THROWBACK THURSDAY: I'll See You in My Dreams

Back in the late '70s when local TV stations would actually shut down for a few hours at the end of the broadcast day, KOB TV in Albuquerque, following Tom Snyder's Tomorrow show for awhile signed off with a short music video.

The song was "I'll See You in My Dreams," a classic old crooner tune from the 1920s.  I don't know who performed the version used by Channel 4, but it featured a tenor crooning and cheesy skating-rink synth fills (mostly after the vocalist sang the word "dreams.")

This version skipped the (mostly forgotten) intro to the song and got straight to the verses:

I'll see you in my dreams
Hold you in my dreams
Someone took you right out of my arms
Still I feel the thrill of your charms

Lips that once were mine
Tender eyes that shine
They will light my way tonight
I'll see you in my dreams

The video consisted of various scenes in which a pair of woman's eyes would appear in the sky overhead.

For some reason, I became obsessed with the song as well as the cheaply-done video. I actually began looking forward to it and would refuse to turn off the television until it was over, often to my then-wife's consternation, ("Why do you like that stupid song?")

"I'll See You in My Dreams" was written by Isham Jones and lyricist Gus Kahn and published in 1924. Jones recorded it with the Ray Miller Orchestra (vocals by Frank Besinger) and had a number-one national hit with it the next year. Here's that version:



Lots of artists, well known and otherwise covered it. Louis Armstrong did an instrumental of it as did guitarist Django Reinhardt, who inspired a version by country artist Merle Travis.



My favorite take on this tune, however, goes back to 1930. That's the one by singer Cliff Edwards, also known as "Ukulele Ike." Even if you've never heard of Edwards, I'm almost certain you're very familiar with one of his songs. He was the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Walt Disney's Pinocchio in 1940. He sang "When You Wish Upon a Star."

So when you play the video below, imagine Disney's famous bug crooning it.



Although I can't imagine anyone replacing Edwards' "Dreams" as my favorite, some of my favorites have covered it. Bob Wills did a western-swing version, while Jerry Lee Lewis did a rocking instrumental. Leon Redbone, The Asylum Street Spankers and Dan Hicks (who injected it with some new lyrics, some scat-singing and hot guitar) all have felt the thrill of this song.

I did stumble across this lovely -- and I have to say, dreamy -- re-imagining by French-born singer Scarlett O'Hanna and Greek guitarist Panos Giannakakis from 2013:



See you in my dreams ...

For more on this song CLICK HERE

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

Check Out The New Look

I gotta admit that for the last several months -- o.k., dammit, years! -- I've kind of let this music blog slide. Sometimes for weeks at the time all I had here would be my radio show playlists and my Tuneup column.  

Pretty skimpy, I know. It became even more obvious a few months ago when I began doing Tune-up only every other week.

Finally last month I decided to force myself to create more content every week by adding two new features, Wacky Wednesday (some funny music to help you make it through the middle of the week) and Throwback Thursday (some fun musical history from long-gone eras). I'll also be looking for various other music-related things to post at other times during the week.

To mark these additions I decided to change the look of this joint, including a new collage for the header.

Remember, even though Terrell's Tune-up runs in the New Mexican, I do all this stuff on my own time. (And just to reiterate my disclaimer, the views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Santa Fe New Mexican or santafenewmexican.com (Same goes for KSFR. Don't blame them for anything weird I might post here.) 

And by the way, I recently got my own domain name for this blog: www.steveterrellmusic.com. It's still on Google blogger, at least for the time being, so the old link should still work. But if I decide to move on (after 11 years now!) the domain will still stay the same.

So keep coming back and tell your friends that The Stephen W. Terrell (MUSIC) Web Log is alive.

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Are You Ready, Hezzie?

Before there was Spike Jones, and long before there was the Bonzo Dog Band, there was The Hoosier Hot Shots, a band that bridged Vaudeville and Hollywood. A band in which the lead instruments were a clarinet and a slide whistle.

Behold:



Three of the four Hot Shots played together since the 1920s, playing the Vaudeville circuit as part of Ezra Buzzington's Rube Band. These were clarinet man Gabriel Ward and guitarist Ken Trietsch and his brother Paul "Hezzie" Trietsch, who, with his animated eyebrows, was the real comic of the group. He played the whistle as well as a souped-up washboard and an arsenal of bells. whistles and percussion. Frank Delaney later joined playing stand-up bass.

After the Great Depression killed off Vaudeville, the Hot Shots became national radio stars on the National Barn Dance, on WLS in Chicago and later as regulars on the Uncle Ezra Pinex Cough Syrup show on NBC.

They moved to Hollywood in the late '30s. There, they would appear in 22 films, mostly westerns, and "soundies" such as the above video of From the Indies to the Andes in His Undies.

A personal note about Hezzie Trietsch: When I was a kid and my grandmother was taking me somewhere, she'd often say, "Are you ready, Hezzie?" She'd just laugh when I'd ask who Hezzie was. It wasn't until well into my adulthood, when I discovered The Hoosier Hot Shots that it all became clear to me.

Cub Koda wrote in the All Music Guide:

Although nowhere near as wild as Spike Jones, nor possessing the `thinking man's hillbillies' personas of Homer & Jethro, it is impossible to think of either of those two acts existing -- much less prospering and finding an audience -- without the groundbreaking efforts of the Hoosier Hot Shots.

All true.

Here are a couple of more live songs from these Indiana crazies, "Darlin', You Can't Love But One" and a highly Hoosierized "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" :

Make Your Road The Jukebox Highway

Interstate 10 in south Texas is a seriously boring stretch. But I learned a couple of days ago that it's far more bearable when you turn it into The Jukebox Highway.

To translate, during that part of the drive home from Austin I played some recent episodes of my old friend John Egenes' excellent radio show.

Longtime followers of Santa Fe music know that Egenes was for years an integral part of the local scene. A singer, guitarist and master of mandolin, dobro, banjo, steel guitar and more, he was in more bands than I can count. He moved to New Zealand a few years ago where he's got some academic gig. But he still plays and he's got this cool weekly radio show which is available worldwide via podcast.

Egenes has great taste in country, bluegrass and folk music. In the episodes I heard Sunday he played lots of old favorites like Buck Owens, Guy Clark, Lefty Frizzell, Uncle Tupelo, Dillard & Clark, Rhonda Vincent, etc. and recent favorites like Rachel Brooks. He also played some of his New Mexico cronies like Tom Adler and Wayne Shrubsall and some local New Zealand artists.

But I was most imressed that he played a George Jones that I was not familiar with. That's a wonderful murder ballad called "Open Pit Mine," which deals with a deadly love triangle in an Arizona copper-mining town.

In short, all fans of The Santa Fe Opry should check out The Jukebox Highway.  A bunch of recent episodes are HERE. You can subscribe HERE and you can find the playlists on the show's Facebook page. (Come on, press that LIKE button.)

R.I.P. Kenny "Canuto" Delgado

I just learned that Santa Fe's number one music fan died yesterday on Thanksgiving day. He was 59.
Kenny Delgado, who most people probably know as "Canuto," was a longtime member of the Santa Fe Bandstand Committee, which is responsible for the free music program on the Plaza every summer. But most important, he was a constant presence at concerts. I always looked for him when I went to a show in Santa Fe. He loved music. He'd babble about music joyfully for as long as I knew him. He loved ZZ Top, he loved Concrete Blonde, he loved Santana, he loved Guitar Shorty. He loved a lot of music. And thinking back on it, he rarely talked about music he hated. I don't think Kenny hated much music.

Kenny was Santa Fe rock 'n' roll!

He frequently would call me at KSFR when I was doing a radio show. I always knew it was Canuto because he'd start the conversation exclaiming "Picnic Time!" (an odd musical in-joke we shared.) Then he'd talk about some song I'd just played or some show he'd just seen.

The calls became less frequent in the past three or four years since he became sick. Canuto struggled with cardiac problems during that time. But anytime I saw him, he remained positive. He mostly wanted to yack about some band he'd just seen.

I guess it's appropriate that the last time I actually saw Kenny was at a Santa Fe Bandstand show. Was it The Imperial Rooster? Joe "King" Carrasco? The Handsome Family? All of the above? It doesn't matter. His spirit was always at a Bandstand concert even if he wasn't physically there.
I always looked for Kenny whenever I went to a concert in Santa Fe. I probably will do that for years to come.