Sunday, October 18, 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 OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
She Digs My Love by Sir Douglas Quintet
Little Doll by The Stooges
As Long as I Have You by Detroit Cobras
Speed Limit by The Dot Wiggins Band
Fire Engine by The Molting Vultures
That's the Bag I'm In by Big Foot Chester
Tres Borrachos by Left Lane Cruiser
People Ain't No Good by The Cramps
Sit Down, Baby by Dave & Phil Alvin
Jockey Full of Bourbon by Los Lobos
Walk on Gilded Splinters by Jello Biafra & The Raunch and Soul All-Stars
Big Chief by Dr. John
21 Days in Jail by Magic Sam
Redhead Mortician by The Suicide Shifters
Video Violence by Lou Reed
Police Call by Drywall
Subhuman Woman by Devo
The Wicked Messenger by Black Keys
25th Floor / High on Rebellion by Patti Smith
He Looks Like a Psycho by The Electric Mess
Isis by Bob Dylan
Full Moon in the Daylight Sky by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Bring it on Home to Me by The Animals
Seven Wonders by Holly Golightly
Harry Hippie by Bobby Womack
Hey Hey by Pat Burns with Cynthia Becker
Mean Mean Man by Lou Ann Barton CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, October 16, 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
UPDATED 10-17-15 with new video A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican October 16, 2015 If you rate albums on the basis of how many times you find yourself singing its songs to yourself during the day, then Lost Time by Dave & Phil Alvin would definitely be the top record of the year.
Seriously, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve caught myself — in my car, at home, during interviews with important political leaders (just kidding, just kidding) — humming or singing under my breath “Papa’s on the House Top” or “In New Orleans (Rising Sun Blues)” from this cool little album. I can’t help myself. The only places I’m immune to it are at the farmers market or the produce section of supermarkets. And that’s because at those places I’m usually singing Brian Wilson’s “Vegetables.” (I’m sure there is a name for this disease.)
Before we go on with my true confessions, let’s talk about these Alvin brothers for the benefit of the uninitiated. Back in the early ’80s, these Downey, California, natives were the core of one of the greatest groups of the era, the Blasters. Older brother Phil sang while Dave played guitar and wrote songs for the band, which was part of an impressive and highly influential Los Angeles roots-rock scene that included Los Lobos, country singer Dwight Yoakam, and the punk gods X. (Dave Alvin was briefly a member of X.)
And even before the Blasters, Dave and Phil were obsessed with the senior blues, early rock, and R & B giants who were still alive and pickin’ in the late ’60s and ’70s. They’d sneak into clubs like the Ash Grove and sometimes even hang out with rasty old blues heroes old enough to be their grandfather.
Dave Alvin in Santa Fe 2009 with The Guilty Women
By the mid-’80s, after four studio albums and untold amounts of sibling rivalry (Google “The Kinks”), the Blasters broke up. Dave, after his stint with X (and X’s side project, the Knitters) went on to a successful solo career.
Phil did a couple of solo albums, most notably Un “Sung” Stories, a 1986 effort that included some tracks with Sun Ra’s Arkestra. He also revived the Blasters — without Dave, though little brother Dave has occasionally reunited with the group. Back in 2011, Phil did a guest spot on a song on Dave’s album Eleven Eleven — a song appropriately called “What’s Up With Your Brother?” It was the first time the two had recorded together since the Blasters’ heyday.
Then last year — following an abscessed tooth infection that hospitalized and nearly killed Phil — the two did an actual album together, Common Ground, a tribute CD featuring songs by blues titan Big Bill Broonzy. Apparently that album wasn’t just a one-shot deal. On Lost Time, the brothers sound as if in their late middle age, they’re actually enjoying making music with each other again. Like the Broonzy album, there are jaunty acoustic country-blues numbers as well as hard-edged, Blasterific blues.
Phil Alvin jamming with Rev. Horton Heat and Los Lobos
Hootenanny 2009, Irvine, Calif.
The album starts out with “Mister Kicks,” a song by under-recognized (nearly forgotten) R & B/pop singer Oscar Brown Jr. from his masterpiece 1960 album, Sin & Soul. Nearly a decade before The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil,” Brown, backed by beatnik bongos, sang, “Permit me to introduce myself, the name is Mr. Kicks/I dwell in the dark dominion way down by the River Styx.” There are no bongos in the new version, but in the hands of the Alvin brothers, the song becomes a natural vehicle for Phil’s soulful tenor and Dave’s piercing guitar.
Another standout on Lost Time is “Sit Down, Baby,” an old Otis Rush chugging tune (written by Willie Dixon) that Dave sings. It starts off with a classic blues meme about “the little red rooster” talking to “the little brown hen” and then moves seamlessly to a new take on the Aesop fable with a hepcat turtle taunting the rabbit (“You ain’t got a chance of winning this race!”). Then it gets into politics with a verse about an old labor dispute: “The C.I.O told U.S. Steel/We ain’t gonna take your dirty deal.” The Alvins added a verse about Rosa Parks (she tells an Alabama judge that it’s time for him to sit in the back of the bus) that wasn’t in Rush’s original.
Dave and Phil do a couple of tasty upbeat gospel songs here. The brothers trade off verses on an electric (and electrifying) version of “World’s In a Bad Condition,” an old song. (I can’t say for sure who did it first, but I found a 1935 version by a quartet called Heavenly Gospel Singers on YouTube.) And the album concludes with a Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey song, “If You See My Savior.” The brothers do this in a sweet acoustic country style. They sing this as a call-and-response, with Phil calling and Dave responding.
As for those memorable songs that always seem to pop into my brain, “Papa’s on the House Top” is a funny old 1930 novelty by blues pianist Leroy Carr. “In New Orleans (Rising Sun Blues)” is a version of the old whorehouse lament, “House of the Rising Sun.” But you might not recognize the melody. Gone is the slow pace and minor key that The Animals (and Bob Dylan and Josh White and countless others) popularized. I can’t quite figure out where the melody the Alvins use came from, but to my ears, it sounds closer to the 1933 version by Tom Clarence Ashley and Gwen Foster than to anything else.
Not every song on Lost Time is a winner. While Phil does a respectable job on “Please Please Please,” I can’t see anyone ever topping James Brown’s original.
But there are so many great tracks here, that’s just a slight quibble. I hope Dave and Phil continue to demonstrate together the Alvin family values.
Video Time! UPDATED 10-17-15I'm adding this on Saturday, the day after I posted the original version of this Tune-Up. I just learned this morning that this new video of the Alvins singing “World’s In a Bad Condition” debuted Friday on the Relix site. And it's a good one!
Dave and Phil play a song from their previous album, Common Ground. On this one, the brothers play a couple of old Blasters tunes
Here is an early version of "This Old World is on Bad Condition."
And please allow me to introduce you to Oscar Brown, Jr. and "Mr. Kicks."
Judge you want to hear my plea Before you open up your court But I don't want no sympathy 'Cause I done cut my good man's throat I caught him with a trifling Jane I warned him 'bout before I had my knife and went insane And the rest you ought to know
These, of course are the opening lines of "'Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair," a black-humor ditty recorded in 1927 by The Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith.
The song, credited to George Brooks -- which was a pseudonym for Fletcher Henderson, the influential bandleader and music director. This is one of many tunes he wrote for Bessie. But it's the most memorable.
The woman in the song is begging the judge to send her to the chair because she knows she has to reap what she's sown.
And if the judge was prone to having sympathy for the poor woman, it probably dissipated after she added these details to her true confession:
I cut him with my Barlow I kicked him in the side I stood here laughing o'er him While he wallowed around and died
Yep, by that time he probably was ready to send her to the Devil down below, just like she requested.
Here's Bessie's original:
In 1958 Dinah Washington released an album called Dinah sings Bessie Smith. " 'Lectric Chair" was on it. Below is a TV performance by Washington. I don't know which show it is but it's sometime after her Bessie album was released.
Like a lot of folks my age, I came to this song through David Bromberg's version, which appeared on his 1974 album Wanted Dead or Alive. It's still a staple of his live shows. Playing the lead himself on acoustic guitar, Bromberg turned " 'Lectric Chair" into a crazy Dixieland romp. He changed the lyrics slightly to make the narrator/killer into a man. (Instead of a "trifling Jane," his loved one was messing around with a "gambling Joe.")
One of my favorite touches is when Bromberg, when begging the judge, says, "Mr. Sirica, please ..." (This was recorded during the Watergate era, remember.)
Here's a live 1977 performance.
And somehow this funny little song of crime and punishment led to a very short but very strange 2009 film of the same title directed by Guy Maddin and Isabella Rosselini. Actually the film doesn't seem to have much to do with the tune -- except the fact that a snippet of Bessie's song comes in briefly at the 1:31 mark.
I recently scored not one but two CD volumes of the incredible Twisted Tales from the Vinyl Wastelands series for a good price. And that was just a few weeks after I purchased another volume from Norton Records, where all 15 volumes are now sold legally.
(And very soon, the wizards at Trailer Park Records will be releasing new vinyl versions of Twisted Tales. Keep an eye on the Facebook page for more info.)
So I've been listening to a lot of Twisted Tales tunes lately, sometimes on shuffle mode. And sometimes I've heard THE DEVIL!
Here are three twisted Satanic tales from this wonderful series.
Sunday, October 11, 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 OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Judy in Disguise by Jello Biafra and the Raunch & Soul All-Stars
Big Black Witchcraft Rock by The Cramps
Stare into the Night by Cheetah Chrome
Eviler by The Grannies
Spin the Bottle by The A-Bones
C'mon a My House by The Satellites
Devil Smile by Nekromantix
Rosalyn by The Pretty Things
The Dozens by Eddie One-String Jones
Manny's Bones/ Oh Yeah by Los Lobos
People Who Died by The Jim Carrol Band WPLJ by The Four Deuces
Wine-O Boogie by Don Ramone, Sr. y Su Orquestra
WPLJ by The Mothers of Invention
Gonna Feed My Baby Poison by The Rocketeers
1970 / Funhouse by The Stooges
The Departed by Iggy & The Stooges
Black Girls by The Violent Femmes
Give Me Back My Wig by Hound Dog Taylor
Crawdad by The Gories
Maybe Your Baby by The Dirtbombs
Ain't That a Bitch by Johnny "Guitar" Watson
Golden Rule by John the Conquerer
But I Forgive You Blues by Don Covay & J. Lemon Blues
This Train by Sister Rosetta Tharpe CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis Like the Terrell's Sound World Facebook page
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8 a.m. to 10 am Sunday Mountain Time KSFR, Santa Fe, NM Webcasting! Substitute Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org Here's the playlist
Welcome Table and Prayer by Alice Wine
Witness for My Lord by Silver Leaf Quartet
The Holy Spirit by Rev. Lonnie Farris
A Little Talk With Jesus by Ernest Phipps & His Holiness Singers
I'm a Royal Child by Reverend Kelsey
I've Got a Home by Holy Wonders
A Sinner's Plea by The Jubilee Hummingbirds
I Know I Got Religion by Andy Mosely
Don't Forget the Bridge by The Five Blind Boys of Mississippi
I'll Lead a Christian Life by Elder Golden P. Harris
Hell Bound Express Train by Reverend J.M. Gates
Do You Call That Religion? by Rev. A. Johnson
I Prayed All Night by Pressers of Christ
God is Alright by Sons of South
I'll Fly Away by Joe Lastie
Just Beyond the River / Christian Automobile by Bright Light Quartet
Get Ready, I'm Going to Move in the Room Upstairs by Rev. Louis Overstreet
It AIn't Nobody's Biz'ness What I Do by Hoosier Hot Shots
How You Want It Done by Big Bill Broonzy
I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate by Ray Miller & His Hotel Gibson Orchestra
Jimbo Jambo Land by Shorty Godwin
Low Down Rambler Blues by Peg Leg Howell
Old Rub Alcohol Blues by Dock Boggs
Canned Heat Blues by Tommy Johnson
The Devil's Great Grandson by Roy Rogers
Pussy by Harry Roy & His Bat Club Boys
Casey Bill by Earl McDonald's Original Louisville Jug Band
She's Hum Dum Dinger by Jimmie Davis
Dying Crapshooter's Blues by Blind Willie McTell
Minglewood Blues by Cannon's Jug Stompers
On the Road Again by Memphis Jug Band
That'll Never Happen No More by Howard Armstrong
Chicken Don't Roost Too High by Georgia Pot Lickers
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Friday, October 9, 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 : OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens
Jibber Jabber by The Supersuckers
Kiss and Tell Baby by Kim Lenz & Her Jaguars
Battle with the Bottle by Linda Gail Lewis
Banana Puddin' by Southern Culture on the Skids
Old Chunk of Coal by Billy Joe Shaver
Under the Jail by Mose McCormack
Heaven Buy and Buy by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs
I Gotta Go Get My Baby by The Maddox Brothers & Rose
Rubber Hits the Road by The Legendary Stardust Cowboy
The Girl Who Danced Oklahoma / I'm Not That Kat Anymore by Terry Allen
Knoxville Girl by Brett Sparks
Big Lotsa Love by The Bottle Rockets
Hey Baby by Country Blues Review
If I Go Crazy by Peter Case
Night on the Town by Joe West
How Far Down Can I Go? by T. Tex Edwards & The Swingin' Korn Flake Killers
The Dog was Dead by Billy Bob Thornton with Legendary Shack Shakers
Down to the Bone by Legendary Shack Shakers
Sweet Singin' Daddy by Jimmy and Johnny
One Time One Night by Los Lobos
If I Had Three Wishes by Buck Owens
Half Broken Horse by Eilen Jewell
Bloodstains On The Wall by Honeyboy
On his new solo album, Crosseyed Heart, Keith Richards (he's a member of some band whose name I'm trying to remember ...) takes a stab at a true American classic, Leadbelly's "Goodnight Irene." And it's a good stab indeed, as you'll hear below:
And below, Keith talks about why he recorded "Irene." For one thing, he says the lyrics referring to morphine (as he sings it, "Well I love Irene, god knows I do. I'll love her till the seas run dry. And if Irene ever turned me down, I'll take morphine and die") were "right up my alley."
Indeed, "Irene," though a lot of people think of it almost like a sweet lullaby, is a pretty dark tune. Before the lyrics even get to the morphine, the singer, who has just been left by his young wife, has already declared, "Sometimes I get the great notion to jump in the river and drown."
Richards' cover actually is the second new release in which Irene raised her sleepy head,Just recently, Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs, on their new album Coulda Shoulda Woulda, did a song called "Jump in the River," which has obvious roots in "Goodnight Irene." In it, Lawyer Dave sings, "Sometimes I get the big idea, I'm gonna jump in the river and drown." Notice, this wasn't a "great notion," just a "big idea." (Sorry, I can't find this song on YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud or anywhere. You can hear it on my latest Big Enchilada podcast though.)
Leadbelly recorded several versions of his song, Here is one of them:
But the song wouldn't break nationally until shortly after Leadbelly died. That was in 1950 when a folk group called The Weavers (which included Pete Seeger) did a safe, soft and sanitized version that was a major hit. You won't find any morphine here:
This big hit probably helped bring The Weavers to the attention of the Red-baiters during the McCarthy era. They were blacklisted, Seeger being found guilty of contempt of Congress when he refused to answer questions from House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1955. (His conviction was later overturned.)
But that didn't stop Irene from sweeping the country. The Weavers' hit unleashed a wave of covers by pop, folk, country, and later rock 'n' roll acts.
Country singer Hank Thompson poked fun at the phenomenon of Irene-mania in his song "Wake Up, Irene."
And here is a Spotify list that shows Thompson was right. Here you'll find covers ranging from Sinatra to Little Richard; Ernest Tubb to Brian Wilson; Gene Autry to Little Richard. Enjoy!
Well, it's a good good wine, It really make you feel so fine
Today I'm going to salute, and hopefully turn a few people on to one of my favorite lesser-known, under-rated and unsung (actually, it was sung) Frank Zappa songs of all time:
"WPLJ" -- (That's White Port and Lemon Juice for all you squares) -- which was the opening track on The Mother of Invention's 1970 album Burnt Weenie Sandwich.
I was a student at Santa Fe High School when Burnt Weenie first came out and WPLJ immediately became part of the jukebox of my mind the first time I heard it.
It's one of Zappa's over-the-top doo-wop extravaganzas. I almost wonder whether this was an outtake from Cruising with Ruben & The Jets, released just a couple of years before. Burnt Weenie Sandwich ends with another Rubenesque number called "Valerie" (originally recorded by Jackie & The Starlites.)
Let's take a listen, shall we:
Like I say, I loved "WPLJ," from the start. The sheer absurdity of going on and on in praising this low-rent drink always made me laugh. But what really made the tune was the finish, that crazy Spanish rap by Mother Roy Estrada at the end of the song:
“The modern-day pachuco refuses to die.” Ruben Sano:
By the way, I ran this through Google Translate and came up with the English version:
Why not get your. . . your carnal buy us some wine that, go ahead, click bato, fucking, man, do not get your butt, man. . . (chale!) Do not be so dense, man (chale!), go ahead, tell, because they deserve, go ahead, click wine, more sua. . . softer, more. . . cuter than a bitch, man, go ahead, click bato man wants your carnal man your carnal that, you, you know, you know this from the move, the move you know, that, you know how it is, you you know, fucking wine, whore, go ahead, click bato, bastard, go ahead
I'm sure that's 100 percent correct.
But "WPLJ" was not a Zappa original. He was covering an obscure Salinas, California doo-wop group called The 4 Deuces, who recorded as a B-side in 1956. The song was used in an ad for for Italian Swiss Colony, a company that produced white port.
Here's how that sounded:
But notice, the Deuces don't include the magical Spanish spoken-word performance at the end. I always wondered what inspired Zappa to do that.
Then in 2002, Arhoolie Records released a bitchen compilation called Pachuco Boogie full of Mexican-American hipster jazz between 1948 and 1950, mainly in Los Angeles. A big chunk of the selections, including the title song were by one Edmundo MartÃnez Tostado, an El Paso native better known by his stage name: Don Tosti.
Tosti and his group also recorded under the names Don Ramone Sr. y su Orquesta and Cuarteto de Ramon Martinez.
Whatever he called his band, these two songs make me thirsty for some white port and lemon juice and hungry for a burnt weenie sandwich.
