Showing posts with label fusion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fusion. Show all posts

Friday, March 15, 2024

3 Chords & the Truth: Moonglow

When does "old people's music" become your music, too?

I think that happens in a couple of ways -- when you start playing it yourself, then something happens in your head and in your heart . . . and when you encounter magic in the night. Let's just call it "moonglow."

Or, more properly, "Moonglow."

That is what this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is all about. Let's go deeper, and I'll use my own experience to do that.

Big band was my parents' music, kind of like country, Lawrence Welk and Guy Lombardo. As a kid in the pre-digital age, I was force-fed three things on TV in the days of one or two TV sets in the house and just two channels in Baton Rouge. First, it was The Porter Wagoner Show. Second, The Lawrence Welk Show. Third, every Dec. 31, Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians counting down to the new year . . . also pre-digital.

OF COURSE, I was lucky to have grown up playing, and loving, the records bought by the younger version of my parents. We're talking jump blues, gut-bucket jump blues, Western swing, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers and Thin Elvis.

The "race music" thing and my racist parents? One of the many contradictions of the segregated South. If you try to make sense of it, you'll fail.

But . . . then came high school, and high-school radio.

Two of the shows I had to do as a student DJ at Baton Rouge High's FM station, WBRH, were the big-band show and the jazz show. I not only learned a lot (in some cases, painfully), but I also learned to love the music -- the music of the "old folks."  Go figure. Maybe the folks, in their own hidebound way, were planting seeds with all that forced viewing of Larry, et al.

And then, when I was in college at Louisiana State, I discovered Moonglow With Martin on WRKF public radio, which then was a brand-new thing in Baton Rouge -- broadcasting from a house trailer on Frenchtown Road. The late-night program was a continuation of something legendary disc jockey Dick Martin had been doing, on various stations around the country, since the early 1950s on clear-channel, 50,000-watt WWL in New Orleans.

Martin was a big-band and jazz DJ. He only played the good stuff -- the really good stuff. His show was, not to put too fine a point on it, magic. I missed out on his WWL show, and I was just a little kid when, after a stint in Kansas City, he brought it for a time to Baton Rouge's WJBO-FM in 1965. (Besides, who listened to FM in 1965? Apart from the folks in dentists' offices.)

Martin at WJBO, 1965 (Sunday Advocate)
BUT I DIDN'T miss Moonglow With Martin on public radio after 'RKF came to my cultural-wasteland of a hometown in 1980. Seriously, people, we didn't have public TV until 1975; WBRH was the city's first noncommercial radio station since WLSU-FM went under in 1957, a generation earlier. And we had only Channel 2 and Channel 9 until 1971, when we got an ABC affiliate, Channel 33.

And in the white, working-class world of my childhood, subversiveness was called SOOOOUL Train! But what about my parents' old race records? Do not try to square that circle; you will hurt yourself.

So, like my parents' old country and blues records, and the Top-40 and progressive FM rock of my growing-up years, Dick Martin's Moonglow With Martin is in most every episode of the Big Show. It is a marvelous mix of my youthful force-feedings, rebellion and . . . musical discovery.

If you want to know what 3 Chords & the Truth is, exactly, it's me. And maybe it's you, too.

Whatever the case, it's good. It's damned good. Thank you, Mr. Martin.

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

Saturday, June 19, 2021

3 Chords & the Truth: It's 100% fun

The Big Show is 100 percent fun, once you get used to it.

And, if you ask me, it's nice to get used to not hearing the same 100 songs -- if you're lucky -- over and over and over again on the radio. Then again, some folks just can't handle expanding one's mind . . . or one's horizons. 

Thanks for not being one of those people. Because you're here at 3 Chords & the Truth and not there. And, boy, are you gonna get some variety today.

There's not really anything more to say, is there? So let's get on with the Big Show. 

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

Saturday, January 30, 2021

3 Chords & the Truth: Too colorful?

This week on the Big Show,  we have a lot of cool music and a little straight talk.

There also may be a joke about public radio. Excuse me a second; I have to take a phone call.

Um hmm. Um hmm. Yes. Um hmm. Well, it was all in good f. . . .

Um hmm. Um hmm. I'm sorry you feel that way. Um hmm. Well . . . I think that's a bit of an overreaction.

Um hmm. Um hmm. No! Not that! A "Car Talk" marathon! C'mon! The one guy has been dead for years!

Um hmm. What? Surely you're not serious about a Tibetan throat singing retrospective. Complete liner notes for every selection?

Listen, what can I do to make things right?

Um hmm. Um hmm. OK, I think I can do that. Goodbye. 

IT SEEMS there's one more thing I have to do before we move ahead with this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth. Just a sec.

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

I will not make fun of public radio again. 

I will not make fun of public radio again.  

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

Saturday, January 23, 2021

3 Chords & the Truth: Well, THAT was close

Your Mighty Favog is back after an extended holiday break . . . who am I kidding?

It was a friggin’ sanity break. Let us just say it’s been a month, in the “Holy crap!” sense of the phrase.

You thought it was over with the election, didn’t you? But now we — after four horrible years — have a president not named Trump, one who shows all the signs of being competent, a normal human being . . . and not a deranged fascist. For that, 3 Chords & the Truth gives thanks.

We got here. But it was close. We got here, but only after multiple attempts to subvert the election, invalidate tens of millions of votes and — finally — overthrow Congress and torch the constitution in the name of despotism and white supremacy. Oh . . . and another impeachment for Donald, this time for ncitement of a deadly insurrection.

LIKE I SAID, it’s been a month. And through it all, the ‘rona still rages, and the body count now is well north of 400 thousand. And some still don’t think the virus is a real thing. And we safely can say that at least a third of the American population is stone-cold fascist with a deeply perverted sense of what it means to be an American. Or who is allowed to be fully American.

Yep, it’s been a month. Can’t say that too much, because it seems too unreal. Maybe that’s because we haven’t been paying enough attention the past couple of decades or so.

And here we are in this terribly broken country, still stalked equally by hatred and disease. We got rid of a wannabe despot but despotism remains a mortal threat — just like the coronavirus. Just like the lies too many of us accept as the gospel truth.

Joe Biden is president, and Donald Trump has reaped the whirlwind. The immediate threat has passed, but the larger threat remains. We have so much work to do.

Now, let's listen to some good music on the Big Show.

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

Friday, September 27, 2019

3 Chords & the Truth: The Now Sound?


The Now Sound?

This week, not so much. The newest selection is from 21 years ago. Old happens.

No, this edition of the Big Show is the "then sound," with music from wildly varying genres and several different "thens." Frankly, I like it that way. Increasingly, "now" is not something to which a sane man wishes to aspire.

"Now," we're at one another's throats. We as an American nation . . . aren't. We are as divided as we've been since Vietnam, and maybe since Fort Sumter. "Now," we are dry kindling, and we have a president splashing gasoline around and lighting matches.

TO "NOW" -- especially at the end of this particular Week of Pending Impeachment and Ongoing Denial and Excuse-Making -- 3 Chords & the Truth says "F*** that s***."

Pardon my pessimism and rejection of "now" this week. I came down with a nasty cold amid recording this week's edition of the Big Show, and I may have just had a toddy with orange juice, lemon juice, honey, Tabasco sauce . . . and three shots of grocery store bourbon.

If I can't get well soon, at least I won't care. But you have to endure my dark bluntness amid the damned fine music. Which definitely isn't "now."

It's from "then," when folks hated each other a bit less and hoped for the future a bit more. Good night and good luck.

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


Friday, January 19, 2018

3 Chords & the Truth: A light flickers in a dark land


The lights are out in Washington.

The lights grow ever dimmer across America. Darkness has come upon our land.

Screw that. Shine a light and push back the shadows of our demons and dysfunction.

Shine a light. Sing our songs. Listen to the music.

Screw Washington. Push back against the hatred and nativism and racism and anarchists in tailored suits.

Fight the power. Sing of the light amid the darkness. That's what we try to do on this -- and every -- episode of 3 Chords & the Truth. When we're doing that, even a little show can be the Big Show.

Word.

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


Friday, November 17, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: Drawing the line


There's a squiggly green line separating you from a world where you'd never know there once was a San Fransisco band called The Great Society, fronted by Grace Slick before . . . you know.

Before big things happened.

And you'd never know, on the other side of the squiggly green line, that the big Jefferson Airplane hit "Somebody to Love" once was "Someone to Love," the B-side of The Great Society's first (and only) single back in 1966.

No, you'd never know that on the far side of the squiggly green line. The squiggly green line is what 3 Chords & the Truth looks like before it gets to your ears -- and into your head.

It's a good thing to be on the right side of the squiggly green line.

It's a good thing to have the Big Show in your head. In your ears, too.

Who knows what surprises and what musical edification lies on the good side of the squiggly green line? Well, there's only one way to find out.

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


Saturday, November 11, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: The Kudzu Curtain


Your Mighty Favog escaped from one of the Southern -stans when he was a young man. Now he brings the best in music and information to the captive populations of his home region of the United States.

He brings young and old alike the world their governments censor. Free thought and a robust culture . . . with a beat.

This week, millions in the -stans on the American frontier will tune in to 3 Chords & the Truth for uncensored news and music -- the "in" sound from outside. Join the Big Show this week for a program of special interest to listeners in Alabamastan, "Jesus Don't Like Ugly . . . or What Don't You Get About Jailbait?"

Captive Bubbas may not be able to spell "freedom," but almost all can spell 3C&T. And that's enough to cut through the Kudzu Curtain just a little every day.

Freedom's as close as the Internet, and 'Bamastanis spell it 3C&T.

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

(Apologies to the Radio Free Europe PSAs of the 1970s.)


Saturday, November 04, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: The latest thing is overrated


You can follow the crowd, stand in line, empty your bank account and get a new iPhone X-tremely expensive.

Or, you can sit in your dwelling in a toasty houserobe -- or your drawers, I really don't care -- and listen to the new 2017 iAnachronism for absolutely, positively no cost whatsoever. And it will sound just fine on your iPhone 6.

But your iAnachronism -- 3 Chords & the Truth, to be technical -- will sound better if you feed your computer into your home stereo. Preferably an anachronistic one. They sound awesome.

As usual, eclecticism reigns on the Big Show this week, as does freeformity. That's an anachronistic word. Listen to the show to catch the meaning, which has something to do with excellence in music programming.

Is what we're saying.

Also this go around, we celebrate the life and music of Fats Domino. That's all I have to say about that.

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


Saturday, October 21, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: Hep to this jive . . . and that jive


This jive, that jive . . . we're hep to all that jive, Daddio. And Mama.

We live in a jive country in a jive world, and we're swingin' to some solid sounds on the Big Show this week -- and every week. What more can I say?

Well, I don't know, either.

So I guess we're cool on the content of the lil' hepcat hop we like to call 3 Chords & the Truth. Uh . . . we like to call it that, because that's its name.

But if you just want to call it the Serenade of Solid Sounds, you could do that, too. We're not picky.

Just so long as the good music drowns out the clunker notes of whatever lame tune the rest of the world is playing right now.

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


Saturday, October 14, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: God save the Welk


There's no future, no future, no future for Welk. Or is there?

That is the existential question we face this week on 3 Chords & the Truth.

The other day, if you've been hanging around these climes, you may have met Sheena. Sheena was a punk rocker. Now, Sheena's a mom with a problem.

As we learned then:
You've put safety pins in all the right places. Your hair is perfectly spiked. You have all your favorite punk rock albums in hand, and now you're heading for your brand-new Stereo Theater home-entertainment center.

And what do you find? Judy and little Jeffy are watching reruns of the
Lawrence Welk Show on public television. "F*@# THAT S#!%!" your mind is screaming as you set the LPs on the kitchen table and check on the popovers you've got in the Magic Maid oven.

It's a dilemma. You believe in your children's right to explore -- to
even embrace -- new ideas, no matter how bizarre or radical. Even when it's the Lawrence Welk Show. After all, you experimented with Welk back in high school, and it's not like you became an addict or anything. BUT . . . BUT . . . YOU JUST WANT TO SIT BACK AND LISTEN TO YOUR OLD CLASH AND SEX PISTOLS RECORDS, DAMMIT!

It Just Isn't. Fair.

You pensively tug on the safety pin in your cheek -- OUCH!-- as you
take a pull on your fifth of Early Times. There must be a reasonable way to untangle this musical disconnect threatening to pull apart your family.

And the ladies in the PTA definitely frown upon child murder.

What to do?
WELL, here's what you do. You listen to this week's edition of the Big Show. It is here that we bridge the gap, learn the young'uns and remind us old'uns about the central truth of this here program.

There's only two kinds of music: good and bad. The bad, we don't mess with.

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


Saturday, September 30, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: Listen here, not to the voices there


Listen, my friends.

I have something important to tell you.

Listen, my friends.

It's a matter of life and death.

Listen, my friends.

If you listen to the Big Show now . . .

Listen, my friends . . .

You won't be able to hear the voices in Himself's head.

Listen, my friends.

One thing's better than the others.

LISTEN, my friends.

And it's 3 Chords & the Truth out of Omaha.

Listen, my friends.

There's madness afoot in Washington and across the nation.


Listen, my friends.

It's important to drown it out.

Listen, my friends.


There's good music here, and only noise there.

Listen, my friends.


There's beauty in the songs.

Listen, my friends.


The noise surrounding us is so ugly.

Listen, my friends.

Music keeps it away.

Just listen, my friends. The sanity you save may be your own.


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


Saturday, September 09, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: Can't buy a break


We must have crossed our old man back in Oregon.

I hope somebody finds us alive.

It's been that kind of stretch in these United States. Got a case of dynamite. I could hold out here all night.


Yes, I crossed my old man back in Oregon. Been that kind of night.

And as hurricanes sit on us and spin, and fires burn and Washington won't take us alive . . . we cope the best we can. Come to think of it, a case of dynamite might. . . .

No, nix that. The Big Show ain't going there. I'll get a case of LPs, instead.

Good music will get us through it -- alive.

3 Chords & the Truth will get us through alive . . . and groovin'.

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


Sunday, August 27, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: Sanity music day


You ever take a "sanity sick day" at work?

Maybe you call it a "mental health day."

Maybe you never have taken such when life is getting you down. And maybe you did a few days in jail for punching a couple of people in the nose after they had the nerve to say "Good morning!"

Maybe you should have taken the voluntary sanity sick day instead of the involuntary soap-on-a-rope sojourn.

Well, we are down here in the 3 Chords & the Truth bunker here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska . . . and there's nowhere to run to when you're already in your hidey hole. Because it's crazy out there.

So, on this edition of the Big Show, we're doing the next best thing. This week, it's the musical equivalent of a mental health day.

I strongly advise you to take advantage of this Mental Health Edition of the program. Consider the alternative.

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


Sunday, August 20, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: State of emergency


This is 3 Chords & the Truth.

A state of civil emergency has been declared for your area of the United States of America.

We're in it deep now, bucko. And there doesn't seem to be a manual for how to handle a mess like this.

Repeat: A state of civil emergency has been declared for your area of the United States of America.

This is your emergency podcast, 3 Chords & the Truth. Stay tuned to this Internet frequency for further instructions. And music.

Much music will be found on the Big Show. Remain calm and listen to the best in music entertainment right here on your Internet dial.

Once again: A state of civil emergency has been declared for your area of the United States of America. This is 3 Chords & the Truth.

Be there. Aloha.

This is 3 Chords & the Truth.