THROWBACK THURSDAY: Do the Chairs in Your Parlor Seem Empty and Bare?

OK, I realize that just a week ago Throwback Thursday featured a bunch of my favorite Elvis Presley songs to mark the 40th anniversary of his death.

But this week we're taking a slightly deeper dive into another Elvis song, "Are You Lonesome Tonight."

Basically this is a song about a guy who misses his woman so much he's fantasizing that she's so miserable without him, she'll gladly take him back on the strength of a pretty melody.

And he may be projecting a little mental instability on her:

Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare? 
Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?

As I sometimes do with songs I love, a wrote another verse to "Are You Lonesome Tonight" for my own amusement, building on that theme of insanity:

Do the shadows in your hall seem to whisper my name?
Do you pound on the walls seeking someone to blame?

Fortunately for you, gentle readers, I've never recorded that, though I did perform an a Capella version last week at Whoo's Donuts.

Be that as it may, "Are You Lonesome Tonight," unlike many of Elvis' hits of that era, was already decades old when he recorded it.

It was written in 1926 (some sources say 1927) by the team of  Roy Turk (lyrics) & Lou Handman (melody).

Turk (1892-1934) also wrote the lyrics to "Walkin' My Baby Back Home," (recorded by Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and a jillion others) as well as the jazz standard "Mean to Me," (Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan) and Bing Crosby's "Where the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day."

By 1927 several artists of the day had recorded "Are You Lonesome Tonight." You'll notice in the early version, the song that we know, as sung by Elvis, is just the chorus of the song. The verses (the first one begins "Tonight I'm downheated / For though we have parted /I'll love you and I always will") have been forgotten through the years.

Here's the first recording of the song by crooner Charles Hart:



Here's a female singer, Vaughn De Leath, with another 1927 version.



I never realized until researching this that The Carter Family did a version in 1936 with a different melody.



Al Jolson recorded first version I could find to include the "world is a stage" spoken bridge. This is from 1950, just a decade before Elvis recorded it. (Despite the photo in the video, I don't believe Jolie did this one in blackface.)



Let's fast forward through a few decades. This is from the '90s but I bet Tiny Tim loved this song even before Elvis did. (Song doesn't start until after the 4 minute mark.)



Finally, here's Elvis.





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

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Truly Trubee

John Trubee, God knows how many years ago.

This is as good of a Wacky Wednesday as any to celebrate the music of one of my offbeat heros, John Trubee.

He was born in Rapid City, South Dakota about 60 years ago. Raised in New Jersey, Trubee has lived for at least a couple of decades in California. He's a one-of a kind musician / songwriter / prankster.

Usually backed by a revolving-door group called The Ugly Janitors of America, Trubee plays wild funk, skewed pop, crazy noise  -- and sometimes even pretty acoustic music.

As writer Charlie Swanson wrote in a 2015 feature in Bohemian.com:

If Trubee had become a filmmaker, he might draw a comparison to horror director and American Movie documentary subject Mark Borchardt. Had he taken the author's route, he might be another Charles Bukowski. As it is, Trubee is a music man, and his dark, profane and subversively hilarious songs have offended the conservative and mystified even the most progressive listeners for 30 years.

Trubee described his approach to his music in the notes for Forgotten Afternoon, a 2015 acoustic album he recorded with singer Laurie Amat:

Once I record my songs, I no longer hear them in my head, and new songs supersede them to continue to drive me crazy. I strongly regret not possessing the time and resources to more frequently record my multitude of song ideas. This is the terrible struggle of my life--somehow getting all this music out of my head before I am dead while I am continually enervated and depleted from my full-time workaday job routine

Chances are you've never heard of Trubee. He's not the kind of guy who naturally cozies up with the music industry. I don't think he'd compromise his artistic principles if you stuck a gun to his head.

But enough of my blather. Let's get to the assortment of Trubee tunes I've assembled below. If you like what you hear check out Trubee's Bandcamp page and buy some of his work.

Let's start out with a funky one, "Cram The Plastic Down My Throat" in which Trubee reveals that "The CIA invented LSD to blow out the brains of idiots like you ... Goddam the Trilateral Commission, goddamn the Russians, goddamn the CIA ... They want to kill us .."



Here's a live performance of a song called "You Idiot I Don't Believe You"



On this one, Trubee observes that "Many Whores Copulate for Money"



Here's a tender little ditty called "Field of Corpses."




Besides music, Trubee also does surreal phone pranks



Finally, here's one you've heard many times on The Santa Fe Opry. I'm pretty sure there is a federal statute requiring anything published about John Trubee has to include "Blind Man's Penis." This is not quite a hit, but definitely his best known song. It's a song poem. which means Trubee wrote the lyrics and paid some fee for a company to write the melody and record it. The singer is Ramsey Kearney, a monster of song poem vocals.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, August 20, 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
Do the Clam by The Cramps
My Baby left Me by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Reconsider Baby by Elvis Presley
Leave My Kitten Alone by Detroit Cobras
Ice Cream for Crow by Captain Beefheart
The Point is Overflowing by Left Lane Cruiser
Incubus by The Howlin' Max Messer Show
Hey There Stranger by The Compressions
Gun Slinger by Bo Diddley

Lost All Day by Dinosaur Jr
All the Goods Gone by The Ghost Wolves
Whole Hearts Desire by Bloodshot Bill
Undertaker by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282
Eh by Dot Wiggin Band
Sputnik by Roky Erikson & The Aliens
Turn My Head by The Molting Vultures
Johnny Hit and Run Paulene by X

Waiting for Alberto by The Monochrome Set
Mr. Pitiful by Otis Redding
96 Tears by Aretha Frankin
Girl You Captivate Me by Question Mark & The Mysterians
Shortnin' Bread Rock by Etta James
Rat City by Jack Oblivian
Robot Blues by The Oblivians
My Confession by The Gears
We Know by Black Lips
I'm Insane by T-Model Ford

Dog Breath in the Year of the Plague by The Mothers of Invention
1848 Now! by The Mekons
Masterpiece by Jon Langford & Four Lost Souls
All My Lovin' by The Beatles
Old Swan by Mark Lanegan
Lord I've Been Changed by Tom Waits
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, August 18, 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
The Crawdad Song by The Meat Purveyors
I'll Fix Your Flat Tire, Merle by Pure Prairie League
This Old Man by Tommy Miles & The Milestones
Fuzzy Little Hippie Girl by Great American Taxi
There Stands the Glass by Webb Pierce
No One Likes Me / Demons in Your Head by The Imperial Rooster
Drinkin' Ain't Hard to Do by Hank III

Thrown from a Train by Gay Sportscasters with Evan Johns

God Looked Around by Ray Wylie Hubbard

Red Brick Wall by The Waco Brothers

TJ by Hickoids

Straight and Narrow by The Whiskey Charmers

Burn the Place to the Ground by Dinosaur Truckers
Money is the Meat int the Coconut by David Rawlings
I Dreamed of a Hillbilly Heaven by Tex Ritter

It Ain't Necessarily So by Asylum Street Spankers
When That Helicopter Comes by The Handsome Family
What's Your Mama's Name, Child by Tanya Tucker
Working Man's Tools by Lara Hope & The Ark Tones
Love is a Dangerous Thing by Blonde Boy Grunt & The Groans
Wheels by Flying Burrito Brothers
Kangaroo Blues by Cliff Bruner's Texas Wanderers
Honky Tonk Queen by Moe Bandy & Joe Stampley

Turtles All the Way Down by Sturgill Simpson
The New Lee Highway Blues by David Bromberg
Zoysia by Bottle Rockets
There Will Be Nights When I'm Lonely by Possessed by Paul James
Sadly Beautiful by Glen Campbell
Katy Kay by Robbie Fulks

CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets


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THROWBACK THURSDAY: Remembering Elvis

Elvis Presley died 40 years ago yesterday.

40 goddamn years!

What more is left to be said about Elvis? I'm just going to post a bunch of my favorite songs, ones you don't hear every day, from various stages of his career.

Enjoy and keep a little Elvis in your heart.