Doug Sahm Covers Louisiana Legend Bobby Charles "On Bended Knee"

I'll let Doug Sahm introduce this one, "Here's a song by a Louisiana legend, a great compadre of ours, from Lafayette, Louisiana, Mr. Bobby Charles."

Oh, what to say about Bobby Charles? The accolades roll in from other artists, from Fats Domino to the Band to Paul Butterfield to Ray Charles to just about every local Southwest Louisiana swamp popper. Bobby first burst on the scene with his 1955 hit "See You Later Alligator," a song that local record shop owner Charles "Dago" Redlich had sent up to Leonard Chess (who, as was his habit, was traveling through Louisiana a couple of years prior and asked record store owners to send him anything with promise). Chess signed him, thinking he had found another unknown Delta black artist. Well, he thought that until Bobby got off a plane in Chicago and finally met Leonard face to face. Leonard introduced him to a different catch phrase, one that starts with "mother."

Well, despite that initial reaction, "See You Later Alligator" with the flip side "On Bended Knee" did real well locally and nationally, then took off when Bill Haley and his Comets recorded a version. This is where the story gets interesting, as Bobby was, according to John Broven in his essential South to Louisiana: The Music of the Cajun Bayous, "in a musical no-man's land--a white artist singing an R&B type song on a black label." Matter of fact, he was the only white artist with Chess at the time. After putting out a few more sides for Chess with less success (with titles trying to build on his initial success, like "Watch It Sprocket" and "Take It Easy Greasy," collected on the currently unavailable Chess Masters CD), he could have just faded away like many of the one-hit songsters of the teenage R&B days. But Bobby's talents as a songwriter, and the fertile airs of Louisiana music world just wouldn't let that happen. And we're all happy for that!


In the early 1960s, Bobby began working with one his idols, Fats Domino, penning a few tunes for him, including the one included in the show, "Walking to New Orleans." As quoted by Shane K. Bernard, "That was a real rush for me, to write a song for someone that was an inspiration to me, like Fats Domino." His friendship and talent led to more singles on the Jewel and Paula labels,
and an extended stay in Woodstock led to an album with members of the Band and Dr. John for Albert Grossman's fledgling label Bearsville in 1972, alternately called "Bobby Charles" or "Small Town Talk." He also makes an appearance and sings on "The Last Waltz." After a brief retirement in the late 1970s back in Louisiana, his talent again brought out the stars for an (unreleased) album with Neil Young and Willie Nelson in 1984. Since then he has written written more songs, recorded one retrospective album (with a couple of the Young/Nelson songs) called "Last Train to Memphis," but lives off his royalties in retirement in Louisiana near the Gulf of Mexico. I'm sure we'll here from him again and it'll be great. (Although, don't go seeking him out).

But that's the national story, with big names and covers from national artists, the local story is still being written. The list of great Swamp Pop musicians who have done Bobby Charles songs is too long to type and continues to grow.

A brief aside about Swamp Pop definitions: the origins of the phrase are murky (pun intended) and Shane K. Bernard does a nice job in his great Swamp Pop: Cajun and Creole Rhythm and Blues tracing them to some English music critics, not to the people who made the music or the people who danced to it. Most of them just referred to it simply as "Southern Louisiana Music," since there is no need to separate Fats Domino, Cookie and the Cupcakes, Slim Harpo, Belton Richard, Guitar Gable, Clifton Chenier, Earl King, Warren Storm, and on and on. It's just academic. As Bobby told Bernard, "Somebody told me I was a swamp pop musician, I said, 'Oh really?' I mean, I didn't know what the hell they were talking about . . . . If you've got to name your children, I guess you've got to give it a name too!" I like to refer to it (to myself that is), as Southern Louisiana Juke Box Music. In my mind's eye, I envision it as the music you and your date play on the juke box or go to a club and see--all for the dancing, both to the uptempo shakers and the slow ballads. As Harry Simoneaux told John Broven, "It is common today for partygoers who dance to Johnnie Allan's music on a Saturday night to go to the Triangle Club in Scott on Sunday afternoon and dance to French Cajun music only. Fans who like one type of music will generally like the other too. One thing about the swamp-pop style is that there are few musicians that every play it right if they are not born in raise in South or Southwestern Louisiana."

Anyway, that brings us back to today's opening number: a live version of "On Bended Knee" performed in 1998 by Doug Sahm, with Augie Meyers and the Gourds backing him up. Even though Doug is from West (and not East) Texas, he still plays it the right way. While the story of Doug and his various exploits, influences, and great, great music are a subject for another show and post, one thing I'll mention here in brief: Doug Sahm's music encompasses all the descriptions of this show over there on the right under the Digs: Country, R&B, West Texas Shuffle, Texas Border stepping, California Hippie Rock, Heavy White Guy narratives, East Texas Blues, and of course Swamp Pop (matter of fact, he recorded a whole album of Swamp Pop tunes called, appropriately enough, "Juke Box Music.") While most of the writing on Doug focusses on the hippie days and the cosmic cowboy and the collaboration with Dylan, there is just so much more to his story that I'll leave for another day. What I want to point out though is, no matter what he's covering from Freddy Fender to T. Bone Walker to Dale Hawkins to Bob Wills to Porter/Hayes, he does it with no pretense and a reverence that shows his love for all of Texas music. As far as I can tell, this is the only recorded version of Doug doing a Bobby Charles song and I love it.

This is the type of Bobby Charles (and swamp pop in general) song that appeals to me the most: the gutsy ballad. It's all in the first line: "Please forgive me if I cry." It's so bold and vulnerable at the same time. And it's that signature first line that gets everyone in the dance hall to recognize the song. Doug pushes the tempo up a bit from the original version of the tune, but that's just the beauty of the Swamp Pop repertoire. Since everyone knows the songs, it takes a lot of courage to get up there are sing the standards for a discerning audience. Unfortunately, Doug's audience probably wasn't well versed in South Louisiana music, but he does a great job none the less, especially on "I got to pray to God above, send me back the gir-hurl I lo-ove," with Augie banging out those Louisiana triplets the whole time. He truly is begging for that. Another line from Harry Simoneaux, " None of the singers had the quality voice--that is, with vibrato. None of them had formal training. However, they made up for this by singing what they knew about, and what they lived through . . . " I can't describe it for Doug or Bobby any better than that.



Here's the Playlist:

Linda Rondstat; Dark End of the Street; s/t; Capitol

Doug Sahm and the Texas Tornados; On Bended Knee; S.D.Q. '98; Watermelon
Clarence Henry; Why Can't You; Argo 5395
Muddy Waters; Why Are People Like That; The Woodstock Album; Chess
Paul Butterfield; Done A Lot of Wrong Things; Better Days; Bearsville
Joe Cocker; The Jealous Kind; Stingray; A&M
Fats Domino; Walking to New Orleans; Best of; UA
Bobby Charles; Everyone's Laughing; Jewel 728 (Walking to New Orleans; Westside)

Roy Head; She's About a Mover; Crazy Cajun (Introduction to; Fuel)
Joe Medwick; Get Soulful; Crazy Cajun Recordings; Edsel
Helene Smith; What's In the Lovin'; Deep City (Eccentric Soul: The Outskirts of Deep City)
James & Bobby Purify; Shake a Tail Feather; Bell 669
Gene Chandler; Cowboys to Girls; There Was a Time; Brunswick

Hannibal & the Headhunters; Land of 1000 Dances; Rampart 642
Waylon Jennings; Jole Blonde; Brunswick 9-55130 (Phase One; Hip-O)
Jerry Lee Lewis; Mathilda; Memphis Beat; Smash
Cookie & the Cupcakes; Breaking Up Is Hard To Do; (Kings of Swamp Pop; Ace)
Clint West; Sweet Susanna; Swamp Pop Hits; JIN

Percy Sledge; Feed the Flame; Take Time To Know Her; Atlantic
The Five Royales; Don't Let It Be in Vein; K-10147 (Roots of Soul; Charley)
Oscar Toney, Jr.; Any Day Now; For Your Precious Love; Bell (Rev-Ola)
Carla Thomas; I've Got No Time To Lose; Atlantic 2238
Ernest Tubb; The Way You're Living; Thanks a Lot; Decca

Wilson Pickett; Time Is On Your Side; The Wicked Pickett; Atlantic
Johnny Copeland; On Bended Knee; (Down and Out;
O. V. Wright; You're Gonna Make Me Cry; Backbeat 548

Dale Hawkins; La-la La-la; L.A., Memphis, & Tyler Texas; Bell

Department of Appreciation: Thanks to my good friend Gene for introducing me to Bobby Charles. If he ever makes good on his threat to write the Bobby Charles biography, I'll be first in line to buy one.

Department of Favors: Sign this petition!

Department of the Future: The first set focuses on some of the bigger names covering Bobby Charles, at some point in the future I'll play the Rod Bernard and Warren Storm and other Southern Louisiana versions of his tunes.

Department of Corrections: Gene pointed out to me that Doug Sahm also did Bobby Charles's "Tennessee Blues" (another great song) for his second Atlantic LP: Texas Tornado. He also pointed me to this good article on the latter days of Bobby's career. Thanks again!

Get It When I Want It: Candi Staton and George Jackson in Muscles Shoals

Running out of time this week for anything researched, I figured I'd throw out this gem from Candi Stanton's phenomenal Fame LP, "I'm Just a Prisoner."

There's a lot of great things to say about this LP, from the kicking title track to the Clarence Carter penned (autobiographical? since the two were soon to be married) "I'd Rather Be an Old Man's Sweetheart (Than a Young Man's Fool") to a gentler country soul of "Another Man's Woman, Another Woman's Man" and her take on "That's How Strong My Love Is." Hell, there isn't a weak track on the whole thing!

With so much talent, personalities and great material, there's a wealth of stories. All I want to mention about "Get It When I Want It" is the great meeting on the Southern Soul Route 72 between Memphis and Muscle Shoals. These sessions took place in late 1968 (and maybe early 1969), after Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham had flown Muscle Shoals to join Chips Moman up in Memphis, and Rick Hall had hired Geroge Jackson from Memphis as a staff writer after Goldwax had disintegrated. While Dan and Spooner brought their country soul sensibilities to Memphis, George Jackson and his newest close collaborator, Raymond Moore, brought more of that Memphis shake to Muscle Shoals. It worked out for both with Dan taking The Box Top's "The Letter" to Number 1 and, in 1971, Rick Hall producing a George Jackson song with the Osmonds up to Number 1. Not too shabby.

Here's the lack of information I've got (or, don't have): This is the only version of the song I know; I don't know the session players exactly (although it sounds like one "David" Allman, and he was round the studio at this time); I have no good biographical information on Raymond Moore (anybody out there with links?).

Regardless, the cut is smokin' with that trademark George Jackson launch into the first verse. Where Dan Penn tunes tend to ease in the verse and build into the chorus, George Jackson's best work tends to get right up on ya. [The plainest example of this difference I can think of is James Carr's "Dark End of the Street" vs. "Coming Back to My Baby"]. Just check out how Candi bursts into that first line, "For a LON-NG time . . . " and pushes that Southern twang "ruh-hunninh around . . . " And she pushes the vocals as hard as the guitar and horns: "You you you!" That's the meeting of Memphis and Muscle Shoals that I love about these sessions and this LP. After all, as the liner notes to the LP state, "Candi Staton's a young girl, a cute eyefull of a girl. But most of all she's a Southern girl." And it's just so damn sexy, like the best Southern girls.

I backed up the Staton here with a similar track from Wilson Pickett recorded around the exact same time at Fame, but this one written by David Porter and Isaac Hayes from the "Hey Jude" LP. It's probably almost exactly the same group working on the sessions (Wilson did 4 tracks written by George Jackson and Raymond Moore). While I like "Toe Hold," it doesn't quite hit the same way as the Staton despite a great effort by Pickett: the record is great, but doesn't quite have that gentle drive against the punch. A counterpoint I guess.

Barney Hoskyns has a great quote from Candi about working with Rick Hall: "Rick was never mean, but he would make me sing a song over and over again until I was hoarse. He wanted to work up the emotions out of me so that I got a hoarse kind of Wilson Pickett sound." Well, he got that and much more.

Here's the set list:

Joe Tex; Dark End of the Street; Country Soul; Atlantic

Candi Staton; Get It When I Want It; I'm Just a Prinsoner; Fame
Wilson Pickett; Toe Hold; Hey Jude; Atlantic
Don Varner; Finally Got Over; Downbeat (Finally Got Over; Shout!)
Wallace Brothers; You're Mine; Simms 174
Charlie Rich; Lonely Weekends; Sun

Bobby Womack; How Does It Feel; Atlantic 2388 (Atlantic Unearthed: Soul Brothers (Rhino)
Wanda Jackson: Lost Weekend; ST 1511 (Right or Wrong; Bear Family)
William Bell; It's Happening All Over Again; The Soul of a Bell; Stax
Dan Penn; Ain't No Love; Nobody's Fool; Bell
Bobby Lee; I Was Born a Loser; Sue 144

Delbert McClinton; This Boy; Crazy Cajun Recordings; Edsel
Ted Taylor; It's Too Late (She's Gone); Ronn 34
Van Broussard; She's Just Teasing You; (Van and Grace: Louisiana Music Legends)
Wynn Stewart; (Above and Beyond) The Call of Love; Hilltop; (California Country: The Best of the Challenge Masters)

Johnny Truitt; Your Love Is Worth the Pain; Avet 9149 (The Heart of Southern Soul; Excello)
Otis Clay; Trying To Live My Life Without You; Hi 2226
Eddie Hinton; Brand New Man; Very Extremely Dangerous; Capricorn
Syl Johnson; The Love You Left Behind; Back for a Taste of Your Love; Hi
Joe Tex; Don't Let Your Left Hand Know; Dial 4006

O. V. Wright; Nickel and a Nail; Backbeat 622
Tony Joe White; My Kind of Woman; s/t; Monument
Bettye LaVette; It Ain't Easy; Child of the 70's; Rhino
Bobby Charles; Street People; s/t [Small Town Talk]; Bearsville
Doug Sahm; Medley: One Too Many Mornings / Got To Sing a Happy Song; Together After Five; Smash

Outro: Ry Cooder; Dark End of the Street; Boomer's Story; Warner Brothers

Department of Apologies: Due to some confusion of djs and unexpected guests, this show is pretty sloppy. Oh well, there's always room for improvement. That, and (probably because of the alliteration) I always pronounce Staton with an extra n. Sorry.

Department of Further Apologies: The podcast starts a few minutes late as I had trouble parking.

Department of the Future: Next week, Doug Sahm does Bobby Charles!

Fast as Falling: Arthur Alexander's Rainbow Road (Donnie Fritts/Dan Penn)

Arthur Alexander's "Rainbow Road."

No theme this week, but I've been listening this week to Donnie Fritts's solo album "Prone to Lean" and reading "Get a Shot of Rhythm and Blues: The Arthur Alexander Story" by Richard Younger and figured I'd write a little about Arthur's version of the Fritts/Penn song "Rainbow Road."

Donnie and Dan wrote this song early on in their Muscle Shoals careers (1965), and loosely based the beginning on Arthur's sudden ascent to stardom, when "You Better Move On" hit the charts, peaking at No. 24 (1962). Arthur was still working as a bellhop at the Muscle Shoals Hotel (and selling moonshine in a dry county!) when he recorded the song, and by the time Donnie and Dan penned the tune, The Rolling Stones had covered "You Better Move On," the Beatles had done "Anna (Go To Him)," and Arthur had toured the South and East Coast, released a handful of singles and one LP on Dot, been on American Bandstand, and, most importantly, had inspired everyone in the small city of Muscle Shoals.

(Hey, I'm no expert, but to back up that last claim, when I saw Dan Penn (with Bobby Emmons) about a year and a half ago at Fitzgerald's, there was only one song that he played that wasn't one of his own: "You Better Move On." It was an impromptu move, and he explained by saying, "This song put Muscle Shoals on the map and got everything happening.")

By the time Arthur stepped into American Studios in 1971 to record for Warner Brothers, he hadn't charted a song in about 10 years, had been arrested a few times for drugs, been through a divorce, been in Bryce Hospital three times for mental breakdowns, been through electo-shock (probably), and just about everything that could go wrong with his life had. In reading Younger's biography, one of the few consistent things in Arthur's life throughout these times was his friendship with Donnie Fritts. Donnie had done just about everything with Arthur, from driving him around the South to radio stations during the rise of "You Better Move On" (not a task for the thin skinned in early 1960s Alabama--check out the stories in Sweet Soul Music) to getting him a job at the great Nashville publishing company, Combine (home to tons of great songwriters, but that's another show), right before these recordings.

The song had been done by a few before Arthur finally got around to recording it for himself (I vaguely remember Dan Penn saying that he and Donnie had written the song for Arthur), most notably by Joe Simon, Percy Sledge, and Bill Brandon. While the first part of the song is based on Arthur, the rest about the great Little Willie John (but that story is yet another show). In my opinion, this is the definite version.

First off, that country sliding intro from Reggie Young, and the soft keys from Bobby Emmons on the electric organ set the tone perfectly for Arthur's voice. Some overdubbed strings build that great gentle tone of the first two verses. Both wistful and nostalgic with a sense of the hard edge of experience (normally I hate it when music writing gets too much into biography to explain a song, but in this circumstance I can't help it). How Arthur simply draws out "Roa-hooad, Lord Now," right out of the WSM and gospel of his youth, straight into the quick change of "But then one night . . . " It's perfect.

When your rise is that sudden, "fast as falling" everything changes.

There's a lot more to that story and there's a lot more of Arthur Alexander and Donnie Fritts. Buy yourself a copy of "Get a Shot of Rhythm and Blues" by Richard Younger, it's full of great information on the whole Muscle Shoals scene, as well as Nashville, and it's just plain out well-written and a great read.


Some day I'll do a full show of Donnie Fritts songs (there's a lot of good ones out there), and I'll we'll tell some more of his story.
Thanks again for listening and reading!

Here's the playlist:

Percy Sledge; The Dark End of the Street; The Percy Sledge Way; Atlantic

Arthur Alexander; Rainbow Road; s/t; Warner Brothers
Kris Kristofferson; Epitaph (Black & Blue); Silver Tongued Devil & I; Monument
Ray Charles; We Had It All; Love & Peace; Atlantic (Complete Country and Western Recordings; Rhino)
Donnie Fritts; Prone to Lean; Prone To Lean; Atlantic

Cleveland Crochet & the Hill Billys; Sugar Bee; Goldband 1106
Jimmy Donley; A Woman's Gonna Have Her Way; Born To Be a Loser; Crazy Cajun
James & Bobby Purify; I Was Born To Lose Out; Bell 721 (Shake a Tailfeather; Sundazed)
Ted Taylor; Somebody's Always Trying; Okeh (The Ever Wonderful: Okeh Soul 1962-1966; Shout!)
Joe Simon; Come On and Get It; SS7 2628

Otis Redding; I Love You More Than Words Can Say; Atlantic Unearther: Soul Brothers (Rhino)
Otis Clay; Is It Over; Cotillion 44104
Jean Shepherd; Leave Me Alone; Heartaches and Tears; Capitol
Solomon Burke; Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye; I Wish I Knew; Atlantic
Freddy Fender; Since I Met You Baby; Since I Met You Baby; GRT

Johnson, Hawkins, Tatum & Durr; You're All I Need To Make It; Capsoul (Eccentric Soul 001; Numero Uno)
Roscoe Shelton; I'm In Too Deep; SS7 2582
Johnny Adams; You Can Depend On Me; Reconsider Me (Charley)
Augie Meyer's Western Head Band; Release Me; Finally in Lights (Edsel)
Tony Borders; Lonely Weekend; Uni 55180 (Cheaters Never Win; Soulscape
The Hacienda Brothers; Cry Like A Baby; What's Wrong With Right; Proper

George Jackson; My Desires Are Getting the Best of Me; Fame 1457
Conway Twitty; Another Man's Woman; Look Into My Teardrops; Decca
Bill Brandon; It's All Wrong, It's All Right; Moonsong 9005 (On the Rainbow Road; Soulscape)
Anne Peebles; I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down; Hi 2232

Department of Additions: Here's the Soul Detective Case on Allen Orange I mentioned. Check out the podcasts--they're great.

Department of Future Corrections: The audio on my podcast is just horrible. Sorry. I've talked to some people, and I'll hopefully be getting mp3s straight off the board in the future, so they should eliminate the hum.

No Sad Songs!

Hey, it's the day after Valentine's Day and what better than this tapper from Oscar Toney, Jr. to "show me how baby love can be."

The version appearing on the show was recorded at American Studios with Chips Moman engineering and Papa Don Schroeder at the producing helm in early 1967. It's the American all-star band with Bobby Emmons (organ), Reggie Young (guitar) and Tommy Cogbill (bass) and Gene Chrisman (drums). Right as Toney's great rendition of Jerry Butler's "For Your Precious Love," the Purifys' "Shake a Tail Feather" and The Box Tops' "The Letter" had put American Studios as the center of the soul recording universe. The band is kicking and, although this song was never released as a single, it works perfectly as the end of the full length LP: Oscar renders the dark depths of Dan Penn's "Dark End of the Street" and "Do Right Man, Do Right Woman" with surprising compassion, punches "Down in Texas" right onto that line between pleading and loving, and hits that deep deep soul with "For Your Precious Love." And here's his conclusion.

On "No Sad Songs," I can't get over the nice (most likely Sweet Inspirations over-dubs courtesy of Papa Don) backing chorus against that upper rasp of Oscar when he sings the chorus. It throws the lyrics perfectly against those pulse horns (thanks Chips!) and the alternating chug and swirl of Reggie Young's guitar. Not coincidentally, the arrangement is much like the Joe Simon version that came out on Sound Stage 7 as both a single and on the LP of the same name (well, it's no coincidence since Chips arranged them both). The Joe Simon recording mutes some of the highs, adds the touch of strings, and eases much more from the chorus to the verses. The difference between the recordings shows Chips' ear for the singer: While Oscar's version pushes that edge towards unabashed rejoice, Joe's (even though the song is a bit out of his great wheelhouse), slides smoothly into that country soul resignation of great things.

There's also one lyrical difference where I prefer Oscar Toney's version:

"Now there's no sad song in my heart / You took away the pain that tore me apart / You put love sunshine where there used to gray / And the Lord will love you Baby for being that way."

Thanks for listening (and reading). Feel free to comment.

Hope y'all's Valentine's were as moving as that song.


The Playlist:

Bobby "Blue" Bland; I'm Not Ashamed; Two Steps from the Blues; Duke (MCA)

Johnnie Taylor; I Need A Lot of Love; D1010 (Sam Cooke's SAR Records Story; ABCKO)
Carl Marshall; I Can't Live Without You; Double Hit 801
Solomon Burke; What Am I Living For; Bell 783
Bettye LaVette; He Made a Woman Out of Me; Silver Fox 16 (Take Another Piece of My Heart; Varese Saraband)
Waylon Jennings; 'Cause You Asked Me Too; Honky Tonk Heroes; Buddha

Homer Banks; 60 Minutes of Your Love; Minit 32008 (Hooked On Love; Stateside)
Jimmy Hughes; I'm A Man of Action; FAME 1011
Arthur Conley; I Can't Stop (No No No); Sweet Soul Music; Atlantic (Collectables)
Mighty Sam McClain; I Need A Lot of Lovin'; Amy 984 (Papa True Love; Sundazed)
Don Varner; The Power of Love; (Finally Got Over; Shout!)

Percy Sledge; Out of Left Field; Take Time To Know Her; Atlantic
Joe Ely; Treat Me Like a Saturday NIght; Joe Ely; MCA
Joe Tex; I'll Never Do You Wrong; Soul Country; Atlantic (Complete Dial Recordings 3; Shout!)
O. V. Wright; I'll Take Care of You; Backbeat 007
Hersey Taylor; Let Me Make You Happy; Future Stars 1001

Touissant McCall; Nothing Takes the Place of You; Ronn 3 (Nothing Takes the Place of You; WestSide)
Don Gibson; I Love You So Much It Hurts; I Love You So Much It Hurts; RCA
Tim Hardin; Reason to Believe; The Verve Recordings
Arthur Alexander; Another Place, Another Time; SoundStage7 2626 (The Monument Years; Ace)

Oscar Toney, Jr.; No Sad Songs; For Your Precious Love; Bell 6006-S (Rev-Ola)
Bobby Womack; What Is This; Minit (Midnight Mover; Capitol)
Irma Thomas; We Got Something Good; Chess 2036 (Down At Muscle Shoals; Chess/P-Vine)
Wilson Pickett; I Found The One; The Sound of . . . ; Atlantic
The Impressions; Talking About My Baby; Keep On Pushing; ABC (Kent)

Department of Additions: Here's the Joe Ely link I mentioned.

Radio Show February 8, 2008

From The Dark End of the Street, February 8, 2008

A scattershot throw into the depths of Louisiana Music in honor of Mardi Gras:

Allen Toussaint; Go Back Home; ALON 9021

Earl King; Those Lonely, Lonely Nights; Ace 509 (Earl's Pearls; Westside)
Lee Dorsey; So Long; 45 Amy 945
Betty Harris; I'm Gonna Get You; Sansu 471
Curly Moore; Goodbye; Sansu 468
Percy Mayfield; Louisiana; Best of; Specialty

Professor Longhair; She Walks Right In; Atlantic 897 (Getting Funky; Proper)
Art Neville; Too Much; Instant 3236
Chris Kenner; Something You Got; Instant (The Name of the Place; Bandy)
Warren Storm; Prisoner's Song (rerecording); King of the Dance Halls; Edsel
Mac Rebennack; Go Ahead On; (Dr. John Storm Warning; Westside)

Johnny Adams; Showdown; RIC 3507
Wallace Johnson; Baby Go Home; Sansu 476 (Get Low Down; Westside)
Eddie Giles; Baby I Care; Alarm (Sound City Soul Brothers; Soulscape)
Roscoe Robinson; We're Losing It Baby; Paula 378
Ted Taylor; I'm Gonna Hate Myself In the Morning; Alarm 114 (Sound City Soul Brothers; Soulscape)

Jerry Lee Lewis; Louisiana Man; She Still Comes Around; Smash
Fats Domino; All By Myself; Stomping; Sunset
Thedeus DeClouet; All Night Long; Greatest of the Greats; Goldband
Clarence Henry; Why Can't You; Argo 5395
Johnnie Allan; Somebody Else; Promised Land; Ace (UK)

Bobby Powell; C. C. Rider; Excello (The Heart of Southern Soul; Excello)
Merle Spears; It's Just a Matter of Time; Whit 713
Don Rich; My Lover's Prayer; Bayou Soul; Jin
Belton Richard; Get Me Another Chance; Essential; Swallow
Jimmy C. Newman; Daydreamin'; Dot 1237 (Bop A Hula; Bear Family)

Lloyd Price; Lawdy Miss Clawdy; Specialty
Joe Medwick; After Hours Man; Crazy Cajun Recordings; Edsel
Ray Algere; In My Corner; Sansu 467 (Get Low Down; Westside)
Sleep LaBeef; Ain't got No Home; Electricity; Rounder

Aaron Neville; Mojo Hanna; Make Me Strong; Charley

I left some music in my car, so alas no Irma Thomas, Bobby Charles, Cookie & the Cupcakes or Jimmy Donley, but there'll be plenty more weeks to show them off. This show has got a little bit of everything from La.: Blues, Soul, R&B, SwampPop, Cajun and Country. Note: The Podcast unfortunately cuts off before the last 3 cuts.

Well, Here Goes . . .

Hey y'all,

I've been threatening myself to do this for a while and now it's all up and running (despite some technical difficulties).

I've been doing various radio shows to the Greater South Side of Chicago for years on WHPK 88.5 FM Chicago, and have re-launched the show as "From the Dark End of the Street." Taking the name (obviously) from the Chips Moman-Dan Penn composition first (and best) done by the unequalled James Carr, and later covered by a variety of artists from California Hippies to Country-politan Duets to 70's Hit Makers to Group Harmonizers to Indie Rockers. The heroes of the music of the Great Southland--from Muscles Shoals to Memphis to Nashville to Macon to Austin to Lafayette, Louisiana. Some shows will have vague themes, but most of all the theme is gonna be the music, with a little bit on content thrown in for knowledge's sake. 

I do a new show (just about) every Friday morning from 10:00-11:30am. You can tune in on-line at the above link, or just subscribe to the podcast which I'll attempt to update every Friday afternoon.  Hopefully I'll be beefing up this blog with links, commentary and other stuff, but first things first: The Music.

Thanks for tuning in. And check out the podcast.