Playlist for November 29, 2008 from 12:05AM - 3:00AM

This is a song that becomes a habit every time I listen to it. I listen over and over again then sing it to myself when I pull myself away from the speakers. This has been going on for five days now. The web link is unrelated, it just reminds me of an old Colorado game where we ran down the foothills is a semi-controlled fall. Nothing like these guys but it is a tie-in to Mountain of Love.

A song about taking a steamboat from Illinois to New Orleans. Like Freight Train Blues, these lyrics also include a big love story. Kind of reminds me of my early sojourns to New Orleans.

Leghorn Blows At Midnight. Isn't this the appropriately titled cartoon for this show?

All Fowled Up.

A Broken Leghorn

Link is to the archived audio for this show. Yep, I am stuck on Johnny Rivers.

The Chicken Hawk

Dog Gone South. There are some surprisingly racist early Loony Tune cartoons. What were people thinking?

1935 cartoon about service station men.

Something about this song that I never get satiated. The Blaster's version doesn't have the heart wrenching vocal but the instrumental portions are knock out. The link makes up for this deficiency by providing the song's author, Dave Alvin of the Paladins with the microphone.

Smiley Turner had a minor hit with this song but didn't generate a large catalog of songs. That is; I'm having trouble finding more of this guy's great music and I'm completely striking out on video from Smiley. Link is to 2008 Ascona Jazz Festival with an all star line up including the once (still?) president of the New Orleans Computer Society, Charlie Miller on trumpet.

Link is to a video clip of one man band, Dr. Ross performing.

From the attached web link to Earl Bostic's MySpace page: Earl Bostic was a saxophone player who is often maligned, misjudged and/or misrepresented. He has been referred to as a pop instrumentalist, a screaming R&B saxophonist and a jazz musician. His was all of those, of course, but he was also an outstanding technical player and improviser and he also recorded some great early rock and roll instrumentals. On recordings, his is one of the most identifiable alto saxophone sounds there ever was--right up there with Johnny Hodges and Charlie Parker. Jazz legend John Coltrane learned about technique when he played in Bostic’s band during the early fifties. This has been documented. Yet Bostic has never been recognized as the major jazz player that he was.

From the attached link to www.answers.com: Just after Specialty signed Larry Williams, Specialty lost Little Richard, who had been their biggest star and guaranteed hitmaker. Little Richard decided to abandon rock & roll for the ministry shortly after Williams cut his first single, a cover of Price's "Just Because," with Richard's backing band; "Just Because" peaked at number 11 on the R&B charts in the spring of 1957. After Richard left the label, the label put all of its energy into making Williams a star, giving him an image makeover and a set of material -- ranging from hard R&B and rock & roll to ballads -- that was quite similar to Richard's hits. Williams' first post-Little Richard single was the raucous "Short Fat Fannie," which shot to number one on the R&B charts and number five on the pop charts in the summer of 1957. It was followed in the fall by "Bony Maronie," which hit number four on the R&B charts and number 14 on the pop charts. Williams wasn't able to maintain that momentum, however. "You Bug Me, Baby" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy," his next two singles, missed the R&B charts but became minor pop hits in late 1957 and early 1958. Despite the relative failure of these singles, Williams' records became popular import items in Britain; the Beatles would cover both sides of the "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" single (the B-side was "Slow Down") in the mid-'60s. However, Williams' commercial fortunes in America continued to decline, despite Specialty's release of a constant stream of singles and one full-length album. In 1959, Williams was arrested for selling narcotics, which caused Specialty to drop him from the record label. During the '60s, he drifted through a number of labels in the early '60s, recording songs for Chess, Mercury, Island, and Decca. By the mid-'60s, he had hooked up Johnny "Guitar" Watson and the duo cut several sides for OKeh Records in the mid- and late '60s, including the Top 40 R&B hits "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" (spring 1967) and "Nobody," which was recorded with Kaleidoscope (early 1968). Williams also became a house producer for OKeh Records in 1966, although very few of his productions became hits. Between 1968 and and 1978, Williams was inactive, recording nothing and performing very little. In 1978, he released a funk album, That's Larry Williams, for Fantasy Records that sold poorly and received bad reviews. In 1980, Williams was found dead in his Los Angeles home; he died of a gunshot wound to his head. The medical examiners called the death a suicide, but rumors persisted for years after his death that he was murdered because of his involvement in drugs, crime and -- allegedly -- prostitution.

This link is to another reason we love New Orleans - the Sophisticats and Sophistikittens at Louisiana Music Factory. So What is an Occasional Hurricane Between Friends?

From CMT.com: In the mid-to-late 1950s, pianist Jimmy Beasley recorded some of the most faithfully Fats Domino-like music of the period for Modern Records. Beasley, unlike Domino, wasn't from New Orleans. But the resemblance on many of his tracks to Domino wasn't an accident, as much of his Modern material was recorded in Cosimo Studios in New Orleans, using famed Crescent City songwriter-arranger Dave Bartholomew's band. Beasley's material wasn't nearly as strong as Domino's, however. Too, his voice wasn't all that similar to Domino's; it was higher and clearer, yet not nearly as earthy and distinctive. Beasley was born in Kansas City, where he started in music as a non-piano-playing singer in the Aces Quartet and the Sonny Kenner Trio. He'd started to play piano in his act before moving to Los Angeles to play piano with the King Perry Band, with whom he recorded for Hollywood Records. He also recorded for Peacock Records briefly before hooking up with Modern. He didn't get any hits for Modern, although Fats Domino himself covered Beasley's 1956 single "Don't Feel Sorry for Me," itself loosely based on Domino's 1955 recording "Don't Blame It on Me." Domino did have a mild R&B hit with "Don't Feel Sorry for Me," outselling Beasley's rendition. Although Beasley drifted off the Modern label by the beginning of the 1960s, he re-signed with the company in the mid-1960s to cut a single, as well as some sides which were not issued until many years later. Although he stayed musically active into the late 1990s, a stroke put him into retirement. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide Is this link to the same Jimmy Beasley? I think so.

A video of Mr. John Gourrier (Fred) and the Playboys lip syncing to his most famous song. As I was saying about musicians anglicizing their names....

Perhaps Wanda Jackson navigated that stifling conformist era of black and white television because she seemed tougher than Artie Donavan. Try this link of her performing.

Poultry Whipped