. . . big speakers.
Really big speakers.
For that matter, if you're an audiophile, this week's 3 Chords & the Truth might be a hell of a way to test out that new setup you've been bragging to people about. Play it loud. Play it proud.
And if someone calls the cops, my work here is done.
Actually, that's not true. My work here is done if your neighbors come rushing over to ask you about that wonderful music you're listening to . . . loud.
I GUARANTEE there's one part of the show that will give your goosebumps goosebumps. You'll be amazed at what you're hearing, and at the incredible -- and incredibly unlikely -- mix of music. Note well, however: It's only unlikely before you think about it a minute, or if you don't listen to the Big Show much.
For regulars, it makes perfect sense. That's freeform radio for you -- even if its on the Internet.
OK, I'm done teasing you for now with this foray into high-fidelity click bait. Click on the links to the show . . . or on one of the embedded players for the show . . . and you'll hear the Big Show, and all will be well with the world.
And your curiosity.
It really is amazing, though.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Rock on, Beethoven, and tell Chuck Berry the news.Rock on, Beethoven! Rock on, Beethoven!
Rock on Beethoven, and tell Chuck Berry the news.
The news is that this week on 3 Chords & the Truth, classical music isn't just for the stuck up, the snooty and the hopelessly square. I mean . . . in case you haven't noticed, some of your favorite rock bands have deep classical roots.
Likewise, some of your favorite rock icons have composed some nice classical pieces. We're talking about you, Sir Paul.
So who says you can't play classical music along with everything else in our little musical stew? Not me, because here we go . . . an entire set about how the classics can dig those rhythm and blues.
IN OTHER WORDS, rock on, Beethoven! Rock on Beethoven!
Rock on, Beethoven, and tell Chuck Berry the news.
You know, that's a lot to chew on for one episode of the Big Show. But here's the thing: That's only about a third of this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth.
And here's the other thing: If you want to find out what the other excellent two-thirds of the program is . . . you need to click somewhere to stream or download the Big Show, because I ain't spilling the beans on nothing else.
So there.
That is all.
For now.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Y'ever watch Mad Men?
You remember the episode when button-down, Madison Avenue, gimme-a-bourbon-and-a-girl, 1960s ad exec Roger Sterling dropped some acid?
This ePisode of 3 CHORdS & THE tRuTh iS kiNd OF lIKe ThAt, maN!
It's a mInd-blowING exPeRIEnCe! It's OUTTA SIGhT! It's gettiNg farther OUT, Man!
GrOovY!
You know?
ANYWAY . . . this episode of the BIG SHOW is GUARANTEED to, lIkE, TOTALLY blow your mind, MaN!!!
So, take a piece of paper. Write your name and address on it. Say you've been listening to the Big Show. Then write "Please Help Me."
Now, pin the note to your shirt.
I say, now, pin the note to your shirt. Now, pin the note to your shirt. Now, pin the note to your shirt. Now, pin the note to your shirt. To your shirt.To your shirt.To your shirt.To your shirt.To your shirt.To your shirt.To your shirt.To your shirt.To your shirt.
To your shirt.
NOW YOU are prepared to listen to the podcast this week. Sit down, tune in, turn on and enjoy, man. It will be a mind-expanding experience.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Is it kicking in? BeCAUse I'M rEAllY Not FeElInG aNYThing Yet. !!!
Oh, the places we'll go! The things you'll hear!
I'm your captain, the Mighty Favog, and we're ready to take off on a journey of musical discovery, courtesy of 3 Chords & the Truth Tours.
We will be departing from the Group Vocal Lounge sometime in 1957, and we'll journey to the farthest reaches of jazz, with a lounge-sound layover before returning to Jazz Junction, then embarking on a whirlwind journey through exotic places and exquisite enclaves of rock 'n' roll artistry.
YOU'LL HEAR fascinating rhythms and have an immersion experience in late 20th century pop music on the Big Show before stopping for an extended stay in 1965, where you may even encounter a cannibal and headhunters.
Please fasten your seat belt as we get under way, and have a most pleasant journey on 3 Chords & the Truth. And as the locals say . . .
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Don't try this at home. Even if you're in a mood.
Yes, I'm in another one of my musical moods here in the 3 Chords & the Truth studios in central Omaha, by God, Neb. But I also am a trained professional, more than qualified to act upon those musical moods and share the results with you.
In other words, leave this thing to me and nobody gets hurt. More importantly, nobody's gonna be transitioning from the Backstreet Boys to Metallica. Eww.
And blecch!
AS FAR as this week's edition of the Big Show goes, you'll be hearing lots of classic soul and lots of classic pop, jazz and easy listening, too.
Mood. Mine.
Fortunately, my little musical moods lead to good stuff on 3 Chords & the Truth pretty much every time. I would say "positively all the time," but everybody hates a braggart.
Oh . . . before I forget, we also have some excellent -- and absolutely free -- advice for you at the end of the program this week. Stay tuned for that.
AND THAT about covers it. Stream it or download it, it doesn't matter. The Big Show will be the same Big Treat for your ears.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
We got New Wave.
We got Latin jazz.
We got classic jazz.
We got Cugat.
We got Green Day.
We got Basie.
We got pop.
We got rock.
We got soul.
WE GOT IT ALL, and you won't believe how we get from there to here.
We are the Big Show.
We are 3 Chords & the Truth, the podcast for people who love music.
It's a journey -- yes, it is -- and it happens every week at this same Bat Time on this same Bat Channel.
Be there. Aloha.
Pass the New Wave from the left-hand side.
Pass the 30-something-year-old inside jokes from the top.
Ugh. At least this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth gets off to a better start than this week's post about this week's edition of the Big Show.
Now . . . where was I again?
I think I was going to mention just a couple of things about this week's podcast, which you can hear by clicking any of the BOLD RED LINKS. Or by pressing the little arrow on the PodOmatic player below. Or by clicking on the first episode on the 3 Chords & the Truth player over yonder on the right hand side of the page.
ANYWAY, one thing that you need to know about this week's Big Show is what you hear for about the first third of the show, give or take, is what your Mighty Favog was listening to a lot of in high school and college, back during his musical youth. And I still love me some New Wave to this day -- my musical Not Youth.
Another thing you need to know about this week's 3 Chords & the Truth is that you may be witnessing the first-ever segué from Bob Dylan to Jeri Southern. Which totally works, by the by.
You also need to know that Garth Brooks' 1990 cover of The Fleetwoods' "Mr. Blue" kick the original's musical butt. And the original was pretty dadgum good.
And finally, you need to know that if the Big Show were a band, it would have played The Bayou (peace be upon it) on Chimes Street in Baton Rouge, just outside the north gates of Louisiana State University (peace be upon it once Gov. Bobby Jindal gets done killing it). The Bayou was the best bar ever, and all the best up-and-coming bands played there back in the day.
Ever heard of R.E.M.? Used to play The Bayou when I was in college.
SO YOU listen to this while I go grab me some cheap beer, put a quarter in the jukebox, grab me a pool cue and a table and hang out at my favorite hangout of my misspent youth. Even if it's only in my dreams.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Here is this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth by the numbers.
26.
There are 26 songs on this week's edition of the Big Show.
5.
Five distinct sets of music on this 3 Chords & the Truth.
72.
Times your host says "ummmm." Ummmm . . . I just made that up.
I . . . ummmm . . . don't . . . ummmm . . . think it was nearly that many . . . ummmm . . . times.
5.
Five straight records on the Big Show that happen to be vintage 78 r.p.m. singles. A whole set consisting of 78s, as a matter of fact.
Furthermore, one of them probably will surprise you.
3.
Three songs about magic.
1.
One song -- OK, probably three songs -- that had to have been staples on Omaha's supremely middle-of-the-road KFAB radio back in the day, back when the station actually played music.
4.
Four country records on the program this go 'round.
99 44/100.
Ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundredths percent pure fun this week on the show. The other .56 percent is just you being a bloody crank.
SO THAT'S IT. This week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth by the numbers. Your mileage may vary, but probably not.
Of course, the only way to know for sure it to give it a listen. He says, cajolingly.
Anyway. . . .
Ummmm. . . .
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
And carrots, too.
That's because the music on this week's 3 Chords & the Truth goes together like peas and carrots.
Forrest and Jenny.
Mutt and Jeff.
Pancakes and syrup.
Smith and Jones.
Oscar and Felix.
Black and white.
Big and Show.
Rum and Coca-Cola.
Gin and vermouth.
Pimentos and olives.
War and peace.
Rock 'n' roll.
And . . .
GET the picture? Good . . . good to know.
And good listening to 'ya.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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