THROWBACK THURSDAY: Songs for the Governors

Gov. Pat Neff

Today 21 state governors are coming to Santa Fe for a meeting of the National Governors Association.

In honor of that here's a Throwback Thursday salute to a couple of governors from the past century -- Gov. Pat Neff of Texas and Gov. O.K. Allen of Louisiana,

These are the two governors who were honored with songs by singer Hudie Ledbetter, best known as Lead Belly, And both were known for freeing the singer after he'd flattered them in song.

Neff was governor of Texas while Leadbelly was serving time in the prison at Sugar Land for killing a relative.

According to their book The Life and Legend of Leadbelly (by Charles K. Wolfe and Kip Lornell, published in1999), Neff had regularly brought guests to the prison on Sunday picnics to hear Ledbetter sing. At the time of the pardon, Leadbetter had already served his minimum of seven years.

Ironically, Neff had run on a promise to be more strict on pardoning criminals.

The song "Gov. Pat Neff" sounds s if it might have been an existing tune onto which Lead Belly tacked on a verse about the governor. "Had the Governor Neff like you got me, I'd a-wake up in the mornin', I'd set you free," he sang. Judge for yourself:



By the 1930s, Ledbetter was in prison again, this time in Louisiana. With the help of famed folklorists John and Alan Lomax, Lead Belly once again worked his magic on a sitting governor, one Oscar K. Allen.

This time the appeal to the governor was front and center of the song: "In nineteen hundred and thirty two / Honorable Governor O.K. Allen, I'm pleading to you./ I left my wife wringing her hands and crying / `Honorable Governor O.K. Allen, save that man of mine.' "

Allen released him in 1934.



Speaking of Louisiana governors and music, surely the finest singer and songwriter to ever become chief executive of a state was Louisiana's Jimmy Davis. He's most beloved for his song "You Are My Sunshine." But I like his dirtier tunes even more.

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Like Pulling Teeth

I have to go to the dentist today.

To commemorate that, here are some toothpaste jingles from my youth:

I always wondered where the yellow went.

This one is super snazzy!

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, July 15, 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
Repo Man by Those Darlins
Baby You Crazy by Nick Curran & The Lowlifes
One Bad Stud by The Blasters
Saddle Up a Buzz Buzz by the Cramps
I'm Out Nine by Dead Moon
Rama Lama Drama by Hollywood Sinners
The Man Whose Head Expanded by The Fall
Get Out of My Brain by Legendary Shack Shakers
Ain't Got No Sweet Thing by Ponty Bone
Slowly Losing My Mind by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages

When the Levee Breaks by James Leg with Left Lane Cruiser
Sweet Loaf by Butthole Surfers
Saturday Midnight Bop by Jerry J. Nixon
Here It Comes by Phil Hayes & The Trees
The White Wolf is Back in Town by Reverend Beat-Man
Fuck the Bomb ... Stop the Drugs by Swamp Dogg
Heartbreak Hotel by Tony Joe White

Fat Angel by Jefferson Airplane
Jettisoned by Thee Oh Sees
Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely by Husker Du
Tunic (Song for Karen) by Sonic Youtha
Steve by Pere Ubu

Kung Fu by Frank Zappa
O'Malley's Bar by Nick Cave
A Few Good Years by Buddy Guy


CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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THROWBACK THURSDAY: Happy Birthday Swamp Dogg!

Seventy six years ago today, July 12, 1942, Jerry Williams, Jr. was born in Portsmouth, Virginia. He grew up to be a songwriter, record producer and recording artist. In fact, at the age of 12 in 1954, Williams recorded his first song,  "HTD Blues (Hardsick Troublesome Downout Blues)", for a label called Mechanic Records. In 1966, under the name "Little Jerry Williams," he had an actual minor hit,  "Baby You're My Everything."

But by 1970, Williams transformed into something weird and wonderful: Swamp Dogg. As the artist later explained.

I became Swamp Dogg in 1970 in order to have an alter-ego and someone to occupy the body while the search party was out looking for Jerry Williams, who was mentally missing in action due to certain pressures, mal-treatments and failure to get paid royalties on over fifty single records ...  Commencing in 1970, I sung about sex, niggers, love, rednecks, war, peace, dead flies, home wreckers, Sly Stone, my daughters, politics, revolution and blood transfusions (just to name a few), and never got out of character. Recording in Alabama and sincerely singing/writing about items that interested me, gave birth to the name Swamp Dogg.

So happy birthday, Mr. Dogg. Here are some of my favorite Swamp Dogg tunes:

The first time I saw him perform live -- at a South by Southwest in the late 1990s, his best song was a heart-wrenching take on this John Prine tune.



The next time I saw him was at the Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans in 2013. In the best tune of his set, Swamp Dogg proved you can even find soul in a Bee Gees song. As I wrote at the time:

At the end of the song, he stepped off the stage and walked out into the audience shaking hands while repeatedly singing the refrain, "I've just got to get a message to you / Hold on, hold on ..." Sometimes he'd complete the chorus, "One more hour and my life will be through ..." After several minutes of this I almost started to believe that he was going to take that whole hour.



This one, "Born Blue" is from Swamp Dogg's first album, Total Destruction to Your Mind. Here he asks the important question, "Why wasn't I born with orange skin and green hair like the rest of the people in the world?"



And speaking of the Ponderosa Stomp, here are a couple of songs from Swamp Dogg's set,  "Total Destruction To Your Mind" followed by "Synthetic World."

Swamp Dogg autographs my CD at the Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans, October, 2013

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Punk Goes the Country

Today for Wacky Wednesday, let's hear a few country acts covering punk songs. We'll start with the late Ralph Stanley doing a Velvet Underground classic.


Here's a Texas country-rock band called Two Tons of Steel covering The Ramones.


Sturgill Simpson sings Nirvana.


And finally, here's Dwight Yoakam playing one of The Clash's better-known songs. And that banjo you hear is by none other than Dr. Stanley. May the country/punk circle be unbroken!