TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: Ray Wylie Hubbard's Bad-Ass Folkie Blues

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican 
May 22, 2015


Ray Wylie Hubbard’s Twitter feed (@raywylie) isn’t anywhere as essential as his music, but it’s often pretty entertaining. Early in May, after some ticket agency apparently had referred to him as a “country” singer, Hubbard tweeted, “i ain’t country..use ‘cool ol low down dead thumb groove badass folkie halfass blues poet with a young rockin band’ instead.”

That tweet could be read as a darn good self-evaluation of his latest record, The Ruffian’s Misfortune. Once again, Hubbard has given the world a swampy, blues-soaked collection of tunes in which, in his trademark Okie drawl, he tells stories of sin and salvation; gods and devils; women who light candles to the “Black Madonna;” undertakers who look like crows (“red-eyed and dressed in black”); and hot-wiring cars in Oklahoma.

And I wasn’t kidding about “essential.” Somehow in the last decade or so, Hubbard has clawed his way from being an interesting survivor of the early-’70s-Texas-cosmic-cowboy scene to one of the most important unsung songwriters in the music biz today. And I don’t say that lightly. Last time I reviewed one of Ray Wylie’s albums, I said, “Hubbard’s albums of the last 10 years are even more consistently brilliant than Tom Waits’ output since the turn of the century.”

That’s still true. And Ray Wylie is more prolific than Waits, too.

He’s using the same basic band he’s used on his last few albums, including his son Lucas Hubbard on guitar, George Reiff on bass, and Rick Richards on drums. Together they’ve crafted a distinctive sound, and, like Hubbard himself, they keep getting better.

Hubbard grabs you by the throat immediately in “All Loose Things,” the first song on The Ruffian’s Misfortune. Raw guitar chords explode over a harsh drum beat. Then Hubbard begins to sing, though he’s giving voice to a blackbird looking down on pitiful humans: “Storm is comin’, rain’s about. To fall/Ain’t no shelter ’round here for these children at all. ... Now the dirt is splatterin’ it’s turning into mud/Erasing all traces of broken bones and blood/All loose things end up being washed away.”

Hubbard with son Lucas at 2012 SXSW

Listening to Hubbard, you might start to get the feeling that, like some grizzled oracle, he’s gently imparting secrets of the universe. At the start of the song “Hey, Mama, My Time Ain’t Long,” he sings matter-of-factly, “Now children let me tell you about the songs a bluesman sings/Comes from a woman’s moans and the squeak of guitar strings/Some say it’s the devil jingling the coins in his pocket/I say it sounds more like a pistol when you cock it.”

Hubbard name-checks some of his rock ’n’ roll forbearers — the Rolling Stones, the Allman Brothers, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top – in “Bad on Fords,” a song he co-wrote with country star Ronnie Dunn -- and previously recorded by Sammy Hagar.

He’s trying to convince some “pretty thing” to go on some crazy joyride from Abilene to L.A. “We’ll stop at The Sands in Vegas and bet it all on black 29,” he sings.

The song “Down by The River” is a frenzied tune that might remind you of James McMurtry’s “Choctaw Bingo.” Hubbard’s tune is about a bunch of El Paso kids crossing the Santa Fe Bridge into Juárez to “sip a little poison.” Violence lurks everywhere – gunfire, bloodstains, those crowlike undertakers burying bodies down by the river.

Sister Rosetta

He’s basically describing a real-life hell in that song. But in a later song, “Barefoot in Heaven,” Hubbard sings of the other place, “where there ain’t no end of days.” The groove is similar to some long-lost Pops Staples tune. But the lyrics speak of another gospel titan: “When I get to Heaven, all the preachers tell me, I get a halo, some wings and a harp/That’s well and good, but what I want to hear is Sister Rosetta Tharpe.”

Two of the songs here are named for Hubbard’s blues heroes. “Mr. Musselwhite’s Blues” tells the story of harmonica shaman Charlie Musselwhite and how he was born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago, where Little Walter himself bestowed a harp on him. Musselwhite even gets some advice for the lovelorn from Big Joe Williams. “Big Joe said, ‘I’ve seen that woman, and Charlie, you’re better off with the blues.”

Then there’s “Jessie Mae,” a slow groover about the late Ms. Hemphill. “Every time you sing, black angels dance,” Hubbard sings. Praising her guitar style, he notes Hemphill had that “dead thumb groove” he admires, “like hammerin’ nails/On the low E string.”

Undoubtedly there’s a little bit of Jessie Mae Hemphill in the singer with the “short dress, torn stockings” who is subject of “Chick Singer, Badass Rocking.” Hubbard probably sounds a little lecherous here, but even if that’s so, it’s far outweighed by the sheer admiration he has for this unnamed belter, carrying on a sacred American tradition at her midnight gig at some dive.

Hubbard wouldn’t look that great in a short skirt and torn stockings, but he’s carrying on a noble tradition himself.


Check out these videos:

Here's one with an authentic chick singer/badass rocker



And here's another song from The Ruffian's Misfortune, performed with the co-writer Jonathan Tyler.



And making his debut on The Stephen W. Terrell (Music) Blog, I give you Mr. Sammy Hagar




Correction: The earlier version of this incorrectly called my favorite James McMurtry song as "Cherokee Bingo." The real title is "Choctaw Bingo." Sorry, wrong tribe. It's been corrected in the text.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Did You Ever Hear That Coffin Sound?

Last week when eulogizing B.B. King, I included "See That My My Grave Is Kept Clean," the title song, sort of, from his final studio album. It's a song known by at least three names -- the one King used; "Two White Horses," and "One Kind Favor" -- which was the actual title of King's last album.

Blind Lemon Jefferson, a bluesman from Texas, recorded the song  in 1928, but I first heard it in the version by Canned Heat. The song, part of Heat's 1968 album Living the Blues, wasn't a huge hit. But it was the flip side of "Going Up The Country," which probably was their biggest hit. They played it on KVSF here in Santa Fe ever so often and I liked it right off.

But I didn't really get into it until the early '70s, when, as a college kid  I started making trips to Juarez, Mexico with my buddies. it was always on the jukebox at El Submarino nightclub, and I always played it several times as my friends an I sat there loading up on 35-cent margaritas. The crazy energy of the song -- not to mention the fatalistic, somewhat morbid lyrics with strange images of white horses coffin sounds and graves in need of cleaning -- seemed to capture the Juarez spirit of those happier times.

Blind Lemon died two years after recording "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean." But the song is allive and well. Blind Lemon's version was included on Harry Smith's more-than-influential Anthology of Folk Music in 1952.

Even before then, it was recorded by a bunch of other blues artists including fellow Texan Lightnin' Hopkins, Furry Lewis and Mississippi Fred McDowell. And it keeps popping up in the realms of folk, rock, soul and the blues.

Here are some of the better versions of the song. Let's start with Mr. Jefferson's:



Bob Dylan, whose career owes a lot to Harry Smith's Anthology, was one of several folk revivalists who recorded it. His fiery version of  "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" was on his first album. (Notice on this one, the two white horses aren't just "in a line" as in most renditions of the song. In Dylan's, the white horses are "following me.")



Dylan's version inspired this electric rendition by The Dream Syndicate in 1988.



Lou Reed performed a growling, menacing take on the tune at a Harry Smith tribute concert in 2001.



Mavis Staples did it in the "Lightning in a Bottle" concert at Radio City Music Hall in 2003



Also in the early part of the century, folkie Geoff Muldaur (a former member of Jim Kweskin's Jug Band), recorded a haunting two-part saga in which he and some pals take literally Blind Lemon's odd request.



Here's Part 2


But still the best version of "One Kind Favor" is the version that brought the boogie to El Submarino. Viva Canned Heat!





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

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Let There Be BBQ!

There was so much rain in Santa Fe last weekend, I hate to think how many would-be  BBQers were discouraged. So I'm going to try to work a little magic here and try to appease the rain gods with some great songs about barbecue.

The art of barbecue has been linked to American music since the early part of the last century.

In 1927 Louis Armstrong & The Hot Five recorded a tune called "Struttin' with some BBQ." But as the Onion A/V Club pointed out a couple of years ago, Satch's song probably wasn't about pork ribs. Cab Calloway's Jive Dictionary defines "barbecue" as "the girl friend, a beauty."

Also in 1927, one of the first musicians to sing about smoked meat was an Atlanta bluesman named Robert Lincoln, a chef in a high-class BBQ joint who recorded under the name Barbecue Bob. His very first record, recorded in 1927 was called "Barbecue Blues."

But I prefer another Barbecue Bob song recorded in the same session, "It Won't Be Long Now," credited to Barbeque Bob and Laughing Charley (Charley Hicks, Bob's older brother.)

Jas Obrecht,  editor for Guitar Player magazine for 20 years and the founding editor of Pure Guitar magazine, writes that the song "began with a spoken dialog about Bob’s job as a barbecue chef; this was pure minstrel shuck-and-jive. This was also the first record to feature Charley’s signature laughter. It was an old shtick dating back at least to George W. Johnson’s 'Laughing Song' cylinders of the 1890s, but it was a good way to get Charlie’s name out there. Near the end of the song, the brothers sang a verse in unison."

"Shuck and jive" or not, I've always loved this dialogue, how Bob tries to explain his cooking technique ("I'm makin; it good and juicy. That's the way people like it these days, you know with gravy runnin' out") before the conversation turns to their women who have left them. ("Same dog that bit you must have snapped at me ...")

And thus, barbecue forever became intertwined with the blues, with the smoke blowing over into the fields of jazz, country, rockabilly and rock 'n' roll.

So here's a Spotify playlist of BBQ songs, beginning and ending with Barbecue Bob -- and a lot in between: Satch, ZZ Top, Mojo Nixon, Lucille Bogan, Pere Ubu and more.

So hear these songs, gods of rain, and let there be some sunshine, at least for the coming weekend.

And to you, the reader: If you get the chance to grill outside Saturday or Sunday, be sure to play this then.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, May 17, 2015 
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 

Daddy Rockin' Strong by The Dirtbombs

Heavy Honey by Left Lane Cruiser

Save the Planet by The Sonics

Amazons and Coyotes by Simon Stokes

She's the Bad One by The Rezillos

Funeral by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

The Crab-Grass Baby by Frank Zappa

You Don't Love Me Yet by Roky Erikson

The Strip Polka by The Andrews Sisters

Shake Me by Motobunny

Mo' Hair by The Hickoids

Old Folks Boogie by Jack Oblivian

Watching My Baby by The Reigning Sound

Die in the Summertime by Manic Street Preachers

Crackpot Baby by L7

Rock 'n' Roll Murder by Leaving Trains

B.B. King Tribute: All songs by B.B. King

Please Love Me

Paying the Cost to Be the Boss

Saturday Night Fish Fry

Old Time Religion

Early Every Morning

How Blue Can You Get?

Three O'Clock Blues with Bobby "Blue" Bland

When Love Comes to Town

Who Stole the Kishka by The Polkaholics

My Shadow by Jay Reatard

You're the Only One, Delores by Cub Koda

Little Rug Bug by NRBQ

To Bring You My Love by PJ Harvey

Port of Amsterdam by David Bowie

Precious Lord by B.B. King

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

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, May 15, 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

Angel Along the Tracks by The Dirt Daubers

Banana Pudding by Southern Culture on the Skids

Mr. Musselwhite's Blues by Ray Wylie Hubbard

Walk It By Myself by Blonde Boy Grunt & The Groans

A Box of Grass by Buck Jones

Rest of Our Lives by Mike Ness

Golden Grease by The Banditos


The Union Dues Blues by Chipper Thompson

Lookout Mountain by Bobby Bare

The Lonely Room by The Revelers

Oooeeoooeeooo by 6 String Drag

Dreaming Cowboy by Sally Timms

Reprimand by Joe West

Jam Bowl Liar by Homer & Jethro

The Kicked Me Out of the Band by Commander Cody 

Big Fake Boobs by The Beaumonts

Third Rate Romance by The Amazing Rhythm Aces

Shit Happens by The Lonesome Heroes

Mary Mack by Al Duvall

I Miss My Boyfriend by Folk Uke with Shooter Jennings

Half Broke Horse by Eilen Jewell

Honey You Had Me Fooled by The Defibulators

The Rubber Room by Porter Wagoner

Sam's Place by Buck Owens

Satan's  Jewled Crown by The Louvin Brothers

Perfect Stranger by Eleni Mandell

Man About Town by Tony Gilkyson

You've Never Been This Far Before by Freakwater

Old Rugged Cross by Jim Kweskin

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 Freeform American Roots Radio list

R.I.P. B.B. King

UPDATED with link to a 2008 album review.

Bluesman B.B. King, one of the most influential blues guitarists in the past century, died Thursday at his home in La Vegas, Nevada. He was 89.

A short obit from the Associated Press is HERE,

His death wasn't unexpected. He'd been in hospice care for a couple of weeks following a reported heart attack.

I first saw him in concert in early 1972 at the UNM basketball arena, a place I still call "The Pit." He headlined a bill that also featured a new band called Z.Z. Top, as well as Black Oak, Arkansas. The crowd was an odd mixture of well-dressed middle-class African-Americans and scuzzy hippies.

Before King went on on, some guy a few rows in front of me got in an argument with another guy and pulled a pistol. Nearly everyone in out whole section ducked or scattered, I was a newly initiated blues fan. I just figured it was part of the experience. But no shot was fired. No blood was shed. The show went on.


And B.B. came out and killed. He sounded as wonderful as Black Oak sounded wretched.

About 10 years later I saw B.B. at the Paolo Soleri here in Santa Fe.  He was just as good if not better than he was the first time I saw him. After the show I got to interview him back stage. I was just a freelancer for the local weekly, The Santa Fe Reporter, but he treated me like i was the most important music journalist in the country. Seriously, he was one of the sweetest musicians I've ever interviewed. We talked for what seemed like an hour, him telling stories of his life, which he'd told hundreds of other reporters.

So here's to Riley "B.B." King. Bluesman, gentleman, inspiration.

UPDATE: Here is a link to my review of his last studio album, One Kind Favor:

Here are some songs to remember him by.

The first B.B. King album I ever had was Live in the Cook County Jail. Here is my favorite song from that:




Back when I was in college, the KUNM Wednesday night blues show used this as their theme song.



And here's a Blind Lemon Jefferson song from a fairly recent album, One Kind Favor.



Goodbye, Mr. King.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Yellin' for Yellen & Ager

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking up information on a song called "Crazy Words, Crazy Tune" for a possible Wacky Wednesday post, a tune that I knew mostly from '60s era neo-jug bands. I found the names of the songwriters -- Jack Yellen and Milton Ager -- then quickly discovered that the pair had been responsible for some of the most memorable songs from the Roaring '20s, archetypal American touchstones of the Jazz Age.

Yellen , the one who wrote the lyrics, and Ager, who wrote the music, were responsible for so many hits, they could be considered the Leiber & Stoller of the Prohibition Era.

Yellen was born Jacek Jeleń in Poland in 1892, immigrating to the U.S. with his family when he was five years old. He grew up in Buffalo, N.Y. and for a few years worked as a reporter for The Buffalo Courier. But even then he was writing songs on the side. He died in 1991.

Ager was born in Chicago in 1893. He's got connections to journalism also. His wife Cecilia Ager was a film critic and reporter  for Variety as well as The New York Post Magazine and other publications. Their daughter, Shana Alexander wrote for Life magazine and sparred with James J. Kilpatrick on the "Point/Counterpoint segment of 60 Minutes. Milton Ager died in 1979.

So what songs did these two write? Let's get to those.

One of their earliest hits was one called "Big Bad Bill is Sweet William Now." The earliest recordings of this were in 1924. Margaret Young and Billy Murray were among the stars who recorded it that year.

But my favorite of the early versions was from 1929 when Emmett Miller recorded it. (I'm not sure what the wedding photos in this video are, but I bet a guy named Bill got married around the time this was posted on Youtube.)



"Big Bad Bill" has several contemporary versions as well. Van Halen recorded it in the early '80s. But I prefer Merle Haggard's dandy version.



An even better-known song by this duo was "Hard-Hearted Hannah," also published in 1924. Here's a version by Lucille Hegamin.



But perhaps the greatest version ever was Ella Fitzgerald, who sang it in a 1955 movie called Pete Kelly's Blues. (And yes, you will see Jack Webb in this clip!)



Another Yellen & Ager classic is "Ain't She Sweet," written in 1927. One of the first recordings was by Ben Bernie and His Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra.



A British singer named Tony Sheridan recording this one, backed by a then-unknown band called The Beatles, in 1961 when they were living in Hamburg.



But probably Yellen & Ager's most enduring tune is "Happy Days are Here Again," a basic Chins-up-America tune written in 1929 and later adopted as the 1932 campaign song for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The Democrat Party adopted this as it's own theme song, often played during national conventions. But, according to The  New York Times' obituary for Yellen, the lyricist considered himself a Republican.

Here is Leo Reisman & His Orchestra's version in a 1930 film called Chasing Rainbows. (Vocals by Lou Levin)



And here is the song that led me on this chase, a 1927 version by Frank Crumit of "Crazy Words, Crazy Tune," in which a nutty neighbor with a ukulele inspires homicidal fanrtasies. I still might do a Wacky Wednesday on this one some day.

WACKY WEDNESDAY: The Revenge of the Golden Throats!

Back in the '80s and '90s, when Rhino Records was actually a cool label, they released a series of albums called Golden Throats. These nutball compilations featured movie and TV stars, sports heroes and every stripe of cheesy celebrity singing ham-fisted versions of songs they had no business singing. Pop tunes, rock 'n' roll hits, country song, whatever. Nothing was sacred and nothing was safe from the Golden Throats.

Because of the exposure from the Rhino series, some of these unintentionally hilarious songsters became notorious and ironically hip. Think William Shatner -- the Elvis of the Golden Throats! -- and his over-the-top renditions of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "Mr. Tambourine Man." Think Muhammad Ali, whose musical career I covered a few weeks ago on Wacky Wednesday.

But there are so many more. Let's hear some of them.

Here's a little Kojack Kountry with Telly Savalas. We love ya, baby!



Jackie Chan croons the theme to CZ 12 aka Chinese Zodiac, a 2012 movie. He does his own stunts in the recording studio too.



Walter Brennan, makes "Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town" a Walter Brennan song.



This Golden Throat, Everett McKinley Dirksen, came from the U.S. Senate. This actually was a hit record during the Vietnam War.



And the Golden Throats will never die. Just a few years ago Scarlett Johannsson recorded an entire album of Tom Waits songs. Here is one of those.



And for the real zealots, here's a Spotify playlist :

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, May 10, 2015 
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

Ain't it a Shame by Nirvana

Saint Dee by The Bloodhounds

Lupine Dominus by Thee Oh Sees

Little Black Submarines by The Black Keys

Pussy Riot by Acrid Fluff

Lipstick Frenzy by Lovestruck

Don't Slander Me by The Blue Giant Zeta Puppies

John Lawman by Roky Erikson

Gimme Gimme Gimme by Figures of Light

I Had a Friend by Jonny Manak & The Depressives

Bigger and Better by The Fleshtones

Spooks by Ghost Bikini

Dark as a Dungeon by The Tombstones

The Midnight Creep by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

Mystic Eyes by Them

I May Be Gone by The Oblivians

Wade in Bloody Water by The Grannies

I Was a Teenage Kiddie Porn Star by Al Foul & The Shakers

I Got Your Number by The Sonics

Gimme Some by Sons of Hercules

I Got Worms by Archie & The Pukes

Snake Drive by R.L. Burnside

Not Enough Happenng by Hipbone Slim & The Knee Tremblers

Don't Answer the Door by B.B. King & Bobby "Blue" Bland

Troubled Mind by The Buff Medways

Crane's Cafe by TAD

I Predict a Riot by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band

Shepherds of the Nation by The Kinks

You Are So Evil by Willie King & The Liberators

The House of Blue Lights by Don Covay & The Jefferson Lemon Blues Band

I Know I've Been Changed by John Hammond & Tom Waits

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

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, May 8, 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

Hey Mama, My Time Ain't Long by Ray Wylie Hubbard

Whole Lotta Things by Southern Culture on the Skids

Song for David J by Glenn Jones

Driftwood 40-23 by The Hickoids

19th Nervous Breakdown by Jason & The Scorchers

The Breeze by Banditos

If You Gotta Go by Flying Burrito Brothers

Brand New Cadillac by Wayne Hancock

Reap the Whirlwind by Chipper Thompson

Ain't No Top 40 Song by Terry Allen

Big Corral by DM Bob & The Deficits

Texas Whore Pleaser by Slackeye Slim

Ain't No God in Mexico by Waylon Jennings

Baby This, Baby That by Reno Jack

Old Tige by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band

Jack's Red Cheetah by Cathy Faber's Swingin' Country Band

East Texas Girl by The Beaumonts with Molly Hayes

Between Lust and Watching TV by Cal Smith

Dreadful Sinner by Jayke Orvis

Blood on the Fiddle, Blood on the Bow by Jim White vs. The Packway Handle Band

Two Dollar Bill by Paula Rhae McDonald

Flannery Said by The Moaners

A Fool Such as I by Marti Brom

Selling the Jelly by Noah Lewis' Jug Band

I've Been Down That Rocky Road Before by Stevie Tombstone

Town Hall Shuffle by Joe Maphis

Long Walk Back From San Antone by Junior Brown

Legend in My Time by Leon Russell

Same God by Calamity Cubes

You Coulda Walked Around the World by Butch Hancock 

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 Freeform American Roots Radio list
ksfr.or