A couple of Theme Time connections here. The dealer is Ricky Jay, magician, connoisseur of cons, card trickster, and member of Dylan's posse (who incidentally has a wonderful CD compilation, Ricky Jay Plays Poker, which could have been the play list for a Theme Time show), and the bald player in sunglasses is Eddie Gorodetsky, producer and probable announcer of TTRH.
Interesting poker hand going on here. Eddie G. is holding four 9s, and Mr D. the King through 10 of Hearts. With a significant look at Ricky, Dylan throws away a club, and Ricky deals him the Ace of Hearts, and the Royal Flush nutz. However, a woman enters the room (a commenter at YouTube speculates it's actress Laura Harring), more significant looks are exchanged, and the two women players at the table suddenly attack Dylan. Ricky and Eddie grab for the pot and the mucked cards.
Dylan reseats himself and smiles at Jay, who returns it, so they're apparently happy at the outcome. But why? Who knows? In the art of the con maybe this was the set-up for a larger con.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
"Love And Theft" promo
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Episode 35 - Cooking (and Drinking) with Bob
Episode 35 - Cooking (and Drinking) with Bob
Direct link to mp3.
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Today on Cooking with Bob, Mint Juleps! Rum and Coca-Cola! Barbecue! Beer! Figgy Pudding! And Bob's Mom's Banana Chocolate Chip Loaf Bread!
[French Chef Theme]
"Bob, it's always a pleasure. What would you like to start with on today's show?"
“The world of liquid libation, booze, sauce, hooch, white lightning, firewater hard stuff, pick me up, gin and juice. moonshine, canned heat.”
"Sounds pretty ah, sodden. So, what's your favorite mixed drink?"
"Get ready with your pencil now!"
From Drinking:
Bob's Mint Julep Recipe:
4 mint sprigs
2 ½ ounces of bourbon (“I prefer 3”)
1 Tablespoon powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon water
Put the mint leaves, powdered sugar, and water in a Collins glass. Fill with shaved or crushed ice. Top with bourbon and more ice. Garnish with a mint sprig.
“Two or three of those and 
anything sounds good!”
"Now that's a good Summer drink, Bob. But I'm more of a Rum and Coca-Cola man myself. You wouldn't happen to have a good recipe for that old classic, would you?"
From Drinking:
Bob's Rum and Coke Recipe:
1 tall glass, filled with ice
2 fingers of "Bombay" rum
1 bottle of Coca Cola
“Shake it up well and go drink it in the sunshine!”
"Wait a second. I've never heard of 'Bombay rum.' Do you mean 'Bambu'?"
"Bombay rum!"
"Okay, you're the chef. Listen, after a couple of those, I'm going to need something solid on my stomach. I heard you do a mean barbecue. Care to share your secret recipe?"
From "Tennessee"
"There's a lot of good barbecue in Memphis. Here's a recipe I gave the guys over at the Rendezvous."
1 cup vinegar
5 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
1 tablespoon butter
½ small onion
a dash of black pepper
some cayenne pepper
1 ½ teaspoons salt
½ cup water
Mix it all together in large pan
bring to a quick boil
reduce the heat and let simmer 10 minutes
“You can also figure out your own secret ingredients and dump it into the mix. I like about three fingers of Tennessee sippin' whiskey.”
"I saw our friend Hank enjoying a beer with that barbecue. What beer do you recommend to go with it?"
"Don't know what kinda beer Hank was drinking, but it could have been Michelob Lite, or Rolling Rock, or Beck's, or Dos Equis, or Irish Red, or Murphy's Stout, Perhaps it was Newcastle Brown Ale, or Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, or Stella Artois, or possibly Corona. Whatever he was drinking, it's some kind of beer that has that single throw switch that old Hank likes."
[A Word from Our Sponsor - Frito-Lay]
"We're back with Our Host, and after a fine meal of barbecue, I'm ready for some dessert. Bob, what do you have planned?"
"Earlier in the show, I told you to go get a pencil. Well, you all going to use it now. I got a lot of letters about this. Here's my recipe for Figgy Pudding."
From Christmas & New Year:
4 oz of plain flour
a pinch of salt – just a pinch!
4 oz bread crumbs
4 oz shredded suet
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 oz dark soft brown sugar
8 oz chopped dried figs
finely grated rind & the juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons milk
2 beaten eggs
Sift salt and flour together, then mix with the remaining dry ingredients. Add the figs, lemon rind and juice, milk, and beaten eggs. Beat well. Mixture should have a soft dropping consistency. Put into a greased 2 pint pudding basin, cover securely and steam for 3 hours. Bob, we want to thank you for today's show, and wish you a great 66th birthday this coming May 24th.*
*Dreamtime wants to thank reader Carol B. for gently pointing out that I had missed Dylan's birthday by two days in the original post - you can still hear the mistake in the podcast. Given that I made the same error with Lord Buckley's birthday, and regularly get dates mixed up, I've decided I have some weird form of dyslexia that only involves dates. Thanks again, Carol!
"To close out the show, here's a recipe from your Mom, Beatty, first published back in 19 and 99 in the Duluth News. Your mom said the recipe was "no-fail" and took only a minute to make:
1 cup granulated sugar1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened
2 eggs
4 tablespoons sour cream
2 ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 (6-ounce) package chocolate chips (or up to 12 ounces, if desired)
2 medium disposable foil loaf pans (about 8-by-3-by-2 inches)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together the sugar and butter. Add the eggs and beat well. Add the sour cream and ripe bananas; mix well. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Add the dry mixture to the sour cream mixture, then fold in the chocolate chips. Divide the batter between two greased loaf pans. Bake for about 50 minutes. Turn the loaves out on to cooling rack or aluminum foil as soon as they're done.
"Well, the kitchen timer is ringing, and that means it's time for us to start cleaning dishes. See you again real soon on your other home for dreams."
Sources: Annotated Theme Time at the Bob Dylan Fan Club; Dinner for a Song
***
You've been listening to the Dreamtime podcast – occasional commentary on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour.
Dreamtime is researched and written by Fred Bals, and is a Not Associated With production. As the name says, we're not associated with XM Radio, Bob Dylan, or much of anything else.
Some of the music on Dreamtime is provided via the Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at music.podshow.dot com. Our closing theme is performed by Lounge Affaire, courtesy of Christopher Murphy Studio.
We love your email and you can write us at dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com
The Dreamtime top cats are Curly Lasagna and Shaggy Bear. Our announcers are the notorious honky-tonkin' sisters, Jailbait and Joyride.
Until next time, dream well.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
A Dreamtime/Lord Buckley Mashup
Courtesy of the folks over at lordbuckley.com, who laid the following riff down and did the very nice graphic mashup to your left ...
Play Me Some Beautiful Dreamtime, My Dear PrinceAnd Dreamtime's thanks too, to the Marquis and the Keepers of the Flame.The Marquis De Roger Mexico, that intrepid Lord Buckley documentarian, has hipped LBC to a swingin' Semantic and Lobe Podcast celebrating His Lordship's Century Plus One Natal Day Swing. There is a website called "Dreamtime", a particular storyteller cat tagged Fred Bals and a segment called "Episode 32 - Dig Infinity! A Passion Play in 4 Acts" You cats and kitties that dig the modern flip and yaw of techology will be gassed by the combination of text and audio events happneing on the virtual page right before your very own peepers. There is a direct link to the MP3 file of the program. Dig that jive!
So if Your Grace twists the antennae of Your Considerable Attention to the following coordinates you can dig the riff.
click here for Dreamtime
Many thanks to the Marquis for, once again, enlightening the populance .
Monday, May 07, 2007
Dry Your Eyes - The Streets
We've started going back through the old Theme Time episodes and discovering/rediscovering some great music missed the first time around. This pretty, sad song by The Streets is from Episode #15 - Eyes
Monday, April 30, 2007
Episode 34 - He Was a Graveyard Smash
Episode 34 – He Was a Graveyard Smash
Direct link to mp3.
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Here's what Bobby Pickett had to say about creating "Monster Mash"…
"Like me, Lenny was a major horror movie fan from childhood… We'd both seen how the audiences had loved it when I was with The Cordials and we'd sing 'Little Darlin' and I did the monologue in the middle of the song in Boris Karloff's voice. We agreed that the Karloff voice was the most obvious one to tell the story. And what was the story?
'Well,' Lenny suggested, 'Maybe the Frankenstein monster should start a dance craze.'
And a hit was born. Bobby "Boris" Pickett passed away last Wednesday, April 25, 2007 at age 69. "Monster Mash" wasn't Pickett's only song to make it to the charts; he had two others, "Monsters Holiday" and "Graduation Day," but it was the graveyard smash that would define his life. Not only did "Monster Mash" make it to the top of the Billboard charts in 19 and 62 , but the song also re-took the charts in August of 19 and 70 and May of 19 and 73, joining "White Christmas" and "The Twist" as one of only three songs to ever reach the charts three separate times.
A Somerville, Massachusetts native, Pickett was a high school basketball star in the ’50s who wanted to become a Hollywood actor.
"His dad worked at a movie theater," said deejay Paula Street, who knew and liked Pickett, "and that’s where he picked up the Boris Karloff impression he does in the song." As a high school basketball player, Pickett would sometimes relieve pre-game pressure by doing impersonations of Karloff for teammates.
After a stint in the army, Pickett moved to Hollywood in the early `60s, never really making it as an actor, but still appearing in several TV shows, such as "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Petticoat Junction" as well as several Z-grade movies including "Lobster Man From Mars," which also featured Tony Curtis.
Pickett was also part of a transplanted Somerville vocal group called The Cordials, which had followed him to L.A.
"I was doing stand-up comedy as an impressionist, doing characters including Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff," Pickett said in a 1992 interview. "The Cordials would do [the Diamonds' hit] 'Little Darlin', and as a joke, I started doing the recitation in Karloff's voice."
[Little Darlin']
Inspired by the then red-hot "Mashed Potato" dance craze, Pickett and Somerville buddy Leonard Capizzi wrote "Monster Mash" in a half-hour one Saturday afternoon. Pickett was also the one behind the song's sound effects. The creaky door at the beginning was a nail pulled from a piece of wood and the boiling cauldron was Pickett blowing bubbles in a cup of water with a straw.
The recording session was supervised by producer Gary Paxton, who'd already had one novelty hit in 19 and 57, with the Hollywood Argyles' "Alley Oop." Paxton came up with the idea of calling Pickett "Boris" and the backing band, "The Crypt-Kickers." The Crypt-Kickers included members of Ronny and the Daytonas, the Ventures, the Bermudas, and Leon Russell, yes, the Leon Russell, on piano. A top studio session player of the `60s, Russell's piano would also be featured on Herb Alpert's mega-hit album of 19 and 65, "Whipped Cream & Other Delights," as part of the then non-existent except in the studio "Tijuana Brass."Done in one take, "Monster Mash" was rejected by every major label it was pitched to. But not discouraged, Paxton pressed one thousand copies of the record and drove up and down the coast, hawking the song to every radio station on the way. The strategy paid off, shooting "Monster Mash" to Number #1 on the charts in just eight weeks.
"Monster Mash" has sold over four million copies and has been included on countless compilations, soundtracks and television shows. It's been covered by the Beach Boys, the Bonzo Dog Band, Sha Na Na, and by "Monster Mash" fan Boris Karloff himself on the TV show Shindig! in October of 19 and 65.
"Maybe I haven't made millions but I have been paying the rent for years with this one song," Pickett once said. "When I hear it, I hear a cash register ringing."
And somewhere in a special spot of heaven reserved for beloved monsters like Frankenstein and the Wolfman, the ghoulies and ghosties are doing the Transylvania Twist.
Sources: The Monster Mash site; "Hub crooner lovingly created a 'Monster.'" - The Boston Herald; 14 Reasons Why Bobby "Boris" Pickett Was Cool; Obituary from The Independent; Monster Mash trivia and information; Wikipedia.
***
You've been listening to the Dreamtime podcast – occasional commentary on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour.
Dreamtime is researched and written by Fred Bals, and is a Not Associated With production. As the name says, we're not associated with XM Radio, Bob Dylan, or much of anything else.
Some of the music on Dreamtime is provided via the Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at music.podshow.dot com. Our closing theme is performed by Lounge Affaire, courtesy of Christopher Murphy Studio.
We love your email and you can write us at dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com
The Dreamtime top cats are Curly Lasagna and Shaggy Bear. Our announcers are the notorious honky-tonkin' sisters, Jailbait and Joyride.
Until next time, dream well.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Betty Boop & Louis Armstrong - I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal You
As noted by Our Host in the Death and Taxes show....
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Season Two of Bob Dylan's Award-Winning XM Music Show to Debut in September
Good news (in both senses) for me. On the one hand, I get to continue Dreamtime, which I've had more fun writing than anything I've done in say, oh, the past 20 years or so. I was already planning on doing a new - non-Theme Time Radio Hour-based - podcast, probably to have been titled Old Weird America, if Dylan had decided to end TTRH with today's Show 50. But I'm not sure it would have been as much fun without being able to riff off something Dylan has said on air. On the other hand, I - and my equally obsessive peers at the Expecting Rain forums, the Annotated Theme Time Radio Hour, and elsewhere around the Web, all can use a well-deserved Spring/Summer break to recharge our TTRH batteries, as I assume Our Host will be doing too. I'm only at Show 33 with Dreamtime, and would like to get to 50 before Mr. D. comes back on the air in September. Here's the Press Release... via PRNewsWire and Yahoo Finance: Wednesday April 18, 10:00 am ET WASHINGTON, April 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Bob Dylan's award-winning XM music show, "Theme Time Radio Hour," will return to XM with all-new episodes in September, it was announced today. The new season will feature the show's signature eclectic mix of songs related to a specific theme, along with entertaining stories about the music and topics of interest. In addition, fans of "Theme Time Radio Hour" can expect to hear contributions from more special guests during the second season, including Ellen Barkin, whose sultry voice has heralded the start of each "Theme Time" episode since its debut last year. Dylan's critically-acclaimed weekly show wraps-up its first season today with a special two-hour episode. Devoted to the theme "spring cleaning," the season finale features a diverse list of artists that spans from Memphis Minnie to Tom Waits and Roy Orbison to Igor Stravinsky, among many others. Following the show's first-anniversary on May 3, XM will air a "Theme Time Radio Hour" marathon during Memorial Day weekend, broadcasting every episode from the first season of Dylan's "Theme Time Radio Hour" back-to-back, beginning May 26 at 6 p.m. ET on The Village (XM 15). In May 2006, Bob Dylan's "Theme Time Radio Hour," debuted to popular and critical-acclaim exclusively on XM. Rolling Stone calls the show "revelatory ... Dylan's song choices are impressively varied," and the Boston Herald says of Dylan as DJ, "he's informative, funny ... his taste is impeccable." Among the shows myriad accomplishments of the past year, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum added the "baseball" episode of "Theme Time Radio Hour" to its archives in June 2006. Dylan is one of music's most iconic performers. He has released more than 45 albums containing more than 600 songs that have been covered by more than 2,000 different artists ranging from The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder and Guns N' Roses to Duke Ellington, Garth Brooks, Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine. His last four albums have been critical and popular successes with 1997's Time Out Of Mind garnering three GRAMMY® Awards, including Album Of The Year. In 2001, he won an Academy Award® and a Golden Globe® for the song "Things Have Changed." In 2004 his best selling memoir, Chronicles Volume 1, spent 19 weeks on The New York Times' Best Sellers List. Last year, Dylan received mass critical praise for his latest studio release "Modern Times," which had its world premiere on XM in August 2006. Certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), "Modern Times" debuted at number one on the Billboard Top 200 Chart and became Dylan's first number one album in 30 years. "Theme Time Radio Hour" airs Wednesdays at 10 a.m. ET on XM's deep classic rock channel, Deep Tracks (XM 40), with additional encores airing throughout the week on both Deep Tracks and XM's dedicated folk music channel, The Village (XM 15).Complete show details are available online at http://www.xmradio.com/bobdylan.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Episode 33: Oh Baby, Me Gotta Go
"I've recorded songs in my garage. Am I a 'garage band'?" - Bob Dylan, Theme Time Radio Hour Friends & Neighbors
Direct link to mp3.
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This month is the 50th anniversary of the first recording of inarguably the greatest garage band song ever written, and what better way to celebrate than with this rare clip of Dylan and Tom Petty doing a sound check at Farm Aid 1985 with a rocking - if very muffled - "Louie Louie." Check out the Dreamtime blog (that's right here) for a better watching experience of the YouTube video.
1985 was the year of the first Farm Aid, a benefit spurred by a comment Dylan made at Live Aid earlier that year,
"I hope that some of the money...maybe they can just take a little bit of it, maybe...one or two million, maybe...and use it, say, to pay the mortgages on some of the farms and, the farmers here, owe to the banks...."Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Neil Young took Dylan's comments to heart, and in September 1985, the first Farm Aid concert was held in Champaign Illinois. The annual benefit continues, with Nelson, Mellencamp, and Young still performing.
With the possible exception of Paul McCartney's "Yesterday," "Louie Louie" has been covered more than any pop song in history - over 1,000 different versions, according to louielouie.net. In fact, a college radio station once played "Louie Louie" non-stop for over 63 hours... without repeating the same version twice. Here's the ultimate mashup of "Louie Louie," 50, yes, count `em 50 artists covering the song, all in two and a half minutes.
[Daily Reckless "Louie Louie" mashup]
Among 45 others, you just heard Iggy Pop, Led Zepplin, Blondie, The Grateful Dead, and Julie London. We'll be hearing more from Julie later in the show.
Originally written by Richard Berry in 19 and 55, and released by Berry two years later, "Louie Louie" was a moderate regional success, but wouldn't become a mega-hit until the early `60s when both Paul Revere and the Raiders and The Kingsmen recorded their different versions. While the PR&tR version of "Louie Louie" was extremely popular on the West Coast from San Francisco to Portland, Oregon, it was The Kingsmen who would have the national breakout hit with "Louie Louie."
Almost immediately there were adult complaints about the near-indecipherable lyrics, with concerned parents writing plaintive missives such as this one to then-attorney general Robert F. Kennedy...
"Who do you turn to when your teen age daughter buys and brings home pornographic or obscene materials... My daughter brought home a record of "LOUIE LOUIE" and after reading that the record had been banned from being played on the air because it was obscene, proceeded to try to decipher the jumble of words... The lyrics are so filthy that I can not enclose them in this letter."Well, yes. Or, maybe no.
Actually there was something of a cottage industry among adolescents who were passing smudged, yellow, lined sheets of paper - the kind with the wood chips in the middle - to each other containing what were claimed to be the "real" lyrics of "Louie Louie." For example, while you might have thought you had heard these lyrics,
Those nasty ol' Kingsmen were really singing - the crib sheets claimed,Louie, Louie,
me gotta go. Louie, Louie, me gotta go.
me catch a ship across the sea.
I sailed the ship all alone;
I never think I'll make it home
me think of girl constantly.
On the ship, I dream she there;
I smell the rose in her hair.
It won't be long me see me love.
Me take her in my arms and then
I tell her I never leave again.
A fine little girl, she wait for me;
Three nights and days we sailed the sea;
Me see Jamaica moon above;
Even the nation's churches got into the act, producing a "clean" version of "Louie Louie," with a musical retelling of the Israelites flight from Egypt:Louie, Louie,
grab her way down low. Louie, Louie, grab her way down low.
she gets her kicks on top of me.
Each night I take her out all alone;
she ain't the kind I lay at home
I fuck my girl all kinds of ways.
And on that chair, I lay her there;
I felt my boner in her hair.
It won't be long, she'll slip it off.
I'll take her in my arms again;
tell her I'd rather lay her again.
A fine little bitch, she waits for me;
Each night at ten, I lay her again;
If she's got a rag on, I'll move above;
"Pharaoh, Pharaoh whoa whoa"Pharaoh Pharaoh" is still sung at many summer camps to this day.
Let my people go Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Well Pharaoh Pharaoh whoa baby Let my people go."
To add to the fun, the ever-watchful J. Edgar Hoover sicced his minions on this aural evil threatening the morals of the nation's children, and the F.B.I. spent much of 1964 through `65 investigating this dire threat to America. However, even when the Ace Investigators of Our Nation slowed down the 45 single to 33 1/3, "Louie Louie" remained impenetrable. The F.B.I. finally admitted defeat in May of `65, noting in a memo,
"The FBI Laboratory advised that because the lyrics of the recording "Louie Louie" could not be definitely determined in the Laboratory examination, it was not possible to determine whether this recording was obscene."Justice thwarted and Louie triumphant.
We're closing out today's show with one last "Louie Louie," this one a hot and sultry version from Theme Time favorite, Ms. Julie London. You can find "Louie Louie" on Julie's last album, Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, which yes, does include that piece of bubblegum pop, as well as a cover of Dylan's "Quinn The Eskimo."
Here's Julie London and "Louie Louie."
Above another YouTube video for your education and entertainment, a "follow the bouncin' ball version" of "Louie Louie."
You can make your own decision whether the singer is saying, "We," or the more commonly accepted "Me gotta go."
Episode 33 of the Dreamtime podcast was brought to you with the help of Mr. Glad Head from the Expecting Rain Theme Time forums, and he'd like to give a shoutout to Mr. Buddy Guy,
Sources: All things Louie can can found at the eponymous "louielouie.net." The ever-wonderful "The Smoking Gun" has the documented F.B.I. lost war against "Louie Louie." Snopes.com explores the history of the "dirty" "Louie Louie" lyrics.
***
You've been listening to the Dreamtime podcast – occasional commentary on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour.
Dreamtime is researched and written by Fred Bals, and is a Not Associated With production. As the name says, we're not associated with XM Radio, Bob Dylan, or much of anything else.
Some of the music on Dreamtime is provided via the Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at music.podshow.dot com. Our closing theme is performed by Lounge Affaire, courtesy of Christopher Murphy Studio.
We love your email and you can write us at dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com
The Dreamtime top cats are Curly Lasagna and Shaggy Bear. Our announcers are the notorious honky-tonkin' sisters, Jailbait and Joyride.
Until next time, dream well.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Love is All Around (Theme from Mary Tyler Moore)
Composed and performed by Sonny Curtis, he of the Crickets, as Our Host mentions in the "Fools" episode.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Episode 32 - Dig Infinity: A Passion Play in 4 Acts
Use the Dreamtime Player
Act the First - His Royal Hipness
My lords and ladies of the Royal Court here assembled, let me lay on you some history.
Some thoughts, ruminations, correspondence, prose and poesy, cerebration, consideration, contemplation, deliberation, meditation, reflection, speculation, and cogitation upon one cool cat. A cat who would be at the ripe old age of 101 come this April
So lend me your lobes, fellow Dreamers. Because I'm not making this scene to bury this hipster. No. but to dig him and to have him dug.
I'm talking about Buckley. Not William F. but the Lord. Lord Buckley. Richard "Lord" Buckley. Author and performer of "The Train" that so gently graced your shell-likes in Episode 45 of Theme Time Radio Hour.
Lumberjack, vaudevillian, master of ceremonies for - Yowza, Yowza, Yowza - those crazy dance marathons of the `3os. Disc jockey. Unlikely friend of Ed Sullivan, whose show he would appear on 11 times. And an even more unlikely court jester to Al Capone. "He was the only man who could make me laugh," Capone said.
But that was at the start of the Good Lord's career before he had donned his royal apparel. For years he was just "Dick Buckley," doing a standard comic nightclub act. But by 1950, at the urging of his wife, an ex-chorus girl named Elizabeth Hanson, he had fully adopted a persona that incorporated equal parts Louis Armstrong and Lord Kitchener, developed a patois he termed hipsemantic, began telling the stories he had previously only told backstage, and became the person it was so obvious he was always meant to be. His Hipness, Lord B.
It would be next to impossible for anyone to claim to be anything close to hip and not encounter Lord Buckley at some point in their life.
Maybe, if you were lucky enough, you caught one of his performances of "The Nazz," a hipsemantic retelling of the life and times of that cool carpenter cat from Nazarene. Maybe you found some reference to His Royal Hipness from some other artist you respected - Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Bill Cosby, Jonathan Winters, Hunter Thompson, Ken Kesey, Henry Miller - and you decided to check out this hero of your heroes. Maybe some late night as you were half asleep a bored deejay decided it was time to wig out the night watch and this oratory floated from the radio speakers...
"Hipster, flipsters and finger poppin' daddies:Or maybe you were at a friend's house one soft, lazy Sunday and she says , "you have to dig this," and the next thing you know you were listening to what sounded like a half-crazed Baptist preacher crossed with a tea-smokin juke joint jazz baby except he's also got this upper-class British accent and he's talking about how the ol' Marquis de Sade couldn't get enough ballin' to satisfy, but it was a bad rap 'cause he was just following his nature. His naaaaaaaaatuuuuuuuuuuuuuuur, dig?
Knock me your lobes;
I came here to lay Caesar out, not to hip you to him.
The bad jazz that a cat blows wails long after he's cut out,
the groovyare often stashed with their frames;
so don't put Caesar down.
The swingin' Brutus hath laid a story on you that Caesar was hooked for
power: If it was so it was a sad drag, and sadly hath the Caesar cat answered it..."
And you go "What?" and you go, "Who?" and your friend's got this half-smile on her face, 'cause she knows you've just taken up permanent residence in the Royal House of Buckley.
Act the Second: Black Cross
When Bob Dylan stepped out of a four-door Impala and onto the New York city streets in January of 19 and 61, Lord Buckley was already two months long gone from the scene, passing away at Columbia Hospital on November 12, 1960. He was 54 years old.
Dylan knew of him, of course, knew of him before he ever arrived in New York. Dylan mentions Buckley in his little-known 1963 poem that uses the same title as the famous song, Blowin' in the Wind, originally published in Hootenanny Magazine...
... and again in his prose/poetry book, Tarantula which he began in the early `60s.
an Moondog's beatin his drum an sayin his lines -
Lenny Bruce's talkin
an Lord Buckley's memory still movin
Look closely and you'll find The Best of Lord Buckley album displayed in the center on the mantelpiece in the cover shot of Bringing It all Back Home.
And then there's "Black Cross."
The poem "Black Cross" was published in 1948 by a Joseph S. Newman in a collection of poems entitled It Could Be Verse. The poet was not Paul Newman's grandfather, as Buckley mistakenly states in his recording, but Newman's uncle, and was 57 and a columnist for the Cleveland Press at the time the book was published. Newman would die at age 68 on November 10, 1960, just two days before Buckley's own passing.
Whether Newman and Buckley ever met and exactly how Buckley discovered Newman's poetry is a mystery, but it's obvious Buckley liked and admired Newman's work, recording three other of his poems besides "Black Cross," and performing it straight, an unusual move for a man who liked to put his own spin on all words. Here's Lord Buckley with "Black Cross."
Black Cross
by Joseph S. Newman,
as performed by Richard "Lord" Buckley
From Way Out Humor, World Pacific, 1959. Recorded live at the Ivar Theatre, Los Angeles, 1959. Re-released as Lord Buckley in Concert, Demon Verbals, 1985It's a beautiful thing.
It was written by Paul Newman's beloved grandfather, in Cleveland,
a Cleveland poet. It's "Black Cross."There was Old Hezekiah Jones, of Hogback County.
He lived on a hill in a weatherbeaten hovel.
And all that he owned was a two-acre plot
with a bed and some books and a hoe and a shovel.Old Hezekiah, black as the soil he was hoeing,
Worked pretty hard to make both ends meet.
Raised what he ate, with a few cents over
To buy corn likker that he drank down neat,And a few cents more that he put in the cupboard
Against what he called "de rainy season,"
But he never got to save more'n two or three dollars
Till he gave it away for this or that reason.The white folks around knew old Hezekiah...
"Harmless enough, but the way I figger
He better lay off'n them goddam books,
'Cause readin' ain't good fer an ignorant nigger."Reverend Green, of the white man's church,
Finally got around to "comin' ovah
To talk with you-all about the Pearly Kingdom
An' to save yo' soul fer the Lawd Jehovah!""D'ya b'lieve in the Lawd?" asked the white man's preacher.
Hezekiah puckered his frosty brow,
"Well I can't say 'yes,' so I ain't gonna say it,
Caze I ain't SEEN de Lawd....nowhere....no-how.""D'ya b'lieve in Heaven?" asked the whiteman's preacher,
"Where you go, if you're good, fer yer last rewa'hd?"
"Ah'm good," said Hezikiah, "good as Ah'm able,
But Ah don't expect nothin' from Heaven OR the Lawd.""D'ya b'lieve in the Church?" asked the white man's preacher.
Hezekiah said, "Well de Church is divided;
Ef they can't agree, than Ah cain't neither...
Ah'm like them....Ah ain't decided.""You don't b'lieve nothin'," roared the white man's preacher.
"Oh yes Ah does," said old Hezikiah,
"Ah b'lieve that a man's beholden to his neighbahs
Widout de hope of Heaven or de fear o' hell's fiah."There's a lot of good ways for a man to be wicked...
They hung Hezikiah as high as a pidgeon,
And the nice folks around said, "He had it comin'
'Cause the son-of-a-bitch didn't have no religion!"
Act the Third - Hezekiah Jones
Dylan performed his version of "Black Cross," often labeled on bootlegs under the title "Hezekiah Jones," or simply "Hezekiah" publicly for about about a year according to Oliver Trager's "Bob Dylan Encyclopedia," Keys to the Rain (this is the same person who wrote the Lord Buckley biography, Dig Infinity!, by the way). Less than a year after the release of Bob Dylan, he had stopped performing the song, probably because Dylan was more focused on developing and performing his own material, possibly because he was already becoming uncomfortable with what he would later term, "finger-pointin' songs."
The book cites only two known extant Dylan recordings of "Black Cross" - both appearing on various bootlegs - the first originating from the so-called "Minnesota Hotel Tapes" recordings of 1961 - and the second from the "Gaslight Tapes" of 1962 (the song does not appear on the officially released Live at the Gaslight 1962). It's interesting to compare the Buckley and Dylan versions, one by an artist in his fifties who had built his career on delivering monologues, one by an artist barely in his twenties, still learning how to get the most effect from pacing, rhythm and words.
[Hezekiah Jones/Black Cross - from The Minnesota Hotel Tapes]
Act the Fourth - Finale
Lord Buckley would close his show with this thanks to his audience,
"People are the true flowers of life, and it has been a most precious pleasure to have temporarily strolled in your garden."
It's been my pleasure to have been allowed to stroll through your garden. This has been Fred Bals. Thanks to Dreamtime listeners Richard and Geoff for the idea for this show, and thanks to all of you for listening.
Sources: There's only one place to start on the web if you want to learn more about Lord Buckley, and that's lordbuckley.com.
The lynching photo is real and is from a postcard depicting the lynching of Lige Daniels, Center, Texas, USA, August 3, 1920. The back reads, "This was made in the court yard in Center, Texas. He is a 16 year old Black boy. He killed Earl's grandma. She was Florence's mother. Give this to Bud. From Aunt Myrtle." - reproduced under a Creative Commons license from Wikipedia.
This show would not have been possible without the October 2002 episode of Give the Drummer Some, Doug Schulkind's WFMU radio show. The 3-hour show includes rare Buckley recordings, the "other" version of Dylan's "Black Cross," and an informative free-wheeling interview with the Royal Biographer, "Prince" Oliver Trager who certainly knows what the phrase "labor of love" means as well as I do. If he comes across this episode of Dreamtime, I hope he'll listen to it in that spirit. Thanks, Doug and Oliver!
***
You've been listening to the Dreamtime podcast – occasional commentary on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour.
Dreamtime is researched and written by Fred Bals, and is a Not Associated With production. As the name says, we're not associated with XM Radio, Bob Dylan, or much of anything else.
Some of the music on Dreamtime is provided via the Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at music.podshow.dot com. Our closing theme is performed by Lounge Affaire, courtesy of Christopher Murphy Studio.
We love your email and you can write us at dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com
The Dreamtime top cats are Curly Lasagna and Shaggy Bear. Our announcers are the notorious honky-tonkin' sisters, Jailbait and Joyride.
Until next time, dream well.
Visit the Dreamtime Store
Monday, March 26, 2007
Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band - Click Clack
As a piece of useless trivia, Don van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart attempted to seduce my then-girlfriend during a flight from L.A. to San Francisco in 1971. He was unsuccessful.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
Monkees - Last Train to Clarksville
Last Train to Clarksville was written by the songwriting team of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who also had hits with Chubby Checker and Jay And The Americans; Lazy Elsie Molly for Chubby Checker in 1964, followed by Jay and the Americans' Come A Little Bit Closer, a top ten record later in the same year.
Boyce and Hart produced the songs for The Monkees television pilot in 1966, including doing the singing. Boyce and Hart also recorded vocals and backing tracks for the Monkees debut album (on which Last Train to Clarksville appeared), with the actual Monkees adding lead vocals later.
Recorded at RCA Victor Studio A, Hollywood, on July 25, 1966, Last Train to Clarksville went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, coincidentally knocking another Theme Time play 96 Tears by ? and the Mysterians to the #2 slot.
As Dylan notes on the Trains (#1) episode of Theme Time, Last Train to Clarksville was a disguised protest against the Vietnam War. According to Bobby Hart, "We couldn't be too direct with The Monkees. We couldn't really make a protest song out of it - we kind of snuck it in."
Friday, March 09, 2007
Episode 31 - Flash! Bam! Alakazam!
Use the Dreamtime Player
I'm back mining the rich vein of the "Colors," episode, first broadcast back in February. This time we're looking at an Orange Colored Sky. Like most music from the Big City, it has its own, strange story... with a cast of characters including Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Frank Zappa, and Robin the Boy Wonder.
When out of an orange-colored sky
Flash! Bam! Alakazam!
Wonderful you came by
I was humming a tune, drinking in sunshine
When out of that orange-colored view
Wham! Bam! Alakazam!
I got a look at you
One look and I yelled "Timber"
"Watch out for flying glass" '
Cause the ceiling fell and the bottom fell out
I went into a spin and I started to shout,
"I've been hit, This is it, This is it!"
I was walking along minding my business
When love came and hit me in the eye
Flash! Bam! Alakazam!
Out of an orange-colored sky.
"Orange Colored Sky" was co-written by Willie Stein and Milton DeLugg in 19 and 50. Stein would go on to become producer of the TV quiz show, "To Tell the Truth," and the original "Price is Right."
DeLugg and Stein may have written the song for one of the themes for Broadway Open House, a `50s variety show on the old DuMont TV network where DeLugg led the house band, but as far as I can determine two other pieces of music were used instead. Broadway Open House was hosted at one time by Morey Amsterdam, giving us even more Theme Time and Dreamtime connections.
DeLugg might be best known to you for his stint as band leader for the infamous "Gong Show," where he and his group were known as "Milton DeLugg and the Band with a Thug." If you're a bit older, you might also remember him as composer for the score of the equally infamous kiddie cult flick, "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," featuring a 9-year-old Pia Zadora, later much better known for cavorting in public fountains in g-string bikinis.
Originally recorded by Stan Kenton and his Orchestra with The Nat King Cole Trio in August of 1950, Orange Colored Sky would be covered by Screamin' Jay Hawkins in 19 and 57. Hawkins' wild I Put a Spell On You was featured on Theme Time's "Halloween" episode.
Sky would be another hit for Screamin' Jay, although it reached nowhere near the popularity of Spell.According to a fan site, Hawkins picked up Sky because he had "always dug its strange changes." As he did with every piece of music he touched, here's Screamin' Jay making Orange Colored Sky his own.
[Screamin' Jay Hawkins - Orange Colored Sky]
Screamin' Jay Hawkins with lots of strange changes under an Orange Colored Sky.
We get a lot of mail here at Dreamtime, but here's a special one from a True Fan, who writes:"Dear you, wonderful, fabulous, magnificent, exquisite Boy Wonder, A cold chill runs up my spine everytime I see you sock a villain, and, oh, how I cry when you're even scratched. Please, don't send me a mimeograph copy of interesting facts about you, I want your handwriting. I have a whole wall on my room dedicated to you.Oh, Boy Wonder, I'm making a gum wrapper chain to symbolize my love for you. It's going to be as long as I am tall, and I'm 5 foot 10 inches in stocking feet. Please, Boy Wonder, PLEASE, come next Saturday and sleep for a week or two. I will feed you breakfast in bed, I will make your bed for you, and I like you so much that I want you to spend the whole summer with me.
(I hope you know this is a girl writing)"
Well, thank you fan, and I'm sure glad you're a girl. Keep on listening, okay?
Orange Colored Sky would be covered again in 19 and 91 by Nat's daughter, Natalie, on her album dedicated to her father's music, Unforgettable. But the song had an earlier cover 25 years before, in one of the strangest collaborations in music history... the day Frank Zappa met Robin the Boy Wonder.
[Batman theme]In 19 and 66, the Batman television series was at its height of popularity, and the actor who played Robin - Burt Ward - was a major teen heart throb. Ward wasn't the first actor who the studios thought they could make a quick buck from by getting him to croon a few tunes for the kids, but the problem was that Ward couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Here's what Burt Ward had to say about his recording career
I should have had the wisdom I now have when I signed a recording contract with MGM Records... MGM staffer Tom Scott was assigned as my producer. He brought in one of the visually wildest groups imaginable as my backup band, the Mothers of Invention. What a sight! Neanderthal. They had incredibly long, scraggly hair, and clothes that appeared not to have been washed in this century if ever. These were musicians who became famous for tearing up furniture, their speakers, their microphones and even their expensive guitars onstage. They were maniacs!
Their fearless leader and king of grubbiness was the late Frank Zappa. After listening to me sing, Frank got a wild idea to make use of my hideous voice to do a hilarious recording with a song that had some of the Batman feel to it. He picked Orange Colored Sky.
I can't bear to think of this song. The memories are too embarrassing. Though the intent was to create comedy by putting my lousy singing to good use, the actual result was so disastrous that the studio thought the tape had been left out in the sun and warped.
Orange Colored Sky was released as a single and it got lots of air play. I am told that thirty years later it is still played regularly on Dr. Demento's Sunday show.
In an attempt at self-preservation, the record company had me just talk on the [next] two sides I recorded. That I could do very well! The material for the song was a group of fan letters that had been sent to me. Frank and I edited them together to make one letter, which became the lyrics for the recording. Frank wrote a melody and an arrangement, and we titled the song, Boy Wonder, I Love You!
Showing the care and attention to detail that marked the entire recording session, the single was released to deejays under the mislabeled title, Oranged Colored Sky, with the B-Side holding Boy Wonder, I Love You! Because I love my listeners at Dreamtime, I won't inflict the recording on them. But to give you a taste of what a Burt Ward/Mothers of Invention collaboration sounded like, here's Burt Ward with the unreleased spoken word, Teenage Bill of Rights.
[Burt Ward - Teenage Bill of Rights]
Sources: The Burt Ward/Frank Zappa connection; and a little bit more. Information on Milton DeLugg taken from here and here.
Burt Ward's recollections of the recording sessions, as well as the "Boy Wonder I Love You" mail are taken from Boy Wonder, My Life in Tights, Ward's 1995 memoir.
***
You've been listening to the Dreamtime podcast – occasional commentary on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour.
Dreamtime is researched and written by Fred Bals, and is a Not Associated With production. As the name says, we're not associated with XM Radio, Bob Dylan, or much of anything else.
Some of the music on Dreamtime is provided via the Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at music.podshow.dot com. Our closing theme is performed by Lounge Affaire, courtesy of Christopher Murphy Studio.
We love your email and you can write us at dreamtimepodcast@gmail.com
The Dreamtime top cats are Curly Lasagna and Shaggy Bear. Our announcers are the notorious honky-tonkin' sisters, Jailbait and Joyride.
Until next time, dream well.
Visit the Dreamtime Store
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Bob Luman - Blue Suede Shoes
Another multiple Theme Time reference.
Bob Luman who performed "Blue Days, Black Nights" in the "Colors" episode, does just a wonderful "Blue Suede Shoes" at the Town Hall Party, September 27, 19 and 58.
The Beatles - Baby's in Black
Dreamtime's on a roll with videos from "Colors." Here's the Beatles in a "Ready, Steady, Go" performance where they may (or may not) be lip-synchn' to the studio version of "Baby's in Black."
I was very tempted to use Episode 5 of the Beatles Cartoon series, but the low-fi and flanging drove me crazy.
Pink Champagne by Joe Liggins & The Honeydrippers
Another one from the "Colors" episode. A 1979 version of Pink Champagne by Joe Liggins & The Honeydrippers.
Quoth the Raven - Ella Mae Morse
Ms. Morse performed "The House of Blue Lights" in the "Colors" episode.
This isn't it, but a swinging performance with lyrics inspired by that Fenderbender of a poet, E.A. Poe, so a double Theme Time connection.
Here's Kirby Grant and his Orchestra with Ella Mae Morse and the Mel-Tones, taken from the 1944 movie, Ghost Catchers.
Boozoo Chavis - Paper in My Shoe
Outside of it being a great performance, how can Dreamtime not feature an artist named Boozoo?
