WACKY WEDNESDAY: A Musical Birthday Card to Classy Freddie Blassie

If he were still alive, Classy Freddie Blassie would be celebrating his 99th birthday today.

Happy Birthday, King of Men!

Blassie was born Frederick Blassman in St. Louis, the only child of his German immigrant parents. He started his wrestling career working in carnivals.

In the 1950s became known as one of the toughest heels in the wrestling racket. And one of the greatest showmen in a business that thrives on showmanship.

Though he was well beyond his wrestling years in the mid '70s -- by this time, he was a "manager" whose clients included Hulk Hogan and future Minnesota Gov. Jesse "The Body" Ventura -- his oversize personality would make him a pop-culture star.

He and Andy Kaufman starred in My Breakfast with Blassie, a hilarious spoof on a popular "art" movie of the era, My Dinner with Andre.

But even before then, Blassie made records.

Dr. Demento made Blassie's single "Pencil Neck Geek" a novelty classic. Recorded in the mid '70s, Billy Zoom of X played guitar. Blassie released an EP Called King of Men in 1978. It featured "Pencil Neck Geek" and three other songs.

And in 1983, Rhino Records released a full Blassie album called I Bite The Songs.

Blassie died in 2003. But the joy and music he created live on.

Here's that song that made us all fall in love.



And here's another tune from both King of Men and I Bite the Songs.



Blassie also covered this song written by Jerry Reed and covered by Elvis, "U.S. Male"



And if you need more, here's the whole durn I Bite the Songs album (caution ... this apparently came straight off vinyl and it skips in some places.)

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, Feb. 5, 2017
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist :

OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Chem Farmer by Thee Oh Sees
Love Is... by Dinosaur Jr
Everybody is in Love with You by Lynx Lynx
Why Do You Hate Me by Pussycat & The Dirty Johnsons
It's Not Easy by Question Mark & The Mysterians
Miniskirt Blues by Simon Stokes & The Heathen Angels
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah by Bob E. Soxx & The Blue Jeans
Tropical Hotdog Night by Captain Beefheart

Look in the Mirror by Gregg Turner
Evil Hoodoo by The Seeds
Pappa Satan Sang Louie by The Cramps
Straight Long and Hard by Meet Your Death
Talk About the Blues by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Burlesque Queen by The Dustaphonics
No Calypso Song by Coconut Kings

Will You Teach Me by Mark Sultan
Parts Unknown by Kid Congo Powers with Lydia Lunch
American Gangster Time by Elvis Costello & The Imposters
Chains of Love by The Dirtbombs
Drowning by The Sex Organs
Can't Keep My Cool by Durand Jones & The Indications
It's Not Over by Soul Scratch
It's All in the Game / Make It Real One More Time by Van Morrison

This Land is Your Land by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Czekając na wczoraj” (Yesterday is Here) by Kazik
Reach For Me by Bernadette Seacrest & Kris Dale
Too Far Gone by Dead Moon
Love Letters by Kitty Lester
Perfect Day by Lou Reed
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, Feb. 3, 2017
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
Super Freak by Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby
Jimmie Rodgers' Last Blue Yodel by Jason & The Scorcers
If You Want to Be My Woman by Dale Watson
Cautious by Jim Lauderdale
Do You Think About Me by The Waco Brothers
Jungle Swing by C.W. Stoneking
Rainmaker by Eliza Gilkyson
Who Knows Right From Wrong by Porter Wagoner
The Night Porter Wagoner Came to Town by Tabby Crabb

One More Thing by Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
Blue Moon of Kentucky by Reverend Beat-Man
Baddest of the Bad by Reverend Horton Heat
Everything It Takes by Loretta Lynn with Elvis Costello
You Win Again by Van Morrison & Linda Gail
Love You Always by Wayne Hancock
Tennessee Song by Margot Price
The Piquot Dance Hall by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies
I've Just Destroyed the World by Willie Nelson

Dim Lights, Thick Smoke and Loud, Loud Music by John Prine & Amanda Shires
Mighty Lonesome Man by James Hand
What Did the Deep Sea Say by Dave Alvin
Wake Up America by Sylvia Boshers
Evenin' Breeze by Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks
I Like to Keep Myself in Pain by Kelly Hogan
This is Your Night by The Flat Five
You Left Me a Long Time Ago by Miss Leslie
Love Letters in the Sand by Mac Wiseman

I Tremble for You by Waylon Jennings
Commandment 1 by Slim Cessna;s Auto Club
Walking to the End of the World by Amy Allison
First Girl I Loved by John Hartford
Dancing With the Women at the Bar by Whiskeytown
Mr. Blue by David Bromberg
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets


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Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Happy Birthday Alan Lomax!

Wednesday would have been Alan Lomax's 102nd birthday.

Had he not been born, American music would have suffered beyond description. He died in 2002, but his legacy is immortal.

Lomax, following in the footsteps of his father, John Lomax, was a musicologist who, beginning in the 1930s, traveled through the South -- to plantations, prisons, backwood churches, Louisana fai do-dos -- recording thousands of wild, raw songs and stories of the people that you didn't hear on the radio. John and Alan Lomax helped establish the Library of Congress’ Archive of American Folk Song.

Through the years Alan Lomax would cross paths with some of the most revered names in folk, blues, jazz and hillbilly music. He recorded McKinley Morganfield -- later to become known as Muddy Waters -- recording him playing acoustic blues while he was still living on Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi. He was the first to record Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie. He also did sessions with Jelly Roll Morton, Reverend Gary Davis,  Big Bill Broonzy and Missisippi Fred McDowell.

He recorded the folk music of Europe and the Caribbean. Still, it's the music he collected along the backroads of the American South that I cherish the most.

Some of Lomax's greatest recordings are by those who never achieved popularity very far outside of their home towns.

Today I celebrate such singers along with Lomax.

One was Alabama-born Vera Hall, whose haunting "Another Man Done Gone" is a masterpiece in the rough.



This celebration of the Titanic disaster by Georgia singer Bessie Jones in my book is Lomax's  greatest single recording.



Lomax helped bring the strange and powerful music known as Sacred Harp to those of us who never would have hear it otherwise.



Lomax went to Louisiana's infamous Parchman Farm prison in the late 1940s to record songs of the inmates. The movie O Brother Where Art Thou used one of his Parchman work-gang songs, "Po' Lazarus."   Here's another one called "Rosie."



But not all the great music that Lomax found was in the fields or the prisons or the churches of the South. Apparently he also heard some incredible music in his own New York apartment. Here's a film clip of one of his picking parties featuring Clarence Ashley and Doc Watson performing the classic murder ballad, "The Banks of the Ohio."



This handful of videos only scratch the surface of Alan Lomax's musical world.

Check out hours of music and interviews at The Alan Lomax Archive YouTube channel .
And visit his Association for Cultural Equity online archives.

WACKY WEDNESDAY: More Random Acts of Wackiness

Here's a Wacky Wednesday in search of a theme.

I did this once before nearly a year ago, but I sure didn't use up the supply of weird music videos on Youtube. Here are some more.

Let's start out with a New Wave synth-pop nightmare, "Elektronik Supersonik" by Zlad!

I think this one is a joke. Or maybe, the joke is ON YOU!



It's then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man came singing songs of love ...



Ever wonder what the Bonanza theme sounded like in German? Well I don't care, I'm posting it anyway.



Ya like porkchops? Apparently so did Vincent Price. (Like the German "Bonanza," I found this among April Winchell's incomparable MP3 collection. April says it's created "using clips from Vincent Price cooking records.")


And to finish up, here's 20 minutes of a very drunk Hank Williams, "Recorded sometime in the late '90s, apparently, possibly in Kansas City," the poster says. To be honest, I haven't listened to the whole thing. Maybe you're braver than me.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist :

OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Love is All Around by Husker Du
All the Nation's Airports by Archers of Loaf
America Goddamn by King Khan
Immigraniada by Gogol Bordello
West of the Wall by Toni Fisher
Evil is Going On by Howlin' Wolf
Let's Burn Down the Cornfield by John the Conquerer
What's the News by Motor City Crush
Legs by PJ Harvey
Melt Yourself Down by James Chance & The Contortions

A New Wave / Dig Me Out by Sleater-Kinney
Fall on You by The Plimsouls
I Love You So Much by Mark Sultan
Killing the Wolfman by The King Khan & BBQ Show
Earth Blues by The Sex Organs
Goin' Down by Dinosaur Jr
I Like it Small by Mudhoney
Not Me by The Orlons

Mazhott by Mazhott
Rag by Ras Al Ghul
Who's Your Buster, Dolly by Dicky B. Hardy
Lost Someone by James Brown
The Claw by Barrence  Whitfield & The Savages
So Much in Love by The Tymes
Celery Stalks at Midnight by Doris Day with The Les Brown Orchestra

Charlie Brown by The Dean Ween Band
Love Like a Man by The Fleshtones
Graveyard by  Sloaming Moops
Cold Feelings by Social Distortion
Slippin' Sideways by Drywall
I Believe in Tomorrow by Tiny Tim
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, Jan. 27, 2017
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
Take Me to the Fires by The Waco Brothers
I'm Just a Honky by The Ex-Husbands
Babe Be Mine by Butch Hancock
Long Walk by Mose McCormack
I Won't Go Huntin' With You Jake by The Marlettes
Let Me Go Home, Whiskey by Asleep at the Wheel
Yes Ma'am, He Found Me at a Honky Tonk by Miss Leslie & Her Juke Jointers
Keep the Home Fires Burnin' by Sarah Shook & The Disarmers
The Cajun Queen by Jimmie Dean

Big Balls in Cowtown by Ike Johnson & His Roadhouse Ramblers
Haunted Honky Tonk by John Lilly
Ain't Got No Home by Sonny Burgess & The Legendary Pacers
Fangs by The Saucer Men
The Race is On by George Jones
Sweet Dreams by Janis Martin
Small Bouquet of Roses by Wayne Hancock
I Will Stay Wtth You by Emily Kaitz & Ray Hubbard

This Old Honky Tonk by Rosie Floses
Commandment 8 by Slim Cessna's Auto Club
Fast Fuse Blues by Paul Burch
A Place to Hang My Hat by Porter Wagoner
Dump Road Yodel by Legendary Shack Shakers
Crawdad Song by Washboard Hank
Cheap Motels by Southern Culture on the Skids
Long Old Time by Scott H. Biram
Flora, the Lily of the West by Tim O'Brien

Be Real by Freda & The Firedogs
Marie by Leon Redbone
Give Chance a Chance by Vince Bell
Dreamin' My Dreams With You by John Prine & Kathy Matea
Satin Sheets by Jeannie Pruett
Love Me by Elvis Presley
Nobody's Darlin' But Mine by Hylo Brown
Treasure Untold by Doc & Merle Watson
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets


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THROWBACK THURSDAY: Happy Birthday Apollo Theater!

Today, Thursday, Jan. 26, is the 83rd anniversary of The Apollo Theater in Harlem. That's the day that Sydney S. Cohen and Morris Sussman reopened the theater, which years before had been a Whites-Only burlesque house.

Cohen and Sussman had a whole new plan though. The Apollo would become a major venue for primarily black audiences and primarily black performers.

According to some accounts, the first actual star to play The Apollo was Broadway singer Adelaide Hall, who starred there in a stage production of a musical called Chocolate Soldiers in 1934. Here's a tune by Hall.



In the 30s, '40s and '50s all sorts of African-American jazz giants played the Apollo. Here's the mighty Cab Calloway performing his signature song there.



And here's the Count of Basie


I wish there was some actual footage of Buddy Holly & The Crickets playing the Apollo in the '50s. (They were part of a mostly black package show.) But there's not so we'll just have to settle for Gary Busey in The Buddy Holly  Story. Reportedly Buddy was the first white rock 'n' roller to play there, though white jazz artists like  Harry James and Woody Herman had played there before.


But for MY Generation, the first performer we associate with The Apollo was James Brown who recorded several live albums starting with the classic one in 1962. Here's a live tune from 1968.

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Call Any Vegetable

It's winter and I miss going to the Santa Fe Farmer's Market on Saturdays and eating a glorious bounty of fresh, tasty area-grown vegetables and knowing that when I run out there's always next Saturday to look forward too. (I know it's open in the winter too, but the pickings just aren't that great this time of year.)

So to help bring solace to my soul, I'm offering up this crazy salad bar of songs, songs about vegetables.

This song frequently pops into my head when I'm at the Farmer's Market -- and sometimes even in the produce section of grocery stores.



Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention knew that vegetables are good for you. And he knew that a vegetable will respond to you



The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" follow-up was a song about the iconic advertising mascot, "The Jolly Green Giant." Check out this weird tale about the song and the canned vegetable company. According to Kingsmen guitarist Mike Mitchell says that while some Green Giant executives wanted to sue the band for copyright infringement, the West Coast office of the corporation love the song and actually sent The Kingsmen cans of vegetables to hand to their fans. Mitchell also claims that FBI agents sent to investigate the band over the lyrics of  "Louie Louie". (I dunno ...)


Doris Day sang the most psychedelic lyrics of her life in "Celery Stalks at Midnight."

Celery stalks at midnight

Lurking in the moonlight

What's this funny nightmare

All about

Celery stalks at midnight

Mounted on their broomsticks

Gliding through the treetops

In and out

It's like a bad dream

A crazy kind of mad dream

I've never successfully  grown tomatoes, but this classic from the late great Guy Clark makes me feel like I should start.



Only Johnny Cash could create a religious song about beans



Here's Susan Christie's pseudo jug-band song about onions



I've explained before, this group made me want to start a band.

New Big Enchilada Podcast Makes the Barnyard Boogie

It's the new year already and The Big Enchilada has headed out to the country to bring you some down home sounds -- rockabilly, bluegrass, hardcore honky tonk, western swing, country-rock, cowpunk and more. Kick up your boots, but watch where you step in the barnyard! 

DOWNLOAD | SUBSCRIBE | FACEBOOK | MIXCLOUD

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Here's the playlist:

(Background Music: Barnyard Beatniks by Big Sandy & The Fly-Rite Boys)
Daddy Was a Badass by Jesse Dayton
Long Walk by Mose McCormack
This Lonely Bed by The Garnet Hearts
Kitty Cat Scratch by Suzette Lawrence & The Neon Angels
Okie Boogie by Jack Guthrie & His Oklahomans
Merchants Lunch by The Austin Lounge Lizards

(Background Music: Busy City by Rhonda Vincent)
I Ain't Gonna Hang Around by Southern Culture on the Skids
Diesel Drinkin' Daddy by Jason Lee Wilson
Professional Feeder by Reverse Cowgirls
Country Cool by Shinyribs
We Gon' Boogaloo by C.W. Stoneking
Sputnik Monroe by Otis Gibbs

(Background Music: Progressive Country for a Hollywood Flapper by Hank Penny)
Everyday is Saturday to a Dog by Reach Around Rodeo Clowns
I Don't Know by Dex Romweber
Kentucky Blues by David Bromberg Band
Killed 'em Both by Wayne Hancock 
According to Law by Carol S. Johnson
Boxcars by Rosie Flores

Play it here: