Friday, Oct. 13, 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
Weakness by Margo Price
Blood, Sweat and Murder by Scott H. Biram
Papa Was a Steel-Headed Man by Robbie Fulks
Honky Tonk Flame by Tyler Childers
Bonapart's Retreat by Glenn Campbell
Black Cat by Tommy Collins
Single Boy by Legendary Shack Shakers
Will I Ever Feel Fine by Tommy Miles & The Milestones
They'll Know Who I Am by Silkie with JJ
Demons in Your Head by The Imperial Rooster
Demon in My Head by Joe Buck Yourself
Maple Court Tragedy by Ed Sanders
Party Dolls and Wine by Eddie Spaghetti
Cheap Motels by Southern Culture on the Skids
Bad Elevator by Beth Lee & The Breakups
Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends by Buddy Miller
Killer Diller Blues by The Alabama Shakes
Spider, Snaker and Little Son by Ray Wylie Hubbard
If Mama Coulda Seen Me by Steve Earle
Lucifer and The Fallen Angels by Ray Wylie Hubbard
Are You Sure Hank Done it This Way by Steve Earle
'Merica (The Good Ole USA) by Hellbound Glory
The Poor Girl's Story by Eilen Jewell
My Man's a Jolly Railroad Man by Moonshine Kate
Moonshine Kate by Fiddlin' John Carson
Old Man Trump by Ryan Harvey
The Nail by Sarah Shook & The Disarmers
Tallacatcha by Alvin Youngblood Hart
No More Crying the Blues by The Cactus Blossoms
Old Churchyard by The Wailin' Jennys
There Will Be Nights When I'm Lonely by Possessed by Paul James
Walk Through This World With Me by George Jones
My Own Peculiar Way by Willie Nelson CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Like the Santa Fe Opry Facebook page Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE Enjoy the latest hillbilly episode 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 Oct. 13, 2017
The arrival of a new album by Ray Wylie Hubbard is more than just getting the latest from one of your favorite songwriters. It’s like getting a message in a bottle from some shipwrecked sea dog from centuries ago, who somehow beat Poseidon in a poker game to gain immortality. Or it’s akin to stumbling across the taped confessions of an old train robber who went mad hiding out in the desert — but still has a lot of insightful stories to tell. Or maybe it’s like finding some old scroll with the original version of the Book of Revelations — before God edited all the jokes out.
Hubbard’s latest, Tell the Devil I’m Gettin’ There As Fast As I Can, is another fine revelation from the crusty old Texan, who has been on a pretty impressive roll since shortly after the turn of the century. Turning seventy hasn’t softened Hubbard’s edges. In fact, he only seems to get tougher and ornerier with age. Tell the Devil takes its place with other recent Hubbard gems like GROWL, Snake Farm, and Grifter’s Hymnal.
Like the Bible, the album starts out with the creation story — a song called “God Looked Around,” in which Hubbard, in his knowing drawl and slow-moving guitar, tells the story of the origin of the universe, Adam and Eve, and that pesky snake. My favorite part is when Adam wakes up to find a beauty with “ravishing curly raven hair” and tells God, “Whoa, Lord! You done answered my prayers.”
But the next song, “Dead Thumb King” goes right to the hoodoo, as the narrator, lest you doubt, explains he’s armed with “some dirt from Lightnin’ Hopkins’ grave,” “bones from an old black crow” and a “rattlesnake tail inside my guitar.”
With “Spider, Snaker and Little Sun,” Hubbard pays tribute to a trio of musical inspirations — “Spider” John Koerner, Dave “Snaker” Ray, and Tony “Little Sun” Glover — from the darker edges of the 1960s folk revival. “It wasn’t no clean-cut folk group,” Hubbard explains. “They looked like sinister, low-key criminals.”
Ray Wylie & son Lucas playing during SXSW 2012
at The White Horse in Austin
The rocking “Old Wolf” is about an old blues singer in some dull club where “there ain’t a lot of action around the tip jar.” Hubbard introduces the shady clientele and people who work there, including the waitress (“Her name is Maggie, but they call her ‘Black Betty/Bam a lam, bam a lam!’ ” Hubbard sings, properly feeding the spirit of Leadbelly).
And in the title song, backed by the vocals of Lucinda Williams and mainstream country star Eric Church, he tells the story of some anonymous picker who plays a sunburst Gibson in an unnamed alt-country band (they opened for Son Volt in Los Angeles!) who’s in love with a woman “who can out-cuss any man.” (Speaking of cursing women, in “Dead Thumb King,” Hubbard growls, “I sleep with a woman who cusses in French”).
But the most moving, and most disturbing, love song here is the tragic “House of the White Rose Bouquet,” a minor-key acoustic tune with a foreboding mandolin in which the narrator lives in “a house of ill repute and sin” with “a young woman of desire” who “enjoyed the company of rakish men.” I won’t reveal what happens in this story, but it doesn’t end well.
The Prince of Darkness is the star of a five-minute picaresque tale called “Lucifer and the Fallen Angels.” He’s a hitchhiker who holds up Nervous Charlie’s Fireworks and All-Night Liquor Store, and may have killed a clerk in the process. But he also offers Hubbard some good advice about trying to get a publishing deal in Nashville. “Why go to Nashville when you ain’t never going to be mainstream?” the Devil advises.
I have the feeling that Lucifer’s not the first person to tell Hubbard that. But I don’t think he really cares, at least not anymore. And neither do his fans — as long as we can still hear that snake rattling from inside his guitar. Ray Wylie Hubbard’s website is www.raywylie.com. And check his Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/raywylie.
Also recommended:
* So You Wannabe an Outlaw by Steve Earle & The Dukes. Let’s cut to the chase: This is the best Steve Earle album in well over a decade. Through most of the 1990s and into the first part of this century, Earle consistently delivered some of the finest country music, alt-country, country-rock, or whatever you want to call it.
But at some point his albums started becoming less and less interesting. It’s tempting to say — as others have — that it was when his records started getting more and more political, but that’s actually kind of lazy. Some of his political songs from the early aughts — “Rich Man’s War,” “John Walker’s Blues” (a sympathetic look at John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban”), and my personal favorite, the cheeky “F the CC” — are excellent protest songs. But somewhere during his Jerusalem/The Revolution Starts Now period, the magic seemed to start wearing off.
But So You Wannabe an Outlaw is hot stuff. It’s definitely his most country album. Country fiddles and steel guitar dominate several cuts and there are vocal contributions from Willie Nelson on the title song, and, even better, from Johnny Bush (he wrote “Whiskey River,” kids) on “Walkin’ in LA,” which may be the honky-tonkiest song you’ve ever heard by Earle.
Other highlights include the jumping “The Firebreak Line,” an ode to hotshot forest firefighters; “If Mama Coulda Seen Me,” which, with its nasty guitar hook and prominent fiddle, can be considered as Earle’s “Mama Tried”; and “This Is How It Ends,” a break-up song that has country star Miranda Lambert providing heartbreaking harmonies.
By all means, check out the deluxe version of this album, which includes four covers of Willie and Waylon Jennings songs from the 1970s outlaw era. These aren’t groundbreaking by any means, but Earle’s joyful delivery makes for a fine tribute.
Steve Earle will appear in a benefit concert for the Jesuit Refugee Service/USA with Joan Baez, Patty Griffin, and other special guests at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13, at the KiMo Theatre, 423 Central Ave. SW in Albuquerque. Check for ticket availability at www.kimotickets.com. Let's have some videos!
It's a live version of "Spider, Snake and Little Sun"
This is the official video for "House of the White Rose Bouquet"
Here's "The Firebreak Line"
And what do you know, I found Steve Earle and Ray doing "Pancho and Lefty" together
Here's a hillbilly singer from the 1920s who deserves more recognition. She was born Rosa Lee Carson but she was known professionally as "Moonshine Kate.
Born in Atlanta 108 years ago yesterday, (Happy birthday, Kate!) she was the daughter of one of the biggest hillbilly stars of his time, Fiddlin' John Carson.
Carson made her recording debut in June 1925 at the age of fifteen, when she accompanied her father on guitar on four songs for OKeh Records. At the session she also recorded two solo sides, "The Lone Child," a Tin Pan Alley song about a ragged, wandering orphan boy, and "Little Mary Phagan," a sentimental ballad, composed in 1915 by her father, in response to the Leo Frank case. For the next nine years Carson accompanied her father and the Virginia Reelers on tour and on recording sessions in Atlanta, New York, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Camden, New Jersey. In addition to the recordings she made with her father, she also recorded a handful of solos and duets on which she sang lead, including "The Drinker's Child," "Texas Blues," "The Last Old Dollar Is Gone," and "The Poor Girl Story." In 1928 Polk Brockman, OKeh's Atlanta records distributor and talent scout, gave Carson the nickname Moonshine Kate to enhance her hillbilly image, and she embraced it proudly for the rest of her life.
Moonshine Kate died in 1992, mostly forgotten except for by record collectors and fans of proto-country music.
Here are some of her songs. Let's start with "The Poor Girl's Story."
Here's a duet with her dad, which sports the best title in the bunch: "Ain't No Bugs on Me."
This one's my favorite: "My Man's a Jolly Railroad Man."
Here's the murder ballad about "Little Mary Phagan." It pins the murder on Leo Frank, who many now believe was framed for the crime because he was a Jew in the South.
True confession: I only got turned on to Moonshine Kate recently. The delightful Eilen Jewell (she's a former Santa Fe resident, ya'll!) covered Kate's "The Poor Girl's Story" on her latest album Down Hearted Blues. And here it is:
And hey, there's not one but two Moonshine Kate songs on the latest exciting Big Enchilada podcast -- "Railroad Man" by Kate, "Poor Girl" by Eilen. Check that out HERE
On Oct. 11, 1905 Fred Trump, the son of German immigrants, was born in The Bronx in New York City.
Happy birthday, Fred!
He's best known today for being the father of the current President of these United States, Donald J. Trump. (The elder Trump died in 1999, so he never got to see his son in the White House.)
But in 1950, when Donald was just a tiny orange tot, Daddy Fred crossed paths with a major figure in American music.
Woody Guthrie, in December 1950, signed a lease at the Beach Haven apartment complex, built by Fred Trump's company near Coney Island.
And soon, the Dust Bowl Balladeer began hating his landlord mainly because of the "bigotry that pervaded his new, lily-white neighborhood, which he’d taken to calling `Bitch Havens.' ”
That's the observation of Will Kaufman, a professor of American literature and culture at the University of Central Lancashire in Britain. Kaufman discovered some previously unpublished Guthrie lyrics and poetry while doing research at the Woody Guthrie Center’s archives in Oklahoma.
"Guthrie’s two-year tenancy in one of Fred Trump’s buildings and his relationship with the real estate mogul of New York’s outer boroughs produced some of Guthrie’s most bitter writings ..." Kaufman wrote inThe Conversationin January 2016. "These writings have never before been published; they should be, for they clearly pit America’s national balladeer against the racist foundations of the Trump real estate empire."
Woody G
Those writings include:
I suppose Old Man Trump knows Just how much Racial Hate he stirred up In the bloodpot of human hearts When he drawed That color line Here at his Eighteen hundred family project
And, Kaufman wrote, Guthrie reworked his song “I Ain’t Got No Home” into a "blistering broadside against his landlord":
Beach Haven ain’t my home! I just can’t pay this rent! My money’s down the drain! And my soul is badly bent! Beach Haven looks like heaven Where no black ones come to roam! No, no, no! Old Man Trump! Old Beach Haven ain’t my home!
There is no known recording of Woody singing this song. But shortly after Kaufman published his findings, singer Ryan Harvey, along with Ani DeFranco and Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello put it to music under the title "Old Man Trump." using the melody of “I Ain’t Got No Home.”
Sunday, Oct. 8, 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
Monkey Bizness by Pere Ubu
Johnny & Bo by The Dustaphonics
The Straight Life by Mudhoney
Tanzen Gehn by The Dirtbombs
The Fox by Sleater-Kinney
Not a Sausage by The Mobbs
Blow My Mind by Hollywood Sinners
The Right Girl by The Fleshtones
One More Time by Stinky Lou & The Goon Mat
Springtime for Argentina by Billy Joe Winghead
Power Child by The Night Beats
Nothing New to Trash Like You by The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Web by Thee Oh Sees
Ghosts by Travel in Space
I Saw Ghosts by Pierre Omer's Swing Revue
Contort Yourself by James Chance
Boob Scotch by Bob Log III
Lay Down by Left Lane Cruiser
Dirty Traveler by Lonesome Shack
Don't Mess With My Mind by The Stomachmouths
Here Come the Mushroom People by The Molting Vultures
Gypsy Woman by The Snails
Terrible Man by Escobar
London Blues by Suicide Generation
Little Girl by John & Jackie
Hootie Sapperticker by Barbara & The Boys
Take Me Me Away by Willis Earl Beal
Midnight Blues by Detroit Cobras
Drunk on Destruction by Mark Lanegan
Snake Behind Glass by Jon Langford's Four Lost Souls
Overtime by Benjamin Booker
Invitation to the Blues by Tom Waits
Hyper Real by Negativland CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
