover depicting the singer nailed to a cross, clad only in an U.S.-flag loincloth.)

But you can’t judge a record by the cover, so those who skipped the early Swamp Dogg records because of the album art did themselves a disservice. Especially when it comes to Total Destruction to Your Mind.

The title song opens the album, with Swamp making an overt “I Am the Walrus” reference (“Sittin’ on a corn flake …”). It’s an upbeat, gospel-infused tune, but despite the surreal lyrics and some subdued wah-wah guitar, I wouldn’t call this a “psychedelic” soul song as countless other writers have. It’s just good-time Southern soul. Swamp refers to “psychedelic music to blow my mind” in the next song, “Synthetic World.” But the music on this tune is sweet and mellow.

I can almost imagine the late Richard Manuel of The Band singing the song “The World Beyond,” a lament taking place in some post-apocalyptic reality. (Believe it or not, this was written by Bobby Goldsboro, most famous for the sap masterpieces “Honey” and “Broomstick Cowboy.”) And I’m not sure which reality “I Was Born Blue” came from. In the refrain, Swamp sings, “Why wasn’t I born with orange skin and green hair like the rest of the people in the world?”

One of the harder-edged tracks here is the slow-burning, swampy “Sal-a-Faster,” which starts out with Swamp confessing, “I just hafta always stay plastered …” But the song in which he seems to be having the most fun is “Redneck,” which was written by Joe South. That’s one of two South songs here, the other being “These Are Not My People,” which is about a young woman who falls victim to the temptations of the wild side of life.

Total Destruction ends with a couple of tunes that perhaps should have been called “The Paternity Suit Suite.” “The Baby Is Mine” is about tensions between a guy and his ex-love’s husband. “You can bet your life, she might be his wife/but the baby is mine,” Swamp sings. The next tune, “Mama’s Baby, Daddy’s Maybe,” is a straight-up blues about a “wild” woman married to a brown-eyed man who is worried whether his blue-eyed child is really his.

Rat On! starts out with “Do You Believe,” which has Swamp pondering the political landscape of the day. “Do you believe in the NAACP/Or the Ku Klux Klan/The Panther Party/or in Uncle Sam?”

But the theme changes to personal domestic matters in the next song. “Predicament #2” is about a guy with a loving wife and child as well as a mistress on the side. “One woman keeps my heart and the other keeps my family,” he sings.

Later in the album, he sings about a more unusual situation. “That Ain’t My Wife” is about a guy who walks into his old house and watches a couple making out on the couch. He leaves, gets some booze at a liquor store, and goes back to the house just to make sure.

Two of my favorite songs on Rat On! are covers. Swamp Dogg does a stirring version of The Bee Gees’ “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You.” But even better is his soul-soaked take on a Mickey Newberry classic, “She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye.” Right now I can’t decide whether I like this song best by Swamp Dogg or Jerry Lee Lewis.

Terrell questions Question Mark: I’m crying 96 tears of joy right now, because I will be doing a radio interview with the one and only Question Mark of Question Mark & The Mysterians on Sunday, March 31, on my radio show, Terrell’s Sound World.

Tune in for some words of wisdom from one of the founding fathers and unascended masters of what became known as garage rock. The show starts at 10 p.m., and the interview will begin about 10:15 p.m. That’s on KSFR-FM 101.1 and streaming live on the web at www.ksfr.org

Video Bonus:

Here's a fairly recent performance by Mr. Dogg:



The one time I got to see Swamp Dogg live, back in the late '90s I believe, this John Prine classic  was my favorite song he did. This version was recorded during the Iraq war:

Terrell Questions Question Mark on KSFR This Sunday

Question Mark in NYC 2010

I'm crying 96 tears of joy right now.

This Sunday night,  I'll be doing a live radio interview of the one and only Question Mark of Question Mark & The Mysterians.

That's Sunday, March 31 on Terrell's Sound World, KSFR, 101.1 FM  and streamin' atcha, screamin' atcha at www.ksfr.org.

My show, as always, starts at 10 pm. The interview will start about 10:15 p.m.

If you miss it, you're gonna cry, cry, cry, cry ...

By the way, I kick off the latest Big Enchilada podcast with a live song by Question mark & The Mysterians.

Until then, enjoy a magical moment from the show I saw in New York in 2010, where the band was joined by Ronnie Spector.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, March 24 , 2013 
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(at)ksfr.org

 OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Don't Break This Heart of Mine by Question Mark & The Mysterians
Little Girl by The Syndicate of Sound
Medication by The Standells
Red Hot by Sam the Sham & The Pharoahs
Miniskirt Blues by Simon Stokes & The Heathen Angels
(Your Love is Like a) Ramblin' Rose by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Do the Clam by The Cramps
What Hath God Wraught? by The Soledad Brothers
Poontang by The Treniers
Sit With the Guru by Strawberry Alarm Clock

Jump into the River by Roy Loney with The A-Bones
Skinny Minnie by The Sonics
Flea Market Rock by The Scrams
I'm a Hog For You Baby by Screaming Lord Sutch
Outrun the Law by The Things
Money Shot Man by Churchwood
All Kinds of Twisted by Acid Fascists
Old Folks Boogie by Jack Oblivian
Good Night, Sleep Tight by The Bloody Hollies

Mohawk by Chelsea Light Moving
Fisticuffs by Primus
What Was That by Dinosaur Jr
Civilized by The Rollins Band
After the Rain by Mission of Burma
Hippy Dippy Do by Rocket From the Crypt
Some Velvet Morning by The Frontier Circus

Total Destruction to Your Mind by Swamp Dogg
Directly From My Heart to You by Frank Zappa featuring Don "Sugarcane" Harris
Plastic Man by The Temptations
Holy Rock by Rev. Bill Grady
Curtain Falls by Bobby Darrin
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Like the Terrell's Sound World Facebook page

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE