It was 50 years ago this week that one of the greatest rock 'n' roll albums of
all time was thrust upon the world. This was the second album, a self-titled
album by a band that called itself The Band. Fans came to call this work "the
Brown Album."
It's the album that featured "Up on Cripple Creek" and "The Night They Drove Old
Dixie Down" and "King Harvest Has Surely Come." And the opening scene is of a
man being held at gunpoint, for reasons never explained, by the woman he
loves.
But even before I took off the plastic shrink wrap and opened my copy of The
Band, the first thing that intrigued me was a cryptic inscription on the back
cover"
“I’ll be down to get you in a taxi honey. Better be ready by half past
eight. Now, honey don’t be late. I want to be there when THE BAND starts
playing…”
They were song lyrics, credited to someone named Shelton Brooks, from a song --
that did not appear on the album -- called "The Darktown Strutters' Ball."
I was a mere high school lad at the time and I didn't know if this was a real
song or what. But, even with the actual songs on the album being so rich, so
magical, I knew that I'd never fully appreciate The Band until I got my
ears on "The Darktown Strutters' Ball."
Like The Band told me, it was written by Shelton Brooks, a Canadian-born
African-American jazz composer and was first published in 1917. That same year
it was recorded -- in an instrumental version --by a popular group called The
Original Dixieland Jazz Band.
One of the first versions to feature the lyrics was recorded later that year by
Arthur Collins & Byron G. Harlan.
Two decades later, Fats Waller breathed new life into the song.
And in the rock 'n' roll era, another guy named "Fats" put his stamp on it.
In the mid '70s an Australian band called The Ted Mulry Gang made what is
perhaps the whitest "Darktown" ever.
Finally, here's a fabulously obscene version performed by Howard Armstrong with
Ikey Robinson and Ted Brogan in the documentaryLouie Bluie.
In 1976, this Blaxploitation movie about
"Super Sisters on Cycles" hit the nation's theaters.
Jay Ward, the comic genius who created Rocky & Bullwinkle and other classic cartoons from the 1950s and '60s, would have been 97 today.
Happy birthday, Jay.
I'm part of the generation that grew up on the bad puns, primitive animation and rich, witty dialogue that was Rocky and His Friends ... later called The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show ... then later, The Bullwinkle Show. The adventures of Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle Moose were an important part of the TV culture that shaped my life. Even as a young child I always assumed there was something just a little deeper, (and jokes I would better understand when I got a little older), beneath the surface of the wacky denizens of Frostbite Falls.
For one thing, the bumbling characters of Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale even made the paranoia generated by the Cold War -- anxieties felt even by little kids back then -- seem a little easier to take.
Ward died in 1989, But Bullwinkle and his pals live on.
So here on this music blog, let's celebrate the life and career of Jay Ward with some of his instrumental music used on his shows.
Here's his most famous theme song.
And here is a later variation
One of the most popular segments on Rocky & Bullwinkle was the Canadian Mountie, Dudley Do-Right. Here's his song, all 22 seconds of it.
Later, Jay Ward's studios introduced some other shows. Both George of the Jungle, a Tarzan spoof, and Super Chicken, Ward's answer to the super-hero craze, had theme songs that were better than the actual shows.
Here's George's song. Remember, "Watch out for that tree!"
"You knew the job was dangerous when you took it."
Finally, here's the ultimate Jay Ward musical experience, a rare 1962 album called Moosylvania Jazz Festival, allegedly the brainchild of Ward himself. The mysterious forces behind the Bambino Musical have put together a page lovingly devoted to this album.
From the liner notes:
The time: 12:45 AM - - the date: June 14, 1962 - - the temperature: 12 degrees above zero - - the place: The 1st Annual Moosylvania Jazz Festival. Wee Bonnie Baker had just left the stand after a three-hour stint that had left the audience of 18 hardy jazz buffs limp, bur still screaming for more. Backstage, impresario Jay Ward, promoter of the event, had just received a phone call from Albert White and the Morris Plan Masters of Melody, who were to appear next on the program in a musical pageant saluting the announcement of Moosylvania's application for state-hood. Entitled "A Musical Pageant Saluting the Announcement of Moosylvania's Application For Statehood'', this was to be the highlight of the entire festival. It seems that their chartered bus had encountered a midsummer blizzard about seven mites from the Bullwinkle Bowl, where the festival was being held, and they were trapped in an eight foot snowdrift. Undismayed by this unlucky turn of events , the nimble-minded Ward quickly recruited a ''pick-up" band and glee club from the audience, including three comb-and-tissue paper players, a musical bottle virtuoso, and a Samoan conch-shell blower. With only five minutes rehearsal backstage, the makeshift ensemble took their places before the skeptical audience. Before the closing notes of their first number were completed, cheers and shouts of "go man, go!'' and ''Lynch 'em!" rocked the famous old amphitheatre. A new jazz legend was born!
The MP3s of all nine songs from the album are on the Bambino Musical site, available for free downloading. I've embedded the first track, "Moosylvania Anthem" below. Enjoy!
Sunday, Sept. 17, 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
Cheap Beer by Fidlar
Going South by Dead Moon
Livin' With Mum and Dad by Pussycat & The Dirty Johnsons
This Strange Effect by The Kinks
Demox by The Blind Shake
In Your Hands by Phil Hayes & The Trees
Keep a Knockin' by Jerry J. Nixon
Kickin' Child by Dion
Bad Betty by The Sonics
Betty & Dupree by Sam the Sham & The Pharoahs
A Decision is Made by The Yawpers
Cadaver Dog by Thee Oh Sees
Come and Go by Travel in Space
You Should Never Have Opened That Door by Ty Segall
Black Eyes by Boss Hog
Slay Me by The Darts
Saddest Excuse by Blasting Fondas
Why I Cry by The Howlin' Max Messer Show
Incarceration Casserole by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Talking Main Event Magazine Blues by Mike Edison
(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below We're All Going to Go by Curtis Mayfield
I've Been Watching You (Move Your Sexy Body) by Parliament
Who Stole the Soul by Public Enemy
Bad Trip by Lee Fields
I Got Ants in My Pants by James Brown
Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen
I'm Your Man by Nick Cave
There's a Rugged Road by Judee Sill
... a psychopath by Lisa Germano
Say We'll Meet Again by Lindsey Buckingham CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, Sept. 15, 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
Bus Breakdown by Dale Watson & Ray Benson
It's Your Voodoo Working by Eilen Jewell
My Mother's Husband by Lonesome Bob
Spider, Snaker and Little Sun by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Poor Tired Hands by Boris McCutcheon
The Cross is Boss by Shinyribs
Steve Earle by Lydia Loveless
Dwight Yoakam by Sarah Shook & The Disarmers
Then I'll Be Moving On by Mother Earth
The Losing Kind by Josephus & The George Jonestown Massacre
She's Way Up Thar by Hal O'Halloran's Hooligans
The Neon Lights by Stonewall Jackson
I've Got a Lot of Hiding to Do by James Hand
Pretty Girl by Miss Leslie
Truck Driver's Blues by Cliff Bruner
This Highway by Zephaniah Ohora
White Lightnin' by The Waco Brothers
If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me / The Grand Tour by The Geraldine Fibbers
Ramblin' Man by Andre Williams & 2 Star Tabernacle
Window Up Above by The Blasters
Oh Lonesome Me by Anna Fermin
Golden Ring by Rex Hobart & Kelly Hogan
Say It's Not You by Keith Richards & George Jones
Tennessee Whiskey by Harry Dean Stanton
The Valley by The Whiskey Charmers
Lord I Hope This Day Is Good by Don Williams
Weighted Down by Skip Spence
Lonesome Whistle by Hank Williams
Midnight Train by David Rawlings CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Like the Santa Fe Opry Facebook page Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list
A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican Sept. 15, 2017
It took a few weeks for Boy in a Well, the new album by The Yawpers, to grow on me. I’m not exactly sure why my appreciation was delayed. Perhaps I was trying to follow the weird storyline running through the song lyrics. (No, it’s not a rock opera, so relax, skeptics.)
Maybe I was unfairly trying to compare the songs here to other songs dealing with World War I (Homework assignment: Familiarize yourself with the work of Eric Bogle, writer of “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” and “The Green Fields of France”).
But after a few listens, grow it did, and I came to realize this rowdy little band from Denver has created one of the most rocking little albums of the year. And now I can’t get enough.
Here’s a thumbnail sketch of the plot from Boy in a Well. It deals with the illegitimate child of a French woman who makes a little whoopee with an American soldier on the day in 1918 that the warring nations signed the peace treaty that ended that senseless conflict. Shamed by her family, the mother drops the baby down a well shortly after giving birth. But the kid survives and his mom, who thinks he’s the second coming of Jesus (!), keeps dropping food down the well to sustain him. Finally he grows up and climbs out. What follows might be described as a series of Oedipal wrecks.
According to the Bloodshot Records promo material for the album, “The story-vision was initially conjured by lead singer Nate Cook, after a reckless combination of alcohol, half a bottle of Dramamine, and an early morning flight.” (It’s an old trick, but sometimes it works. Maybe that’s how Walt Whitman came up with the line that spawned the name of this band: “I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”)
But as I said above, this crazy plot is nearly impossible to cull from Cook’s vocals. I cheated and read a song-by-song description by Cook and Yawpers drummer Noah Shomberg on the website Consequence of Sound last month. There is also a graphic novel — we called ’em “comic books” when I was a lad — illustrated by Legendary Shack Shakers frontman Col. J.D. Wilkes. You can see a preview inPaste magazine:
But as interesting as this story turns out to be, it’s the music, not the words that seals the deal. With big sonic traces of Shack Shakers, The Gun Club, ZZ Top, and their own twisted take on rockabilly, The Yawpers rip through most these songs with an urgency that’s undeniable.
You hear it in the very first song, “Armistice Day,” where, after some portentous piano, the group comes in with a chugging rhythm that starts off relatively laid-back, though the drums and guitars steadily build in intensity until by the last verse, the band is wailing. The next song, “A Decision is Made,” is raw psychobilly freakout.
The next couple of tunes, “A Visitor Is Welcomed” and “Room With a View,” are slow and melodic. And thus comes one of my few qualms about this record. I can understand the need for a breather now and then, and the change of pace now and then can make an album feel richer. For instance, later in the album, there’s a number called “The Awe and the Anguish” that, for most of the song, is a raw acoustic blues before it turns into a thrashing stomper in the last verse. And that works. But the fact that these two mellow tunes, “Visitor” and “Room,” are right next to each other — and come so early in the track list — screws with the momentum of the album.
Fortunately the next track, “Mon Dieu,” is a wild ride. And so is the rest of the album. While there are a couple more slow songs (the gorgeous “God’s Mercy” and the final song, “Reunion”), Boy in a Well is an exhilarating blast of unabashed rock ’n’ roll. Yawpers, keep on yawpin’.
* Claw Machine Wizard by Left Lane Cruiser. Hey, I’m not the only guy in New Mexico who likes Left Lane Cruiser. Skinny Pete, an Albuquerque drug dealer, also digs them. At least LLC was playing in his car during a scene in the third season of Breaking Bad.
I bet Skinny Pete also would like the Indiana duo’s new one, released earlier this year. Frontman Freddy “Joe” Evans IV — who plays slide guitar and sings, is backed by drummer Pete Dio (no relation to Skinny Pete), who came on board a couple of years ago.
Like previous Cruiser albums, this record Aconsists mostly of good old basic stripped-down gutter blues. However, there are a couple of tracks that show hints of (gulp) variety. “Lay Down” features a reggae groove (think Bob Marley’s “Jamming”), while “Smoke Break,” which begins with a short drum solo, is an instrumental that showcases a jazzy organ by producer Jason Davis.
And on the final song, the slow-boiling, six-minute “Indigenous,” there might — I said might — be some kind of political message buried under the roaring sludge. Some of the only lyrics I can make out in the first verse are “The grand wizard raised a hand,” which implies some kind of Ku Klux Klan action. Later in the song, other lyrics I can sort of understand include, “Don’t we all, baby, have to lift each other up?” and later something about “hateful hypocrisy.” In the refrain, Evans sings, “Rise up, my friend.”
Just a couple of days ago, Sept. 12, was the birthday of one of America's greatest country singers, George Jones. If he hadn't have died back in 2013, Jones would have been 86 years old this week.
A belated happy birthday, Mr. Jones!
I realized it was his birthday when scrolling through my Facebook feed and stumbled onto a great post on the Bloodshot Records page.
"Like a real Possum, he keeps crawling up into our gutters and rummaging through our attic," the post said. "We can't escape George Jones no matter how hard we try. Here's a playlist of Bloodshot artists covering songs written, recorded, and made famous by No Show Jones."
I immediately wished that I'd have thought of that first. Then I went to work coming up with a variation of the idea -- George Jones covers covered by various rockers who love him.
So let's have at it!
Here are The Geraldine Fibbers, a mid '90s band featuring singer Carla Bozulich, with live versions of not one but two Jones classics, "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and "The Grand Tour."
Dave Edmunds teamed up with The Stray Cats for "The Race is On."
The Blasters do a blues-soaked version of "Window Up Above"
And here's one of those wonderful Bloodshot bands, The Waco Brothers with "White Lightning"
Here is duet between Keith Richards & George Jones. For years, "Say It's Not You" has been a Santa Fe Opry favorite.
Possum himself could rock when he wanted. Here's a live version of Larry Williams' "Bony Maronie."
Finally, here is the Bloodshot Spotify list that inspired this post. Several of the songs are more associated with other artists like Hank Williams and Merle Haggard, but what the heck? (I've found it's best to have your Spotify already open before you start to play.)
Little Richard with Tammy & George.
I looked but I couldn't find any Little Richard covers of Jones songs
Imagine the worst of 1970s pop music -- the wimpiest, the sappiest, the most self-indulgent Top 40 schmaltz of the Me Decade -- neatly compiled onto one loathsome but irresistible compact disc.
That was the case of a fiendishly perverse, but somehow subversive compilation on Rhino Records released just a couple of years before the end of the century: 70's Party Classics Killers I couldn't resist reviewing Party Killers in my March 27, 1998 Terrell's Tune-up column, writing with both disgust and awe:
"The last time anyone put so many wretched songs ... into such a concentrated form had to be the Circle Jerks in their "Golden Shower of Hits" medley. In fact, a couple of the songs the Jerks covered, `You're Having My Baby' and `Afternoon Delight' are here in their insidious original forms. "The result is a record far more evil than Marilyn Manson could ever come up with. You realize that by the time you hear the weird child's voice chirping `My name is Michael, I've got a nickel' in the chorus of Clint Holme's 'Playground of My Mind.' "
Behold the track list for the compilation:
1. "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree" by Tony Orlando & Dawn
2. "The Night Chicago Died" by Paper Lace
3. "Billy, Don't Be A Hero" by Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods
4. "(You're) Having My Baby" by Paul Anka
5. "Playground In My Mind" by Clint Holmes
6. "Feelings" by Morris Albert
7. "Sometimes When We Touch" by Dan Hill
8. "The Candy Man" by Sammy Davis, Jr.
9. "Afternoon Delight" by The Starland Vocal Band
10. "Torn Between Two Lovers" by Mary MacGregor
11. "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" by Rupert Holmes
12. "Muskrat Love" by The Captain & Tennille
A good number of these artists were one-hit wonders. But what's frightening to realize is that three of these acts -- Tony Orlando & Dawn; The Starland Vocal Band and The Captain & Tennille -- all had their own tacky network TV variety shows in the 1970s,
I concluded in my review, "All in all, '70s Party Killers is so bad it's ... still bad. But sometimes bad is more fun than good."
But this douchie dozen does not represent all the achingly bad music of the '70s. The whole decade was overflowing with similarly awful pop hits. In fact, nearly 20 years have passed since Rhino unleased 70's Party Classics Killers. I believe it's time for Volume 2
So I'm going to suggest the first five tracks for this sinister sequel and I want you gentle readers to help chose the next five or six or seven tracks.
Please leave your nominees in the comments section (here or on my Facebook page), preferably with a YouTube link. Try not to repeat any that were on the original compilation. (See list above.)
Don't worry, there's probably no chance in Hell that Rhino Records or anyone else will pick up the idea. (But you never know.)
Here are my five nominees:
1 "Never Been to Me" by Charlene. My daughter Molly gets the credit (or blame) for this one.
2 "Seasons in the Sun" sung by Terry Jacks, with lyrics by Rod McKeun. (It's also important, so very important, to hear Too Much Joy's version, which includes a McKeun verse that the evil Terry Jacks, as TMJ called him, omitted.)
3) "You Light Up My Life" by Debby Boone. Yep, that's Pat's daughter. This is the only song here with obvious religious overtones -- though Jesus tells me that He hates crappy music.
4) "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo" by Lobo. I love dogs. But this song makes me question those feelings.
5) "Sad Eyes" by Robert Johns. Poor Robert. He obviously was suffering from Bee Gees Disease. We shouldn't mock him.
So hit me with your worst shots and tell me what '70s dreck you'd include on 70's Party Classics Killers Vol. 2.
It was 50 years ago this week that one of the greatest rock 'n' roll albums of
all time was thrust upon the world. This was the second album, a self-titled
album by a band that called itself The Band. Fans came to call this work "the
Brown Album."
