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.
We almost interrupt this program due to technical difficulties.
Almost.
It's a little late this go around, but 3 Chords & the Truth is here . . . and the music is good. Really good.
IN A FEW instances, as usual, your mind will be blown by the latest edition of the Big Show. Take safety precautions to prevent ill effects similar to those occurring when the Adobe Audition audio editor comes in contact with the latest Mac OS, El Capitan.
In short, your mental state could resemble Donald Trump's hair.
Be prepared. Be safe. Hold on.
COME TO think of it, we are on, right?
Testing. Testing. One, two, three, four, five. . . . Testing.
Whew! I was worried there for a second. Carry on.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Don't be a wet blanket, pally. Get hep to the 3 Chords & the Truth Fan Club and never miss another jivin' tune again.
All you have to do to be with the swingin' crowd is become a regular listener of the Big Show. And the best thing about it is that you get the whole wide world of solid sounds for exactly nothin'.
That's right, won't cost you a thin dime, Ain't no better bargain than free, buddy boy.
So join all the cool kids in the 3 Chords & the Truth appreciation society and hear everything from the Syndicate of Sound to Southern Culture on the Skids. From She & Him to Dale & Grace.
And that ain't the half of it, Daddy-O.
SIGN ON with the Big Show, and you get some bonus Otis Redding and Shawn Mullins for a small shipping and handling charge. That would be your undying devotion, sister. Or brother. Either way, man -- it's copacetic.
Oh, the things you'll hear!
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
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.
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.
The older I get, the more I understand that I come from a place and time that's largely indecipherable to the younger among us.
Typewriters . . . mystery. Cassette decks . . . enigma. Rotary-dial phones . . . puzzle.
OHMYGAWD! You didn't have Internet back in the '70s? How did you live?
Well, in an analog manner, I guess.
Thus, in an age when something as pervasive as radio is becoming an anachronism like the rest of my life, perhaps it's time to explain a few things.
For example, you know this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth? Lots of radio stations and programs -- which we listened to . . . and we liked it -- were kinda sorta like the Big Show.
THERE was some variety going on. Top-40 meant just that . . . the top records on the pop chart, no matter what they might be.
You also had things like progressive-rock stations. Freeform stations and shows.
Freeform? Like, they'd play ANYTHING?
Yep. Just like 3 Chords & the Truth. You never quite know what's coming next. Back in the day, we found that adventurous and stimulating. ANDFORGOD'SSAKEDON'TTAKETHEBROWNACID, MAN!!!
I don't know where that came from.
Anyway, once there was this thing called radio. Take a seat, kid. Let me tell you about it and play you some stuff. You ever seen an LP record or a 45 before . . . ?
IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
When you're alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go . . . to 3 Chords town.
When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry seems to help, I know -- in 3 Chords town.
Just listen to the music from Omaha, by God, Nebraska. Linger on the website where the Big Show's there for playing. How can you lose?
The sounds are much brighter there -- you can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares.
So go to 3 Chords town! Things will be great when you're in 3 Chords town! No finer place for sure, 3 Chords town . . . everything's waiting for you!
DON'T hang around and let your problems surround you, there is great music . . . in 3 Chords town. Sooner or later, you'll click on these links, and you'll be in . . . 3 Chords town!
Just listen to the rhythm of a classic rock 'n' roller. You'll be dancing with 'em too before the show is over -- happy again. The sounds are much brighter here; you can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares.
So go to our town. Music's the best in Big Show town. Click on the bloody link -- 3 Chords town! Good times for you tonight -- my town! You're music future's bright . . . this town!
Just take my word for it . . . 3 Chords & the Truth is the bomb!
Downtown.
Uptown.
Midtown.
Outta town.
IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the A/C inside's delightful.
But the summer heat's bad enough for us to go . . . let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
OK, your Mighty Favog has many powers but -- unfortunately -- the ability to make it snow at the end of July is not among them. So we'll do the next best thing on this week's 3 Chords & the Truth.
We'll play an extra cool, extra long set of music designed to conjure up the cooling power of December in the middle of meteorological Hades. It's sort of like Prof. Harold Hill's "think system" of music education, only we're thinking winter in hopes of taking the edge off of summer.
APART FROM that, you could say the show has its highs and lows this go around. Of course, even the lows -- and the Lo's -- are high points. As we strike a mortal blow against Yankee imperialism.
What? Hell, yeah!
Huh? You bet!
Confused? Relax. We got this covered.
All you have to do is listen to the Big Show, and all will become clear. Your confusion will turn into a profusion of musical enlightenment. And a cooling trend on a hot summer's day.
IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Did you know that, back in 1956, you could get Elvis Presley on 78 RPM records?
You could, and my folks did . . . and we have just that on 3 Chords & the Truth this week.
That's just one of the unexpected things you'll hear on this, and every, episode of the Big Show. Because we're all about surprises. And good music.
Let's see -- what else would you like to hear about this venture into the world of 3 Chords & the Truth and the stupendous music we play?
WELL, there's all the good doo-wop and R&B this time on the program. And there's all the good jazz. And then there's some tasty tunes from the world of rock.
And, of course, then there's the. . . .
Hey! You don't think I'm going to give away all the intimate details of how this week's 3 Chords & the Truth excels, do you? C'mon, sit still for an hour and a half and find out for yourself.
It might be the most satisfying 90 minutes you'll spend this week. And we do it all over again almost every week on the Big Show. You just might learn something -- or hear something you have laid ears on in years -- and you'll have a ball doing it.
Really.
IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
This week, we answer a simple yet crucial question in putting together yet another fine edition of 3 Chords & the Truth -- did Steven Tyler always look this bad?
So we got out the vintage 1975 vinyl of Aerosmith's Toys in the Attic. And then we looked at the group shot on the back cover.
And your answer is this: Yes. Yes he did.
How Liv Tyler emerged from that gene pool, I don't know.
That's the kind of burning question we're happy to answer on the Big Show . . . and, uh, we also like to play lots of good music, too. As far as telling you anything else about this week's show, I can only shamelessly repeat what was said about the last episode of 3 Chords & the Truth.
Here you go:
THIS TIME, like every time on the Big Show,
we play a little bit of this, a lot of that and some of the other
thing. All of it comes with our iron-clad guaran-damn-tee that you'll
love it or your money back.
Of course, the program costs you absolutely nothing, so there's that.
Then
there's this: You're likely to say at least once, "My God, I haven't
heard that in years!" Try that listening to the radio. You see, this
little venture, hosted by your Mighty Favog, is like radio back when
radio was actually radio.
Call it, if you will, freeform radio with a bigger playlist and a lot less reefer and patchouli oil. OK, maybe a little patchouli oil when the spirit moves us.
IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
We ask a simple yet crucial question to start this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth -- is there anything The Ventures couldn't cover?
This time, it's the guitar gods doing a hipper version of Lawrence Welk's No. 1 smash from 1961, "Calcutta." If this is the kind of thing you like, this is the kind of cover you'll love.
And if this is the sort of thing you wish were still on the radio, you'll love this edition of the Big Show. It's kind of mellow, kind of lounge-o-licious, kind of pop, loaded with classic folk and lots of other tasty eclecticism for which our little podcast is almost famous.
And with a little help from your downloads . . . well, 3 Chords & the Truth could become famously famous, just by doing our thing, which is the sort of thing radio doesn't much do at all. And that would be playing just one kind of music -- good -- the Format Nazis be damned.
THIS TIME, like every time on the Big Show, we play a little bit of this, a lot of that and some of the other thing. All of it comes with our iron-clad guaran-damn-tee that you'll love it or your money back.
Of course, the program costs you absolutely nothing, so there's that.
Then there's this: You're likely to say at least once, "My God, I haven't heard that in years!" Try that listening to the radio. You see, this little venture, hosted by your Mighty Favog, is like radio back when radio was actually radio.
Call it, if you will, freeform radio with a bigger playlist and a lot less reefer and patchouli oil. OK, maybe a little patchouli oil when the spirit moves us.
IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
I was an American teen-ager in the 1970s, therefore American Top 40 was appointment listening.
In Baton Rouge, we got it on WIBR radio. I was a WLCS kind of guy, but Casey Kasem counting down the hits every Sunday afternoon would have me winging it down to the other side of the AM dial to see what was No. 1 on the Billboard charts this week.
Casey Kasem died a week ago today at 82, and this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is a tribute to the man and to the show he co-created in 1970 -- and which he hosted for decades.
Mine was his radio generation. Back in the day, Kasem and the late Dick Clark were America's DJs. Now they're both gone, and untold millions of the children of rock 'n' roll find ourselves slightly adrift at the loss of these pop-culture giants.
THIS WEEK on the Big Show, we're doing what we do, just doing it Casey Kasem style. Just like it was on AT40 in the show's heyday -- only in our own quirky way.
This one's for Casey. This one's also for all those American kids now of a certain age who remember radio when it was relevant. Who remember when radio was an event.
Rest in peace, sir. At long last, you have reached the stars.
Love, a grateful generation with its feet still on the ground.
IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
This is all you need to know about this week's 3 Chords & the Truth.
Stacks of albums. Stacks of albums just in to the studios of the Big Show here in Omaha, by God, Neb.
Stacks of stuff. New stuff. A lot of stuff that never made it to compact disc or digital download. A lot of stuff you'll hear only on 3 Chords & the Truth.
IF YOU like music and hate to be pigeonholed, this is where you need to be. This is seriously where you need to be.
That's what you need to know about the show. This is what we do week in and week out, and we do it well. So there you go.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
OK, all you hipsters and hepcats and cool cats and rockers and freaks and punks and longhairs . . . your Mighty Favog has a question for you.
This question will be on the exam -- this question is the exam -- and the answer can be found on 3 Chords & the Truth.
Ready? Cool.
How do you put together Azure Ray, John Fred, Dale and Grace, Jerry Butler, Jefferson Airplane, Men at Work, The B-52's, Feist, The Mindbenders, Harry Connick, Jr., Leon Redbone, Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, Art Garfunkel, Ian Gomm, Michael Nesmith, The Doobie Brothers -- among other stuff -- and not end up with a musical hot mess?
BEGIN answering whenever you're ready. Feel free to use the Big Show as a reference tool . . . you will have 90 minutes.
On the test, spelling will count against your grade, and I will know whether or not you listened to the program from the detail in your answer. Don't expect a passing grade if you say "It's magic!" -- although your professor and proprietor will be flattered.
Finally, you have been given multiple ways to access the relevant podcast, 3 Chords & the Truth, so not being able to listen will not be accepted as an excuse. That is all.
Oh . . . except for this.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
¿Quién es más bueno, 1967 o 1971?
¿Quién es más bueno, 1967 o 1971?
If you're on the early end of the Baby Boom generation, I'll bet you'd say 1967 when you're arguing the best year for music on the radio.
If you're on my end of the Baby Boom -- the late end -- I'll bet you'd argue that, no, 1971 was a better music-radio year than 1967. I don't know about you (and you might be a Millennial and thoroughly confused by the whole question for all I know), but I love me some 1971.
1971 WAS a great year for music -- particularly Top-40 radio. And if you don't believe me . . . brother, you need to be listening to this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.
You. Have. No. Idea.
But lucky for you, the Big Show is here to give you one.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This blog post originally ran Aug. 31, 2009, and then again in September 2010. I repost it again today in memory of A. Lamar Simmons, the man who in 1946 helped to give life to a little radio station in Baton Rouge, La. -- one that would in time be known to all as the Big 91 or, alternatively, the Big Win 910 -- and then went on to run it for decades.
Likewise, this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth will be an encore presentation of a tribute to 'LCS, and ultimately to the Top-40 stations of my youth, that first ran Sept. 10, 2010.
May God rest your soul, Mr. Simmons. And thank you.
Here's the show.
* * *
One thing kids today will never know is what it was like to have your own radio station.
Not what it's like to be a bazillionnaire and own your own big-time broadcast outlet but, instead, what it's like to be devoted to a radio station, this hometown entity that plays cool tunes (well, mostly) and becomes your window on a world much, much larger than the hick burg in which you find yourself trapped. Face it, unless you're a kid growing up in New York, L.A. or Chicago, you think where you're from is That Which Must Be Escaped.
And I'll bet L.A. and New York kids probably want to flee to Paris or Rome. Maybe London.
You see, long ago, radio stations were living things. They were staffed by live human beings whose job it was to entertain and enlighten other live human beings. These were called "listeners," something radio has radically fewer of these days.
Oftentimes, way back deah den (as my mom says), people would find one station or another's personalities and music so compelling that the station, in a real sense, became "their" station. Listeners took emotional and figurative ownership.
They listened day and night. They called the DJs on the "request line." (And note, please, this was an era when "DJ" immediately brought to mind a radio studio, not a dance club.)
Listeners went nuts for the contests, whether it was the chance to win $1,000 or just a promotional 45. They'd pick up a station's weekly survey to see where their favorite songs ranked this week.
They'd wake up to the "morning man" and boogie down to the groovy sounds the afternoon drive guy was spinning out through their transistor radios.
Boogie down to the groovy sounds? Ah, screw it. You had to be there.
THE REAL business radio was in back during its second golden age -- the Boomer age of Top-40 AM blowtorches . . . and of laid-back, trippy FM free-form outfits, too -- was the business of making memories. That stations sold some pimple cream while selling even more records was just a happy accident, at least from the perspective of their loyal fans.
Back when the Internet was more like the Inter-what?, radio was the Facebook of its day. It told us about the world . . . and about each other. It served up new music for our consideration.
Likewise, a station's listeners formed the pre-social-networking incarnation of what became Facebook groups and fan pages. In short, between the hits and the ads, between the disc jockeys and the contests, radio was community.
All you needed to join was an eight-transistor job, or maybe a hand-me-down table radio in your bedroom, its tubes glowing orange in the darkness as the magic flowed from its six-inch loudspeaker.
AT ITS BEST, radio comforted the afflicted, afflicted the comfortable, lifted downcast spirits, was a friend to the lonely and provided the soundtrack for the times of our lives. To this day, I can hear a song and immediately think "WLCS, 1975," or "WTIX, summer on the Petite Amite River, 1972."
And every early December, my mind will drift back to a late night in 1980 when I was studying for finals at Louisiana State, with my head in a book and WFMF on the stereo. Bad news through the headphones, and -- at least for my generation -- "something touched us deep inside."
It was the Day the Music Died. Again.
Tonight my mind drifts back to Aug. 31, 1984. That was the night a close friend passed into that good night of blessed memory.
That night, the Big 91, WLCS, played its last Top-40 hit and left the Baton Rouge airwaves for its new home in the youthful memories of aging teen-agers like myself. Two-and-a-half decades later, it just doesn't seem right that it's gone.
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OF COURSE, lots of things don't seem right nowadays.
That WLCS isn't there anymore -- hasn't been there for more than a generation -- is just one of them in the mind of one Boomer kid from a middling city in the Deep South. You can read about why that is here.
But a couple-odd decades in retrospect, it seems to me that Aug. 31, 1984, was in a way about as profound as the deaths of Buddy Holly and John Lennon -- the intangible end of something we still haven't quite gotten our minds (or our culture) around.
It's not that the actual deaths of Holly or Lennon, or of the "Big Win 910," precipitated some sort of musical or cultural cataclysm in themselves. It's just that things were happening.
And being that things were happening that more or less coincided with each instance of "bad news on the doorstep," it's handy to use these events as markers.
For me, the demise of WLCS -- and the deaths of many stations that were nothing if not actual life forces in their own cultural rights -- signals The Great Unraveling.
The unraveling of a common culture is what I'm getting at, I guess.
Lookit. As much as we kids claimed stations like 'LCS as our own, we can't forget that many of our parents listened, too. Or that Top-40 radio of old played what was big, period -- be that Jefferson Airplane or Frank Sinatra. Because of WLCS, I think I could comprehend more than my own little world of teen-age angst and teen-age fads.
And it's why I feel just as comfortable with Andy Williams and Tony Bennett -- and, yes, Ol' Blue Eyes -- as I do with (ahem) "harder" fare. My world is bigger, richer, more diverse because of a 1,000-watt AM station in a midsized Southern state capital too often prone to calling too much in life "good enough for government work."
Thank God, that couldn't often describe the Big 91.
And because "good enough" wasn't often good enough at WLCS -- because the men and women who worked there just did what they did and did it well -- I owe its memory more than I can repay.
If, after these 25 years, somebody were to require that I pen an epitaph for my long-dead friend, I'd write just this: WLCS played the hits.
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