Jonathan Toledo, Thou Art Avenged

 

This week's destruction of the Soldier's Monument in the center of Santa Fe's Plaza after decades of controversy  (read about that HERE) reminded me of an obscure song by a forgotten band of the late 1980s.

I'm talking about a group called The Toll from Columbus, Ohio fronted by a singer named Brad Circone. The Toll's debut album was titled The Price of Progression. I reviewed it in the March 3, 1989 issue of Pasatiempo, just a couple of months after I started my music column, Terrell's Tune-up.

The song I'm talking about is "Jonathan Toledo. "It was one of three songs on the album clocking in at more than 10 minutes. But it's the one I remember most because it hit close to home.

“Jonathan Toldeo made his home in New Mexico,” Circone repeats again and again in the refrain.

When Circone starts his [spoken] narrative, the locale becomes more specific. He is apparently describing the Palace of the Governors.

“I walked myself gently across the park / The elderly Indian women, they were all lined up against the wall / And I bet the reason that they have their backs against the wall / Is because they’re afraid we’re going to stick another knife in the / And then they’d really have to fall.”

(I noted in my review that the vendors would look pretty stupid if they sat facing the wall.)

Circone then describes the museum gift shop and how wrong it is for “the culture of shambles … the culture of shame” to sell “Indian artifacts.”

He then goes across the street to the Plaza and becomes outraged by the Soldier’s Monument. In Circone's words there was an inscription that said, "This is in memory of all those white soldiers who lost their lives clearing the land for us to settle upon."

The inscription, of course didn't literally say that. However a plaque on one side of the obelisk commemorated  “heroes” who died in battle with “savage Indians.” (Of course, in the early '70s, a time in which the racist sentiment on the monument was under attack, some guy, dressed as a workman, quietly went to the Plaza one afternoon and chiseled off the word "savage." This vandal, who I've always thought of as a clever outlaw hero never was caught. And I don't believe he's ever come forward.)

Though The Price of Progression has been out of print for years, it recently became available digitally on iTunes and on Spotify.

Here's "Jonathan Toledo":

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Songs That Taj Taught Us

As a young music dog growing up in the 1960s, I first became acquainted with great American blues artists due to the noble efforts of British rockers like The Rolling Stones and The Animals. And later my appreciation of blues from bygone eras grew deeper -- especially country blues artists -- thanks to the noble efforts of contemporary musicians like Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, better know to the free world as Taj Mahal.

Taj is still kicking at the age of 78. And some of those old songs he recorded are immortal. Here are just a few of them.

Let's start out with this Sleepy John Estes tune called "Diving Duck Blues." (Taj's version is HERE)

The opening line of the song, "If the river was whiskey and I was a diving duck" has been used in some adaptations of another song, "Hesitation Blues," (sometimes called "If the River Was Whiskey,") which Taj also covered. This is a 1930 version of that by hillbilly giant, Charlie Poole:

Taj loved Robert Johnson and covered his song "Walkin' Blues."

This probably is my favorite Taj song ever. He got it from Henry Thomas, a Texas-born bluesman who recorded it in 1928. Before I was familiar with Taj's version of "Fishing Blues," I'd already heard The Lovin' Spoonful's stab at it. Taj's version though sounded true and authentic.

And, leaving the realm of country blues, Taj did a funky version (with Linda Tillery) of R&B titan Louis Jordan's "Beans and Cornbread."

Check out Taj versions of older songs on The Stephen W. Terrell Web Log Song Book:

Black Jack Davy

The Cuckoo

 If you enjoyed this, checkout some similar posts on this blog:

Songs That The Wheel Taught Us
Songs That Cooder Taught Us
Songs That Crumb Taught Us
Songs That Kweskin Taught Us
Songs That Leon Taught Us
Songs That Tiny Taught Us
Songs That Herman Taught Us

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, October 11, 2020
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist :

OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres

Hard to Be Humble by Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs

Her House to the Way to Hell by The Tombstones

Puked to High Heaven by Mike Watt

Precious Memories by The Blasters

So Long Baby, Goodbye by Dave Alvin

Boppin’ and Shakin’ by Crazy Cavan & The Rhythm Rockers

Youngblood by The Coasters

Next Time by The Aristokatz

(Background Music: Outrageous by The Civil Tones)

I’m Crying by The Animals

Thrash City by Poly Styrene

Sick of You by Pirate Love

Flaccid is the Night by Pocket FishRmen 

Right Side of the Mind by Angry Samoans

Jenny I Read by Concrete Blonde

Drunk Tonight by The Bloody Irish Boys

What Good Can Drinkin’ Do by Martha Fields

Hot ’N’ Cold by Ray Condo 

(Background Music: Television Fission by Man Or Astroman?)

If I Should Fall from the Grace of God by The Pogues

Doing It Right by The Yawpers

Land by Patti Smith

Motorcycle Madness by Daddy Long Legs

Live Like a Dog by The Kill Spectors

Like a Monkey in the Zoo by Daniel Johnston

Fuck Off by Audrey Auld

(Background Music: 4/4 Situation by The DJ Bonebrake Trio)

It’s a Big Old Goofy World by John Prine

Sam Stone by Swamp Dogg

Harpo’s Blues by Phoebe Snow

As Teardrops Break by Dead Moon

$1,000 Car by The Handsome Family

Zoysia by The Bottle Rockets

CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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WACKY WEDNESDAY: Songs for Buford

O.K., last Throwback Thursday I did a post in honor of of an infamous criminal, so this week, on Wacky Wednesday let's honor a legendary lawman, the late great Buford Pusser.

The corruption-busting sheriff was the hero of the film series Walking Tall. Here's what the New York Times said about him in his 1974 obituary:

Mr. Puser, elected sheriff of McNairy County in 1964, immediately started a crime‐busting clean‐up of gambling, prostitution and moonshining in the county. Often he personally smashed up gambling equipment, using a pick‐ax.

There were at least seven attempts on Mr. Pusser's life, including one in 1967 when he and his wife Pauline were driving along a country road near the town of New Hope. Their car was sprayed with 30‐caliber bullets, and Mrs. Pusser was killed.

... In addition to being shot at, Mr. Passer was knifed, beaten several times and, once, thrown from a window. He often related in kind, and in some quarters he was criticized for being too tough a law enforcement officer, tending, as one Tennessee newspaper put it, “to overkill in the pursuit of justice.”

He died in a traffic accident at the age of 36.

Not only did he inspire the movie but also several songs.

In fact, country singer Eddie Bond recorded a bunch of Buford songs, many of which are compiled on the 1973 album pictured above. Here a couple of those songs:

No bear was a match for Buford, according to Eddie Bond.

Another country singer named Dave Hall recorded this Buford tribute:

A band called State Line Mob (which also is the name of the criminal organization Pusser fought) did this tune in 2008:

The Drive-By Truckers did not one, not two, but three Buford songs on their their 2004 album (and my favorite DBT album),  The Dirty South. These include "The Boys from Alabama," "Cottonseed" and, my favorite, "The Buford Stick," sung from the perspective of a good old boy sick of the sheriff "shutting down our stills and whores."

Jimmy Buffet sang about a drunken altercation with Sheriff Pusser in his 1999 song "Semi-True Story." The inebriated Buffet had made the mistake of climbing on top of Pusser's car in a hotel parking lot in Nashville.

A walking tall sheriff and a big Cadillac

And me and golf shoes on the hood making tracks

This daring young singer was under attack

And Buford himself, when not busting up moonshine stills, wrestling bears, or beating up Jimmy Buffet , was a recording artist himself. Here's his two-part song "It Happened In Tennessee," released by a Stax Records (!) subsidiary. It was written and produced by Wayne Jackson.

Walk tall in Heaven, Buford!

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, October 4, 2020
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist :

OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres

Geraldine by Ol’ Miss Downbeats

Get Off the Road by The Cramps

The Bad Thing by The Arctic Monkeys

League Moon Monkey Mix by The Fall

Bird Brain by Kevin Coyne

Alabama’s Doomed by Wizzard Sleeve

The KKK Took My Baby Away by The Ramones

All by Yourself at Midnight by “Whispering” Jack Smith

(Background Music: Yesiree by Impala)

Messin’ Around by The Ruiners

No Panic, No Stress by The Scaners

Spook Factor by Memphis Morticians

Insane Asylum by Koko Taylor & Willie Dixon

Brains-A-Flame by Johnny Dowd with Anna Coogan

Alphabetland by X

Primitive Love by The Texreys

Shot Down by Nick Curran & The Nitelifes

I Like it Like That by Chris Kenner

Like by Jack Hammer

(Background Music: Jitterbug by Angelo Badalamenti)

King King by Joe “King” Carrasco

That Wasn’t Chicken by Dose

Dust and Dogs by Pere Ubu

Drive You Faster by John Schooley

Somebody Told Me by Little Milton

She’s a Sweet One by Junior Wells

Love My Lover by The Fleshtones

Gig by Zip & The Zippers

El Bracero y La Pachuca by Dueto Taxco

(Background Music: Yabby by The Hully Gully Boys)

Volare by The Drifting Mines

Mr. Wiggly by The Reverend Billy C. Wirtz

After the Ball by Dave Davies

I’m a Guitar King by Dion

Painting Box by The Incredible String Band

All Night Long by Junior Kimbrough

CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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Want to keep the party going after I sign off at midnight?
Go to The Big Enchilada Podcast which has hours and hours of music like this.

CLICK HERE

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast CLICK HERE