After a short break during the Thanksgiving holiday your hosts are back at it again with another episode! This week features the usual mix of blues eras you’ve come to expect along with a few Californian artists, tune in to see which ones! Songs featured in the episode: Solomon Hicks – “Further On Up The … Continue reading
I just want to mention that I heard Big Mo do an extended version of his comedy bit on Mayree’s hand-battered catfish last night too. I never know when he’s going to do the long version of it and I nearly always regret not having some way to record it. It’s kooky and complicated with twists and turns like a long hairy dog story with punchlines scattered like land mines all over it.
Anyway, the pod show was pretty interesting. I think the Beth Hart song “Can’t Let Go” could be about more than a busted relationship, a frequent subject of a lot of blues songs. There’s a lot of baggage that we can’t let go of in life. The other notable feature of that song is Sonny Landreth cutting all the way loose with guitar licks spinning out beyond every nearby galaxy.
What was strange during last night’s blues show was I could have sworn I heard the lyrics of “Stand by Me” but it’s not on the list of songs. Songs sometimes don’t get on the list. Anyway, it reminded me of the Playing for Change version that starts with Roger Ridley and goes around the world, released 16 years ago.
Sena alerted me to a news story about an Iowa City 8th grader landing a 68-pound flathead catfish yesterday in Iowa. While it’s not the all-time record, you have to admit he landed a monster fish. The record is an 81-pounder caught in 1958.
Now why would that remind me of KCCK Jazz and Blues Radio, Iowa’s only jazz radio station? It’s because of John Heim’s (aka Big Mo) blues show comedy bit on the Friday Night Blues Show featuring Mayree’s hand-battered catfish (“It’s better because it’s battered!”). You can hear more about it and other “Sponsor De Faux” on the Big Mo Pod Show 003.
It would be cool if KCCK sold a tee shirt that featured Mayree. Hey, don’t blame me; it’s Big Mo’s idea! I’ve searched the KCCK web page, but can’t find a tee for Mayree (hey, that rhymes, good for marketing!) but there’s a nice Big Mo tee in medium and 3XL sizes.
Anyway, I was fooling around with the idea and came up with a design for the tee today. Tell Big Mo what you think at email bigmo@kcck.org. It’s OK, he reminds listeners every Friday night how to get in touch with him when he hosts the Big Mo Blues Show, starting at 6 PM in the evening.
I’m pretty sure one of you could come up with a snazzier design. And just remember, Mayree’s hand-battered catfish are cooked to perfection, with manic delight, and they are just packed with nitrates! I can’t fit all that on a tee, which would have to be bigger than a tent.
Mayree’s hand battered catfish tee shirt design!KCCK fm radio 88.3
I was all set to hear the Big Mo Blues Show on KCCK 88.3 tonight starting at 6 pm and guess what? I must have fell asleep sitting up in my chair and didn’t wake up until this song “Bye Bye Blues” by Larry McCray came on a little past 6:30 pm. It makes me think of my wife, Sena-until she starts winning too many cribbage games.
We listened to the Big Mo Blues Show last night on KCCK radio 88.3. It was recorded and we noticed that he sounded younger for some reason. Once he remarked that things were difficult because of having to “shelter in place.” The format of the show was different from usual.
That made me wonder if the show was recorded sometime during the Covid pandemic. I’ve been listening to Big Mo for a long time. John Heim, aka Big Mo, been doing the Friday Blues show since about 2005, according to one news story. Another KCCK legend, Bob DeForest, has been doing the Saturday night blues show for over 30 years now.
John Heim, aka Big Mo is still going strong. I think I’ve been listening to his show for about as long as he’s been doing it. He has come back strong since an accidental fall in 2018 in which he sustained a neck injury which led to a long rehab stint. But he’s back.
There have been interesting additions over time, like the Shout-Outs, the Concert Calendar, the Bodega Bay Weather Report, the Big Mo Pod Show in which he and producer Noah on Saturday discuss the music selections he made on Friday. The comedy bits have also been interesting, like MayRee’s hand-battered catfish (It’s better because it’s battered!).
Last night, we heard a couple of songs which we both liked. One of them was “She Don’t Live Around Here” by Samantha Fish. I heard it for the first time on the Big Mo Blues Show and just about every time I hear it, the hair on the back of my neck stands up. I’ve read that music will do that sometimes, although I can’t remember getting that sensation before.
We both liked Delbert McClinton’s rendition of “I’ve Got Dreams to Remember.” He’s had a huge career. Sena asked me if he’s still alive and I foolishly guessed that he died. Nope, he’s 84 years old and evidently still going strong.
I have a personal top ten songs, most of which I’ve heard on the Big Mo Blues Show. They’re not in any particular order. A few of them I like mainly because of the artist’s voice, like Samantha Fish and James Carr.
“She Don’t Live Around Here” Samantha Fish
“The Dark End of the Street” James Carr
“Everyday Will Be Like a Holiday” William Bell or Eric Clapton
“Lean On Me” Bill Withers or Keb Mo
“Mockingbird” Larkin Poe
“I’ve Got Dreams to Remember” Delbert McClinton (written by Otis Redding)
“You Were Never Mine” Delbert McClinton or Janiva Magness
“A Change is Gonna Come” Sam Cooke
“Over The Rainbow and What a Wonderful World” medley Israel Kamakawiwo’ole
“You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks” Seasick Steve
Lately, Big Mo has played Larkin Poe’s “Mockingbird” a fair number of times. I think one interpretation of it is that people’s sense of their identity tends to evolve over time. At different times in your life, you’ll take on a new voice, so to speak, which fits with the idea of the many songs the imitative Mockingbird sings.
Some songs I like because of the message, like “Lean On Me,” or “A Change is Gonna Come.” And I like the song “You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks” just because I identify with it. I realized that runs counter to the theme of many songs, which are often about change: people change, the times they are a’changing, and the like. So, my top ten song list will probably change, too.
We heard the Big Mo Blues Show last night and heard a couple of tunes that were fun. One of them was mentioned on the Big Mo Pod Show today, “Feelin’ Alright” by Stuff. The other was a riot but was not on the podcast, and it was “I Feel So Good (I Wanna Boogie” by Magic Sam.
After a short break during the Thanksgiving holiday your hosts are back at it again with another episode! This week features the usual mix of blues eras you’ve come to expect along with a few Californian artists, tune in to see which ones! Songs featured in the episode: Solomon Hicks – “Further On Up The … Continue reading
The one that brought back memories was “Feelin’ Alright” by Stuff. It sounded so familiar and we finally figured out it was a cover of song of the same title and sung by Joe Cocker (the one I remember). However, I guess it was originally written by Dave Mason of the group Traffic in 1968. And there’s even an album “Joe Cocker With Stuff Feelin’ Alright.”
The one Big Mo played last night was from the album Stuff Live at Montreux 1976. It was instrumental and hard to recognize at first. The lyrics are sad, though and it’s about unrequited love, I guess. I associated it years ago with drug and alcohol addiction after seeing the 2012 movie “Flight” on TV. Every scene in which the main character Whip Whitaker (played by Denzel Washington) got high, that song was a part of the scene.
Anyway, moving right along, the song that was not on the podcast and which was a whole lot of fun to listen to was “I Feel So Good (I Wanna Boogie) by Magic Sam. We’ve never heard of him but the way he sang the number made us laugh out loud.
The title of the podcast was right on target: “Variety is the Spice of Life.”
We listened to the Christmas tunes on the KCCK Big Mo Blues Show last night, “All Dem Christmas Favorites.” We both liked Earth Kitt’s “Santa Baby,” which wasn’t on the podcast list, but what the heck. I got a kick out of Brave Combo’s silly rendition of “O Holy Night.” Fareed Haque’s guitar solo of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” was pretty impressive.
After a short break during the Thanksgiving holiday your hosts are back at it again with another episode! This week features the usual mix of blues eras you’ve come to expect along with a few Californian artists, tune in to see which ones! Songs featured in the episode: Solomon Hicks – “Further On Up The … Continue reading
I got a kick out of a song by Catfish Keith last night on the Big Mo Blues Show on KCCK radio. It was “Who Pumped the Wind in My Doughnut.” He always sings songs with lyrics that I mostly don’t understand and that was one of them, at first. I’ll give you a hint; it’s not a Christmas tune. Catfish Keith covers some old-time blues songs and this one is for adults only.
Judging from the title of the song and some of the lyrics, you might guess it’s about doughnuts but it’s not. Don’t bother with the Artificial Intelligence (AI) description, which I did not ask for. AI just pops up in a web search whether you want it to or not:
“Who pumped the wind in my doughnut” is a playful, nonsensical phrase meaning someone has exaggerated or inflated a situation or story to make it seem much bigger than it really is; essentially, they’ve added unnecessary drama or hype to something, like adding air to a doughnut to make it appear larger.”
Once again, we see that AI makes stuff up as it goes along, creating a little story which is really concrete and far from the truth about something for which it was not programmed—to process language that is not literal but a form of humor riddled with innuendo to express something about sexual infidelity, in this case resulting in a lot of children which don’t resemble the singer because they aren’t his.
Anyway, I found a little background on the song which was originally performed by a guy called Washboard Sam (born Robert Clifford Brown). He was a blues artist in the 1930s. He performed “Who Pumped the Hole in My Doughnut” under the name Ham Gravy. I found a reference which says that Washboard Sam performed it and Robert Brown wrote it. And I found another which shows a picture of the actual record which has the name Johnny Wilson on it with the name Ham Gravy just below it. I don’t know whether Johnny Wilson was just another pseudonym. You can find the lyrics of the song identifying it as being by “Washboard Sam via Johnny Wilson.”
You can find a mini-biography about Robert Brown on, of all things, a WordPress blog called The Fried Dough Ho. It has a fair number of posts about doughnuts too. The author knows the song is not about doughnuts. There are also some pretty comical impressions in a blog post entitled “What is he talking about?” regarding the meaning of the lyrics of the song on a Blogger site called The things I think about, when I wish I were sleeping. One of the comments is fairly recent, from 2023. You can also find a Wikipedia biography.
Last Friday night on the Big Mo Blues Show on KCCK radio, I heard Eric Clapton sing a song that I later found out was a cover of a song originally co-written by William Bell and Booker T. Jones, “Every Day Will Be Like a Holiday.” A Wikipedia entry about it reports that it has been called the greatest Christmas record of all time by Hot Press magazine in 2017. It has been covered by many musicians.
That song is still in my head. I had never heard of William Bell. He’s been a top rhythm and blues performer for decades. He’s 85 years old and is still going strong. I hope he has a lot more Christmases to go.
I heard the Big Mo Blues Show just (Halloween theme) this last Friday night and was not surprised to see that one of the songs discussed on the Big Mo Pod Show on Saturday was Peetie Wheatstraw’s “Devil’s Son-in-Law.”
When I first heard it, it got me chuckling because I didn’t understand hardly a single word until the last line. It was babbling. I can remember googling the term “Peetie Wheatstraw and unintelligible,” which revealed I’m not the only one who thinks he’s unintelligible. It’s a mondegreen mine field. It’s a good thing the lyrics are available.
I want to hastily point out that he’s not always unintelligible—but William Bunch aka Peetie Wheatstraw is speaking in tongues on that song. For comparison I listened to another song, “Sweet Home Blues” and I could understand just about every word in the lyrics.
That led me down the rabbit hole about the artist in a web search that seemed to have no end. I should probably say Brer Rabbit hole since most of my searches pointed in the direction of a character called Peter Wheatstraw, Petey Wheatstraw, as well as Peetie Wheatstraw who had variations in their identities, most often in the context of African American folklore.
I’m not going to attempt a summary of my web search on Peetie Wheatstraw; there’s too many twists and turns. You can start with the Wikipedia article. But from there, you can get trapped in Brer Rabbit’s little tunnels, which can run in different directions.
William Bunch was a blues artist in the 1930s who adopted the moniker “Peetie Wheatstraw.” While Big Mo says it’s sort of another name for Satan, I found confusing references by writers who claim that the Peter Wheatstraw character comes from Black folklore. There are those who believe that novelist Ralph Ellison wrote about a character in his book “Invisible Man” named Peter Wheatstraw and said it was the only character in the novel that was based on a live person—William Bunch.
Is that true? And did Ellison ever meet Peetie Wheatstraw (William Bunch)? I can’t tell from the web articles.
I was prompted to get my copy of “Invisible Man” out after reading a scholarly online essay mentioning the Peter Wheatstraw character, “Re-visioning Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man for a Class of Urban Immigrant Youth” by Camille Goodison, CUNY New York City College of Technology. I couldn’t remember Wheatstraw at first, but there he was in Chapter 9.
Goodison reveals there is a lot more texture to the Wheatstraw character then just as a moniker adopted by William Bunch. Wheatstraw is probably more complex than the devil. He has many sides to him and could be helpful—but mostly in an indirect way. His guidance is full of riddles and there doesn’t seem to be a solid way to cut through the metaphorical morass. As Emily Dickinson advised, Wheatstraw may tell the truth—but tells it slant.
This is just a short piece on the Big Mo Podcast last Friday night and his comments about one of the songs he played that night. It made the list of 5 songs he and Producer Noah discussed a couple days later.
Big Mo’s had great comments about all the songs, but I took special notice of those about one of them. It was James Carr’s big hit in 1966, “Dark End of the Street.”
The most important thing about it is that I remember listening to it when I was just a kid. I was too young to understand the meaning of it. But his voice grabbed me. That’s really the only thing I can say about it. His performance still has the power to raise the hair on the back of my neck, even though I can’t identify with the lyrics or connect the theme to any life experience I’ve had. I suspect many people feel the same way.
The other reason I connect with the song other than Carr’s voice is his life story. He was said to have suffered from a psychiatric illness, the nature of which seems like it was never clearly identified. I’ve read a few web articles and terms like “bipolar disorder,” “depression,” and other similar references come up. His psychiatric diagnosis is the least important thing.
Carr’s life story is hard to read, despite what little there is of it to read about. It’s painful. The version on the Black Past website encapsulates what you find in several other articles: Tulino, D. (2018, February 21). James E. Carr (1942-2001). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/carr-james-e-1942-2001/.
But to get the real point about James Carr, all you have to do is listen to that one song, “Dark End of the Street.”
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