3 Chords & the Truth: Tunes and egg nog

Listen, it's almost Christmas. Give your brain a rest, your ears a treat and your egg-nog receptors what is necessary at this time of the year.

No, this isn't the official Christmas episode of 3 Chords & the Truth, but we're getting there. This is the warm-up episode for the Yuletide edition, but it's right nice in its own way.

That is why your Mighty Favog strongly recommends that you de-stress, chill out, don't think (too much, at least) and let the music wash over you this holiday season.

And that's  how we warm up for the big Christmas edition of the Big Show just days away from the event.

TRUST ME. You're gonna love the show this week.

And you're really gonna love it next week.

And if you haven't listened to the last show (or three), you'll bloody well love them, too.

So just do it. Egg nog. Good music. Chill . . . in a warm and cozy way.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Dead on target

This week on the Big Show, we take dead aim on who and what we are as Americans.

And I think we've picked some songs that hit the target.

Of course 3 Chords & the Truth, hits the musical bullseye every week, but this episode draws a bead on something specific about American culture these days. Something we just love to death.

Or is it that we love death? Oh, well. Whatever.

ALSO ON the program this week, we have a little of this and a little of that, and we also start rolling out the Christmas music now that we have achieved bleak midwinter-ish.

And that's all we have to say about that. The Big Show, that is.

So. . . .

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Le fleuve de la vie

This edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is rather like life, which flows like a river. It goes where it will, swelling and ebbing, its current carrying us on its journey toward destiny.

Today, the music ebbs and flows. It goes where it will, and we're just along for the ride.

Just like every time, the Big Show is a trip worth taking. The mighty flood of good music breaks through every barrier, and it goes where we do not anticipate it going. We listen in wonder.

Just listen.

ALSO this week, we stand in the shadow of Paris, pushing back against the darkness of hatred and violence. We fight terror with joy.

Aujourd'hui, nous sommes tous français. Nous prions pour la paix de Paris.

The river of life -- le fleuve de la vie -- she sometimes carries us into darkness. She will carry us back into the light soon enough. We must have faith in the journey. . . .

And in the music. Musique joyeuse.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: For Allen, with love

There isn't much to say about this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.

There is much to hear during the course of this week's edition of the Big Show.

This episode of the program is dedicated to the blessed memory -- and to the divine music -- of Allen Toussaint, the soul of New Orleans and its gift to American popular song. Toussaint died this week at 77, and he brought joy to music lovers to the very end.

Every bit of this 3 Chords & the Truth will be devoted to the music this genius wrote, performed and produced. Listening to what this giant of music blessed our culture with over six decades is to realize how impoverished we all would be had Allen Toussaint never lived.

WE LIVE in a hard world, and we rely on God's tender mercies to bring us strength, solace and -- yes -- joy amid our travails and sorrows. Allen Toussaint and his music was the tenderest of God's mercies.

May God rest his soul, and may his memory, and music, be eternal.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Stacks o' shellac

This week on the Big Show, we're up to our @$$ in stacks of vintage shellac.

Shellac? Let me explain: Before there was vinyl, there was shellac. As in 78 r.p.m. records.

Way back there then, before the advent of the long-play record, a.k.a. the "LP," a record album was just that -- an album of four or five 78s. When LPs ascended and 78s eventually disappeared, the name stuck. Thus, a single LP, cassette, CD or group of digital downloads is an "album" to this day.

We're going to be playing some stuff off of albums this week on 3 Chords & the Truth. Album albums, not the faux albums we've become accustomed to the past 60 years. One of the albums features one legend and his orchestra playing the music of another legend -- Paul Whiteman, the guy who brought George Gershwin to prominence by commissioning a work called "Rhapsody in Blue," does Irving Berlin, author of huge swaths of the "American Songbook."

IT'S GREAT MUSIC. It's history. It's part of our culture and our national DNA. It's on the Big Show, and it's just a click away. Maybe two, if that's how you roll.

Of course, that's just one middling-sized part of the show this week -- we're nothing if not eclectic and full of surprises around the studio here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska. And believe me, there's plenty of amazing stuff on the program this week . . . and every week.

And it's all yours for the taking for the low, low price of nothing. It's free. All you have to do is click. Or download. Or whatever.

Now get to it. There's a world of music waiting for you here.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: A ray of sunshine

It's another rainy day in River City.

Drizzly, bleak, pervasive is this pall,
It's the soggy side of fall.

Music brightens the day in River City,
The Big Show fights off the brooding sky.
And spirits, they will fly!

Music and good cheer,
Your blues will disappear.

ANOTHER rainy day in River City,
Another wet fall day in this old city,
Sitting in this cozy studio,
The tunes are good to go.

Windy, wet and gray in River City,
You're the only one want to see . . .
Here at 3C&T!

Now suddenly you feel
The music's bright appeal . . .

Another rainy day in River City. 

IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

I'll build a (vinyl) stairway to paradise

This afternoon's listening was . . . transcendent.

Sarah Vaughan. George Gershwin's very large segment of the American Songbook. Where could you go wrong?

Answer: You can't.

Boy, oh boy, are you in for a treat this week on 3 Chords & the Truth. My dilemma is deciding what to play off this 1957 masterpiece of an LP.

I have a couple of thoughts, but I almost feel like I'd be cheating you by not just playing the whole thing. The problem is that I have lots of other great music, too.

I'd feel like I was cheating you by not getting around to all that, too.

In brief, my dilemma is your gain. That's the Big Show for you.

Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Buddy and the Beatles

The Cricket is the father of the Beatle.

This week on 3 Chords & the Truth, we explore Buddy Holly and his influence on The Beatles, which I submit was huge. In short, had Holly not lived and blown open rock 'n' roll with all kinds of then-not-rock 'n' roll influences and instrumentation  -- A full string section? Harps? Heresy!!! -- you have to wonder whether it would have been possible for John, Paul, George and Ringo to make the music they ultimately did.

Maybe so. Then again, maybe everybody would have been remaking "Roll Over Beethoven" and the greatest hits of Fabian over and over and over again.

But Buddy Holly blew it open, and the boys from Liverpool reaped the musical benefits.

THAT'S WHERE we're going this week on the Big Show. And you are going to reap the musical benefits as we revisit some classic Holly and some live Beatles, as broadcast back in the day on the British Broadcasting Corporation.

We're live on the BBC, and we're on top of lots of other exceptional stuff this go around. You're gonna love it.

So. . . .

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Java jivin'

Way down among 3 Chordsians . . .
 
Coffee beans grow by the billions
So we've got to find those extra cups to fill
We've got an awful lot of coffee in the till
 
You can't get cherry soda
'cause we gotta fill that quota
And the way things are I'll bet we never will. . . . 

We've got a zillion tons of coffee on the bill 

No tea or tomato juice
You'll see no potato juice
'cause the Favog in the Big O's saying "No, no, no"
A Big Show listener's daughter
Was accused of drinkin' water
And was fined a great big fifty dollar bill
We've got an awful lot of coffee songs to shill

IN OTHER WORDS, this week on 3 Chords & the Truth . . .

I love coffee, i love tea
I love the java jive and it loves me
Coffee and tea and the java and me
A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup (boy!)

IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there.  Aloha.

Tonight's vinylpalooza

I'm cheap enough that paying $15 for this 1959 stereo release gave me serious pause at the LP bins of an Old Market antique emporium.

On one hand, I'd rather find a gem for a song at an estate sale or something.

On the other hand, the records from this vendor are usually in marvelous playing condition.

On the third hand, a stereo rock 'n' roll record from 1959 -- the mono version of Bobby Freeman's Do You Wanna Dance album came out the previous year -- and from an indie label, no less. That's likely on the rare side, making the $15 price not a rip-off.

I'll say!

BEFORE LISTENING to this early-rock classic this evening, I did a little Internet price checking for the stereo version of Do You Wanna Dance . . . Jubilee 1086 for all you record geeks out there. And the low price I found it being sold for was something like $29.95. The high price (on eBay, of course) was . . . was . . . gulp! . . . $110. I understand a mint first pressing goes for $200.

Mine seems to be a second pressing. Sigh. I coulda been rich.

Now note that amid all this "What's it wurf???" nerd-o-mania, not a word was written about the actual music, which was great despite following the rock-album convention of the day for a hot act. That would be:

SIDE A

• Cover something.
• Cover something.
• Cover something.
• Original that'll never be released as a single.
• Cover something.
• Hit record we named the LP for.

 SIDE B

• Cover something.
• Cover something.
• Original that you'll hear nowhere else. Ever.
• Cover something.
• Original that sounds exactly like the big hit on Side 1.
• Cover something inspiring. Or something.

That is all. Good night, and good listening.

3 Chords & the Truth: Drop the needle

 
I've got a phonograph, and I'm not afraid to use it. Don't mess with me.

Man, that kind of sums up the whole of 3 Chords & the Truth, doesn't it?

Actually, I've got more than a few phonographs, and I use 'em plenty. That's where the bulk of the music on the Big Show comes from -- musical gems I've had forever, and treasures I've dug up at estate sales, thrift shops, used-record bins and elsewhere all over creation.

A lot of it you're not going to find on the Internet or on CD. So if you want to hear a lot of this stuff. . . .

For instance, remember Lou Bega's big hit from 1999, "Mambo No. 5"? Well, this week, you're going to hear the original by Perez Prado and His Orchestra from way back in the day. If you ask me, Prado's version swings a lot harder than the 1990s iteration.

OTHERWISE on 3 Chords & the Truth this week, your Mighty Favog has . . .

A little bit of Stafford in my life, a little bit of Van Damme by her side

A little bit of Cugat is all I need, a little bit of Dusty is what I see

A little bit of the Moodies in the sun, a little bit of Nick Lowe all night long

A little bit of Root Boy here I am, a little bit of Stan Getz is my plan.

Get the drift?

No? Let me elaborate.

A little bit of Arlo in my life, a little bit of Crenshaw by my side

A little bit of Elgart is all I need, a little bit of J-Cash is what I see

A little bit of Pozo in the sun, a little bit of Seco all night long

A little bit of Prado here I am, a little bit of you makes me your man.

BELIEVE ME, you ain't heard nothing like this.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

How your hi-fi stereo record works

Click on the picture for larger, readable view

This afternoon's vintage-LP listening comes with a technical note.

And our tech talk today centers on a question: You ever wonder how stereo records put the stereo on the record?

Well, the top photo of the inner sleeve of our 1958 release by David Carroll and His Orchestra explains how the modern marvel of stereophonic records work. And it also contains a caveat for the stereo newbie, as nearly everyone was 57 years ago -- do not play this thing on a monophonic record player.

A mono cartridge on your mono phonograph will tear this sucker up.

See the explanation on the record sleeve for why that is.

3 Chords & the Truth: Twice as nice

It's a twin-spin weekend on 3 Chords & the Truth!

That's right, you hip, happenin' and now music fans, we're staring off this week's episode of the Big Show with artists so nice, you've got to hear 'em twice. And I'm also going to play you the 1966 Petula Clark album cut that I think should have been a single, because it's that good.

Of course, there were one or two more album cuts on her My Love LP that also should have been hit singles, but you can't play 'em all. Well, I suppose I could, but I restrained myself. I'm a professional.

And that's just the first music set this go around on 3 Chords & the Truth. There's so much more good stuff on the rest of the program, you just can't imagine.

WELL, if you're a regular listener to the best musical spot on the Internet, you can imagine. But saying that doesn't work as well rhetorically, so just go with me here.

So sit down, grab a snack and a drink, and treat yourself to an hour and a half of music-media bliss. If you don't, you'll just be cheating yourself.

Trust me on this.

So, without taking up more time reading that you should spend listening. . . .

IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Vintage LP du jour

 

On the menu tonight at La Maison de Trois Chords is The Friends of Distinction's Real Friends album, a nice 1970 vintage for our listening pleasure.

Not only does it feature one of my all-time favorite songs, "Love or Let Me Be Lonely," it also sounds better than many new albums right out of the shrink wrap, even though this particular LP left its shrink wrap around 1970.

DO YOU THINK I still could get me a "Complete RCA Catalog" if I mailed a quarter to Dept. C, Rockaway, New Jersey 07866?

On the other hand, maybe I can dig out the Complete RCA Catalog that I did get for 25 cents back then.

Once a geek, always a geek.

That is all.

Let's dance!

Here's some of what's been on the old record player the past couple of days.

In 1956, Capitol Records got Benny Goodman and some of the old orchestra gang together to recut some of his classics in hi-fi. And boy do they sound good in high fidelity, pointing out the advancements in recording technology in just the decade and a half or so since the originals came out on 78 r.p.m. discs.

THE ALBUM, The Benny Goodman Story, featured selections from the motion picture of the same name that had just hit movie houses all across America.

What's interesting about this album, which just may be a first-run pressing -- given the packaging and red Capitol label, which changed to turquoise sometime that same year -- is how the cardboard LP sleeve came inside a paper outer sleeve. I don't think I've ever run across that sort of packaging before for a record album.

And that's your bit of vinyl-nerd bait for the day, all the way from the fabulous '50s.

This week's listening. So far.

Well, this is what I've been listening to so far this week.

I found a couple of cool 45 EP sets at an estate sale Sunday, along with a feast of LPs. I know, you're wondering what, exactly, is a "45 EP set." I don't blame you, really. The concept didn't stick for all that long.

A 45 EP set was an album, only on a couple -- or sometimes three -- 45s that typically had two songs to a side. They came in a little gatefold jacket that was a miniature version of a 12-inch LP jacket, and lasted as a format for about as long as there was a competition between LPs and 45s as a medium for record albums.

In that battle, the 45 r.p.m. record lost. The record industry more or less standardized release formats, with 45s being the common format for singles and 12-inch LPs being the common format for full albums. The 45 EP set largely disappeared by the end of the 1960s in the United States.

Basically, the sound quality wasn't as good as an LP record -- you're cramming a lot on music on a 7-inch record not really meant to hold that much. And, if you ask me, 45s by and large don't sound quite as good as LPs anyway. So there's that.

Then you have the "more records to mess with" factor, even if they're smaller records.

On the other hand, they are kind of cool. They're a curiosity, to be sure.

ANYWAY, the EPs we have here for my listening pleasure -- and soon yours, too, no doubt --  are the 45 version of Jackie Gleason's Music for Lovers Only, one of his 1950s albums with trumpeter Bobby Hackett fronting an orchestra "conducted" by The Great One. God help me, I love the stuff.

Jackie Gleason put the bachelor pad in "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music."

The other EP set is The Anthony Choir, a group that trumpeter Ray Anthony put together to perform with his orchestra, because somebody had to give Mitch Miller, Ray Conniff and Fred Waring a run for their money.

And, yes, your humble correspondent was born (1961) too late.



FINALLY on the agenda tonight was a little Bent Fabric.

Bent Fabric, the Danish pianist and composer born 90 years ago as Bent Fabricius-Bjerre. You know, the "Alley Cat" guy who, by Grammy logic, won for Best Rock & Roll Recording of 1962.

And, yes, Bent Fabric is still with us.

And -- once again -- God help me, I love this stuff. That is all. Nighty-night.

Cool jazz on a hot summer's night

Was anybody better than Billy Eckstine?

Several were as good but none better, I don't think. And this 1959 stereo version of Eckstine's 1958 Billy's Best album makes for fine listening on a hot, steamy Midwestern eve.
 
Hell, it would be just as wonderful on a frigid winter's night on the Plains, too. 

So this was tonight's musical selection here in the Revolution 21 studio here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska, deep into the dog days of summer, with state-fair season still a month away and college football a little further out than that.

UNLIKE many vinyl aficionados, I have nothing in particular against compact discs or good-quality digital audio files. But, damn, there's really nothing like putting an old LP on the turntable, basking in that particular smell of aged cardboard and paper. Nothing like holding the record sleeve in your hands and dreaming of your lost youth . . . or the days when jazz ruled the western world and you were yet a glimmer in your mama and daddy's eyes.

Maybe you can't hold this '50s classic of American popular music in your own two hands, but you can always listen to 3 Chords & the Truth and dream sweet dreams about a culture at its zenith that's just showing off.

Because it could.

iGet taken back . . . and so does the iMac

I'm 18 again. And cool.

This was my afternoon listening -- during which the memories and the cool tunes came flooding back -- before there almost wasn't an episode of 3 Chords & the Truth this week. There almost wasn't a show this week because I finally took Production iMac to the Apple Store last night to get its recalled, big-ass "fusion drive" replaced with a brand-new, not-recalled version of the same.

The original hard drive seemed fine to me, but the email from Apple said they'd determined that my hard drive and others just like it were at risk of the computer version of cardiac arrest. Production iMac would need a transplant.

So as a PC veteran who has replaced my share of hard drives . . . and everything else . . . I was figuring along the lines of bring the thing in, go have cup of coffee, pick the thing up, go home. Unfortunately, while Apple products Just Work, they cannot be Just Fixed. Because cool design, or something like that.

THREE to five days, the verdict was.

"Well, then, I'm sunk. This is my work computer," I appealed.

"Let me check," the Genius Court said.

"There goes this week's show," your host groused during the wait.

As it turns out, the sentence was amended. Twenty-four to 48 hours in the shop, with no credit for time not served.

Under Apple's "good time" law, however, Production iMac was paroled early this afternoon -- a presumably rehabilitated digital audio workstation. (By the way, I can't say enough good about the Mac's "Time Machine" data backup. In less than an hour, the iMac was just as it was before. No hassle, no drama.

Windows boxes are all about the drama. I spent a night and part of a day trying to get our Dell laptop to work and play well with the studio equipment and digital audio interface. It was touch and go.

Actually, it was more like cuss and scratch your head.

But the Mac is back, and I'm not subjecting myself to the W-word anymore.  Not in the studio, at least.

All is well in the world, the Big Show goes on, and you'll get to hear you some Gruppo Sportivo, too.

Last evening's vintage listening

Here's a glimpse at my vintage listening for last night -- Billy Vaughn and his orchestra goes Hawaiian back in 1959.

Well, contrary to Dot Record's sloganeering, this LP represents not "the greatest sound on records!" but rather, "Really great, but still no RCA Victor release from the same era."

I know this because I'm a nerd. 

A vintage record nerd, with geek tendencies.

ACTUALLY, this LP was amazingly clean and unworn, despite its vintage. It sounded new, even after all these decades.

The vinyl itself was a little warped but still played flawlessly. And the album still was in the Sears and Roebuck plastic wrap.

I can almost see, a half century and six years past, the music going 'round and 'round on something like this . . . right out of Sears' 1959 Christmas catalog. Musical satisfaction guaranteed.

Aloha.

Tonight's vintage vinyl listening

It's always 1963 somewhere.

Tonight, that would be here in the 3 Chords & the Truth studio here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska. For I am the king of all I survey in used-record stores and the Goodwill.

And to tell you the truth, a lot of these vintage LPs, assuming they haven't been abused by teenagers -- and this is one I'm pretty sure wouldn't have been -- sound spectacular. Better than many, many brand-new ones hipsters are paying upwards of 20 bucks for these days.

The moral you can take away from that is this: Sometimes, it is better to be old and cheap than young and hip. Sayeth your Mighty Favog.