Friday, March 13, 2015 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
Back in the Saddle by Gene Autry
Lost in the Ozone by Commander Cody & The Lost Planet Airmen
Rainy Day Woman by Waylon Jennings
Georgia on a Fast Train by Billy Joe Shaver
Heartaches by the Number by Ray Price, Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard
Hogs on the Highway by Bad Livers
Take You Down by Texas Martha & The House of Twang
Long Road by Alice Wallace
Trucker Country by Erich McMann
White Dress by Anthony Leon & The Chain
The Ballad of the Alamo by Marty Robbins
Don't Remember Me by The Misery Jackals
Cheap Motels by Southern Culture on the Skids
Stuck in the Mud by Deano Waco & The Meat Purveyors
Too Hot to Handle by Bryan Deere
Banshee by Ed Sanders
For Every Glass That's Empty by Pine Hill Haints
Hot Dog Baby by Hasil Adkins
I Love to Yodel by Carolina Cotton
Small Ya'll by George Jones
Poor Joe by Audrey Auld
Be a Little Quieter by Porter Wagoner
Naked Light of Day by Butch Hancock
Truck Stop by the Liquor Store by the Highway by Kevin Deal
Santa Fe by Augie Meyers
Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town by Jason & The Scorchers
The Day Bartender by Al Duval
My Old Man Boogie by Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
Not a Song by Jim White vs The Packway Handle Band
The Western Lands by Slackeye Slim
Knoxville Girl by The Louvin Brothers
Highway Cafe by Tom Waits
A Preacher and a Girl of the Night by Jimmy Patton
Back in 2011, when Spotify was new to these United States, I embarked upon a little "exercise in self-indulgence" and created a Spotify playlist of songs "that were parodied, stolen, alluded to, mentioned in passing in or somehow have a spiritual connection" with tunes on my 1981 smash hit album Picnic Time For Potatoheads.
Posting about that Spotify list on this very blog, I quipped, "If the album actually ever had been successful, here are some of the lawsuits I would have faced."
I thought about that list and the blog post tonight while reading a rant by my friend John Egenes posted on Facebook concerning a lawsuit over music copyrights.
I recalled my blog post, so I looked it up and re-read the thing. (And I fixed a four-year-old typo I hadn't noticed before.)
The entry about "My True Story" by The Jive Five said:
This song itself didn't directly inspire "The Green Weenie," but it's part of the great Doo-Wop Collective Consciousness that did. (I was disappointed that the Frank Zappa catalogue is not on Spotify. My first choice would have been a Ruben & The Jets tune in honor of the late Jimmy Carl Black, who played on "The Green Weenie.")
It occurred to me that in more recent times, I had seen Zappa on Spotify.
So what the hell, I updated it with my favorite Ruben song "Later That Night."
It's the last one on the playlist
I'm keeping the Jive Five tune on there just because it's such a great song.
And here is the song Ruben & The Jets inspired (drums by the late, great Jimmy Carl Black!)
Faith and begorrah and Erin go braugh, it's only five days until St. Patrick's Day!
So here is a look at one of my favorite Irish outlaw songs, the tale of a "brave young highwayman" named Willie Brennan.
Here is one version of the lyrics:
'Tis of a brave young highwayman this story we will tell, His name was Willie Brennan and in Ireland he did dwell. 'Twas on the Kilworth Mountains he commenced his wild career, And many a wealthy nobleman before him shook with fear. Refrain: And it's Brennan on the moor, Brennan on the moor, Bold, brave and undaunted was young Brennan on the moor. One day upon the highway, as Willie he went down, He met the mayor of Cashel, a mile outside of town. The mayor, he knew his features, and he said, "Young man," said he, "Your name is Willie Brennan, you must come along with me." (Refrain)
Now Brennan's wife had gone to town provisions for to buy, And when she saw her Willie she commenced to weep and cry. Said, "Hand to me that ten-penny," as soon as Willie spoke, She handed him a blunderbuss from underneath her cloak (Refrain)
Now with his loaded blunderbuss—the truth I will unfold— He made the mayor to tremble, and he robbed him of his gold. One hundred pounds was offered for his apprehension there, So he, with horse and saddle, to the mountains did repair, Did young Brennan on the moor, Brennan on the moor, Bold, brave and undaunted was young Brennan on the moor. (Refrain) Now Brennan being an outlaw upon the mountains high, With cavalry and infantry to take him they did try. He laughed at them with scorn until at last 'twas said By a false-hearted woman he was cruelly betrayed, (Refrain)
Although others, notably Burl Ives, had recorded it before, it's Tommy Makem & The Clancy Brothers' version from the early 1960s that introduced me to the song.
"This song was widely sung in the Victorian era ... William Brennan really did exist, and was one of the most famous Irish criminals of the period. It is not easy to get authoritative information about him , mainly because legend quickly obscured fact, and even his date of death is not known for sure; 1804 is most cited, but there are other references to 1809, and even 1812, and while most sources claim that he was taken by authorities and formally executed, there is also a tradition that he was killed by one of his potential victims in a highway robbery which went wrong."
The Penguin book notes that like most outlaw ballads, this song turns Willie Brennan into a Robin Hood-like character, "And many a wealthy nobleman before him shook with fear ..."
Basically it was the gangsta rap of its day.
In his cool website ... Just Another Song, folklorist Jürgen Kloss, in writing about "Brennan on the Moor" notes that 18th Century lawyer John Edward Walsh in 1747 claimed that the children's "integrity and sense of right and wrong was confounded, by proposing the actions of lawless felons as the objects of interest and imitation."
So, for the love of God, keep this vile song away from the children!
It should be noted that in some versions, Willie's own mother denounces him for his outlaw ways: "Oh, would to God that Willie had within his cradle died.'" (In some, it's his father who makes this declaration.)
And in some versions, "modern" ones Kloss says, the ghost of Willie still rides: "They see him with his blunderbuss, all in the midnight chill."
A young Bob Dylan dug The Clancys' take on "Brennan on the Moor.
In the liner notes of Dylan;s first Bootleg Series, John Bauldie wrote: "Dylan heard them sing the song in New York and loved it immediately. He told film director Derek Bailey in 1984: `I'd never heard those kind of songs before...all the legendary people they used to sing about - Brennan on the Moor or Roddy Macaulay...I would think of Brennan on the Moor the same way as I would think of Jesse James or something. You know, I wrote some of my own songs to some of the melodies that I heard them do...' "
And a website called Bob Dylan's Musical Roots quotes Liam Clancy: "I met the young Dylan on 4th St. in the Village one morning as I was rushing to rehearsal. 'Hey Liam, hey man. I wrote a song to the tune of `Brennan on the Moor' last night. Wanta hear it man?, only 15 verses man, wanna hear it'."
I'm very thankful that nobody was recording me that fateful night about 15 years ago when I basically cleared out an after-hours party at a downtown Albuquerque bar with my karaoke rendition of "You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma."
So I have some sympathy for the poor folks who basically are the butts of the joke in all these videos.
That being said, I think these are hilarious.
Enjoy
When I first heard this song sung by Dolly Parton on a car radio in the 70s, I was so awestruck, I almost drove my car off the road. When I heard this, I wanted to drive my car at a high speed toward the singer.
I wouldn't want to hear much more of Amy, but she's got personality
This guy isn't as cute or funny as Amy, but that's o.k. He sings even worse.
I have to admit, I don't think I'd sing very well either if I was suspended over a tank full of frogs and water snakes. This apparently is some kind of weird game show in Thailand.
