And Even Something More About Jimmy Ballard

If this keeps up, I may need to rename the site to Jimmy Ballard Time.

During one of my periodic breaks from "real" work, I decided to do another hunt for info on Jimmy/Jimmie Ballard, and ran across the so-called "John Patrick Collection", a folklore collector whose main area of interest seems to be drinking and bawdy songs from various eras.

A page on the site features mp3 snippets from the 2007 CD compilation Griddle Greasin' Daddies and Dirty Cowboys, as well as a transcription of the liner notes. Griddle Greasin' Daddies includes two Jimmy Ballard numbers: Chicken Plucker, Birthday Cake Boogie, and another - straight country-western - version of She's Got Something. And according to the liner notes, Ballard is also the featured vocalist on two other numbers found on the CD, Butcher Shop Blues and T'aint Big Enough, making it nearly a Jimmy Ballard collection. Here's the relevant sections on Ballard from Al Turner's liner notes...

"...Charlie Aldrich's "Kinsey's Book" is not so much a risque song, more a commentary on Dr. Kinsey's weighty analysis of sexual behaviour in the USA. Whilst there is little to offend in Aldrich's song, many Radio Station's banned the record solely because of its reference to Kinsey's work. The Nov-Ettes, were an ad hoc ensemble put together for a single KENTUCKY session, this outfit appears to feature the doyen of Hillbilly Risque singers, Jimmie Ballard. That particular songster is also to be found as the vocalist on Buffalo Johnson's "Tain't Big Enough", the subject matter here one could, tongue in cheek, describe as a perpetual fixation of males worldwide....

...Cumberland Valley Barn Dance star Jimmie Ballard, was a veteran of the Country music scene. Born in Middlesboro, Kentucky in 1932, Ballard turned professional when he was eighteen. Whilst better known these days for his risque material, Ballard was also a devout Christian with a string of sacred recordings to his credit. Ironic perhaps, but Georgia Tom, whose early repertoire contained several risque songs, is cited by many as one of the founding fathers of contemporary Black Gospel music. Thankfully "Chicken Plucker" is a song that the Very Reverent Dr. Spooner was never asked to sing! Ballard has two further songs on this compilation, his original (Pre KING) recording of "She's Got Some Something", and his reading of Billy Hughes' "Birthday Cake". The practice of Hillbilly artists covering R&B numbers, and Visa Versa, was quite common place at KING records..."

[Photo: Members of the Cumberland Valley Barn Dance - 1950. Jimmy Ballard, who is listed as "master of ceremonies and popular singer" is in the center.] The photo and more information on the Cumberland Valley Barn Dance can be found here.

A bit more searching brought me to the 45 RPM Records site, specializing in local labels from the Ohio River Valley. And searching for "Ballard" revealed a discography of about 10 small label singles, ranging from Just A Closer Walk With Thee, recorded in 19 and 53 to the aforementioned T'aint Big Enough, probably recorded that same year. Note that Ballard did most of his recordings for the KENTUCKY label, based out of Cincinnati, Ohio. Cincinnati was also the home base of KING records, which may be how Jimmy came to the attention of Syd Nathan.

So, more and more interesting. Risque songs. Sacred recordings. WMIK radio personality. Cumberland Valley Barn Dance star. Jimmy Ballard, country western renaissance man. Stay tuned for the next installment.

"Something" More on Jimmy Ballard

Thanks to the efforts of Dreamtime pal Adam Dean, we have a little more information on country-western singer Jimmy Ballard, as well as one of the few known photographs. Ballard's She's Got Something was played on the recent "Something" episode of Theme Time Radio Hour, and Mr. D. expressed interest in learning more about the man, one of the first country-western artists to cross-over into the new rock-'n-roll style.

Ballard is pictured above in a radio station WMIK (Middlesboro, KY) staff photo from 19 and 50. Jimmy is the man standing above the gentleman with the cake, and identified in the photo as "country singer Jimmy Ballard.". WMIK was owned by the Cumberland Gap Broadcasting Company (CGBC), one of Kentucky's foremost radio broadcasting corporations.

The photo - as well as the photo of a "deejay special" release of Ballard's The Creek's Gone Muddy (And Tthe Fish Won't Bite) - are taken from Chuck Owens ongoing documentation of the history of the CGBC. The copy on the single relates: "Born in Middlesboro, Kentucky in 1932, Jimmy Ballard started his musical career at the age of 15. When he was 18, he left home for a musical job in Knoxville, Tennessee, his first professional appearance."

WMIK began broadcasting on November 14th 19 and 48, and Owens reports that Jimmy, sometimes known as "Jimmie," had a show "at the start." Ballard was definitely on the air by December, 1948, as he's listed in the program logs as having a show airing from 6:00 to 6:30 every morning. And if you had been lucky enough to be in Middlesboro on January 19th 19 and 49, you could have caught Jimmy live at Central School Auditorium at 2:30 pm. Also appearing were The Pine Mountain Boys, Clayton York, Crusaders Quartette, Cumberland Valley Quartette, Kentucky Sweetheart, the Golden Sisters and Shorty Ward, and The Dixie Drifters.

The Dixie Drifters appeared to be WMIK's house band, and occasionally backed Ballard, although you'll note that both King singles displayed here list Ballard's backing musicians simply as "String Band." Here's an unfortunately abridged version of Birthday Cake Boogie performed by Jimmy Ballard and the Dixie Drifters from around 1950.



Interestingly, a "Jim Ballard" became the general manager of WMIK sometime in the `60s into the `70s, but based on a photo from 19 and 66 which you can find here, it appears to be an improbable coincidence of names, as "Jim" doesn't look at all like "Jimmy," plus looks too old to be Jimmy Ballard's son. And, it's hard to believe that Chuck Owens, who created both pages, wouldn't take the time to note that country singer Jimmy became or was related to general manager, Jim.

It's hard to tell whether Chuck Owens is still updating The Cumberland Gap Broadcasting site, but if his email address is still valid, he'd probably be the best starting point to find out even more about Jimmy Ballard. Born in 19 and 32, Jimmy would be in his late `70s now, and could very well still be in Middlesboro.

Thanks again, Adam, for setting this old hound-dog on the trail.

Tennessee, Tennessee

In a Season 3 full of firsts, the "Something" episode of Theme Time Radio Hour had - as far as I can tell - the first phone-in call from a real person...

Our Host: We're talking about something here on Theme Time Radio Hour, "Something" in particular. I think I'll check Line 1. Oh, it's not working. Line 2 is always good. Hello, caller, you're on the air. What's your name and where you calling from?

TT: My name is Tennessee Thomas, and I'm calling from Brooklyn, where I'm on tour with my band, The Like.

OH: How's the tour going?

TT: The tour is going really well, thanks.

OH: Are you listening to the show today?

TT: Yes, I've been listening to the show, and it's great. And, you asked a question earlier about a guy and I have some information for you.

OH: Oh, great!

TT: Well, um, he did the original version of The Twist, and his band was called The Midnighters.

OH: Oh, Tennessee! You're thinking of Hank Ballard. We were tring to find out about Jimmy Ballard.

TT: Oh, nooo!

OH: Well, that's all right. It was really nice of you to try to help. Have fun in Brooklyn. There's some great places to eat there. Make sure you try the Totonno's pizza on Neptune Avenue.

TT: Maybe I will go there.

OH: Ya can take it on the bus with you. Good luck on the tour.

TT: Thanks a lot!

OH: We'll see you soon.

OH: Nice of her to try to help. Still no closer to learning about Jimmy Ballard though. Perhaps it's lost to the mists of time.

***

As Tennessee noted, her band is The Like, an improabably young group which includes Elizabeth "Z" Berg (vocals/guitar), Charlotte Froom (bass/vocals) and Tennessee herself (drums/vocals). Now all of 24 years old, Tennessee and the other women formed The Like in 2001 at the tender ages of 16, 16, and 17 respectively. Tennessee is the daughter of Pete Thomas, longtime drummer for Elvis Costello.That may be the connection with Mr. D., or it may be through The Kings of Leon - who The Like opened for during a 2005 tour - or there may be some other mutual acquaintance.

The Like released their first album, Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking?, on the Geffen label in September 2005. If the band is touring now, I can't find any info about it. The last touring info I can find is from 2006, when The Like was in Europe. The band's MySpace blog hasn't been updated since 2007, and information on their web site seems to end at 2006. I'll resist digressing into a rant but note to bands: There are many good reasons why you don't want to do your Web site totally in Flash. Take heed.

End of rant.

Our Host seems to be on a kick of foodie recommendations of late, having giving the nod to The Rojo in Birmingham, Alabama during the "11 On Up" show, and now Totonno's in Brooklyn. Can an "Eating Out With Bob" book be in our future?

And, as he noted, there's a paucity of information about Jimmy (not Hank) Ballard, stumping even the crack Dreamtime team. According to what I discovered, She's Got Something was the B side of a single on the King label. Although hard to believe, the A side featured (I Want A) Bow-legged Woman, also a hit for Ballard, and both songs are cited as two of the earliest cross-over examples from country-western to rock'-n-roll. Ballard's other King singles included Creeks Gone Muddy and Till the End. And the rest, as Mr. D. said, seems to be lost in the mists of history.

At Least The Name Is Spelled Right

I'm not sure whether to be more amused or annoyed by Rick Dumont's article about Dreamtime published in today's Nashua Telegraph.

As either Mae West or Oscar Wilde once said, "I don't care what the newspapers say about me as long as they spell my name right." But the name is about the only thing that the reporter did get right. Every time I see a media report on something that I actually know something about, and see how much the reportage differs from the reality, it reminds me to be very skeptical of everything I read.

And, y'know, I'm just a schmuck from Merrimack, New Hampshire. Imagine what Bob Dylan goes through.

For the record:

* I did say the very early Elvis modeled himself after Dean Martin, but have no idea where the line, "But feeling that image wouldn't be marketable, Elvis' handlers molded him into what he became..." came from. However, I didn't say it, and neither did Mr. D.

* I didn't say that Dylan modeled Theme Time Radio Hour after Woody Guthrie. I don't even know what that means. I mentioned, as I usually do in interviews, that I suspect that the idea for TTRH's theme format may have come from Guthrie and Alan Lomax's "Back Where I Came From."

* Obviously, I didn't say Morey Amsterdam wrote "Rum and Coca-Cola." I said he stole the song.

* The "radio station" is WFMU.

* Yes, a writer from the "venerable" Rolling Stone did interview me. But it was about TTRH, not Dreamtime. As it turned out, my interview was completely edited out of the published article, except a line about "Back Where I Come From," and my name wasn't even mentioned.

* I am appreciative of the fact that the Telegraph reporter did get my response right about not knowing (and little caring, because it's not why I do Dreamtime) whether Mr. D. knows about Dreamtime, especially as it seemed he was doing his damnedest to get a quotable quote out of me. I must have repeated the "Don't know. If he does see it, I hope he likes it." line five times in different variations to that question.

*And the photo published with the article should have been credited, "P.W. Bals." Or maybe "Jailbait Jones," I can't remember who took it. In any case, if I had my druthers, I would have preferred the one above, also by P.W. Bals. Or maybe JJ.

I don't want to be too dog-in-the-mangerish about this. Appreciate the publicity and all that. But I mean really, I was interviewed for this over three weeks ago. What, 10 minutes to either send me the article or go over it with me by phone?

A Little About Nothing

From Theme Time Radio Hour, January 14, 2009, Nothing


Email:

"We got nothing else going on, so why don't we check and see if we got some email. Let me just pull one out. This is from Bill Sheil in London, Ontario. Bill writes: 'Dear Theme Time, I really enjoy your show. A couple of weeks ago you played a country song about a couple who wasn't getting along. Could you tell me the name of it?'

"Well, Bill, you're going to have to give me more information than that. That could be any country song. Bill continues: 'I enjoyed the song because it reminded me of my life. I've been married for three-and-a-half years and my wife and I have spent three of them fighting. We've been to couples counseling, we've seen mediators, we've gone to therapy. I'm afraid the next stop is lawyers. I love her, and I want to stay with her. Do you have any advice?'

"Well, Bill, first of all, let's say you do get divorced. You can start writing country songs. If you don't want to change careers, and you want to stay with her, I do have one piece of advice. I call it "The Theme Time Radio Hour Silent Treatment." Here's whatcha do...


The Theme Time Radio Hour Silent Treatment

[music] You and your wife sit in a room. Just look at each other, and nobody says nuthin'. Just keep quiet. Eventually you're gonna want to talk. Don't! This is where most people make their mistake. The frustration works its way to the surface, and whatever you say will just make the other person angry. Keep quiet awhile longer. Look at the other person. Remember why you were with them. Finally, you'll know it's time to talk. When you remember how much you missed them, the silence you hear is what your life will be like without them.

Sometimes it's important to just take the time to remind yourself why the other person is there. I guarantee you it'll work.

There you go. You got Freudian therapy, Jungian therapy, Reichian therapy, and now "Theme Timeian" therapy. You know which one my money is on.

***

Def poetry

This very obscure poem took a little bit of diggin' to find, not least because, to cover his bases, Our Host pronounces the poet Jean Passaerat's first name as both "Gene" and "John," and the title, which sounds as if it's the English "Neil," "Neal," or "Kneel," turned out to the Latin, "Nihil," which, of course means "Nothing."

Nihil (A Latin Poem)

Nothing is richer than precious stones than gold.
Nothing is finer than adamant, nothing is nobler than the blood of kings.
Nothing is sacred in wars, nothing is greater than Socrates wisdom.
Indeed, by his own affirmations, nothing is Socrates wisdom.

Nothing is the subject of the speculation of the great Zeno.
Nothing is higher than heaven, nothing is beyond the walls of the world.
Nothing is lower than hell, or more glorious than virtue. ~ Jean Passerat, "Nothing poet, and I don't mean that judgmentally."

"There were many nihils written in the Renaissance of which the most famous was the Latin poem published by Jean Passerat, professor of rhetoric at Henry III's Palace Academy in Paris. This poem was published, republished, imitated, and annotated throughout the next fifty years." [Colie, Paradoxia Epidemica]

***

Phone Call

Our Host: This is Theme Time Radio Hour, and we're talking about "Nothing." Let's go to the phones. Oh, they're all lit up. Why don't I just try this one. Hello caller, you're on the line.

Female Caller: Hi Bobby! I am listening to your show about "Nothing," and, uh, boy! It's perfect for me because I have nothing going on right now in my life.

OH: Well, it's not fair to say that.

FC: Well, it's my life, and I'll tell ya, there's nothing happening. But, uh, I just wanted to say, y'know, Mose Allison did a great song called "Ain't Got Nothing But the Blues," and I'm wondering if you could play that one.

OH: Oh, we'd be happy to.

FC: Sometimes I feel like that's just what I got: nothing but the blues, man.

OH: Well, thanks for calling, and we're going to get it on for you right now.

FC: Okay, thanks so much and, uh, by the way, "q-o-p-h" is also an acceptable Scrabble word.*

OH: Thanks a lot for calling.

FC: All right. Bye bye.

OH: Well, I can't believe she's got nothing going on. If nothing else, she's got great taste in music.

*Our Host had earlier recited a list of useful Scrabble words. The unnamed caller is either a Scrabble scholar or Jewish, or both, as "qoph," ((ק the 19th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, is indeed listed in the "Official Scrabble Players Dictionary" as one of the few acceptable "q without u" words. Interestingly, so is "sheqel," a variant spelling of "shekel."

Just to disappear completely into our own navels, Mr. D. could have replied with the three Hebrew letters, "Shin Qoph, Resh," to the heckler who cried out "Judas," during the infamous Manchester concert. The letters spell Sheqer, which is the Hebrew word for a lie. As Wikipedia notes, it would be akin to an English speaker saying, "That's a L-I-E."


The Abridged Fugs "Nothing"

As a commenter over at the TTRH Expecting Rain forum noted, TTRH played, without explanation, an abridged, possibly censored, version of The Fugs, Nothing.

The studio versions of Nothing weigh in at around 4 minutes and some-odd seconds. The cut played on TTRH was 2 minutes and 30 seconds, trimming away almost half of the original song. The explanation could be as simple as Nothing, whatever its charms, is a fairly repetitious piece, and you more or less get the Fug's gist that all is nada in 2 1/2 minutes. Or, it may be that someone decided to deliberately remove such offending lines as: Fucking nothing, sucking nothing, flesh and sex nothing, which is part of the original piece.

The debate has moved back-'n-forth in the Forum without complete resolution. Was there an released alternate studio version of Nothing that was used in TTRH? The Fugs discography adds to the confusion as their first album where Nothing appears (The Village Fugs) was originally released on Broadside/Folkways and then re-released as The Fugs First Album by ESP. Wikipedia claims that re-release includes "alternate takes/edits of at least three songs and stronger language" (emphasis mine), but the claim is unverified and current evidence points against there being two different versions of Nothing on the two albums.

A letter reproduced in the forum also notes another Dylan radio connection to Nothing.

"...the version of "Nothing" on the original Folkways album is the regular full-length version, so Dylan must have played some weird edit that his producers made for him or something.

Ironic, because on the 1966 Bob Fass [Radio Unnameable bootleg] Dylan requests that Fass play "Nothing" and Bob says that he can't do it because of the language... I wonder if Dylan was reminded of this exact moment 40 years ago now that the tables are turned and HE is the DJ!

As many other of Tuli Kupferberg's songs were, Nothing was based on an older song, in this case a Yiddish folk melody called Bulbes about the monotony of having nothing to eat but potatoes.

Potatoes ("Bulbes')
On Sunday - potatoes, on Monday - potatoes,
on Tuesday and Wednesday - potatoes, on
Friday - potatoes, on Sabbath - a novelty, the
potato kugel. On Sunday - potatoes again.
Bread with potatoes, meat with potatoes, lunch
and dinner. Potatoes, potatoes over and over
again.
One meal is a novelty - the potato pie.
On Sunday -- potatoes again

I couldn't find an "official" lyric sheet of Nothing, but Joel Feingold's excellent article about the song, A Whole Lotta Nothin', offers what seems to be a pretty accurate transcription...

Monday nothing, Tuesday nothing, Wednesday and Thursday nothing, Friday for a change, a little more nothing, Saturday once more nothing.
Sunday nothing, Monday nothing, Tuesday and Wednesday, nothing, Thursday for a change, a little more nothing, Friday once more nothing.
Montik gornisht, dinstik gornisht, mitvokh un donershtik gornisht, fraytik for a novehneh, gornisht gigeleh, Shabbos vider gornisht.
Lunes nada, martes nada, miercoles y jueves nada, viernes por cambio un poco mas nada, sabado otra vez nada.
Na na nana, na na nana ...
Oh, Village Voice nothing, New Yorker nothing, sing out in folk ways nothing. Harry Smith [the goyishe kabalist/folk wonk who produced the record] and Allen Ginsberg [Tuli’s only fan], nothing nothing nothing.
Poetry nothing, music nothing, thinking and dancing nothing. The world’s great books, a great set of nothing. Haughty and foddy, nothing.
Fucking nothing, sucking nothing, flesh and sex nothing. Church and Times Square, all a lot of nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing!
Stevenson nothing, Humphrey nothing, Averell Harriman nothing. John Stuart Mill nill-nill, Franklin Delano Nothing.
Carlos Marx nothing, Engels nothing, Bakunin Kropotkin — nyuthing! Leon Trotsky, lots of nothing. Stalin less than nothing!
Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, a whole lot of, a whole lot of nothing. Nothing, lots and lots of nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.
Not a goddamn thing.
Nothing.

Note the name-check of Harry Smith (labeled a goyishe wonk by Feingold), who was probably better-known for the seminal Anthology of American Folk Music.

Highland Park bar and eatery on lookout for Bob Dylan

via The Birmingham (AL) News:

Music icon Bob Dylan gives bar a shout-out
Thursday, January 15, 2009
KIM BRYAN
News staff writer

It's not every joint that can get The Voice of a Generation as its pitchman.

But music legend Bob Dylan gave a shout-out to Rojo, the neighborhood bar and eatery in Birmingham's Highland Park, during his weekly satellite radio show.

"Theme Time Radio Hour," which showcases quirky music and Dylan's offbeat observations each Wednesday on XM satellite radio, was based on the theme "Numbers 11 and Larger."

Following a song by the band NRBQ called "12 Bar Blues," Dylan croaked, "That was a song about 12 bars. Here's four more that I like. If you're in Birmingham, Alabama, stop by the Rojo. That's Spanish for red."

He went on to mention bars in Burlington, Vt.; Providence, R.I.; and New York City.

Full article here. And the Rojo's web site is here.

The Mysterious Stripper

Anybody need a great blog headline writer?  Step right up, ladies and gentlemen.  Four chairs, no waiting.

Where was I?  Ah, yes.  In our previous post about Tom Waits and the Small Change cover, we mentioned Our Host's report that the red-headed stripper pictured was rumored (emphasis there) to be that cross between Valley Girl and Vampirella, Elvira, back when she was Cassandra Peterson.

Commenter "Edward" replied to the post that the Lady in Question might actually be an acquaintance of Waits who opened the show for his "live" album of 19 and 75, Nighthawks at the Diner.

Her name variously reported as "Dewana," "Deewanna," "Dewanna," and even "Dwana," she's described as a "classic old tassle-twirler," and an "old-time burlesque queen," who Waits apparently met during his wanderings through the Hollywood underworld.  One person mentioned in a near-Dylansque non sequiter that "her husband was a taxi driver."

"Edward" also noted, "...if you look at the original LP cover (I know, I know, but believe me such things did exist) you can see her face well enough to see that she's probably a bit more well-worn than Cassandra Petersen would have looked, even without makeup, in the mid-70's."

I'm leaning towards "Edward's" theory, as the timing is right, and there seems to be a better connection between Dewanna, however her name is spelled, than Elvira and Tom Waits. The Elvira claim smacks of the sort of urban myth that gets repeated on the Web until it's taken as gospel.  The first reference I can find to the Elvira/Small Change connection is a 2002 USEnet post, and most of the few citations offered on various sites, including Wikipedia, point back to a 2006 music article.  In neither case do the original authors offer any proof, simply writing the claim as fact.

Who knows?  We'll have to wait for the next cassette from Tom.  I was thinking of doing a side-by-side photo analysis of the red-headed stripper and one of the nude shots of Cassandra Peterson available on the Web, paying ah, special attention to secondary sex characteristics, but Jailbait Jones violently objected when I floated the idea.

***

UPDATE: And the Lady Herself adds to the mystery...

Q: Did you keep in touch with Tom Waits after you got photographed with him for the cover of Small Change?

CP: That's such a mystery to me. I mean, I see the cover and I go, "That looks like me." But I do not have one recollection of doing it. Then again, I don't have a single recollection of the '70s. I went straight from the '60s to the '80s. Isn't that sad?

Q: Were you hit on the head or were the drugs that good?

CP: Who knows. I was a Playboy model — for the club, the modeling agency and the magazine. I did a million things: music videos, album covers, romance novels where the guy with the long hair is leaning over the girl draped across the bed, movie one sheets. Ever see Raggedy Man? I'm on the poster. Not in the movie.

***

Actually, if you go check out posters of Raggedy Man, the woman pictured is another good-looking redhead, Sissy Spacek, who did faintly resemble Peterson.  Maybe it's Sissy Spacek on Small Change!

More on the Nighthawks at the Diner sessions and the mysterious "Deewanna" here.

Most-Played Artist on TTRH: George Jones Deposed

Even though we're only midway through Season 3 of Theme Time Radio Hour, and the scramble for top slot could certainly change again, it's worth noting that with the airing of the "Work" episode on the 7th, Tom Waits officially became the "most-played" artist on TTRH, slippin' past George Jones, who had led the pack at the close of Season 2.

Given that Tom is still continuing to mail cassettes of commentary ("Thanks for the marmalade") to Our Host, he may also hold the record for being the most-referred-to artist, too.

According to "Absolutely Sweet Marie" over at the Expecting Rain TTRH forum, Waits has now been played 10 times, with George Jones and Dinah Washington tied for 2nd, with nine airplays each. Personally, I'm pulling for Dinah. You can read the full list here...

To your left (or above, dependent on how this ends up formatting), is the cover of Small Change, Waits' album of 19 and 76. Mr. D. played I Can't Wait to Get Off Work (and See My Baby on Montgomery Avenue) from that album towards the close of the "Work" show mentioning, in one of his patented asides, that the stripper pictured behind Waits was rumored to be Cassandra Peterson, better-known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark and later Mistress of All Media.

Elvira's life could easily fill a Dreamtime podcast by itself. In her Cassandra persona, she was listed in the Guinness World Book of Records at age 17 for being the youngest showgirl in Las Vegas history; hung out with Elvis Presley; became the lead singer of an Italian rock band, had a bit part in a Fellini movie, did improv comedy; auditioned for the role of Ginger for the third Gilligan's Island TV movie (howza 'bout that for a Dreamtime connection) appeared in a half-dozen sit-coms including Happy Days; and eventually became Elvira.

It seems to be generally accepted on the Web that the "stripper" is Peterson/Elvira, although as Mr. D. was careful to mention it is a rumor -- or at least I coudn't find anything that even resembled an "official" citation. It's probably worth noting that the cover isn't mentioned in Peterson's biography at the official Elvira site. On the other hand, neither are Peterson's nude layouts for various men's magazines of the `70s and `80s.

Who knows? Maybe Tom will enlighten Our Host and he'll pass the true git onto his listening audience.

Although I've told the story before, articles are fleeting here at Dreamtime, so I'll mention again how I once rescued Tom Waits from imminent arrest by a rent-a-cop.

My initial college career - such as it was, and it wasn't much - was interrupted by the draft in the early `70s, and consequently I started college several years later than most of my peers. I eventually graduated from the University of Southern Maine in the late `70s; then known as the University of Maine at Portland-Gorham, or sometimes as Pogo U., which may be why the name was changed by the College Fathers.

In any case, although I was less than full of school spirit, I did haphazardly participate in several activities and organizations, including the college paper; a group that put on cult films; and another group that brought music acts to the school. During that time I helped produce USM concerts for such `70s period acts as Loggins and Messina; Phoebe Snow; and Maria Muldaur.

Out of the dozen or so acts that I dealt with, Maria was one of the nicest, a fact that I'd remind her of when I interviewed her for a web site column I was writing at the time (the web site and I parted ways, but you can still read the interview here). Maria was still at the height of her Midnight at the Oasis fame in those days, and Tom Waits, who was promoting his Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night album, was her opening act.

I didn't have all that much conversation with Waits, who I had never heard of at the time, which was around 1974 or `75. But I did go out and buy his album the next day. But off-stage he was a strange, scruffy, boho-type character wearing a cheap Salvation Army suit and with not the best personal hygiene. In fact, he reeked.

Getting ready to go on, Waits decided he wanted to bring a beer on-stage. Some security guy stopped him, and I had to intercede when the argument began to get heated. While I had the rent-a-cop distracted, Waits hid several cans of beer in his suit jacket, walked out on stage, sat down at the piano, reached inside his jacket, pulled out a beer, popped the top, put it on the piano, turned to the backstage, and gave the security guard the finger. I spent the rest of Waits' set talking the security guy out of stopping the show, noting that he'd be taking his life into his own hands if he tried to pull Waits off-stage in front of an audience of several thousand. Either from luck or recognizing that discretion might be the better part of valor, Waits departed from the other side of the stage at the end of his set.

When I told that story to Maria, some thirty-odd years in the future, and mentioned that I remembered Waits had smelled a little, ah, ripe, she began to laugh. "My God," she said. "I haven't thought of that tour in years. You're right, Tom was pretty pungent. We used to have to make excuses not to sit at the same table with him. We were saying, 'My God, doesn't this guy ever bathe?'"

Nothing Coming 1/14 and Something 1/21

Mistakes should be admitted and apologies made when necessary.  After beating up the faceless XM Radio post-production team for forgetting to edit in the name of the next show at the close of the "Work" episode, I blush to find that the omission was a deliberate joke. 

According to the XM Program Guide, the 1/14 episode of Theme Time Radio Hour will be about "Nothing" and the following week's theme will be about "Something." Thanks to "jckinnick" for the tip, and congratulations to CS Nielsen for getting the joke and correctly predicting next week's show.

If you buy into the theory that the "Street Map" episode was a re-titled "Streets,"  "Nothing" and "Something" will complete the Season 3 broadcasts of the announced but unaired shows of Season 2.

Work Highlights

The Theme Time Radio Hour widget is back at the top of the page, containing the playlist for this week's episode, "Work," as well as a selected video - this time around the fabulous Honey Cone performing Want Ads - and a countdown to next week's show, so you always know how long you have to wait.

Have a blog, MySpace or Facebook page? Share the wealth and the widget by using the "Share" button in the lower right.

A few thoughts on the show, which I listened to in real-time for a change. Music highlights for me included...


- The Coat and the Pants Do All the Work (and The Vest Gets All the Gravy) by Harry Reser. Reser was quite a character who, as Our Host noted, operated under so many pseudonyms with some many different bands that it's impossible to list his complete discography. I think my favorite Reser band name was The Clicquot Club Eskimos, which played for a decade on the NBC radio network.

- I Can't Work No Longer by Billy Butler and the Enchanters. From 19 and 65 on the OKeh label.

- Want Ads - by the aforementioned Honey Cone. Go look at that video.



Although not mentioned by Mr. D., Honey Cone has a connection to two earlier episodes of TTRH. Member Carolyn Willis had been a member of The Blossoms, and, as Our Host did mention, is the sister of Darlene Love, also a one-time member of The Blossoms. Dreamtime Constant Readers will remember that The Blossoms sang backing vocals for Jerry Lee Lewis in Catch My Soul.

Eddie Holland of Holland/Dozier/Holland came up with the name Honey Cone, which I always mishear as either Honey Cones or Honey Comb. Want Ads was written by Greg Perry, Barney Perkins, and "General" Norman Johnson. The story goes that studio engineer Perkins came up with the idea for the song after seeing an open Classifieds section on his sound board. Want Ads became Honey Cones biggest hit, reaching Number One with a bullet on Billboard's R&B and pop singles charts in 19 and 71.

Favorite quote (in reply to a listener's email) - "Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Def Poetry reading - "The Village Blacksmith" (excerpt) - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "out-of-date poet."

XM Radio still seems to be suffering the effects of the merger with Sirius, with no one there seemingly on the job taking care of TTRH business. Although the closing credits were read by the ubiquitous Pierre Mancini, someone forgot to edit in the title of next week's show, leaving Pierre - and us - hanging as he closed with, "Join us next week, when we take a look at [...]

[...] indeed. See you next week.

Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday

A postcard from the hanging.  Strange Fruit began life as a poem by Abel Meeropol, written sometime in the mid-1930s, and eventually published in 1936 under Meeropol's pen name of Lewis Allen. Meeropol wrote Strange Fruit after seeing the infamous 1930 photo of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana.  Meeropol would eventually set the song to music, and Strange Fruit enjoyed a minor notoriety among the New York intelligentsia club set during the late 1930s before becoming popularized by Lady Day.

Although Billie Holiday is often mistakenly identified as one of the authors of Strange Fruit (a fiction compounded by her Lady Sings the Blues ghostwriter) she probably wasn't familar with the song until 1939, when the owner of the Cafe Society in Greenwich Village, Barney Josephson, brought it to her attention.  Strange Fruit quickly became a staple of Lady Day's live performances. Holiday also recorded the song for the Vocalian label in 1939 after Columbia - fearing a backlash from their Southern customers - refused. As it turned out, Strange Fruit would become Holiday's biggest selling record.

A man without fear, Abel Meeropol would also write the lyrics for the Frank Sinatra hit, The House I Live In, and with his wife Ann adopted the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg after their parents execution for espionage against the United States.

New TTRH Episode Coming Jan 7 2009 - "Work"

Our last post of 2008 is appropriately about the first new show of 2009, which will air on January 7th (11 am ET). Pierre Mancini noted at the close of the rebroadcast of the "Number One" episode today...

"..."make sure you clock in next week when the theme will be jobs and "Work."

See you in 2009!

Delaney Bramlett: 1939-2008

In one of those weird coincidences, Delaney Bramlett, who I haven't thought of in 30-odd years until coming across his name while researching my article on Catch My Soul, passed away yesterday.

As I mentioned in my follow-up article, both the stage and movie versions of Catch My Soul were populated with regulars from Shindig! Bramlett and his then-wife Bonnie were both members of the series' house band, the Shindogs.  The two would later go on to form Delaney, Bonnie & Friends, a rock-soul fusion group with an ever-shifting lineup that enjoyed more popularity among fellow musicians than it did among the general public.

Among others, George Harrison was an admirer of Delaney, signing the two to Apple.  Unfortunately, Delaney and Bonnie were already under contract to the Elektra label, and nothing ever came of the Apple deal except bad blood between Delaney and Elektra.  However, on the strength of Harrison's recommendation, Eric Clapton booked DB&F as the opening act for his `69 Blind Faith tour. As it turned out, Clapton found that he enjoyed jamming more with Delaney than playing with Blind Faith and ended up as a regular member of DB&F during the following years.

Another Delaney fan, Jerry Wexler, once said that some of the best live music he ever heard was Delaney and Duane Allman jamming on the deck of his home in Long Island. Delaney also co-wrote Superstar with Leon Russell and Let it Rain with Clapton. According to his obituary, he performed, co-wrote, or recorded with Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, John Lennon, Dave Mason, Billy Preston, the Everly Brothers and Mac Davis at various times during his career.

As I noted in Catch My Soul: The Jerry Lee Lewis and Shakespeare Connection,  Delaney and Bonnie also had something of a side career appearing in weird movies of the early `70s, with and without friends. Their filmography included Vanishing Point, which was at one time my favorite movie but has not weathered the years well at all. While somehow missing out on Mad Dogs & Englishmen, they did appear in the truly awful Medicine Ball Caravan (also known as We Have Come For Your Children in the U.K.) and the much better Festival Express (filmed in the `70s, unreleased until 2003).  And, of course, both appeared in the movie version of Catch My Soul, later renamed to Santa Fe Satan, which should provide an inkling of the film's quality.

After a six-year hiatus, Delaney released his last album in 2008, A New Kind of Blues. While not as well-known as he should have been, Delaney Bramlett's influence extended far beyond mere fame.

Happy Holidays!

From Mr. D's remarks in the "11 Up" episode, it sounds as if Theme Time will be on holiday break for the next few weeks, and I've retired the TTRH widget normally found at the top of the blog for the duration. It'll be back when a new episode airs, as will we... if not sooner.

From snowy New Hampshire,
the Dreamtime team

wishes the best of holidays for you and yours!

A Bit More On "Catch My Soul"

It's always a pleasure getting feedback on a Dreamtime article, and we got a ton on our recent one about the Jerry Lee Lewis/Shakespeare connection.

One of the bloggers over at WFMU's great Beware of the Blog posted about Catch My Soul, inspired, as we were, by Mr. D's double-billing of Lewis during the Blood and War shows. As well as supplying a link to Dreamtime (thank you), writer Clinton McClung also came across a reference to an academic paper by a Dr. Robert Sawyer on the play.  While the article is not on-line, I've emailed the author and asked for a copy.  Stay tuned.

Most of the emails we received asked again about the possibility of a complete recording of Catch My Soul.  If such a recording exists, it doesn't appear to be in general circulation among collectors.  But the two cuts from the Catch My Soul rehearsal sessions at least provide the hope that there's a complete Catch My Soul stored away somewhere that may eventually see the light of day.

According to a Jerry Lee fan forum (registration required), Graham Knight, a friend of Lewis' who was at the L.A. run, has said that the Catch My Soul live show was piped into the performers' dressing rooms so that they could hear their cue to go on stage. Knight also reported that there were TV cameras at the rehearsals, as well as video from a fixed balcony camera fed to a screen in each dressing room, leading to the possibility that there is a full audio recording of Catch My Soul, perhaps even a video.

A member of the same forum also posted a scan of the original Catch My Soul playbill, the interior of which you can see above.  Contrary to what I wrote in my original article, the play only ran for a few weeks, from March 5th to April 13th 1968, rather than months.

And yet another late (I'm writing this paragraph on December 23) correction.  Rather than Peter Brock, who I listed in the original article, the role of Othello was actually played by William Marshall. While I would like to blame Nick Tosches for the mistake, it's my own, having misread the relevant paragraph from Tosches' book, Hellfire.

Interestingly, the playbill lists "The Blossoms," which I suspect are the ladies posing with Jerry Lee in the photo to your left, as part of the cast.  Sometimes called "the most successful unknown group of the '60s," The Blossoms made a career of singing backup for artists ranging from Paul Anka through Patty Duke to Elvis Presley.  At the time of Catch My Soul, the trio's lineup included Darlene Love, she of Phil Spector fame.  Also listed on the playbill is Gloria Jones, another one-time member of The Blossoms, who later struck out on a solo career, recording the original version of Tainted Love.   The Blossoms almost certainly were recruited by producer Jack Good thanks to their stint as regular cast members on Good's Shindig!

The Songs He Didn't Write (But Has Played on TTRH)

I've been reading Derek Barker's massive and fascinating "The Songs He Didn't Write" (thanks to Johanna Moore over at the Expecting Rain TTRH forum for the recommendation!) over the past week, and to my mind it settles any question of how many of the TTRH music selections are coming directly from Dylan.

In two words, "a lot," I think. Below is a partial list of songs that Dylan has covered at various times in his career which have also been played on Theme Time.  This doesn't even include the artists - like Eddie Noack - who Dylan has covered at one time or another and whose music - if not the specific song, he's also played on the show.

Some of the selections are easy picks for their respective theme(s), and anybody from Eddie G. to Freddy B. might have made them. But here are also too many not-very-well-known and downright obscure songs which I think were selected by someone who had a personal interest in them, an interest and love strong enough to make him want to try his hand at covering them at one time or another.

While it's only a few days till Christmas, if you're looking for a last-minute Christmas gift for that Dylan-lover in the family, you couldn't do better than "The Songs He Didn't Write."

***

20-20 Vision
All I Have to Do is Dream
Be Careful of the Stones that You Throw
Blue Monday
Blue Moon of Kentucky
Blue Suede Shoes
Blue Yodel No. 1
Casey Jones (and Kassie Jones)
Cool Water
Corrina, Corrina
The Cuckoo
Diamond Joe
Dust My Broom
El Paso
Farewell to the Gold
Folsom Prison Blues
A Fool Such as I
Friend of the Devil
Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl
Stop Kickin' My Dog Around
Hello Stranger
I Still Miss Someone
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
In the Summertime
Kansas City
Long Black Veil
Moon River
My Blue-eyed Jane
Mystery Train
No Money Down
Old Man
One Irish Rover
Red Cadillac And a Black Mustache
Rumble
San Francisco Bay Blues
Searching for a Soldier's Grave
Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair
Sing Me Back Home
Train of Love
Universal Soldier
Walk a Mile in My Shoes
We Three (My Echo, My Shadow and Me)
White Dove
Wildwood Flower
You Are My Sunshine

Introducing the BoBatone Carrera X350 Satellite Navigation System

From the amazing stewART, the artwork for the inside CD tray for the "Street Map" episode. 

If you haven't illegally downloaded the show yet, the quote above is Mr. D. ruminating on the possibilities of licensing his voice for GPS use.  If the poll I conducted over at Expecting Rain is an indication, there'd be a market for it too.

The Rise and Fall of the Female Elvis, Janis Martin

Dreamtime originally published this piece on Janis Martin back in September of 2007 as part of a longer article/podcast on women musicians/singers who never received the attention they deserved.

With Mr. D. playing Martin's My Boy Elvis during the recent "Famous People" show, it seems like the right time to revisit it. Check out the original podcast of And the Angels Sing (link above) to hear Martin performing Drugstore Rock-'n-Roll.

Janis Martin - The Rise & Fall of the Female Elvis

Billed as "the female Elvis," a title that Presley himself reportedly approved, Janis Martin had a short but memorable rockabilly career during the mid-'50s. Born in 1940 in Sutherlin, Virginia, Martin began playing guitar at age four, having to hold it upright like a bass fiddle because it was too large to get her hands around.

By age 11, she was a regular on the Old Dominion Barn Dance radio show, second only to the Grand Ol' Opry in popularity among country music listeners. Still performing on the Barn Dance into her teens, Martin began to tire of country and move towards a r&b sound, sometimes confounding an audience still expecting the old, slow ballads with songs like Ruth Brown's (Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean.

At the age of 15, Martin cut her first record. Two announcers at WRVA - the Virginia radio station home of the Barn Dance - asked Martin to sing a song they had written, a rockabilly ditty called Will You, Willyum, on the show. The two songwriters taped the performance and sent the demo off to New York, which resulted in a recording gig for Martin with RCA. Will You, Willyum turned into Martin's biggest hit, selling three-quarters of a million copies, and charting into the Top Forty on the 1956 Pop Singles chart.

On the B side of Will You, Willyum was a song that Janis Martin herself had written, Drugstore Rock-n-'Roll.

"I wrote that song in about 10 minutes," Martin later said in an interview. "Everything in that song is actually the scene that was happening for us as teenagers."

With a hit single, appearances on American Bandstand, The Today and Tonight Shows and voted "Most Promising Female Artist of 1956," it looked like the 16-year-old had nowhere to go but up. But Martin had secretly married her boyfriend that same year, and became pregnant at age 17 after visiting her soldier husband during a USO tour. Unable to do live performances in her obvious delicate condition, Janis Martin recorded her last songs for RCA in 1958, in her eighth month of pregnancy, and RCA dropped her like a very pregnant hot potato as soon as the last notes faded away.

The female Elvis' career was over less than two years after it had started. But Martin's story would eventually have a happier ending. In the late `80s, now in her mid-40s, with two failed marriages behind her and on her own, Janis Martin formed a new band and struck out on a European tour, where she was greeted by enthusiastic neo-rockabilly audiences. She became a regular at rockabilly conventions, still belting out the old songs, saw her complete recordings compiled and re-released by the respected Bear Family label, and married for a third time to a man who had first seen her perform as a teen at the old Barn Dance show in Virginia. This time the marriage stuck, and they remained together until her death in 2007.

"She was a cute little old gal in a ponytail just belting out that music that nobody else was doing," her husband told the papers.

Sources:

Janis Martin: My sources on the "female Elvis" include Janis' page at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame; her MySpace page maintained by her granddaughter; and her obituary from The Boston Globe.

A Theme Time Radio Hour Christmas - Part the Deuce

It's that time of year again, boys and girls, where the Dreamtime team scour the interwebs for Theme Time Radio Hour and Our Host themed gifts, for you, our discerning audience. A few tongue-in-cheek selections and a few we wouldn't mind seeing under our own Christmas tree - Jailbait and Joyride take notice.

We present herewith our 2nd Annual Theme Time Radio Hour gift list (in no particular order)...

A Night at the Chelsea - Although Bob Dylan's room - #219 #211 - is currently undergoing hefty renovations, it's still Bob Dylan's room at the Chelsea, and you too can stay there after the work is complete. Visitors and residents of the Chelsea Hotel have included Eugene O’Neil, Thomas Wolfe and Arthur C. Clarke (who wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey while in residence. The Chelsea Web site charmingly misspells the title as Oddyssey). Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Jasper Johns, Patti Smith, Arthur Miller, and many, many others have stayed there too. And among other deaths occurring at the Chelsea, both Nancy Spungen - who may have been murdered by Sid Vicious - and Dylan Thomas died there.

If you go, stay up all night, listen to the New York TTRH episode and re-write Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. Rates start at (around) the same figure as Mr. D's Room Number - $219.

***

A Photograph of the Brooks Atkinson Theater in New York City, During the Residency of the Twyla Tharp/Bob Dylan musical, The Times They Are A-Changin’. - Whatever you think of Sean Curnyn's quirky site, there is always something on RightWing Bob that will intrigue - and, quite possibly, infuriate - you. You have to give Curnyn props for going his own way, a 'tude I think Mr. D. would approve of.

Dreamtime supports quirkiness, even though we seldom agree with the opinions expressed in RightWing Bob, and we do like the photograph Sean is offering a lot. Get a piece of history, Bob Dylan's name appearing in lights on the Great White Way, and do some good by tossing a couple of ducats the way of RightWing Bob, too, 'cause the Bob Dylan Web would be a drabber place without it. $25 U.S. $30 International. Signed by the photographer.

***

XM Radio Stock Certificate - Dreamtime does not give stock advice, and if you could see our portfolio you'd know why, too - and given that SIRIUS XM radio's stock is currently ranging between 10 and fifteen cents a share, you'd probably be better off playin' the ponies than investing in the merged company. On the other hand, you could buy well over 500 shares of SIRIUS XM for what a collectible stock certificate from the original XM Satellite Radio will run you.

The better long-term investment? You decide. XM Radio original stock certificate currently on sale from scirpophily.com for $79.95.

***

iPod Phone/iPod Touch - A case can be made that satellite radio never has had a chance because of internet radio, which offers as many quirky listening choices as SIRIUS XM and is free to boot. If you can't beat `em, join `em, and joining `em may be the last best hope for SIRIUS XM.

Satellite radio's Obi-Wan Kenobi could be the promised - but still unseen - StarPlayr for iPhone application, which promises WiFi access to SIRIUS XM content available on the internet. What it will cost and exactly how it will work is still left to be seen, but watch this space.

Even if StarPlayr never sees the light of day, internet radio on an iPhone/iTouch will change your music listening life. It did mine. Currently available internet music apps in the iTunes store include Pandora, Last.fm, and AOL Radio... all free. Also worthwhile checking out at the iTunes store is the $5.99 Tuner Internet Radio App from Nullriver Software, providing access to thousands of internet radio stations and podcasts, including yours truly.

And, of course, you could always use your iPhone/iTouch to listen to those "illegal downloads" of Theme Time Radio Hour episodes Our Host mentioned during the Street Map show. Not that we know anything about that.

Apple iPod Touch starting at $219.00 at Amazon.

***

High Times Hard Times, by Anita O'Day - O'Day's gritty and absorbing autobiography - including abortions, jail terms, and drug addiction - has been recommended not once, not twice, but three times by Our Host over various TTRH episodes. If that doesn't send you out to get this book, I don't know what will. From $12.24 at Amazon.

***

Catch My Soul paraphernalia - Have a Jerry Lee Lewis fan in the house who has been very, very good? Reward them with The Killer's Private Stash - a bootleg CD containing "Lust of the Blood," and "Let a Soldier Drink" (From the TTRH Blood and War shows) which you can pick up at a pricey $79.99 at Amazon.

A little too rich for the blood? You could buy the more economical playbill for the London production of Catch My Soul, regularly available on eBay for prices beginning at $12.99. Jerry Lee Lewis is replaced by Lance LeGault, who would go on to portray Iago in the movie version, but hey, it's still Catch My Soul the musical.

Or, you could consider one of the movie posters for Catch My Soul, which don't have anything in common with the musical except Jack Good and the title. But the posters aren't bad-looking, and definitely would fit into a late-hippie decor, if that's your style. I particularly like the one with the copy... "It's A Total Immersion." Yeah, baby. From $14.99-$44.99.

***

Hank Williams: The Unreleased Recordings - Kinda a gimme, I know, but still a worthwhile recommendation. Before there was a Theme Time Radio Hour there was the Mother's Best radio show, and this 3-CD set captures Williams at the top of his form, plus conversation, introductions and commercial affiliation at its finest. The one box set you want to find under your tree this Christmas. $29.99 at Amazon.

***

Horseradish - Because Mr. D. breaking up as he struggles to say horseradish during the Blood show may be the single funniest moment of TTRH. From various vendors at various prices.

***

Episode 60 - Catch My Soul: The Jerry Lee Lewis and Shakespeare Connection

"You know, if anybody ever asks me why I do this radio show, I could just play them that - Jerry Lee Lewis singing Shakespeare. That's what this show is all about." ~ Bob Dylan on Jerry Lee Lewis' Lust of the Blood from the rock musical, Catch My Soul.

IAGO: It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will.

Direct link to mp3.

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Catch My Soul started out as not much more than a gleam in the eye of the aptly-named Jack Good, actor, producer, journalist, manager, and most of all, rock-'n-roll impresario. Good was the man behind Shindig!, one of the first - and one of the best - of the rock-'n-roll variety shows. Although Shindig! didn't last much past a year, ultimately brought down in a ratings war with The Beverly Hillbillies and replaced in the ABC lineup by Batman in 19 and 66, it had an influence far beyond its short life. Among many other artists, Shindig! brought Howlin' Wolf and The Chambers Brothers to television for the first time, and popularized Sonny and Cher in America, who the U.S. audience thought were a cool British duo.

When Sonny and Cher first started out they had trouble getting gigs, club owners thinking they were just too weird. But Jack Good caught their act, loved them, and told Sonny and Cher "you've got to go to England." The two sold everything they owned to finance the trip, which turned out to be the right move, 'cause England swingin' like a pendulum do immediately took to Sonny and Cher, with even the older generation chasing them down for their autographs. By the time the duo got back to the States, they were a huge hit, and everyone thought the Italian-American Sonny and the Iranian-Cherokee Cher were English.

[Shindig! - Sonny & Cher]

Othello: Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul, / But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, / Chaos is come again.

Jack Good had wanted to produce a rock-'n-roll version of Othello since he was an undergrad at Oxford in the Fifties. In 19 and 58, Good spotted Jerry Lee Lewis stalking angrily through a hotel lobby and knew he had found his Iago. But it would take nearly another decade before Catch My Soul would go into production. By 1965 Good was bored with Shindig! and was looking for new worlds to conquer. He recruited Ray Pohlman, Shindig's! musical director, to start writing the score for Catch My Soul. With 19 songs in the can, Good starting casting around for his acting ensemble in late `66, signing Jerry Lee Lewis for the role of Iago in August.

Jerry Lee and Jack already knew each other from Jerry's Shindig! performances, and why Jerry would consider doing a rockin' version of Shakespeare isn't a mystery. In the peaks and valleys that made up his musical career, Jerry Lee Lewis was definitely down in a valley so low during the mid-Sixties, having left the Sun label in 19 and 63, and unable to score a hit since that time with his new label, Mercury. Indeed Mercury had notified Jerry Lee in `68 that his contract wasn't going to be renewed, and The Killer was in trouble.

But Catch My Soul turned out to more than just a paying gig that turned up at the right time. In Shakespeare's Iago Jerry Lee found a kindred spirit, someone with as just as much blood in his eye and hellfire in his soul as Jerry Lee Lewis himself.

It would take two years and a slew of cast and theater changes before Catch My Soul would be performed before an audience. During the interim the venue changed from Broadway to L.A. and the role of Othello changed hands from ex-linebacker Rosey Grier to the more experienced actor, Peter Brock. Incidentally, the mind boggles at the idea of Rosey, whose acting career highlight would be to co-star in The Thing With Two Heads - as Othello.

[The Thing With Two Heads trailer]

Rehearsals for Catch My Soul finally began on January 22nd 19 and 68, and both the cuts Mr. D. played on Theme Time Radio Hour, Lust of the Blood during the Blood show and Let a Soldier Drink in the War episode, are from those rehearsal sessions.

At the first rehearsal, Jerry Lee surprised the rest of the cast as the only one there who already had all his lines memorized. "This Shakespeare is really somethin'," he'd later tell a reporter, wondering aloud what Willy the Shake might have thought of The Killer's music.

If the critics' response to Lewis' performance was any indication, the Bard of Avalon would probably have righteously dug the Man from Memphis. According to Nick Tosches book Hellfire, Jerry Lee stole the show on opening night and every night thereafter, wowing reviewers ranging from The Christian Science Monitor ("a Lousiana-born genius") to The Toronto Daily Star ("genuinely diabolical as Iago"). After the first show, sixties luminaries including Burt Bacharach, Andy Williams, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Tom Jones all lined up in front of Jerry Lee's dressing room, trying to get inside to congratulate The Killer.

IAGO: Some wine, ho!

[Sings]

And let me the canakin clink, clink;
And let me the canakin clink
A soldier's a man;
A life's but a span;
Why, then, let a soldier drink.
Some wine, boys!

CASSIO: 'Fore God, an excellent song.

Catch My Soul the play had a short but successful three-month run, closing on April 13th 19 and 68, and reportedly pulling in more than a half-million dollars. Jerry Lee would head back down to Memphis and record What Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me), a single that would singlehandedly revitalize Lewis' career. What Made Milwaukee Famous broke into the Country charts in June and eventually hit the #2 slot, selling more than 170,000 copies by the end of the summer of `68. And the rest, of course, is history.

Catch My Soul had less of a successful future, albeit nearly one as strange as Jerry Lee's. The play was eventually adapted to film and directed by Patrick McGoohan, he of Secret Agent Man and The Prisoner fame. As a piece of trivia, this would be McGoohan's second involvement with a musical adaptation of Othello. Back in 1961, McGoohan performed in the film All Night Long, a jazz version of the play that included appearances by Dave Brubeck and Charlie Mingus.

Released in 19 and 74, Catch My Soul the movie starred Richie Havens as Othello, Season Hubley as Desdemona, and journeyman actor Lance LeGault taking over the role of Iago.

Except for being produced by Jack Good and retaining a bit of Shakespeare's original language, the movie had little resemblance to the play, or even to reality. Influenced heavily by the hit rock operas Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell!, Catch My Soul the movie was set in the American Southwest. Othello became a itinerant evangelist who wandered into Iago's remote commune. Othello falls in love with beautiful Desdemona, infuriating Iago, who also loves her. Iago plots his revenge and murder and tragedy predictably ensue. In between the bouts of murder, madness and blood there are songs, some performed by Richie Havens, some by Tony Joe White, others by Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, two singers who had something of side-career with showing up in weird movies of the `60s and `70s. None of the music from Catch My Soul the play made the transition to the movie, which was described by one reviewer as a "train wreck."

Dreamtime received over a half-dozen emails asking about Catch My Soul, some from TTRH fans wanting to know why Jerry Lee Lewis was singing Shakespeare - which I hoped I've answered - and several from fans who already knew the story of Catch My Soul, but were interested in where Mr. D. had found the songs.

Both cuts are from The Killer's Private Stash, a semi-bootleg out of Holland that also includes Lewis' first known recording and an X-rated version of Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On. As far as I can determine, those two songs from the Catch My Soul rehearsal sessions are the only known circulating tracks in existence. But given their quality, maybe somewhere, maybe hidden away in some box or basement shelf, there's more in the Killer's Private Stash, maybe there's a complete recording of Jerry Lee Lewis as Iago in Catch My Soul... and maybe someday we'll get to hear it.

We can only hope.

Sources

The primary source for this article was Nick Tosches' Hellfire: The Jerry Lee Lewis Story. But as is usual with anything Tosches' has written, anything he claims are specific names, dates, or places should probably be taken with a grain of salt. Tosches is a great writer but sloppy researcher. It's Rosey, Nick, not "Rosie."

THE JERRY LEE LEWIS I'VE KNOWN FOR 46 YEARS by Graham Knight also had some useful information.

Most of the background information on Jack Good came from Steve Walker's article.

***

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.com.

Remember that the Dreamtime team loves to get email. 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.