3 Chords & the Truth: Yule love time travel!

 Do not adjust your TV set. It's 1963. There is no HD.

You'll have to settle for some great music instead. And the hi-fi equipment is kinda cool here, to tell you the truth.

So while we at 3 Chords & the Truth linger in Mid-Century Modernland, we'll take the opportunity to adjust the color wheel so it shines better onto the aluminum Christmas tree -- and we'll throw a few LPs on the phonograph while we do that.

Have you heard about this group of long-hairs that has the kids going crazy over in England? The Beatles, I think they are. Whatever. They can't even spell "beetles" right.

Geez Louise.

ANYWAY, we'll linger a while here a half century past before we venture elsewhere along the musical timeline. The Big Show will  even stop for a time in 1915.

Everywhere we stop, though, the music will be spiffy. That's our Christmas gift to you, the 3 Chords & the Truth listener.

Spiffy music also happens to be your Hanukkah gift, your Thanksgiving gift, your Easter gift, your Labor Day gift, your Fourth of July gift, your birthday gift and your "Hey! It's the weekend!" gift.

That's about all I have to say about that. The proof's much more in the listening, to tell you the truth.

So, go listen. There's links to the Big Show here, there and everywhere. And audio players, too. Really, you can't miss it.

THAT'S a good thing, because missing it would be a crime.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Alo-ho-ho-ho-ha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Treasures for a winter's eve

You ever wonder from whence all this fine music on 3 Chords & the Truth comes?

You do? I'm glad you axed. Sorry, "asked." You can take the boy out of south Louisiana. . . .

Well, much of the music on the Big Show, I've been collecting since I was a kid. Some was my parents, particularly some especially tasty 78 RPM records. Other stuff was other people's tuneful treasures that ended up in antique stores, the used-record bins at various music stores . . . and on sale for 99 cents at the local Goodwill.

One treasure featured on this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth was in the collection of the parents of a dear friend since our days at Baton Rouge High School, taken from a real album -- an album of several 78s, which is why we call multitrack records or CDs "albums" even today. The song is "Embraceable You" from the "Strictly From Dixie" album released in 1942 by Henry Levine's Strictly From Dixie Jazz Band, featured on a regular program on NBC radio, The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street.

It's also an album that never was later released on an LP, much less a CD.

The popularity of the radio show on the NBC Blue Network might be why my friend Doug LeBlanc's mother, Janice, had the album. She still had it when she died earlier this year at age 87, which is how I came to possess it and how you're hearing some of it on the Big Show this week -- Doug sent it and another 78 album to me when he and his brother cleaned out Janice's house.

MUSIC IS special on its own accord, but it also is special because of the love people have for it. The feelings, thoughts and memories it evokes in us. In honoring music, we acknowledge that we matter -- matter apart from what we do, how much we earn or what status we have attained.

By honoring vintage music, of which we play our share on 3 Chords & the Truth, I think we also honor those upon whose shoulders we stand -- those who lived and struggled and loved before us. We Catholics refer to those souls as "the communion of saints," who are not gone but are with us still.
 
They may have passed from this world to the next, but the best parts of them live on here in blessed memory and in our hearts. And what they knew . . . what they loved also can be part of what we know and what we love.

Christmas is coming upon us fast, a time of the year when our thoughts turn to those we love and times gone by. I think this show -- indeed, most episodes of the Big Show -- are right nice listening for a cold winter's night, "when all through the house not a creature (is) stirring, not even a mouse."

It is then when we cab be alone with our thoughts, with our memories, and with our dreams. And we can be alone with the music, the music of our lives . . . and that of the communion of saints.

THAT'S WHY I do this show, and that's why no decent "radio" program is just a radio program, even if it's on the Internet and not the airwaves.  I guess I could have said this on the show this week, but then it would have run a even longer than it already has, which would be a wee bit longer than  normal. But I didn't, so I'm saying it now.

Because it's worth saying.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there.  Alo-ho-ho-ho-ha.

3 Chords & the Truth: Boom goes the dynamite!

This week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth came this close to ending life as we know it on Earth.

And with just a little less skill by Yours Truly, it would have. Instead, it merely will blow your mind.

That quite the claim for the Big Show. But it's true. A couple of things happen on this week's program that -- and words fail here, but this is an approximation -- boggle the mind.

Consider, for example, Waylon Jennings covering. . . . No, you just have to hear it to still not believe it.

And then there's the transition from Chicago to. . . . No, you wouldn't believe it if I told you. The proof is in the slack-jawed hearing.

JUST CONSIDER it all a Thanksgiving treat from 3 Chords & the Truth to you. A bit of blown mind to go with your turkey and pumpkin pie.

It's what we do.

All it's going to take is your complete cooperation, absolute secrecy and 20 live turkeys.

IT ALSO is just more proof -- as if you needed it -- that you never know what's coming next on the podcast that takes freeform radio to a whole new level of "WOW!" and wonderment.

And that's all I have to say about that. Really, you have to hear it for yourself to grasp the musical possibilities.

Just remember our motto: There's only two kinds of music -- good and the stuff we don't play.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Musical antifreeze

Somebody stuck most of the country in the deep freeze.

And Omaha hasn't been even close to freezing in days -- as in "32 degrees would be a vast impr-pr-pr-pr-provement." It's supposed to start snowing again shortly.

Old Man Winter done kicked autumn's butt. We are so not amused when it's only mid-November.

So . . . what to do? What to do?

WELL, DUH.  What you do is turn up the heat, make yourself a piping-hot beverage, curl up under a blanket and listen to the comforting, warm sounds of 3 Chords & the Truth. If this here music program can't warm your soul and circulate your blood, your next conversation probably will be with St. Peter.

Good luck with that. No . . . really.

Assuming, however, that you indeed are still with us, there is no better time to treat yourself to yet another episode of the Big Show. It's another stellar effort, of course, and with the weather the way it is, you need to treat yourself.

Because eventually you will have to go outside.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Big noise from Omaha

There's a big noise coming from Omaha, and we call it 3 Chords & the Truth.

It's a good kind of noise.

It's the good kind of noise that once came from your radio -- remember those? -- although, to be fair, you usually would have had to go through several stations to compile the mind-blowing musical diversity of the Big Show.

Let's put it simply, 3 Chords & the Truth is the good kind of noise that doesn't just talk about musical diversity but delivers it.  Big time.

CUE broken record, which I'm probably sounding like here. But that fact needs repeating, because the fact in your ear is the this little show with the big sound is the kind of thing you don't come across often when your searching for tunes . . . either on the radio or across the Internet.

What took many of us years to discover in a much less atomized popular culture is at the heart of every episode of the Big Show. Namely, it's all good.

That and, of course, as the old saying goes, "Variety is the spice of life."

And of a little podcast that's making a big noise out here on the Great Plains.

THAT'S ALL for now, because you need to be spending your time listening to the show instead of reading about the show. So listen already, will you?

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Music by the book

I just wanted you to know that we will be doing things by the book on this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.

We at the Big Show consider the book to be of paramount importance.

That is why we do things by the book. No deviation. No freelancing. No screwing around. . . .

At 3 Chords & the Truth, our guiding manuscript is orthodoxy in the praxis of musical presentation. That praxis is outlined in The Book.

By which we do things.

You will hear a variety of music presented in a way consistent with The Book.

Carefully presented.

THE AIM here is a consistent presentation of musical selections, designed to avoid -- WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!! -- undue surprised to the listener -- WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! -- base, as outlined in Our Guiding Manuscript.

We thought you ought to know this before embarking on the musical journey that is this (and every) week's edition of the Big Show. Teacher, is this 250 words yet?

Oh, yes. This, by the way, is The Book:

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Mix 'n' match music

What do you get when you cross Grace Slick with Doris Day?

The Moody Blues with Woody Herman?

Modern English with Jackie Gleason?

Nat "King" Cole with the O'Jays?

16 Candles with Young at Heart?

WHAT happens when you're facing down the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man and you cross the friggin' musical streams?

Well, I guess you'll have to listen to this edition of 3 Chords & the Truth to find out, now, won't you? After all, the Big Show may be many things, but boring ain't one of them.

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

Hey, Favog! What's fer listenin'?

Click on the playlist for a larger version

This.

That's what we're playing on this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth, coming to your preferred media player before you know it.

It's not our normal practice to tip our musical hand like this, but your amazement at how the Big Show pulls this one off will not be lessened by foreknowledge. He says humbly.

Tune in. Turn on. Freak out.

3 Chords & the Truth: Eine kleine nachtmusik

This week, it's just you and me and the music in the night.

A funny thing happens when you're burning the midnight oil to get another edition of 3 Chords & the Truth in the can. Or on the Internets, as the case may be.

In the middle of the night, just like listening to all-night radio way back when, it's just different. Quieter. You're alone with your thoughts. You're alone with the disc jockey playing the music . . . assuming there is a DJ and not a computer server at the helm.

You're alone with the music. In the quietude of the night, where the world seems to give you a little more space -- a little breathing room. This can be a good thing.

It also can be a bad one.

MAYBE you're listening -- or will listen -- to this edition of the Big Show in the still of the night. This, I would recommend highly.

Maybe, though, you'll hear this 3 Chords & the Truth in the light of day. That's OK, too. A little less magical, but just fine nevertheless. But however or whenever you're listening, I hope the music both expands your horizons and touches your heart.

If you're listening in the dusky stillness, I hope it leaves you good thoughts to be alone with. I hope therein you discover magic -- the magic of you and the night and the music.

Big Show music. That's always a good thing.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: We got more

More.

We at 3 Chords & the Truth have "more" covered.

More music. As in about 19,500 more songs you're likely to hear here than over on Brand X.

More variety. I just came up with a phrase to beat into the ground like Brand X beats the same 450 songs into the ground -- controlled eclecticism. At the Big Show, we have quite the eclectic playlist, but it's not like we're throwing any old thing out there willy nilly. No, we have a plan.

More interesting. Listen to this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth, and that will become self explanatory.

MORE STUFF you're just not going to hear anywhere else. More stuff that never got released on compact disc. More old vinyl than anywhere else.

More better, if less grammatical. See the "more interesting" item above.

Like I said, we have "more" covered on the Big Show. What more can we say?

Oh, wait. There's this:

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

That's a lot of music

20,012.

That's how many songs are in the 3 Chords & the Truth music library at this moment. And we're adding more virtually every day.

Now, tell me. Where else are you going to find a show, radio station or whatever with a section of tunes like that?

You want to know something else? That's just a fraction of what we have here in the Revolution 21 studios, which is growing more crowded with old LPs and less-old CDs (etc., and so on) all the time.

LPs waiting to join the library

I don't think the music on the Big Show is going to be getting stale or overplayed any time soon.

So it's back to the stacks of vinyl and CDs and reel-to-reel tapes and MP3 files and 45s. Because 20,012 just isn't enough.

3 Chords & the Truth: Buy a damn belt

If you have your "pants on the ground, pants on the ground, lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground" this edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is not for you.

Then again, none of them really are. Goodbye, and belts are found at many area retailers.

Now, if your pants are at a proper height on your waist and you're not standing at a bus stop rapping along badly with the MP3 on your smart phone, with every other word being motherf*****, then this show might be for you. And you might be just the clientele we've been looking for here at the Big Show.

MIND YOU, not lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground -- or badly rapping profane lyrics in public -- isn't that high a bar, but you have to start somewhere.

Likewise, when radio hardly is worth listening to anymore, MTV no longer plays videos (and you're kinda thanking God for that), and our entire culture is in the throes of a massive cerebral hemorrhage, you have to start somewhere.

Welcome to 3 Chords & the Truth.

We're all about good music -- of whatever genre -- thoughtfully presented. That and having some fun in the process. This week's episode is no exception as we delve deeply into the American songbook, into jazz and into some surprises that fit in amazingly well with all of the above.

THAT'S our modus operandi on the Big Show, where we're reclaiming American culture one song at a time. Hope you'll join in the fight.

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

Be there. 

Aloha.

Pearls among the online swine

The Internet is a land of treasures and trash. Mostly trash, it seems, most of the time.

Slutty trash. Angry trash. Snarky trash. More angry trash. More snarky, angry trash.

Seems to me that living life online as we do today can be like eating Gummy Bears for breakfast, lunch and supper -- it might be rather satisfying at the time, but. . . .


WELL, this ain't that. Pete Seeger's mid-'60s, low-budget show, taped in glorious black and white at a little UHF station in New York, is a treasure lurking amid the trash. It's meat and potatoes in a Gummy Bear online world.

How can it possibly get any better than sitting around the kitchen table with Johnny Cash and June Carter, swapping stories and playing music? How can it possibly get any better than sitting in the living room with Revon Reed, keeper of Louisiana's Cajun culture and the French language when the odds were stacked against it amid a tide of assimilation at les mains des americains just as Seeger was a keeper of American culture amid a rising tide of materialism and superficiality.

And not only that. Irony also comes a' callin' in the meeting of Messrs. Reed and Seeger.

YOU SEE, one of the saviors of Cajun culture in south Louisiana was, by profession, an English and chemistry teacher. Cajun music and his weekly radio show from Fred's Lounge in Mamou, those were his hobbies. The keeper of what was most authentically American, meanwhile, was blacklisted for years for allegedly being "un-American."

Uh huh.

Eventually,  the forces of "Americanism" left Pete Seeger alone after growing bored by red-baiting. Eventually, they moved on to more fertile fields . . . like doing their part to f*** up the Internet.

3 Chords & the Truth: Favog! Favog!

Omaha! Omaha!

That's all we've been hearing lately, thanks to the buzz, the meme and the hype over Peyton Manning's favorite snap-count indicator.

The Broncos' quarterback has started something, and it ain't in "Denver! Denver!"

It's in "Omaha! Omaha!"  The city 3 Chords & the Truth calls Home! Home!

I WONDER whether the Denver chamber of commerce is as Pissed! Pissed! as ours is Pleased! Pleased!

Mr. Berman, we're ready for our close-up.

On its face, this has nothing to do with this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth, which is as good a music show as Archie's baby boy is a pro quarterback. Except. . . .

The Big Show -- especially this week, being we're all rejuvenated after a post-holiday break -- is so bleedin' good, I think it's only reasonable that Peyton (contra "Omaha! Omaha!") ought to be checking to "Favog! Favog!"

YOU SAY I'm an egomaniac. I say I'd be saving the Denver QB two precious syllables every time. That could be the difference between a touchdown and a delay of game penalty. Think about it.

And while you're thinking about the wisdom of my words, why don't you download this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth? I guarantee you'll be just as blown away as the average defensive coordinator trying to figure out how to stop Peyton Manning on a Sunday afternoon.

Tune in to Omaha! Omaha! when it's Music! Music! you love, because that's where you'll find little ol' me and the Big Show.

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

I'll do my crying in the rain

From the day I was old enough to put a 45 onto a phonograph platter and a needle into a record groove, the Everly Brothers have been part of the soundtrack of my life.

Some years before that, the siblings -- who first hit the airwaves on KMA radio in Shenandoah, Iowa, about 70 miles down the road from where I write -- made themselves a linchpin not just of rock 'n' roll, but also of something culturally more expansive. From the Los Angeles Times obituary:

Phil Everly, who with his brother, Don, made up the most revered vocal duo of the rock-music era, their exquisite harmonies profoundly influencing the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Byrds and countless younger-generation rock, folk and country singers, has died. He was 74.

Everly died Friday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his wife, Patti Everly, told The Times.

"We are absolutely heartbroken," she said, noting that the disease was the result of a lifetime of cigarette smoking. "He fought long and hard."

During the height of their popularity in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Everly Brothers charted nearly three dozen hits on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, among them "Cathy's Clown," "Wake Up Little Susie," "Bye Bye Love," "When Will I Be Loved" and "All I Have to Do Is Dream." They were among the first 10 performers inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when it got off the ground in 1986.

"They had that sibling sound," said Linda Ronstadt, who scored one of the biggest hits of her career in 1975 with her recording of "When Will I Be Loved," which Phil Everly wrote. "The information of your DNA is carried in your voice, and you can get a sound [with family] that you never get with someone who's not blood related to you. And they were both such good singers — they were one of the foundations, one of the cornerstones of the new rock 'n' roll sound."

Robert Santelli, executive director of the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, said Friday, "When you talk about harmony singing in the popular music of the postwar period, the first place you start is the Everly Brothers.... You could say they were the vocal link between all the 1950s great doo-wop groups and what would come in the 1960s with the Beach Boys and the Beatles. They showed the Beach Boys and the Beatles how to sing harmony and incorporate that into a pop music form that was irresistible."

(snip)

Vince Gill, the 20-time Grammy-winning country singer and guitarist, said in an interview with The Times on Friday: "I honestly believe I've spent the last 40 years, on every record I've been part of for somebody else, trying to be an Everly. On every harmony part I've sung, I was trying to make it as seamless as Phil did when he sang with Don. They had an unfair advantage — they were brothers — but I've spent my whole life chasing that beautiful, beautiful blend."

AND WHEN YOU have that kind of impact on those who follow -- when you can transcend mere celebrity and touch something so deep inside so many -- something happens that leaves the word "profound" wildly insufficient as an adjective.

When you connect on that level . . . first with an individual and then another, and another, and another, and then scores upon scores more . . . and then you work your way into the conversation that is culture . . . and then those whose souls you first touched begin to reach out. . . .


THEN you live forever, even though you someday die.

Phil Everly is dead. Long live Phil Everly.

3 Chords & the Truth: Hat trick

 
Fedoras: Is there anything they can't do?

If you could boil down the latest edition of 3 Chords & the Truth to a single, pithy sentence, that might be it. And right about . . . now . . . you're saying "HUH?"

Let's just say that on the Big Show this week, there's a lot of stuff dating to back when men wore hats. Hell, there's even a song on the program about "When Everyone Wore Hats." Music sure was good when hats were way cool.

Speaking of way cool, French pop music from the '50s and '60s may have been equaled from time to time, but never bested. Yeah, we have some of that this week, too.

Just listen to the gol dang show, will 'ya? In your heart, you know I'm right.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: The listening room

Long ago and (seemingly) far away -- during a time when vinyl ruled the world and the Internet was the Inter . . . WHAT? -- we had things called "music listening rooms," found in college unions and public libraries, and sometimes these things we called "record stores."

There, you'd find a central file of LPs, phonographs and speakers or headphones in little rooms with comfortable chairs . . . and people. Listening to music. Discovering music. Enjoying the latest sounds or rediscovering old favorites.

These were happy places -- relaxing places -- filled with music and the joy thereof.

I'D LIKE to think that's exactly what 3 Chords & the Truth is, only online and digitized for modern times. Pandora and the like are kind of like that, only on the Big Show, you have someone -- an actual human and not a computer server -- curating the whole thing for you. Turning you onto things you might not have thought about. Putting music together in ways that might not have occurred to you.

Or anyone. Because your Mighty Favog marches to the beat of a different drummer. Preferably Gene Krupa. Or Ringo Starr.

Maybe Buddy Miles.

AS LAGNIAPPE, I'm sort of like the "fun" uncle your parents warned you about. "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood."


There's a rock song for everything, you know. Or at least close enough for government work. Let the reader understand.

Anyway, that's what 3 Chords & the Truth is all about, this week and every week. This week, likewise, you mind is liable to be blown. In a good and educational way, of course.

So, ignore what your parents have told you about me and the Big Show. They're probably listening to that Foreigner album for the umpteenth time. Or the Worst of Fabian album they ordered after watching that K-Tel TV commercial in 1974.

Your Mighty Favog, he uses vinyl for good and not for evil.

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

3 Chords & the Truth: Name It and Claim It

It's time for "Name It and Claim It" on the Big Show!

If you're the first caller at Dickens 2-411 who can tell me the song featuring the following lyrics, I'll hook you up with a free episode of 3 Chords & the Truth -- free . . . absolutely free.
 
That's all there is to it, and if you buzz me off when you hear the busy signal, you will be the big winner of the latest episode of the Big Show. 

You ready?

Here we go! Mr. Music, please -- the lyrics to our mystery song on 3 Chords & the Truth!

I know a guy who's tough but sweet
He's so fine, he can't be beat
He's got everything that I desire
Sets the summer sun on fire

I want candy, I want candy

Go to see him when the sun goes down
Ain't no finer boy in town
You're my guy, just what the doctor ordered
So sweet, you make my mouth water

I want candy, I want candy

Candy on the beach, there's nothing better
But I like candy when it's wrapped in a sweater
Some day soon I'll make you mine,
Then I'll have candy all the time

I want candy, I want candy
I want candy, I want candy

REMEMBER, if you're the first to give me a shout at Dickens 2-411, you will be the big winner on Name It and Claim It . . . and the proud owner of a brand-new episode of this program. Good luck!

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

3 Chords & the Truth: This week's show, explained

What do you get when you love music? 

A station with a pin to burst your bubble,
That's what you get for all your trouble,
I'll try 3 Chords & the Truth!
I'll try 3 Chords & the Truth!

What do you get when you want some tunes?
You get enough crap to fertilize a garden
You're in it hip deep but can't grow a begonia
I'll try 3 Chords & the Truth! 
I'll try 3 Chords & the Truth! 

DON'T TELL me what it's all about,
I've switched off FM, and I'm glad that I'm out 
Out of that junk, that junk that slimes you 
That is why I'm here to remind you 

What do you get when you give your heart?
You turn on the radio, and your mind gets battered 
That's what you get, your ears are shattered, 
I'll try 3 Chords & the Truth!   
Out of that junk, that junk that slimes you 
That is why I'm here to remind you

What do you get when you fall in love? 
You only get noise and pain and sorrow 
So for all my tomorrows
I'll try 3 Chords & the Truth! 
I'll try 3 Chords & the Truth!  

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