Playlist for June 8, 2008 from 12:01AM - 03:00AM

RIP Bo Diddley. Bo's name and unique looking guitar are derivatives of the primitive diddly-bow a tight wire strung between a couple nails or posts and strummed giving that big reverb bass beat. It does not take much imagination to hear the diddly bow in much of Bo Diddley's playing.

Bumps spoken introduction is startling as he offers this soon-to-be-huge-hit with this paraphrased offer -

I hope you can record my song but if not give it to someone else who can use it. Then along came Little Richard.

Love those answer songs and this one from the self-proclaimed love child of Elvis and Charro brings the patently New Orleans song into Chicano satire. More on the blending of the New Orleans and Chicano sound later in the show and in the near future in a special on Chicano Soul from the West Side of San Antonio.

Burnside mixes some scratching with blues on this quaintly labeled song. It works.

I love this box set from Rhino. Bad boy and bad girl rockabilly from the 1950s.

A set of swamps songs but beginning with loud hiccuping singing and diminishing to whispered lyrics. Most of these songs also include lyrics about swamp roots but Frank Floyd takes it to a ridiculous level where he mixes the roots into a love potion. Ah, an early roofy song from yet another swamp Casanova. Go get her tiger!

A Loup Garou is the mythical swamp werewolf. Most of the world was introduced to this feared beast when the swamps broke through the levees after Katrina and flooded New Orleans with both water and the feared swamp beasts. Folks down here still swear they saw alligators and sharks in the flood waters and everyone was shooting at Loup Garous - especially at night. Inexplicably, there were no shark, alligator, or Loup Garou carcasses found. Some theorize the alligators and sharks swam through the pumps used to drain the city. I guess the Loup Garou could trot out over the levees but a much simpler explanation is that people were irrationally afraid of the dark and, worse, each other. Instead of using their rationale, they simply fired their guns.

So some dunderhead introduced a state bill allowing guns on campuses. Yep, as I look around three years after Katrina, I see a desperate need for more guns down here!

The end of the song is whispered and talks to voodoo. It is not set in the swamp per se but it sure feels like it primarily because of the whispered lyrics

Another three hours of Bobby-Lounge-free radio this time featuring a song lyric shared by Bobby's song, If I Were Elvis.

An unfortunately title for a great song as Spade was insanely jealous of his wife and tragically stomped her to death in front of their 14 year old child.

New Orleans Carbo brothers doing a song style I never get tired of, the dance step lyric. Before the internet, the killer multi-media marketing strategy was intended to get people excited about a dance step that is matched to your song. I think the last big examples of this was the Macarena and Lambada both of which happened just before the internet. For me, Al Gore most famously danced the Macarena and, well you know about his internet association.

Kermit, Calloway, and Cowboys - even the names sound similar.

Larry and Lori tore up the stage at the 2008 Ponderosa Stomp and decades ago when they were 14 year olds wishing they had a hot rod, this music is timeless. All that eighth grader energy poured into a song instead of against a substitute teacher solves a couple perennial social problems.

A set of music about radio with plenty of audio clips woven between the songs. Clips from Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill and my favorite a seemingly endless recording of Radio Bagdad where every third sentence is a repeat of a previous sentence. The two steps forward, one step backward conversational progression invented in the Department of Redundancy Department.

Speaking of redundancy, how bout this title.

A set about old-time singing wrestlers. This Blassie vinyl is blood red and the lp cover has him biting the bloody head of a competing wrestler. You know I bought it without hesitation back in 1978.

Oh yeah, Blassie did a very funny movie with some pencil neck geek called My Breakfast With Blassie. Andy Kaufman never equaled his Blassie humor as he riffed on professional wrestling but he never had an opposite that shared his sense of humor except for Blassie.

See the earlier comments on using music in Caribbean island political campaigns but this is just a horrible song. Since sycophants like Condeleeza can not become leaders, this is an impossible scenario but it finally gives context to the next song. For the first time, the Girl From Kooka Monga makes sense.

A one minute instrumental transition from Kooka Monga to Coca Monga. Jamie, where did you get the next LP?

Same general topic and the same sound. Chaz was in Colorado during those days making yet another wacky connection.

This got a great deal of play about a year ago when it first hit the station but this band has staying power. A superb album of music.