It's Brian Wilson's birthday! The songwriter and architect of The Beach Boys' sound is 76 years old today.
Happy Birthday, Brian!
Though he's best known for his beautiful melodies and flawless harmonies, Wilson also was responsible for some outright wackiness on early Beach Boys albums.
Here's his wackiest moments:
It was supposed to be a dumb skit about a conflict between Wilson and singer Mike Love that appeared on their 1964 album Shut Down Volume 2.
It's not likely that anyone in 1964 would have realized that this painful stab at comedy actually foreshadowed decades of strife between Wilson and Love.
A year later, the album Summer Days (and Summer Nights !!) included a bizarre doo-wop parody called "I'm Bugged at My Ol' Man." At the time it seemed sweet and silly. But back then we didn't know about the Wilson boys' abusive father Murray Wilson.
The video below was recorded about a decade after "I'm Bugged at My Ol' Man." was released.
Unlike the first two, this song isn't throwaway material. Musically, it fit in well with the other songs on Love You (1977). Still, any song heaping near-religious praise unto Johnny Carson has to be considered wacky. And Wilson doesn't disappoint.
It's time for another rollicking Big Enchilada hillbilly episode. So prepare yourself for a virtual buffet of honky-tonk, rockabilly, cow-punk, folk, bluegrass and other down-home sounds designed to tickle your innards. This episode featuring the likes of Holly Golightly & The Broke-offs, Sarah Shook & The Disarmers, Ray Condo, Butch Hancock and more.
And remember, The Big Enchilada is officially listed in the iTunes store. So go subscribe, if you haven't already (and gimme a good rating and review if you're so inclined.) Thanks.
Sunday, June 17, 2018 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
Wavespotting by Mean Motor Scooter
Lusty Little Lucy by Nick Curran & The Lowlifes
Sugar Bee by The Sir Douglas Quintet
Mon Nom by The Yawpers
On Broadway by Esquirita
Throw Me a Line by The Ugly Beats
Shortnin' Bread by The Ready Men
I Have Enough by Reverend Beat-Man
Wild and Free by Hank III
I Am What I Am by The Fleshtones
Plastic Jack by The Electric Mess
Tropical Hotdog Night by Captain Beefheart
You on the Run by Black Angels
Annie by Elastia
Blue Ticket by Ratannson
Shot Down by The Sonics
The Bottle Never Lets Me Down by Sarah Shook & The Disarmers
He's Making a Tape by Wild Billy Childish & Musicians of the British Empire
Wild America by Wayne Kramer
Feels Good by Stud Cole
Sex Cow by Teengenerate
Voodoo Got Me by The Goon Mat & Lord Bernardo
I'm Your Witch Doctor by Them
Lost in Today by Archie & The Bunkers
Mad Love by The Blue Giant Zeta Puppies
Polk Salad Annie by Jason & The Scorchers
Victoria by The Fall
Ants on the Melon by The Gourds
Stewball by Holly Golightly
How Does That Grab You Darlin' by The Empress of Fur
Lightning's Girl by Nancy Sinatra
Papa Won't Leave You Henry by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
I Only Have Eyes for You by The Flamingos
Love Letters by Kitty Lester CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Friday, June 15, 2018 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 Ballad of Thunder Road by Robert Mitchum
Tell the King The Killer's Here by Ronny Elliott
Life of Sin by Sturgill Simpson
Bloody Mary Morning by Willie Nelson
Life, Love, Death and The Meter Man by Angry Johnny & The Killbillies
Fruit of the Vine by Nancy Apple
I Will Stay With You by Emily Kaitz with Ray Wylie Hubbard
Snake Farm by Ray Wylie Hubbard
I Ride an Old Paint by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs
Pigfork Jamboree by The Imperial Rooster
Crazy Mixed Up World by Ray Condo and His Hardrock Goners
LSD by T. Tex Edwards & Out on Parole
I'm Home Gettin' Hammered While She's Out Gettin' Nailed by Jesse Dayton
The Hand of The Almighty by John R. Butler
This Town Gets Around by Margo Price
Hillbilly Town by Mose McCormack
Wine Spo Dee Odee by Kell Robertson
Hello Trouble by Bill Hearne
See Willy Fly By by The Waco Brothers
Nashville Radio / The Death of Country Music by Jon Langford's Hillbilly Lovechild
Wild Wild Wild by Robbie Fulks & Linda Gail Lewis
Mighty Lonesome Man by James Hand
God Has Lodged a Tenant in My Uterus by Tammy Faye Starlite
Daddy Was a Preacher, Mama Was a Go Go Girl by Southern Culture on the Skids
Ode to Billy Joe by Bobbie Gentry
Roadmap for the Blues by Butch Hancock
Long Way to Hollywood by Steve Young
I Hate These Songs by Dale Watson
(Out on the Streets) Junk is Still King by Gary Heffern
In Tall Buildings by John Hartford
Someday We'll Look Back by Merle Haggard CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets
Want to keep this hoedown going after I sign off at midnight? Check out The Big Enchilada Podcast Hillbilly Episode Archive where there are hours of shows where I play music like you hear on the SF Opry.
An unnamed cowboy was passing through Santa Fe on his way toward the Mexican border many years ago. Here he met up with a couple of women, both of whom being poets with ears for folk songs. The mysterious stranger gave then a song they wouldn't forget.
It was full of colorful cowboy lingo about throwing the hoolihan, and feeding the coulees, as well as black humor about a guy's wife who was killed "in a poolroom fight" and a cowpoke who asks that when he dies, tie his body to the back of his horse so "we'll ride the prairies /That we love the best ..."
Poet Carl Sandburg learned the song from one of the women, Margaret Larkin, who lived in Las Vegas, N.M. He published it in his American Songbag collection in 1927. There, he wrote of the song:
“This arrangement is from a song made known by Margaret Larkin of Las Vegas, New Mexico, who intones her own poems or sings cowboy and Mexican songs to a skilled guitar strumming, and by Linn Riggs, poet and playwright, of Oklahoma in particular and the Southwest in general. The song came to them at Santa Fe from a buckaroo who was last heard of as heading for the Border with friends in both Tucson and El Paso. The song smells of saddle leather, sketches ponies and landscapes, and varies in theme from a realistic presentation of the drab Bill Jones and his violent wife to an ethereal prayer and a cry of phantom tone. There is rich poetry in the image of the rider so loving a horse he begs when he dies his bones shall be tied to his horse and the two of them sent wandering with their faces turned west.”
Ah! The old mysterious-buckaroo-passing-on-songs-in-Santa-Fe ploy. Happens all the time. That's how I learned the tune "Hang on Sloopy" many years ago ...
But Ken Bigger, writing about the song for the Murder Ballad Monday blog, expresses some skepticism about Larkin's Santa Fe story. "Given the song’s themes and history, I was led to wonder whether Larkin might have written the song herself," he wrote. "I thought perhaps that she hid her authorship in order to avoid compromising the song’s perceived authenticity."
But Bigger admits his suspicion is theory is "purely speculative, and there are compelling arguments against it. "Hiding her authorship would have involved at least Larkin and probably Sandburg in levels of deception inconsistent with their other work."
More than a decade after publishing American Songbag, Sandburg recorded the song. Here it is:
"Old Paint" became a staple in the Hollywood heyday of the singing cowboy. Roy Rogers & Dale Evans covered it. So did Rex Allen.
And, with help from Woody Guthrie, the song became a favorite of mid-century American folksingers.
Woody took some liberties with the lyrics, adding a verse that goes:
"I’ve worked in your town, I’ve worked on your farm / All I’ve got to show is this muscle in my arm / Blisters on my feet and callous on my hand /Goin’ to Montana to throw the hoolihan."
He also changed details about Old Bill Jones' family, giving him a daughter and a son instead of "two daughters and a song." And though Old Bill's wife still died in a free-for-all fight, Woody doesn't mention that the tragedy occurred in a sleazy old poolroom. ("He preserves her virtue, perhaps, without diminishing the tragedy," Bigger wrote.)
"Old Paint" has been recorded by numerous artists. Johnny Cash, Michael Martin Murphey, Linda Rondstadt, Chris LeDoux, underground country renegades The Pine Hill Haints have all thrown that hoolihan.
Recently Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs included a rocking version on their new horse-oriented album Clippety Clop (which you can read about in my next Terrell's Tune-up column.)
But my favorite version remains the first one I heard, the one by Loudon Wainwright III in the early '70s.
