Sunday, August 24, 2014 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
Here's the playlist below
Friday, August 22, 2014 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
The album where I first heard "Cabbage Head" in the '80s
Here's the tale about a funny little song that has bounced across the ocean, across the centuries and across musical genres.
Back in the early 80s, when I first started getting into the iconic New Orleans piano man, Professor Longhair, I came across a song that sounded familiar. The name of the tune was "Cabbage Head." It was a funny story of a man who comes home "as tired as I can be" several nights in a row. And each night he sees something suspicious and out of place. Each time, his wife Sally has an explanation, but it doesn't quite add up.
Hear for yourself on the video below. (UPDATE 2017: Unfortunately Fess' version has disappeared from YouTube. Closest thing I can find now is the Dr. John cover)
The thing is, I'd heard the song years before, albeit, with a different melody and slightly different lyrics. The British folk-rock band Steeleye Span had recorded it on one of their early albums, Ten Man Mop under the name "Four Nights Drunk."
Notice here that the cuckolded narrator is "so drunk I couldn't see" rather than "tired as a man can be."
Sung by Martin Carthy, backed by fiddler Peter Knight, "Four Nights Drunk" listed "Traditional" under the songwriter credits.
And traditional it is. According to several sources it was known in London in the 1760s under the name "The Merry Cuckold and the Kind Wife." It's one the 300-plus Child Ballads (traditional ballads from the British Isles collected by Francis James Child during the 1800s) under the rather boring title "Our Goodman." And reportedly, it was popular in other European countries
The versions collected by Child have lyrics are slightly different than Fess 'or Steeleye's or any of the modern verses I've come across. But despite the archaic dalect, you get the same basic idea. Here's the first verse of the first version:
Hame came our goodman, And hame came he, And then he saw a saddle-horse, Where nae horse should be. ‘What’s this now, goodwife? What’s this I see? How came this horse here, Without the leave o me?’ ‘A horse?’ quo she. ‘Ay, a horse,’ quo he. ‘Shame fa your cuckold face, Ill mat ye see! ’Tis naething but a broad sow, My minnie sent to me.’ ‘A broad sow?’ quo he. ‘Ay, a sow,’ quo shee. ‘Far hae I ridden, And farrer hae I gane, But a sadle on a sow’s back I never saw nane.’
And some of the lyrics were actually raunchy, as the drunken or "tired" narrator discovers other strange things in his bed. ("Who owns that thing in your thing where my old thing should be?") Most of those verses didn't make it to recordings, however -- though years ago I remember hearing a version by English folksinger Ewan MacColl that was downright nasty. Unfortunately, I can't find that online.
So how did this song get from the misty moisty British Isle to Roy Byrd's piano in New Orleans?
Apparently, like so many old British, Scottish and Irish folk songs, it came over with immigrants from those parts and found a home in the American South. Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music has a version titled "Drunkard's Special" by a singer named Coley Jones. J.E. Mainer did a dandy version called "Three Nights Drunk," that was recorded by Alan Lomax and included in the Southern Journey series. Riley Puckett, backed by Gid Tanner on fiddle did a similar version.
There's a more modern version from 1958 called "Mustache on the Cabbage Head" by Luke Gordon that skirts the borders of country and rockabilly:
Blues and R&B artists discovered the song also. Blind Lemon Jefferson did a version called "Laboring Man Away from Home" (which, sadly I've never heard and can't find online). Ruth Brown did a slow, jazzy "Cabbage Head." And Sonny Boy Williamson did a great version called "Wake Up Baby" in 1958, that has the same basic melody as Professor Longhair's. He also was "as tired as a man can be."
Meanwhile, back across the Atlantic, the Irish folk band known as The Dubliners had a hit with their version called "Seven Drunken Nights." (Decades later the Chicago Celt-Punk band called The Tossers did a similar, if more rocked-out, version with the same title.)
And why am I not surprised that the song found its way to the late great Rudy Ray Moore, who recorded it not once, but twice. He called it "Old Cabbage Head" on his 1994 Return of Dolemite - "Superstar" album and, a truly filthy version on 21st Century Dolemite. The earlier one is a country spoof featuring "the world's first black country & western female singer, Jeannie Marie." The latter is harder-edged and funkier.
The song has appeared under titles such as "Three Nights in a Barroom," "The Blind Fool," "Five Nights' Experience," "Coming Home Late," "Shickered As He Could Be" and others.
And somehow, just about all these versions make me grin when I hear these poor drunk, or "tired" people tell of the saddles on the sows and the mustaches on the cabbages they find in their homes.
Here's a Spotify playlist of many of the versions mentioned here and a few that weren't. (Unfortunately, they don't have Professor Longhair.)
Welcome to the latest Big Enchilada podcast, Varmint Symphony. It's a hillbilly spectacular featuring raw animal country, rockabilly, bluesgrass, blues, country swing, cowpunk and other sounds to tickle your innards .Have fun, but don't let the possums get in your underwear drawer.
(Background Music: Fiesta Alegre by Flaco Jimenez y Max Baca)
The Weasel, Bean, Frog and Dog by Splitlip Rayfield
21 Days in Jail by Magic Sam
Truckin' Little Woman by Dave & Phil Alvin
Big Bad Wolf by Clinton O'Neal & The Country Drifters
Set Up Another Drink by Carl Phillips
Coffee Grinder Blues by Asylum Street Spankers
Sunday, August 17, 2014 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
Here's the playlist below;
OPENING THEME: Let it Out, Let it All Hang Out by The Hombres
God is a Bullet by Concrete Blonde
Go-Go Girls by Sam the Sham & The Pharoahs
Just a Little Bit of You by The A-Bones
On My Way to Houston by Powell St. John & The Aliens
Living in Squalor by Chump
Stukas Over Disneyland by The Dickies
Devil Drag Strip by The Fumes
Staring Down by New Mystery Girl
Skinny Mama by Floyd Jones
Stuff They Call Money by Dave & Phil Alvin
Buzz Buzz Buzz by The Blasters
21 Days in Jail by Magic Sam
Black Cadillac by Figures of Light
Sharknado by The Barbaraellatones
Linda's Gone by The Black Angels
Epopeya by Doctor Simio
Cockroach Crawl by the Del-Gators
Everybody Got a Little Devil in Their Soul by Bobby Patterson
Big Bad John by Big John Hamilton
Escape by Night by King Shark
Stop Breakin' Down Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
One More Try by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Ain't No Sunshine by Freddie King
Maybe Your Baby by The Dirtbombs
Your Love Belongs Under a Rock by Bobby Patterson
All Tomorrow's Parties by Frontier Circus
Black Girls by Violent Femmes
I Dig Black Girls by Charlie Whitehead
Saved by The Mighty Clouds of Joy
That's Life by Big Maybelle
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, August 15, 2014 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
Here's my playlist below: OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens
Sick Rick by Misery Jackals
Monroe by Howlin' Brothers
Highway Cafe by Kinky Friedman
Lug Nut Larry by Dale Watson
The King's Shilling by Del McCoury
Jezebelle by Steve Train & His Bad Habits
Side by Side Doublewides by The Hickoids
The Spasm by Daddy Stovepipe & Mississippi Sarah
Just Let Go/ It Ain't All Flowers by Sturgill Simpson
Yankee Taste by Jayke Orvis
Highway 41 by Husky Burnette
Gotta Get to Heaven by Scott H. Biram
Baby Let Me Follow You Down by Bob Dylan & The Band
Can You Blame the Colored Man by South Memphis String Band
The Cockfight by Sam the Sham & The Pharoahs
I Wear the Scars by James Hand
Dave & Phil Alvin set
How You Want it Done by Dave & Phil
Never No More Blues by The Blasters
Collins Cave by Phil Alvin
So Long Baby by Jo-el Sonnier
Goodbye Again by Dave Alvin with Rosie Flores
Just a Dream by Dave & Phil
House aren't Stomp/Crawdad Hole by Big Bill Broonzy
Long White Cadillac by Janis Martin
Big Bill Blues by Dave & Phil
A Girl Named Johnny Cash by Harry Hayward
Checkers and Chess by Billy Joe Shaver
Down to Seeds and Stems Again by Commander Cody & The Lost Planet Airmen
One Last Look by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies Epitaph (Black and Blue) by Kris Kristofferson
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican August 14, 2014 Singer Bobby Patterson just released a new album, I Got More Soul!, the latest in a career that goes back decades. It’s a fun and, yes, soulful album by a veteran performer with deep roots in 1960s soul. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of this guy. I hadn’t heard of him either until I stumbled into his 70th birthday celebration a few months ago. It was during South by Southwest in Austin, and Patterson, a Dallas native, was opening for Barrence Whitfield & The Savages at a joint called C-Boy’s Heart & Soul. And yes, I was impressed. I just hope I have as much fun on my 70th birthday as Patterson appeared to be having on his. I’ve looked forward to this album since that night. So what’s Patterson’s story? Don’t ask me. Ask him. In the song “Poet,” Patterson sings, “I wrote songs for Fontella Bass/Oh, she talked a lot of sass/I wrote songs for Albert King/made his guitar sing, yeah/Wrote a song for Chuck Jackson/Knew I’d step up the action/I’m a songwriter, I’m a poet.” “Poet” is one of two cover songs on the album. Obviously Patterson felt qualified to add a verse of his own to a tune written and recorded by Sly Stone, but what he adds to the song is true for the most part. Though Patterson started out as a performer, most of his success in the music biz was behind the scenes. He did write or co-write songs for Bass, Jackson, and King (although King probably deserves the credit for making his guitar sing on the song “That’s What the Blues Is All About”), not to mention for Little Johnny Taylor. Patterson’s career as a recording artist goes back to the 1960s, though he never had a national hit himself. Critics weren’t always kind to him, either. “If there is such a thing as an average 1960s soul singer, Bobby Patterson is it,” the All Music Guide wrote in a review of Taking Care of Business, a Patterson compilation of his ’60s works released in the mid-1990s.
Bobby turns 70 in Austin
So for more than 20 years beginning in 1972, Patterson concentrated on being a producer, promoter, and songwriter. Then in the mid-1990s, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, with his side project group Golden Smog, recorded a country-rock version of an old Patterson song called “She Don’t Have to See You (To See Through You).”
Though Golden Smog never rose above cult status, this recording apparently stirred something in Patterson, whose name was misspelled in the CD credits. He began to record again, releasing an album with the hopeful title of Second Coming in 1996, followed by I’d Rather Eat Soup two years later. But except for reissues and retrospectives, that was the last new material from Patterson until now. So I guess that makes I Got More Soul! Patterson’s second “second coming.” The album came about thanks to a guitar player named Zach Ernst, who used to play with Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. In recent years, he has been playing with The Relatives, a Texas gospel group that was founded in the early 1970s. The Relatives sing background on Patterson’s “Everybody’s Got a Little Devil in Their Soul,” originally recorded in the early ’70s by a lady named Tommie Young. It’s one of the highlights of I Got More Soul! Most the songs here are upbeat and funky. Some of them, like the bouncy Solomon Burke-influenced “I Feel the Same Way,” evoke the classic soul era of the ’60s. Then there’s the harder-edged “Can You Feel Me,” which would sound at home on a latter-period Isley Brothers record. Patterson also has a knack for slow-dance soul ballads like “I Know How It Feels” and “Let Me Heal It.” I suspect it’s Ernst who introduced Patterson to “Your Love Belongs Under a Rock,” a song by Detroit’s garage/soul/rock giants The Dirtbombs. Patterson makes it sound like a long-lost Stax/Volt hit. The album ends with a sweet, slow tune called “The Entertainer Part 1” (there’s no part two, at least not here), on which Patterson raps and brags: “If you’re walkin’ on the dirt and the dirt ain’t walkin’ on you, well I’ll entertain you … I don’t care if you’re in the hood or in the trunk/Ain’t no way you can get away from my funk … I got something for everyone who woke up on the right side of the wrong bed with a mad head and no bread. Ha ha! It’s called soul.” Call it what you want. Bobby Patterson is the mad soul scientist we never knew we had. Also recommended: *Crucial Time by King Shark. Alphanso Henclewood has been living in landlocked Northern New Mexico for nearly 15 years, but he was born in the Greenwich Farm neighborhood of Kingston, Jamaica, an area dominated by the fishing industry. But Greenwich Farm has also produced a lot of reggae musicians — most notably Earl “Chinna” Smith. And it’s where Henclewood was crowned “King Shark” and where he returns from time to time to record music. While Shark over the years has released his own songs on compilation albums from his Pecos-based Montego Records label (two volumes of King Shark and All Star Friends), Crucial Time is his first solo album, though he’s backed by some of his all-star friends, including guitarist Smith. These songs recall the reggae I loved back in the heady days of the ’70s. One of the outstanding tunes is the harrowing “Escape by Night,” a history lesson in a minor key that deals with escaping from a slave ship. “Palm Me Corner” is set in modern times. It’s about being hassled by police just for hanging out on a street corner. (“I’m not a bad boy,” the singer protests, “I don’t fire no guns!”) But the vibe of this album isn’t all political. Shark also sings songs of love such as “Marry Me,” “She Will Be Mine,” and two versions of a tune called “Pure Light.” He sings, “Oh yes, you beautiful woman, I want you to understand, tonight is the night you will be mine.” Besides releasing his own album, Shark also produced Burning Fire, a new album by longtime Jamaican singer Prince Alla (born Keith Blake), and released it on Montego Records. Alla has been a reggae recording artist since the ’70s and has contributed songs to King Shark compilations. My favorite song on the album is “Mortimor,” which is about an old Rasta man who follows the instructions of a little bird, packs up his Bible and his last pound of herb, and sails away in his boat to Africa. King Shark also recently became a DJ. He’s got a reggae show on KTAO-FM 101.9 Solar Radio from 7 to 9 p.m. on Sundays. You can listen online at www.ktao.com. And the king also is promoting reggae concerts in Taos. He's got Israel Vibration, a trio from Jamaica coming for an outdoor show at KTAO Solar Center on August 24. Tickets are $25 in advance. Here are some videos Bobby Patterson live in 2013
