On the other hand, the music on this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is so good that it just might cockle your doodle do. That's a funny, boy! I say . . . I say, I made a funny! What's wrong with you, boy?! Cat got your sense of humor?!? I say, that's another funny, boy!
SORRY, the weather's been so bad this week, we're all a little loopy. So, on the Big Show, we decided to have a little dance party to cheer ourselves up. But you'd better be versatile if you want to join in -- just a word to the wise. And we're also going to have the mother of all Beatles-covers sets. Really, you'll want to hear this. Other than that, I got nothing else to add -- other than a giant rooster. That is all. It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
And we're back . . . This is the first new3 Chords & the Truth episode since January, when the Big Show was being produced on an old PC that went BRRRRRRRT -- no, Beano isn't for electronics, alas -- in an overcrowded studio that really needed a facelift. So, it got a facelift. And a new iMac. With new software. And some paint. And a lot of uncluttering. And we're feeling groovy now.
YES, LIFE ONthe Big Show front is good, and so is the music. Well, that's one thing that didn't change -- the good music. It would have been a bloody shame to do all that remodeling work for the sake of sucky tunes. Am I making any sense here? Exhaustion, don't you know? So check out this brand-new episode of our studio-fresh music extravaganza while I enjoy the new digs here. And maybe take a nap. It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
When I was a kid in south Louisiana, there were Barq's advertising signs all over the countryside. They all said the same thing:
Drink Barq's. It's Good. The perfect slogan -- a call to action plus the perfect rationale. Plus, Barq's was good. Still is. Well, you just as well could apply the same slogan to this week's delicious episode of 3 Chords & the Truth -- the Revolution 21 music podcast. You just as well could apply it to every episode of the Big Show. So I will. Listen to 3 Chords & the Truth. It's Good. And it's right here. It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
"The hippest trip in America" is no more, and now the hippest tripper, Don Cornelius, is dead by his own hand.
Our present sadness keeps giving folks reasons to really miss the Seventies. I'm even starting to miss the clothes -- at least the kind of threads one might see on Soul Train.
Listen, I'm a white guy from the Deep South, born in the year of our Lord Jim Crow, Nineteen Hundred and Sixty-One. In the early '70s as they existed in my corner of the world, could there have been a more subversive -- wonderfully, funkily, groovily, terrifyingly (to some) subversive -- program on television?
If 1973 had been 1963 and Baton Rouge had been Birmingham, a TV transmitter would have been blowed up good.
It was the Godfather of Soul's first appearance on Cornelius' then-nascent syndicated TV show — designed to do for soul music and black audiences what American Bandstand had long done for pop music and mainstream audiences. Brown marveled at the professionalism of the production, the flawlessness of its execution.
He turned to Cornelius and asked, "Who's backing you on this, man?"
"It's just me, James," Cornelius answered.
Brown, nonplused, acted as if Cornelius didn't understand the question. He asked it two more times, and Cornelius answered twice again: "It's just me, James."
That the man who wrote the song "Say It Loud — I'm Black and I'm Proud" and who recorded the soundtrack to the Black Power movement could scarcely comprehend that a black man like Cornelius both owned and helmed this kind of enterprise without white patronage is a testament to the magnitude and the improbability of Cornelius' achievements.
Once upon a time, Walt Whitman could write this -- I Hear America Singing:
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
I THINK, when you distill all that besets up on this Independence Day of 2010, it comes down to this one thing.
We're having trouble remembering the tune.
The tune that America was singing. Anyway, that's what's on my mind for this holiday edition of the Big Show. Your mileage may vary.
There's some other stuff -- amazing stuff -- in there as well this week, so you really don't want to miss what we're up to as you go about whatever it is you're up to for the Fourth.
Diese Woche auf 3 Chords & die Wahrheit, könnte man sagen, dass wir mit einem musikalischen Turmbau zu Babel.
Musik aus aller Welt, die alle durch die Jahrzehnte, die alle in verschiedenen Sprachen. Nur nicht Englisch ist.
Das ist so ziemlich das Spiel für das erste Drittel des Big Show -- und es ist ein guter. Du wirst sehen. . . oder vielmehr zu hören. Einfach zuhören, OK?
QUESTA SETTIMANA il 3 Chords & la Verità, si potrebbe dire che siamo dotate di una torre di Babele musicale.
Musica da tutto il mondo, tutto attraverso i decenni, tutti in lingue diverse. Solo, non in inglese.
Questo è esattamente il piano di gioco per il primo terzo del Big Show -- ed è un buon compromesso. Vedrai. . . o, meglio, sentire. Basta ascoltare, OK?
DENNA VECKA på3 Chords & Sanningen kan man säga vi featuring en musikalisk Babels torn.
Musik från hela världen, alla genom årtionden, alla i olika språk. Bara inte engelska.
Det är ganska mycket i spelet planen för första tredjedelen av Big Show - och det är en bra en. Du kommer att se. . . eller snarare höra. Lyssna bara, okej?
ESTA SEMANA, el 3 de Acordes y la Verdad, se podría decir que estamos con una torre de Babel musical.
Música de todo el mundo, a lo largo de las décadas, todos en lenguas diferentes. Simplemente no Inglés.
Eso es más o menos el plan de juego para el primer tercio del Big Show -- y es una buena idea. Ya lo verás. . . o, mejor dicho, oír. Sólo escucha, ¿OK?
CETTE SEMAINE sur les3 Accords et la Vérité, vous pourriez dire que nous sommes dotées d'une tour de Babel musicale.
Musique de partout dans le monde, tout au long des décennies, le tout dans des langues différentes. Juste pas l'anglais.
C'est à peu près le plan de match pour le premier tiers du Grand Spectacle -- et c'est une bonne chose. Vous verrez. . . ou, plutôt, d'entendre. Il suffit d'écouter, OK?
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'm not messing with you people anymore. Either listen to3 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.
We may reside nowhere near them anymore, but we have our touchstones.
The things that make us who we are. The things that remind us who, and what, we are.
And sometimes we lose them. Sometimes -- for the love of money or whatever the hell else -- somebody destroys them.
Places . . . things . . . cultures are destroyed just because we humans can do it. That's what we do. We tear up stuff.
And people. I'VE BLOGGEDplenty about the latest calamity befalling my home state, Louisiana. It's tearing me up, and I'm half a continent away. Want to know what it's like to suspect you mail hail from the lost continent of Atlantis? Buy me a few beers, and I'll try to tell you.
That's what this edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is all about. I don't belabor the point this week -- that would make for entertaining radio, right? -- but that's what the show is mostly about.
I'm hopeful the music will speak for itself.
SO . . . that's the rundown on the latest episode of the Big Show. I'm betting that making a point, and venting via music, still can be entertaining. You be the judge.
The following cautionary tale is brought to you by the Internet's finest music podcast, 3 Chords & the Truth.
Ready? Here you go:
Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been Lives in a dream Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door Who is it for?
SO SAD. So sad. It seems to me the quality of poor Eleanor's dream could have been enhanced by regular downloading of the Big Show.
All the lonely people Where do they all come from? All the lonely people Where do they all belong?
WHERE DO all the lonely people come from? Obviously from that bitter and antisocial place where 3 Chords & the Truth is not a weekly part of one's life.
That prospect is depressing enough to turn anybody into a sad hermit.
Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear No one comes near. Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there What does he care?
HELLO? FATHER? Nobody is listening to your sermons because they're booorrrrrrriiinnng! Really, if you listened to 3 Chords & the Truth, you'd be much happier, and I am sure there's scientific research somewhere pointing out that listening to good music increases the effectiveness of sermon writing 110 percent.
Get with the program, Fadda! Listen to the Big Show and quit being such a prig.
All the lonely people Where do they all come from? All the lonely people Where do they all belong?
Ah, look at all the lonely people Ah, look at all the lonely people
YEAH, YEAH, YEAH . . . been over all that. Yadda yadda yadda.
Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name Nobody came Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave No one was saved
WELL, that's just sadder than hell. And such a waste, too.
It could have been avoided with something as simple as a weekly dose of 3 Chords & the Truth. Proven effective in combating the boredom that causes priggishness, a leading cause of loneliness.
All the lonely people Where do they all come from? All the lonely people Where do they all belong?
UH HUH, uh huh. Yeah, yeah. Heard that, haven't we? Move along, nothing new here. Just listen tothe Big Show, and all will be well.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
It's as simple as that. Just being. No big message, no overriding machination to the conglomeration . . . just being.
EXISTING in the moment. Taking life -- and the Big Show -- as it comes, and enjoying the moment.
It's the Memorial Day weekend, and it seems to me that Memorial Day, and all it stands for, is as good a time as any to just be. And be content. And grateful.
But mainly just being. There.
I mean, I'm no Chance the Gardener -- well, maybe I'm kind of close to Chance the Gardener, except that nobody listens to me -- but that's what I have to say as we ease on into summer. With 3 Chords & the Truth . . . and the music.
and even give us reason to be But through it all -- if we look -- we just might discover
That, in a musical sense, is some of what we cover this week on 3 Chords & the Truth. Well, that and some good ol' rockabilly (and fusion-y prog rock, too).
Ah, screw it. I just phoned it in this week. Deal.
EVEN THOUGH I phoned the Big Show(Medium-Sized Show?) in, the music still is pretty decent . . . probably. Whatever. Hope you like country. Then again, it's all the same to me.
'Cause I just phoned it in.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. (Or not . . . like I care this week.) Aloha.
I was intrigued by this Upbeat show, so I did a little investigating on the Internets. Originated at WEWS, Channel 5 in Cleveland. Ran from 1964 to 1971 and was hosted by Don Webster, who it seems is a legend in the rock 'n' roll city.
AND THE ACTSUpbeat featured. . . . Oh, my goodness. Upbeat, as a matter of fact, was Otis Redding's last TV appearance before his death in a plane crash.
I think I'm an Upbeat fan now. All hail Don Webster!
And I am sure The Funkadelic is of a like mind. The Funkadelic. Has a ring to it.