3 Chords & the Truth: We all sprawl

It's the scene of the crime.

It's the place we longed for -- the place to get away from it all. The place to be an individual just like the Joneses, with whom we must keep up.

It's the adjustable-rate American Dream, the one where we lose ourselves as we lose our way, and the neighbors can't help because -- frankly -- we don't know them all that well.

It's the hour commute of our discontent. It's where we come to know poverty can be more than a lack of disposable income. It's where we have everything and have nothing.

It's a way of life we're finding we no longer can afford, fueled by resources we're running out of.

It's Suburbia . . . and we're taking a musical look at it this week on 3 Chords & the Truth, just in time for the release of Arcade Fire's excellent new album, The Suburbs.

What does it all mean? Well, it depends.

Download the Big Show, put on your musical thinking cap and see whether you can sort it all out. Or just turn off your brain and rock out -- it's totally up to you.

Really.

LET'S SEE . . . what else we got going on on this edition of 3 Chords & the Truth? Well, lots, actually.

We go under the covers, and you can use your imagine to decide what that's all about, because I ain't giving it away here. You'll have to listen to be sure.

And . . . what else? Let's see, we also go all the way back to 1949 to see what was on the radio back then, as we look for the roots of rock 'n' roll in there somewhere.

Sound like fun? Yeah? Then what are you waiting for? It's up there on the audio player, and it's here, too.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Listen or else!

You heard me.

Listen to this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth -- it's right here -- or Tony Hayward gets it.

I'm serious.

Really, I'll do it! Listen to this week's episode of the Big Show, or the CEO of BP gets it. And then we'll throw what's left of him into the oil slick.

I mean it!

C'mon, people. Listen to the show.

WHY WON'T you listen to the show?

What?

Oh.

I'm not messing with you people anymore. Either listen to 3 Chords & the Truth -- which really is a fine show this week and every week -- or we let Tony Hayward, CEO of British Polluters, go home to London unscathed!

He'll make it back without a scratch on him. Unless you listen to the program right now.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Party in New Orleans

Oh my Gawd, dawl!

What's dey to say about dis week's 3 Cawds & da Troot?

Of cahws, udda dan dat da Saints won da Supah Bowl, Mahdi Gras is almoss heah, an we gonna pawty hawdy, baby.

Translation for those of you hailing from somewhere above the 30th parallel, and east or west of the 90th meridian:

Goodness, friend! What is there to say about this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth?

Of course, other than that the Saints won the Super Bowl, Mardi Gras is upon us . . . and we're going to party hearty on the Big Show -- it's a New Orleans-flavored edition of 3 Chords & the Truth this week!

AND IT rocks. Hard.

That's about all there is to say, frankly. Of course, other than that if you're not boogying your way through the whole 90 minutes, you may want to schedule a visit with your health-care provider.

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

And . . . "WHO DAT!?!"

3 Chords & the Truth: Black & gold, baby!

They're throwing a Super Bowl in Miami, and my long-suffering Saints are in it.

I've only been waiting for this since . . . oh . . . 1967. That was the year the NFL came to New Orleans. I was 6.

So what have I been doing today? Lying on South Beach?

MORE LIKE splitting my time in snowy Omaha between shoveling wet, leaden frozen precipitation and putting together this episode of 3 Chords & the Truth. Well, that's OK -- so long as I have some good music and a hot cup of tea, I can cope.

And I'll bet you can, too.

In honor of the Saints being in the Big Game, the Big Show features some Louisiana artists this week (though, truth be told, that's not exactly an unusual thing around here). Good is good, and there's a lot of good music around my home state.

Anyway, I'll just leave you with this simple thought: WHO DAT?

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Old school

I came to do an old-school rock 'n' roll show on the Internets, and all I got was this lousy straightjacket.

The Thorazine was kind of nice, though.

You can't say 3 Chords & the Truth isn't, er . . . eventful. But I guess that's just the way we roll at the Big Show.

WELL, ACTUALLY, right now I'm being rolled down a bright corridor strapped to a gurney. My new friend Nurse Ratched is being kind enough to post this for me with her laptop.

But when you go old school, things do get "eventful." And you also can get 33 songs in a mere 90 minutes of show time.

Though I may have gotten carried away . . . before I was carried away.

AUNTIE EM! AUNTIE EM! AND TOTO, TOO!!!

Ow! Who gave me . . . a . . . shot?

I'm getting sleep . . . y . . . now. It's 3 Chords & the Truth . . . y'all. Beeeeeeeee there. Aaaaaaalohaaa . . . .

3 Chords & the Truth: Merry Christmas!

'Twas the day before the night before Christmas, when all through the house, the dogs were barking, which scared the dang mouse.


I've done the Big Show with the utmost of care, so at a mere click, 3 Chords & the Truth soon will be there.

The sleet and the snow are blowing, by Ned, while visions of chiropractors dance through my head.

And Bing in his sweater and Elvis in his leather, live again in tunes that fend off the weather.

I PUT ON a record and heard such a clatter . . . they're rocking around the tree, that's what's the matter! So to the hi-fi I ran like a flash, and turned the thing up for the big bash.

It's blowing outside on this white Christmas, but you can have your tropical isthmus. I'll take the cold and the wind and the snow, so long as I can just do the Big Show.

But it's time to stop with the useless chatter, it's music we need -- that's what's the matter. So I'll leave you 3 Chords & the Truth -- Yule cheer, Yule dance, Yule cry . . . just like a youth!

And as I leave you to shovel, here's a wish for 'ya -- that your Christmas is merry, and you'll "Be there. Aloha!"

3 Chords & the Truth: Unwrap THIS!

It's getting closer to Christmas, and we at 3 Chords & the Truth have a present for you.

Good music.

This week, we start with a vintage Yuletide classic from Elvis Presley, and then we roll from there. Meaning that on this pre-Christmas edition of the Big Show, you'll be hearing stuff like Stepp. . . . Hey! I'm not telling you what you're getting!

SOME PEOPLE just don't care about ruining the surprise for everybody.

So, listen, Buster . . . you'll have to open your present like anybody else to find out what you got. Fortunately for you, all you have to do to open your present is start the player on click on one of the links.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: We got it good

The word of the week on 3 Chords & the Truth is "Good."

Then again, that's the word of the week every week on the Big Show. I'm sorry, that's just the way it is.

PART OF ME wants to be modest and just not blow my own horn when it comes to the weekly music program of the Revolution 21 empire. But All of Me thinks you need to know the score. And the score is that you need to listen to 3 Chords & the Truth.

If you had to write a song about the program, it probably would be "Embraceable You." Or something like that.

I'm not one to brag, but after listening to the Big Show just once, nine out of 10 supermodels refer to your Mighty Favog simply as The Man I Love. Again, not bragging, just saying.

Because, you know, God Bless the Child that's got his own. And that's no Strange Fruit.

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

The Sound of Jazz

In the creative arts, greatness does not lie in the impressiveness of one's tool box. Greatness, instead, is an affair of the heart -- and the soul.

Today, our materialistic and technology obsessed culture too often thinks greatness can be purchased . . . or, at least, manufactured if enough technological and computer wizardry is applied to the matter at hand.

A remarkable program that aired on CBS television 52 years ago this week belies that foolishness. The Sound of Jazz was broadcast in fuzzy black and white, using bulky equipment much less sophisticated than your kid's Flip video camera. Yet, more than a half century on, it is still regarded as one of the greatest musical programs ever -- a defining achievement of a very young medium that very much (still) was making stuff up as it went.

The program, part of CBS' Seven Lively Arts series of programs, featured probably the greatest collection of jazz and blues artists ever gotten into a TV studio. It saw the last ever collaboration of two old friends -- Billie Holiday and saxophonist Lester Young -- who had grown far apart and, as a matter of fact, would both be dead inside of two years.

But on Dec. 8, 1957, magic happened one last time, bygones were bygones for just a moment, and the power of that moment -- a moment that went out live coast to coast on a Sunday afternoon -- brought a control room full of jazz mavens and TV engineers to tears. And the power of that moment, captured on a fuzzy, grainy kinescope, can take one's breath away over the span of decades and societal transformations.

Watch closely. Greatness isn't as common as people would have you believe.

NAT HENTOFF, the great jazz critic and one of the advisers who assembled the program, remembered it this way for National Public Radio:

Billie Holiday didn't actually write songs. She thought of a melody, and she hummed it, and then her piano player or somebody else would orchestrate it — or arrange it, rather. And as for lyrics, she would write those, but then she'd consult with somebody like Arthur Herzog, who was the co-writer on "Strange Fruit," and he would sort of shape it into a more singable form.

So the theme of the lyrics of "Fine and Mellow" was infidelity, and Billie knew a lot about that. I don't know how you put this. She had a poor choice of men, and that was one of the reasons, I think, that she could sing this song and a lot of other songs that had to do with dreams and aspirations and fantasies and romance when they turned bad. She was an expert at that.

What made this the climax of the show was this: She and Lester Young — she had given him his nickname, Prez, and he was the guy who called her Lady Day, which other people came to call her. They had been very close for a long time, but then they stopped being close. They paid very little attention to each other while we were rehearsing the show.

Lester was not feeling well. He was supposed to be in the big-band sequence, but he couldn't make it. I told him, "Look, in the Billie section," which was a small group. She was sitting on a stool surrounded by just a few musicians. I said, "You know, you don't have to just sit down and play."

When it came to his solo, in the middle of "Fine and Mellow," Lester stood up and he blew the purest blues I have ever heard.

Watching Billie and Lester interact, she was watching him with her eyes with a slight smile, and it looked as if she and Lester were remembering other times, better times. And this is true — it sounds corny — in the control room, Herridge, the producer, had tears in his eyes. So did the engineer. So did I. It was just extraordinarily moving. I think for all the times she sang this song, on records and in night clubs, this was the performance that I think meant the most to her, and it came through on "The Sound of Jazz."

CONSIDER that today, one might see the "art" of television as the world translated through the lens of a sports broadcast. The Sound of Jazz, and much of television back then, was the world as cinema.

It is an important distinction, and it's one that actually might say a lot about who we are . . . and who we used to be.

And if one is tempted toward the position that the free market -- commercial interests -- in every case is the best way of fostering cultural and societal excellence . . . think again. And think on this, from the Dec. 23, 1957 edition of Time:

"The blues to me," said hard-luck Singer Billie Holiday sipping a cup of coffee, "are like being very sad, very sick—and again, like going to church and being very happy. We've got to do right by the blues on TV, because the blues deserve the best." At air time, Billie sat on top of a bare stool and cuddled up to an old jazz-cult favorite, Fine and Mellow ("My man don't love me, he shakes me awful mean"), and did just dandy by the blues. And, for the balance of CBS's one-hour The Sound of Jazz, the art got what it has so long deserved: a TV showcase uncluttered by the fuss and furbelows that burden most musical telecasts. In the murky, smoke-choked studio, more than two dozen of the best jazz vocalists and sidemen worked through eight of the best jazz numbers with the kind of love, wonder, almost mystical absorption they usually summon up in the most free-wheeling jam sessions.

Soon after the show, however. Seven Lively Arts's producers heard a long, sad note from CBS. In spite of some artistic successes after a faulty start, Arts had wooed no sponsors in five weeks. So CBS decreed that on Feb. 16—after only ten of its projected 22 shows, and a loss of $1,250,000—Arts will close shop. Executive Producer John Houseman blamed the lack of sponsors partly on the critics, added: "But if you fail when you're doing something that's fun and good, it doesn't matter."

GREATNESS IS NOT a popularity contest. It is what it is, and profit is wholly unconcerned with quality, but instead with whatever folks will buy . . . for whatever reason.

Period.

We are called -- by a Savior, no less, who was murdered by popular demand -- to better than that. Enjoy the rest of the show.

3 Chords & the Truth: Cold comfort

With the weather being what it is as we roll into December on the Plains, consider this episode of 3 Chords & the Truth . . . cold comfort.

Here in Omaha, it got up to all of 26 degrees today. Right now, it's 18. Saturday, it might hit 40.

That will make it the "hot" day of the next week.

WHAT I'D RECOMMEND doing right now, if you're experiencing similar conditions, is putting on a kettle of water on the burner and some tea bags in the pot. Or perhaps some hot chocolate mix in your mug.

Then again, maybe it's just time to make a pot of fresh coffee.

As you curl up under something warm, it's your hot beverage of choice -- along with the music offered up on this edition of the Big Show -- that will keep you warm. That's what I call a game plan because, baby, it's cold outside.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Black coffee & blues

Whatever gets you through the night (or the day) is all right . . . is all right.

Lots of the time, it's coffee. Coffee made with love, patience and an old, old pot -- because it's better that way.

OTHER TIMES, it's the blues.

This week on 3 Chords & the Truth, however, we're putting together the blues with a little black coffee and seeing where it gets us. No doubt, somewhere that's all right . . . is all right.

Of course, there's lots of other tasty stuff on the Big Show this go around as well, so you'd just as well stick around and give it a listen. You just might have your horizons expanded amid the musical fun.

Well, that's about all for now. Go grab yourself a hot cup of joe and meet me back here at the Internet connection.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: On the folkways

All our bags are packed; we're ready to go.

We're standing here outside your door. And we've got a folk-flavored episode this week of 3 Chords & the Truth. Listen here . . . or listen via the player on this page.

The music world lost Mary Travers this week, and this sad passing seems an appropriate occasion to salute Peter, Paul and Mary -- and to shine the spotlight on the rich world of folk music.

So that's what we're doing on the Big Show this week . . . exploring the breadth and the beauty of the genre, with a focus on a group that put folk at the top of the charts in the 1960s. That group, of course, was Peter, Paul and Mary.

Peter Yarrow, Noel "Paul" Stookey and Mary Travers not only had their prominent place in a line of performers who comprised the "folk revival" of the late 1950s and early-to-mid '60s, but they also stood as great champions of a whole generation of singer-songwriters, from Gordon Lightfoot to John Denver to the great Bob Dylan.

THE TRIO had big hits with Dylan songs before Dylan himself did. Ditto for Lightfoot and Denver.

To be succinct, the trio recorded some of the sweetest music this side of the Pearly Gates, and the death of Mary Travers leaves a gaping void in American music.

One of the great tragedies of our denuded American culture these days is that you don't hear so much folk music on the radio. That's putting it mildly.

That's also a crime -- at least in the cultural sense. Tune in on the virtual radio here on the Internet, and let's see what we can do to remedy things. It's the least we can do . . . for Mary.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Who are we now?

Sometimes, you stumble upon stuff.

Sometimes, it can get you to thinking hard.

And, sometimes, you just have to stop and wonder "Who am I?"

Last spring's Baton Rouge High senior video (above) was something I stumbled upon this week. And it ended with something that hit home:

Remember, this is who we were.

Who will we become?

THIRTY YEARS of memories came flooding back. Thirty years ago, I was where last semester's seniors were. And the same questions were on our minds, too.

Thirty years on, I wonder.

Who was I?

Who did I become?

Indeed, who did we all become? Sounds like a theme for a set on 3 Chords & the Truth, the show where we're not afraid to look at such things. In a musical manner, of course.

It's the Big Show, and you can find it here. And here. And at the upper right-hand corner of the blog.

3 Chords & the Truth. Be there. Aloha.

AND Bob Meyers . . . rest in peace, buddy.

3 Chords & the Truth: Never ask a dog

This is what Scout, one of 3 Chords & the Truth's production assistants, thinks of this week's edition of the Big Show.

I had to ask.


THIS IS Scout reconsidering the matter when I asked him once more, in my "Do you ever want to eat again?" tone of voice, what he thought of this week's stellar episode of 3 Chords & the Truth.


SCOUT, having reconsidered the matter, agrees that the Mighty Favog has done a damn fine job on this week's show. He went on to say the show is as fine an example of contemporary freeform programming as one will find -- either on or off of the radio airwaves.

Furthermore, he thinks you should just download the show right now. Listen to it several times, even.

Good dog, Scout!

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

Treat, Scout? Treat!?!

3 Chords & the Truth: All funked up

Just in case you're not seeing my note very well, the upshot of it is this: Listen to 3 Chords & the Truth. It's good.

(Apologies to Barq's root beer for pilfering their advertising slogan.)

3 Chords & the Truth: My name is Mudd

A show like this can mean only one thing: My name is gonna be Mudd.

C'mon, I reference freakin' Hee-Haw, for pity's sake! I even assume people will remember the show . . . and Junior Samples' hilarious bits selling used cars. That number again: BR-549.

And then on 3 Chords & the Truth, we go on to play stuff by the band that took its name from Samples' Hee-Haw bits -- BR5-49.

IT'S NOT flippin' brain surgery. I am an idiot. I have outed myself as a gol-darned redneck. I had relatives who lived in the country.

In trailers.

Some still do.

And, oh, what's the point . . . I mean, what the hell. The Big Show is gonna end up being the no-show. OK, you want some truth with your three chords?

I'll give you truth. Whether or not you can handle it is another question.

I drink Schlitz . . . PBR is kind of pricey.

There. I've gone and done it now. My credibility is toast. I don't care.

So, if you care about as damn little as I do, give 3 Chords & the Truth a listen this week. It's the Big Show. Be there. Aloha.

HEY, Y'ALL! Watch thi. . . .

3 Chords & the Truth: It's summer!

This week, 3 Chords & the Truth sounds like summer.

There's a good reason for that -- it's summer (at least unofficially), and we're ready to bust out and celebrate summertime, summertime sum-sum-summertime.

So, given all that, this episode of the Big Show might be a good one to load onto the iPod and take to the pool. Or maybe you could plug it into a boom box and kick it "old school" at the campsite or at a picnic.

ALL YOUR NEIGHBORS will want to know what the cool show is on the radio. Except it's not the radio exactly. It's better than the radio . . . it's freeform, and HAL 9000 at MegaCorp Broadcasting don't know nothin' 'bout no freeform programming.

Really . . . does HAL 9000 know who Mose Allison is, even? Ella Fitzgerald? Dale Hawkins? Matthew Sweet? BillyBraggWarParliamentMarshallCrenshawDanleers ZacharyRichard?

We do. We play 'em all this week.

And we're having more fun than is legal in 27 states.

OK, here's our guarantee for this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth: If we don't blow your mind outright, we'll at least expand it. And if you don't like it, we'll give you your money back.

OF COURSE, the Big Show is free, but that's not important now. The important thing is it's summertime, and we're livin' large. It's the only way to go.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Open the door

What 3 Chords & the Truth is about, among other things, is opening the door to good music.

This week on the Big Show -- as is our standard practice -- we open that door wide, starting with a set all about doors. Tasty.

And once that door is open to all kinds of musical goodness, lots of amazing stuff comes storming (or should we say dancing?) through. Like Vienna Teng, who some years back found a higher calling than software (though if she'd like to help me with my @#%&!*$+! computers, I'd be ever so grateful).

ALSO THROUGH that open freeform door comes some beautiful sounds like Warren Zevon . . . and a luscious number by the Mamas and the Papas. Some classic country -- and some classic New Wave and punk. And swamp pop, aussi.

Gabba gabba hey, cher!

You want to know what "freeform" means? It means it's all good.

And good is what 3 Chords & the Truth is all about. Because the bad, we don't mess with.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: It's sweet!

Spring has sprung, and that's pretty sweet.

I can imagine that a lot of folks -- in the wake of a long, cold winter here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska -- would say the weather of late has been a perfect 10.

Sounds like a pretty good starting point for this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth to me. OK, let's make it official:

The Big Show this week is being brought to you by "Sweet!" and the number 10.

I COULD EXPOUND on that, but then you might not download 3 Chords & the Truth and hear for yourself what we're talking about. That, mon ami, would be a major faux pas.

Suffice it to say there's a lot of "sweet" -- and sweet -- music on this week's show, and that many might rate it as highly as Omaha's weather of late. I think that's a pretty strong way to come back into the swing of things after taking a week off due to . . . the flu.

But I'm feeling much better now. (John Astin, "Night Court," 1990-whatever.) And you will, too, after giving a listen to 3 Chords & the Truth.

Waits, Waits, it's Friday!

Tom Waits. The BBC. 1979. You bet.

Happy Friday, y'all. Solid.