Yesterday we celebrated the second anniversary of Wacky Wednesday on this blog. Today we celebrate the second anniversary of Throwback Thursday, my humble effort to explore the music and musicians of decades past, and, when appropriate, to show how that music reverberates in contemporary music.
One of my favorite types of Throwback Thursday posts is when I take an old song -- a folk ballad, a Tin Pan Alley classic, an old bawdy house blues, an unforgettable yet forgotten hit of yesteryear -- try to give a little history about it and show various versions of it to show how it's evolved.
Last year on the first anniversary of this feature I listed all the songs I'd featured from the first year with links to the original posts. Today, I'll list the ones I featured in the past year. (A few are from Wacky Wednesday.
Have a song you'd like me to give the Throwback Thursday treatment to? Let me know in the comments (or by email (stephenwterrell (at) gmail.com) Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, etc.)
It's been two years since I started the Wacky Wednesday feature on this blog.
Wacky Wednesday, was created "to introduce you, the reader to strange, funny and/or confounding music -- the type of "unclaimed melodies" that the Firesign Theatre's Don G. O'Vani was talking about when he said, `if you were to go into a record store and ask for them they would think you were crazy!' "
We've seen a lot of wackiness since Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2014. Last year about this time I did a Wacky Wednesday best-of. Guess what ... I'm doing it again.
Here's a sampling of wacky memories from the past year, including that time we heard some singing clowns
We heard songs by music greats as performed by the international stars who loved them. Here's a Beatles song by Bollywood titans Mohammad Rafi & Asha Bhosle
And here's a Hank Williams favorite by a Swedish group, The Long Gone Smiles
Sunday, Nov. 13, 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
Look at that Moon by Carl Mann
Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival
No Trash by Mystic Braves
More You Talk Less I Hear You by The Devils
Carol Anne by Thee Oh Sees
Hey Sailor by The Detroit Cobras
Take Me to My Place by Jonny Manak & The Depressives
Look in the Mirror by Gregg Turner
Feel So Good by Shirley & Lee
Geraldine by The A-Bones
Rock 'n' Roll Deacon by Screamin' Joe Neal
Love to Love by Miriam
And Satan is Her Name by The Cavemen
Sick When I See by Women Discord
My Shadow by Jay Reatard
Down on the Street by The Stooges
Sick by James Williamson & Maia
Baby Let's Play House by Arthur Gunter
Sag by Churchwood
LEONARD COHEN TRIBUTE
(All songs by Leonard, except where noted)
So Long Maryanne
The Future
First We Take Manhattan by Warren Zevon
I'm Your Man
Everybody Knows by Concrete Blonde
Tower of Song by Tom Jones
Closing Time
Living Today by The Fleshtones
Never Take the Place of You by NRBQ
Bluebird by Leon Russell
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, Nov. 11, 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
Friend of the Common Man by The Blasters
Amos Moses by Dale Watson
Wear Out Your Welcome by Wayne Hancock
Purple Rain by Dwight Yoakam
Hard Times by Martha Fields
This Town Gets Around by Margo Price
Train Kept a Rollin' by The Royal Hounds
Looking at the Moon, Wishing on a Star by Charline Arthur
Slowly Losing My Mind by Southern Culture on the Skids
Sweet Betsy from Pike by BR-549
Dixie Fried by Carl Perkins
Why Does the Wind Blow So Wild by Washboard Hank
Meet You Down South by Reverse Cowgirls
Old Joe Clark by Dustbowl Revival
Gonna Love My Baby Now by T. Tex Edwards & The Swingin' Kornflake Killers
Rosie the Riveter by Susie Bogguss
Keep it Clean by Charley Jordan
Bird on a Wire by Johnny Cash
Winter Lady by Palace Songs
Leonard Cohen's Day Job by The Austin Lounge Lizards
The Red Door by The Handsome Family
A Girl Don't Have to Drink to Have Fun by The Stumbleweeds
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican Nov.11, 2016
I’ve said it before: If you think they ain’t making country music like they used to, you’re just not looking hard enough. You won’t find much of it on so-called “country” radio, but it’s out there. This week I look at a bunch of recent country albums I’ve been playing the holy heck out of on KSFR’s The Santa Fe Opry (101.1 FM, Fridays 10 p.m.-midnight) in recent weeks.
* Slingin’ Rhythm by Wayne Hancock. Wayne the Train is back with a fistful of mostly original, good, solid honky-tonkin’ songs with lyrics full of wicked wit and heartache — often in the same song — and lots of impressive picking. Hancock’s got a new band, including an impressive new steel guitarist, Rose Sinclair, and not one but two electric guitarists, Bart Weinburg and Greg Harkins. As usual, Hancock gives his bandmates plenty of room to stretch, while their producer, Lubbock string-titan Lloyd Maines, captures the sound that some call retro, but I call timeless.
Things falling apart seem to be a general theme here with tunes like “Dirty House Blues,” “Two String Boogie,” and “Wear Out Your Welcome,” about a love that’s disintegrated.
My immediate favorite song on Slingin’ is a brand new murder ballad — actually, a double-homicide fantasy — in the great tradition of Leon Ashley’s “Laura (What’s He Got That I Ain’t Got),” Porter Wagoner’s “The Cold Hard Facts of Life,” and Johnny Paycheck’s “(Pardon Me) I’ve Got Someone to Kill.”
Hancock’s song is called “Killed Them Both,” and that’s just what he does to his cheating sweetheart and some funky dude. Hancock sings, “Somebody heard the shots and called 911/The law’s outside to ruin all my fun …” Now that’s what I call country music!
* Live at the Big T Roadhouse, Chicken S#!+ Bingo Sunday and Under the Influence by Dale Watson. Dale Watson may be the hardest working honky-tonker in Texas. He’s known to play gigs without taking a single break. He even works holidays. I saw him play the Continental Club in Austin last Christmas — and he’s scheduled to play there on Thanksgiving this month.
Watson always seems to have a new album. In fact, he’s released not one but two in recent weeks.
One album is a live show from his favorite Hedwig, Texas, haunt, known for bingo games that use live poultry instead of balls to determine the numbers being called.
The other is an album full of cover songs made famous by the musicians who most influenced him.
Big T Roadhouse features a bunch of old Watson tunes, including ought-to-be classics like “I Lie When I Drink,” “Where Do You Want It” (an ode to Billy Joe Shaver’s infamous shooting incident), and one of his best trucker songs, “Birmingham Breakdown.” There area couple of Merle Haggard favorites, “The Bottle Let Me Down” and “The Fugitive,” plus my personal favorite here, a spirited cover of Jerry Reed’s “Amos Moses.”
And speaking of covers, Under the Influence is a true treat. Watson performs Bob Wills’ “That’s What I Like About the South,” Buck Owens’ “Made in Japan,” and two relative Haggard obscurities: “Here in Frisco” and “If You Want to Be My Woman.”
My favorites are Watson’s version of “You’re Humbuggin’ Me,” a classic recorded by Lefty Frizzell, Rocket Morgan, Ronnie Dawson, and others, and Danny Dill’s “Long Black Veil.” That’s a well-worn chestnut first made famous by Frizzell. But Dale’s treatment is unique. He actually makes this ghostly murder story swing.
* Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars … by Dwight Yoakam. Yoakam undoubtedly was the best-known neo-honky-tonker of the 1980s.
Though he’s dabbled in bluegrass before, this is Kentucky-born Yoakam’s first all-bluegrass album. All the songs are new acoustic versions of old Yoakam originals, including the title song of his first album, “Guitars, Cadillacs,” refitted with fiddles and banjos.
All but one, that is.
The album ends with Prince’s “Purple Rain.” And while a lot of people chuckle at the thought of a bluegrass rendition of Prince, this is nothing to snicker at. Yoakam kills it. Without a trace of irony he finds the soul of the song and makes it into the perfect hillbilly tribute to the ascended master from Minneapolis.
* Southern White Lies by Martha Fields. She has roots in Texas and Oklahoma, though these days Fields is living part-time in Bordeaux, France.
But just because she’s across the ocean doesn’t mean she’s forgotten her musical roots. Last year, with a band of Frenchmen called House of Twang, she released an album full of rocking country boogie called Long Way From Home. But while that one was fun, her new acoustic banjo- and dobro-driven record is much deeper and hits much harder.
With a strong, throaty voice, Fields sings about her Southern heritage with stark honesty. A major theme running through several songs on Southern White Lies is how poor, rural people are manipulated by politicians and big business to keep them poor and ignorant for the sake of keeping up the supply of cheap labor and soldiers for wars.
There’s a real current of righteous anger running through many of these songs. Fields sums it up in “American Hologram,” singing, “No pot to piss in, believe in that trickle down/Snake handlers and TV tellin’ ‘em it’s for the best ... No need for education, no money for schools/Easier for Limbaugh, to play ‘em like the fool.”
A tasteful handful of covers like Woody Guthrie’s “Lonesome Road Blues” — better known as “Going Down That Road Feelin’ Bad” — and Janis Joplin’s “What Good Can Drinkin’ Do” adds a little levity to the album. “Pandering politicians, we need more musicians,” Fields sings in the title song.
