This edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is high fidelity.
Both musically and sonically. And it's best listened to on an honest-to-God hi-fi -- perhaps like this one. But it'll work on something newer, too . . . just without that certain je ne sais quoi.
That's the thing you can count on with the Big Show, fidelity to the music -- good music -- and the highest fidelity in audio. If you don't believe me, just give it a listen.
We're back from a couple of weeks off, reinvigorated and ready to lay some fantastic, and fantastically diverse, tunes on you. This week, we'll be dipping heavily into the year 1977, with a lot more vintages thrown in as well. And a nice sampling of pop and classic jazz.
And that's about it. Just the usual sonic excellence, which you have come to expect coming from the Omaha studios of 3 Chords & the Truth. So let's quit the pontificating and get on with the listening.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Nothing you can know that isn't known
Nothing you can see that isn't shown
Nowhere you can be that isn't
where you're meant to be
It's easy
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
THE FUN of going to estate sales often lies in the surprises you find amid the artifacts of people's lives that are being sold off one item at a time.
Sunday in Omaha, this was what we found in the onetime bedroom of a onetime teenager who now must be around the same age I am.
Speaking as a Baby Boomer . . . wow!
As I recall, the house has been sold, and who knows what the fate of this teenage tribute to the Fab Four might be. You'd hope the new owner would lack the heart -- or the nerve -- to paint over this or, God forbid, to turn this house that once was a home into yet another tear-down on a street that has seen a few older houses razed so that newer, bigger ones might replace them.
If that's to be the fate of this house, being yet another demolition job or the new owner merely painting over a teenage masterpiece, I just wanted folks to know that Jay Dandy's room had the awesomest wall ever back in 1977.
Way back in the day, Louisiana had "Coozan Dud" LeBlanc and his Hadacol cureall.
Decades later and 1,000 miles farther north, Omahans had Joe Zweiback and his miracle-making Gera-Speed, with its "28 essential nutritional factors." And not just in itty-bitty amounts, either.
Down the hatch . . . and now back to today's wrestling match. Er . . . "rassling" match.
There's a difference, you know.
Life was different in 1977.
For one thing, I had lots of hair (I mean LOTS of hair) and a 29-inch waist. For another, television went to bed at night in 1977, expecting that you did, too.
In 1977, HBO (which folks still knew stood for Home Box Office) wasn't a 24-hour affair. Like many of your local TV stations back then, HBO signed off overnight.
Good night, sleep tight. And don't let the cable box bite.
Listen up, kiddies, and you will hear . . .
Top-40 radio back many a year,
John Records Landecker back in '77,
With WLS turning it up to 11
As the Big 89 slams it into gear
Across the glass, the engineer racks up some carts,
And your intrepid DJ opens his mikeAs the "Boogie Check" music starts
Then the phone lines all start to light
As callers wait their chance to see
If a shooting star of the air they'll be,
Or whether their wit will just buy the farm
Will the man whose name is Records, with all due charm
Just yank their call like a fire alarm?
Boogie Check, Boogie Check, ooh ahh!
As God is my witness, I'd never heard of the '70s British group Omaha Sheriff.Apparently, I'm not alone -- Omaha Sheriff's first album in 1977, "Come Hell Or Waters High," made it up to No. 175 on the Billboard album chart but couldn't get arrested on the retail front.ONE OF the band's founders, Bob Noble, however, did come to play in the band of Judie Tzuke -- someone I had heard of . . . and purchased her album "Sportscar" -- later in the '70s. He also did an album and a couple of tours with Dexy's Midnight Runners.
Go figure.
In the early 1990s, Noble moved his family to the States -- first Seattle and now Lake Worth, Fla., where he writes music, produces, arranges . . . and plays in an Irish band? (Isn't a Brit playing in an Irish band grounds for resumption of the Troubles or something?)
Anyway, it seems to me the least the man could have done was settle in Omaha.
Take afternoon strolls across "The Bob."
Maybe run for sheriff.
I just needed to hear me some Ram Jam. 1977 wasn't half bad when you think about it.
Bam ba lam.
