I caught the Big Mo Blues Show last night and the podcast this morning, titled “Grab a Twelve Pack and be Somebody.” I had a hard time picking out any of the five songs having anything close to a lyric that would be close to “Grab a Twelve Pack and be Somebody” but it’s easy to get the idea that many blues and rock songs seem to involve references to alcohol.
I think even Big Mo thought one of the selected songs had something to do with either a 6 or 12 pack of beer. But he did talk about the song “Brown Liquor” by Ally Venable & Christone Kingfish Ingram reminding him (and it reminded me also) of Bob Margolin’s song “Brown Liquor in a Dirty Glass.”
In line with the theme of the podcast today, you could endorse the saying “The Blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll.” I had to look up that line and it’s from Muddy Waters” album, Hard Again (which I still have, by the way) and there’s a song on it with that title. Bob Margolin was in the band at that time. I still don’t understand the lyrics of another song on the album with the title “Crosseyed Cat.” But it’s still one of my favorites.
Just a remark on the Margolin’s song “Brown Liquor in a Dirty Glass” I found out something I didn’t know about ordering a drink “in a dirty glass.” It might mean adding an olive or olive juice. I don’t know if that’s true or not.
I was surprised to learn that one of last night’s song, “Sinner,” was by Robert Randolph, head of a gospel group. Judging from the lyrics, it sounds like the song is against religion.
But the first song of the night was “Summertime Blues”. It sort of fits the heat wave this weekend.
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
Big Mo is a bottomless pit of blues music knowledge (as well as other genres) and that takes me back to my wasted youth when I had a short conversation with one of my former bosses when I worked for Wallace Holland Kastler Schmitz & Co., a consulting engineer firm in Mason City, Iowa.
Ages ago, Ralph Wallace and I got into a short conversation one day about blues music, believe it or not. I can’t recall what actually got that short chat started but it was kind of surreal. He asked me about what I liked about the blues and I brought him up short by telling him I didn’t know anything about it.
I think Ralph thought I would know about the blues just because I was black. I didn’t. He even tried to prompt me by asking about different kinds of blues music, for example 12 bar blues and so on. I’ll never forget his facial expression when he realized I barely knew it existed. He looked puzzled and incredulous. He was a white man and knew more about it than I did. I think it stunned him that a black guy was completely ignorant of the blues.
I could dismiss the interaction simply as a mild form of racism, but I think it was more complicated than that. He was the boss of the company who gave me my very first real job but really didn’t know anything about my background. I was the child of a black man and white woman and my father left home when I was just a little kid. I went to an all-white church. I went to all-white schools, that is, until I was persuaded by a white woman and the black pastor and professor of religion and philosophy to enter Huston-Tillotson College (now Huston-Tillotson University), one of the HBCUs in America located in Austin, Texas. I first heard gospel music there and it raised the hair up on the back of my neck.
It’s a little ironic but I also think of John Heim (aka Big Mo) as another white man who knows more than I’ll ever know about the blues. And I’ve been learning from him for years, which is great.
So, the point is that the theme of the Big Mo Pod Show today is “Music of the People.” The blues is music for all people and the songs can have broad appeal.
One example is the song “Artificial” by Walter Trout. It’s a modern rant against the many synthetic artifacts in modern society and that includes something I rail against—Artificial Intelligence (AI). I can relate to it.
One song that didn’t make it to the list of 5 on the pod show but which was on the blues show last night was “Room on the Porch” by Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ (featuring Ruby Amanfu). I got a surreal feeling about it because it’s about being openly welcoming to everyone. I hear a note of irony in it related to the current conflicts in America and around the world which highlight the opposite of openness and welcome. They’re not new.
On the other hand, I don’t think either Taj Mahal or Keb’ Mo’ intended for the song to be ironic. Maybe I just hear it because of all the background noise that has to be called reality because that’s what’s out there.
What if they’re not being ironic? What if they believe it and they’re trying to say there’s a good reason we should think of the blues as the music of the people—all the people? Where could we go from there?
Big Mo said it last night, “The blues can heal you, if you let it.”
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
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.”
I’m out of sync with the Big Mo Blues Show and his podcast, mostly because we’re in the middle of this big move and we’re staying in a hotel waiting for this house to be built. I missed his most recent show, but caught the one before that.
The podcast title was “Goodness is a Practice.” Big Mo mentioned that moving (among a lot of other sorrows and hardships) could cause the blues-and he’s right.
But some perspective on it shows that a lot of other troubles take priority over moving (even though boxes are bad, admit it). Troubles that call for a little human decency are just one variety. Practicing goodness would come in handy right about now, in a lot of places.
I want to give a shout out to the Big Mo Pod Show Subverting Expectations that aired on May 11, 2024 following the Friday Big Mo Blues Show on May 10, 2024.
What impressed me most and puzzled me a lot was the tune that Big Mo didn’t talk about on the podcast. The tune was a dazzling guitar performance called “Hot Fingers” by a duo called Lonnie Johnson and Blind Willie Dunn. Big Mo said it was recorded in the 1920s.
I looked for a video of it and could find several with the picture of what looked like a Caucasian guitarist and nobody else. I also saw one picture with the Caucasian guitarist and what looked like a cut-and-pasted photo of a black guitarist.
Because I couldn’t tell who was who, I googled their names. It turns out that Lonnie Johnson was a well-known blues guitarist. He was black. Lonnie Johnson recorded “Hot Fingers” with another famous jazz guitarist named Eddie Lang, who was white. Eddie Lang used the alias of Blind Willie Dunn in order to hide his race while performing with Lonnie Johnson. I’m not sure how Eddie Lang could pass for black, an interesting twist in the late 1920s. I’m not saying either was racist. Why would they have performed together if they were? And why would Eddie Lang have adopted the black-sounding pseudonym?
So that brings me back to the title of the Big Mo Pod Show which was Subverting Expectations. The expectation that gets subverted had to do with a tune I don’t remember hearing on Friday night. It was “That Lovin’ Thang,” by the group Tas Cru, with which I’m unfamiliar. Big Mo remarked that you could listen to the blues as played by Tas Cru with an expectation that they were going to make mistakes in their performance—which never happened, attesting to their talent.
On the other hand, it strikes me that the story behind Lonnie Johnson and Blind Willie Dunn (Eddie Lang) does create its own sort of subverted expectation, in a different sense. I know Blues music experts already knew that, but it was news to me.
I heard the song “Florida Man” by Selwyn Birchwood on the Big Mo Blues Show on KCCK radio tonight. I updated my post “Gators OMG” by adding the YouTube video to it.
This is St. Patrick’s Day and, although I didn’t wear green today, Sena got me some Irish beer. It’s Guinness Extra Stout. The back label extols the virtues:
“Intense characterful and bold, Guinness Extra Stout is the pure expression of our brewing legacy. Bittersweet, with subtle hints of hops, dark fruits and caramel, this stout is a testament to great brewing.”
That dark fruit better not be dates or prunes. It’s brewed in Ireland.
This being Friday night, I wonder if John Heim (aka Big Mo) will mention anything about St. Patrick’s Day tonight on the KCCK Big Mo Blues Show, radio station 88.3 in Cedar Rapids or 106.9 in Iowa City.
Maybe he’ll mention May Ree and her hand-battered catfish. It’s better because it’s battered. Maybe the recipe includes a couple of bottles of Guinness Extra Stout, with notes of dark fruits and caramel. Dark fruits which are not dates, I hope. Allowable notes can be sharp or flat, blue, high, or low—but not dates.
I heard John Heim (aka Big Mo) on KCCK talk at length about MayRee’s hand battered catfish tonight. There was much more detail than usual. I can’t remember all of them. One I do remember is that her joint is on the corner of Highway 6H and Snowflake Road-sort of.
MayRee will give you a choice of 3 beverages that sound like a crazy cross between a soft drink and white lightning moonshine or something. One flavor is “clear” and another could be something like pumpkin spice, but I probably misheard that.
I got a comment from a blogger, Everyday Lillie. She has not heard of nitrates in catfish but appreciated the information.
MayRee cooks them with “manic delight.” They are really something, I guess.
I heard this Sonny Landreth piece tonight on the show.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 