Friday, January 15, 2016 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
Bear Creek Blues by John Prine
Cool Rockin' Loretta by Joe Ely
Wanted Man/DIYBYOB by The Waco Brothers
Bloody Mary Morning by Willie Nelson
Get It On Down the Line by Danny Barnes
Move It by T. Tex Edwards
Everything it Takes by Loretta Lynn with Elvis Costello
Honky Tonk Merry Go Round by The Stumbleweeds
Family Man by Robbie Fulks
Roll Truck Roll by Terry Allen
Hot Dog Baby by Hasil Adkins
Honky Tonkin' by The The
Cheap Motel by Southern Culture on the Skids
Number One with a Bullet by Freakwater
Let's Do Wrong Tonight by Simon Stokes
Whiskey Drinkin' Women by Cornell Hurd
Jason Fleming by Roger Miller
Sister Kate by Oh Lazarus
Payday by Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks
Ruby Are You Mad by The Osborne Brothers
Wine Wine Wine by Dale Watson
High As You Can Be by Asylum Street Spankers
Put Something in the Pot, Boy by The Five Strings
Demon Rum by Legendary Shack Shakers
Indoor Fireworks by Nick Lowe & His Cowboy Outfit
That's the Way Love Goes by Merle Haggard
Lord, I’m In Your Care by Grey DeLisle & Murry Hammond
Wreck on the Highway by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band with Roy Acuff
Star Motel Blues by Kell Robertson
Jimmy Brown the Newsboy by Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs
Fred McDowell, know to the blues and folk worlds as "Mississippi" Fred McDowell (though he was born and he died in Tennessee), had a birthday this week. He would have turned 112 on Tuesday, Jan. 12. (Thanks to Putney on the KUNM Blues Show for reminding us of that fact on his show last night.)
On a 1969 album, McDowell declared, "I do not play no rock 'n' roll." That, of course didn't deter The Rolling Stones from recording McDowell's song "You Got to Move."
But McDowell also did not play no delta blues. Living most of his days in Como, Miss., in the northern part of the state (about 50 miles south of Memphis), he was a purveyor of what is known as the Hill Country blues, a sound later associated with R. L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and Jessie Mae Hemphill.
I like this description on a site called Hill Country Harmonica:
Hill country blues is NOT the stuff that Muddy Waters took to Chicago. It's the stuff that stayed behind in Mississippi. This may be why Junior Kimbrough's music sounds sadder, and uses fewer chords, than Muddy's: because the lives of its creators were more circumscribed. The hill country elders didn't have the big hits that Muddy, Wolf, Little Walter, B. B. King enjoyed. They didn't have tour buses. They didn't play the Regal and the Apollo. They didn't wear matching suits. They wore truckers' caps and cowboy boots. They stayed home. (Actually, an important correction: R. L. Burnside DID move to Chicago in 1944 and stayed there for about 15 years. He fled back home to the Mississippi hills after his father, two brothers, and uncle were all murdered in Chicago within the span of one year. Hill Country bluesmen were the guys for whom the escape-to-the-promised-land thing just didn't work out.) These men farmed, drove tractors, worked for themselves.
McDowell was old enough to have recorded back in the '20s and early '30s, the era of Robert Johnson, Charley Patton and Son House. But he wasn't. In the '20s, he busked around the streets and Memphis and when he settled down in Como he would play weekend parties and fish fries. But he earned his living as a farmer.
But he didn't record until 1959 when he was "discovered" by Alan Lomax, who released several of his songs on a folk music series on Atlantic Records. A few years later Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records came calling and recorded more of the singing sharecropper. McDowell became a regular in the folk music revival circuit, playing campuses and coffee houses. he was part of the American Folk Blues Festival tour in Europe, which also featured blues titans like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Memphis Slim and others.
In 1969, McDowell recorded an album for Capitol Records, I Do Not Play No Rock 'n' Roll. He played electric guitar and was backed by a pretty rockin' no-rock rhythm section. Some purists hated it. I loved it.
By this time he was attracting the attention of rockers like The Stones and Bonnie Raitt, who recorded a medley of his songs "Write Me a Few of Your Lines" and "Kokomo Me Baby."
McDowell wasn't able to enjoy this recognition for long, however. He died of cancer in Memphis in 1972.
But his music lives on. Here are a few for Fred:
This next one is from the American Folk Blues Festival.
McDowell played gospel as well as blues.
This is a song by the original Sonny Boy Williamson. I first heard it by The Grateful Dead, and later Johnny Winter.
I like Fred's version even better than The Stones' ...
There aren't very many wackier than the Marx Brothers, And their classic comedies -- and even their not-so-classic comedies -- were filled with music. Here are some of my favorite songs from those movies.
First from the 1939 film At the Circus
A cowboy song from Go West
A classic tune by Groucho as Captain Spaulding from Animal Crackers
Chico and Harpo get down in The Big Store
And decades before the rock 'n' roll versions, Harpo was playing a serious harp rendition of "Blue Moon.' (another one from At the Circus)
UPDATED 9:10 amThanks to Chuck for pointing out this omission. From Horse Feathers ...
Sunday, January 10, 2016 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
Love is a Beautiful Thing by The Cellar Dwellers
I Wanna Come Back From The World Of LSD by Fe-Fi-Four Plus 2
Jane / Spectacle by Dead Moon
Til My Back Ain't Got No Bone by Tom Jones
Rub My Root by Memphis Slim & Willie Dixon
Ooh Baby / Wrecking My Love Life by Super Super Blues Band
Try it by The Standells
Bad Man by Thee Fine Lines
Rocket Boy by Lovestruck
Nest of the Cuckoo Bird by The Cramps
Down and Out by The Vagoos
Flesh Eating Cocaine Blues by Daddy Long Legs
Bittersweet Romance Party by The Dirtbombs
Pictures of Lily by The Hickoids
Out of Control by Wayne County & The Electric Chairs
Little Bad Wolf by The Tra-Velles
Moonlight by Jerry J. Nixon
Where the Good Doggies Go by Al's Equinox Party
Mean Heart by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Swamp Buggy Badass by Quintron & Miss Pussycat
Put Me in Jail by Joe "King" Carrasco
People Who Died by Jim Carrol Band
It Ain't Easy by Javier Escovedo
Get Outta My Way by The Laughing Dogs
Mr. Face by Ty Segall
Two Sided Triangle by Any Dirty Party
Vega-Tables by The Beach Boys
Cheryl's Going Home by Miriam
Czekając Na Wczoraj by Kazik & Kwartet ProForma
Bittersweet Candy by The Barbarellatones
Moonbeam by King Richard & The Knights
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, January 8, 2016 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
Tiger by the Tail / Building Our Own Prison by The Waco Brothers
Gotta Travel On by Jerry Lee Lewis
Purple Sprouting Broccoli by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
High Noon in Killville by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies
Sweet Sweet Young 'un by Al Duval
I Like to Sleep Late in the Morning by David Bromberg
