Hey! You! Get Off of My Roof! - Part 10

My latest holiday mix for 2022 is called "Hey! You! Get Off of My Cloud," and it's available for you to listen to or download on my holiday music website. This year's mix contains 42 audio tracks, which range from short celebrity greetings to fine-sounding holiday tunes to purported songs that sound anything but fine. My aim in creating thee mixes is to assemble a grab-bag of noises that will entertain and intrigue a wide range of jaded and open-minded listeners. The main purpose of this blog is to provide some interesting background on the various tracks. Mission accomplished with respect to the first 28 tracks, and today we're going to look at three more. Let's get started.

Track 31

A Lot of Talk About Jesus Christ and Love, Bill Macy as Walter Finley from "Maude" (1975)

Walter and Maude Findlay

I watched a fair amount of television when I was growing up in the 1970s, and as I recall some of it was pretty good. I especially liked the shows created by famed producer Norman Lear, who is still active at age 100. Remarkably, Lear produced, wrote, created or developed more than 100 different shows, many of which were phenomenally successful. His most iconic series, All in the Family, was launched in 1971 and dominated both the Neilson ratings and awards shows throughout the decade. Moreover, it spawned seven additional shows, including the hit series Maude. Maude starred Bea Arthur as Maude Findlay, Edith Bunker's feisty liberal cousin. I don't recall watching Maude during its original run but in recent years I discovered the show on Hulu and binge-watched a couple of seasons' worth. It's not exactly high-brow fare, but it sure brought me back in time. There were more than a few Walter and Maude Findlay types  in our neighborhood in the late '70s.

Stephanie

In any case, the very short clip I've used as Track 31 this year is from Maude, Season 4 Episode 14, "The Christmas Party," which first aired on December 22, 1975. With Christmas approaching, an old school friend of Maude's named Stephanie is staying with Maude and Walter. Stephanie, like Maude is an ardent feminist, although she insists on injecting her views into every conversation to the point where even Maude is put off. Walter and Maude are hosting a Christmas party for Walter's employees and Walter is worried that Stephanie's dogged determination to push her agenda might put a damper on the festivities. This leads to the following exchange:

Walter:    Tonight's not a soapbox, it's a Christmas party!

Stephanie:    Good, what better place? Don't you realize Jesus Christ was the first feminist? He taught the world that love begins with equality.

Walter:    My employees are coming here to have fun. It's Christmas and that's no time for a lot of talk about Jesus Christ and love!

So many of us have conflicting thoughts about the true meaning of Christmas. Part of this is no doubt because we use the holiday for so many purposes. It's a time to express our feelings for those we love and to separate what's important from the trivia of daily life. We're encouraged to think of the plight of the poor and the needy while at the same time being urged to splurge on lavish and showy gifts and parties. We're told it's a time to be joyful and happy to the point where too many feel the need to find relief in the bottle or by way of other drugs. Walter's misguided frustration is as understandable as it is preposterous, and while I don't have any simple solution to the conflicting pressures so many of us face at this time of year, it's probably worthwhile to remember that you're not alone in facing such challenges. Why not play something awful by Red Sovine and count your blessings?!

Watch the Maude episode "The Christmas Party" (1975)

Track 30

Out on the Road for Christmas, Red Simpson (1975)

Red Simpson

Regular listeners will recall that my previous mixes have featured multiple tracks by a trucker named Red — Red Sovine, creator of some of the most depressing songs in music history. Well, believe it or not there's another guy named Red who sings sings songs about truckers and has his own album of Christmas-themed trucker songs around and his name is Red Simpson. His holiday album includes a song called "Out on the Road for Christmas," which is about a poor guy alone behind the wheel on Christmas with only the promise of a quick meal at some some truck stop to look forward to. While this may sound rather poignant at first, Simpson's song sounds like "Happy Days Are Here Again" compared to Sovine's standard fare. There's none of the exaggerated pathos of Red Sovine here. Red Simpson's got a job to do and while his work isn't always easy he's going to take whatever solace he can from the satisfaction of doing it well.

The youngest of 12 children, the Arizona-born Simpson was raised in Bakersfield, California. He was interested in music from a young age and started playing piano in the local music clubs right out of high school. Country music was all the rage in Bakersfield at the time, and a number of local musicians led by Buck Owens were pioneering a style of music that became known as the Bakersfield Sound. Buck was impressed by Simpson and the two wrote a number of songs together in the early 1960s. In 1965, a Capitol Records producer who was looking for someone to put together an album of songs about truckers was introduced to Simpson and his first album release, Roll Truck Roll, was released the following year.

The truck thing seemed to work for Simpson, who followed up his first LP with another 10 albums of truck-related tunes. He enjoyed the business of making music, and didn't mind the extensive travel that was required. He didn't mind being typecast either, although he acknowledged some frustration at being continuously mistaken for Red Sovine. As he noted in his song "My Name Is Simpson," from the album "I Am a Truck":

My name is Red Simpson, not Red Sovine,

So don't ask me to sing "Phantom 309,"

I don't know "Giddy up Go,"

And I won't change my mind

My name is Simpson

Not Sovine.

Check the links below to hear this track. Here's Track 30 from this year's mix:

Join Merz Mark as he pays "A Visit with Country Legend Red Simpson"

Watch Red Simpson Sing "Runaway Truck" and more on the Buck Owens Show

Hear Red Simpson's "My Name is Simpson"

Track 29
Riding Unarmed in a One-Horse Open Sleigh, Jaston Williams (2010)

Texas is an awfully big state with an incredibly diverse population, and one of the few things bigger than the state itself is its reputation among the residents of the other 49 states. Back in the days when the governor of the state was a liberal Democratic woman, at least a small part of its reputation was built on the work of Jaston Williams, Joe Sears, and Ed Howard, creators of a series of comedic plays about the fictional town of Tuna, purportedly Texas' third smallest town. "A Tuna Christmas" was the second of these plays, following "Greater Tuna" and "Red, White and Tuna." The plays have been described as an affectionate look at small-town southern life and feature more than 20 eccentric characters played by two very busy actors.

The plays were performed in cities and towns across the country from 1981 through 2012, and recorded versions of the performances were produced and sold on videotape and DVD. "Greater Tuna" and "A Tuna Christmas" were performed at the White House at the request of President and Mrs. George H.W. Bush, both of whom gave every indication that they enjoyed the shows.

Track 29 is a short clip from "A Tuna Christmas" featuring Jaston Williams as Didi Snavely, owner of Didi's Used Weapons, a store with the motto "If we Can't Kill It It's Immortal." 

You can enjoy "A Tuna Christmas" in its entirety below:

We've got 11 more tracks to review between now and Christmas, so I'll be back soon with more. Stay warm and dry 'til then!

Trucker's Salute Offers a Different View of Christmas' Gloomy Gus, Red Sovine

Within a few days of mailing my latest holiday CD to friends and family each year, I can count on a call from my brother with his thoughts about the mix. This year, the first thing he mentioned was the title track, "Is There Really a Santa Claus," by the late great Red Sovine. "That one song," he said "singlehandedly ruined my Christmas." I understand the sentiment. I've used several of Sovine's unique recordings over the years, and each one seems sadder and more pathetic than the one before. After replaying this year's selection, I really do think we've hit rock bottom:



For those who'd rather not subject themselves to Red's gut-wrenching rendition of the whole gruesome story, here's the CliffsNotes edition.  The story is about a widower and his two young children on Christmas Eve. The children's mother had died the previous Christmas, but despite the sad anniversary, they are excited by the prospect of Santa's arrival. "Cut out the nonsense," their father says. "There's no Santa Claus." Well, the children went off to bed with tears in their eyes, but they remembered their poor father in their prayers. This prompted a change of heart in Dad, and he rushes to the store to buy gifts on Santa's behalf. In his haste, however, he is killed by a passing car. The next morning, the newly orphaned tots are overjoyed to find the simple toys they'd asked for from Santa. Since Dad is in the morgue, Red suggests, they must have come from Santa himself. Yikes!

Some of the other little ditties I've used from Red's holiday catalog include "Faith in Santa" (young homeless boy dies in the arms of a street corner Santa Claus), "What Does Christmas Look Like?" (young girl blind from birth wonders what she's missing), and "Here It Is Christmas" (divorced man sobs as he writes his ex-wife on Christmas Eve). These songs all appear on his 1978 LP Christmas with Red Sovine, which was one of the last albums he ever recorded. Sovine's Christmas album reflects the direction his music had taken during the latter part of his career. After years of recording marginally popular country and western music, Sovine had finally found his niche in the mid-'70s with a series of maudlin spoken stories about truckers recorded over a depressing musical background. For example his biggest hit, "Teddy Bear," was about a disabled boy who'd lost his trucker father in an accident and spends his days listening to other truckers on the CB radio. (I just listened to it again, and, as always, it brought tears to my eyes.) Sovine himself died in a motor vehicle accident in 1980. Since then, his music has been widely parodied, for all the obvious reasons.

However, with the glow of the holidays still coloring my home and hearth, I've decided to post what seems to be a heartfelt tribute to Red and his music from a grateful trucker. Red's music was good company on his long drives, he says, and he was grateful to travel with someone who understood the life of someone like him. Here's Tom Lanbert with "A Trucker's Tribute to Red Sovine":



I've got one further Red Sovine story to share this evening — a back story about his hit song "Teddy Bear." This one wasn't merely a hit — it climbed to the top spot on the country music charts almost overnight, and, not surprisingly, Sovine's record company wanted him to milk the story by recording a couple of follow-up records. For whatever reason, Sovine was reluctant to do it, which led a couple of his songwriting pals to write a song called "Teddy Bear's Last Ride," in which young Teddy Bear is killed off. Once he's dead, his pals explained, nobody can pressure you to record any follow-ups. Sovine refused to have anything to do with the song, but it was recorded by a woman named Diana Williams, and to Red's dismay it started to climb the charts. Well, Sovine quickly recorded a song of his own called "Little Joe," in which the real Teddy Bear is not only still alive, but had regained the ability to walk. Sovine's follow-up effectively knocked Diana Williams out of the game, and ended the Teddy Bear saga on a somewhat happier note. Of course, this is a Red Sovine record, so before it ends the narrator loses his sight in a highway accident. If only Red were still around, maybe he could hook that former trucker up with the blind girl from "What Does Christmas Look Like?" Just a thought.

POSTSCRIPT (12.30.14):  Looks like the "Teddy Bear" saga continued even after the release of "Little Joe." Some time later, a guy named John Texas Rocker released a song called "Teddy Bear's Epitaph," in which we learn that the poor little former cripple must have suffered another setback because he's now in heaven using God's CB to keep in touch with his gear-jammer buddies on Earth. There's a scratchy old version of this final monstrosity on WFMU's Beware of the Blog site HERE. As that post notes, this news may help explain what was going on in another of Red Sovine's hits, "Phantom 309." Or not.

Is There Really a Santa Claus, Part 4

Time now to take a look at the next three tracks on my latest holiday mix, Is There Really a Santa Claus?:

Track 12
Holiday Greetings from Alice Cooper (1988)
Track 12 on this year's mix is yet another short holiday greetings clip, although this one's a little longer and a lot more imaginative than most. This greeting is from Alice Cooper, who's now 68 years old and still going strong. I liked a lot of his music, although the whole goth and horror thing were never quite my scene. I especially liked his 1975 album, Welcome to My Nightmare. Here's the clip I used on my new CD:



Alice rose in my estimation when he did an amazingly funny commercial for the Marriott hotel chain about ten years ago. Here it is:



"You don't want your kids to grow up and be weirdos, do you?"

Track 11
Is Santa Claus Real, by Ray Gelato (2013)
I stumbled on this little gem quite by accident earlier this year. I was looking up Red Sovine's "Is There Really a Santa Claus" on YouTube (see below), and the site's algorithms suggested that if I liked ol' Red's video, I'd probably fancy British swing and jazz bandleader Ray Gelato's stuff, too. Truth be told, Ray's song and Red's are about as different as night and day, but I like Ray's tune a lot. I'm hoping you will, too:




Known as "London's King of Swing," Gelato apparently puts on a heck of a great show when performing live. This particular song was released as a holiday single last December, and features the Choir of the Fielding Primary School, where Gelato's children are apparently enrolled. It's a benefit record, which makes it that much sweeter. Proceeds support the Red Cross's typhoon relief efforts in the Philippines. You can order your copy from Amazon or iTunes.

Track 10
Is There Really a Santa Claus, by Red Sovine (1978)

Red Sovine

Poor Red Sovine didn't have an easy time of it. He worked the country music circuit for years before finally finding his niche doing heartbreaking, gut-wrenching trucker records that largely featured Red telling a terrible tale of woe over some sad musical background. This style proved successful, however, and Red made it to the top of the country singles chart twice with songs from this genre: "Giddyup Go," released in 1965, and "Teddy Bear," which topped the charts ten years later. The latter song tells the story of a young paraplegic boy whose father, a former trucker, was killed in a highway accident. He left the boy a CB radio, which is apparently one of the few means the boy has of communicating with other people. He can often be heard on the CB channels asking other truckers to keep him company and talking about how much he misses his Dad. Not exactly a feel-good kind of tune, is it? Well, poor Red was himself killed on the road in 1980 — he apparently suffered a heart attack while driving and ran into an embankment. It's not entirely clear whether it was the coronary or the accident that killed him, but either way, we can only hope that it happened quickly. The following commercial aired for several years after his death:



Red's last album was the 1978 release Christmas with Red Sovine, and as regular listeners to my mixes can attest, the tunes on this album make "Teddy Bare" look like "Everything's Coming Up Roses." I've featured three songs from Christmas with Red Sovine on my previous mixes: "Here It Is Christmas," a stoic holiday letter from a newly divorced man to the ex-wife who broke his heart, from my 2007 CD Let's Trim the Christmas Tree; "Faith in Santa," the story of a starving homeless boy who dies in the arms of a street corner Santa Claus, from my 2008 mix, Home for the Holidays; and "What Does Christmas Look Like," the lament of a young girl who was born blind and wonders what she's missing, from 2009's I Just Can't Wait 'til Christmas. "Is There Really a Santa Claus" is perhaps the saddest tale of them all. It's the story of two young children and it takes place on Christmas Eve. The children had lost their mother exactly one year earlier, leaving their widower father to raise them by himself. As he bids the children goodnight on the anniversary of their mother's death, they ask their father if he sees Santa to tell him they'd been good. "Cut out the nonsense," he replies. "There's no such thing as Santa Claus, so get off to bed." The children go to their room with tears in their eyes, but begin their prayers nonetheless. As their father listens at the door, they asked God to forgive him because he hasn't been the same since he lost his wife. This is where things get real bad, real quick. You can hear the rest for yourself, below. [Spoiler alert: by the end of the song, the two children are orphans.]

Here's Red's cheerful story, but I'd caution against playing it if you're prone to depression or have any sharp objects lying around:




On that upbeat note, I think we could all use a break. Stay tuned for more uplifting material sometime real soon.

C'est Noel, Part 4 (Tracks 10-12)

My latest holiday mix is called C'est Noel!,  and as in previous years, I'm currently sharing some background information and random thoughts about each of the individual tracks I've included. There are 35 tracks altogether, and we've looked at nine so far. We'll look at another three today, which still leaves plenty to write about between now and Christmas Day.

Track 12
Purple Snowflakes, by Marvin Gaye (1964)



Marvin Gaye

I hate to sound like a bitter old man, but there’s just no way today’s most popular music can hold a candle to the kind of stuff that was regularly being produced back in the 1960s and ‘70s. In those days, it was the Beatles, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Today it’s Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber and Kanye West. OK, so maybe that’s not such a fair comparison, but answer me this: Which of today’s artists can come close the legendary Marvin Gaye? I’ve been a fan of this guy's music ever since I can remember. I love the feel-good innocence of his early Motown songs recorded under Berry Gordy’s direction, and the album he recorded with Diana Ross was one of the very first records I ever purchased. (I bought it on cassette, actually.) The lusciously sensual “I Want You” has to be among the most erotic songs ever recorded, while the infectious groove of “Got to Give It Up” sets old and young alike into motion, as demonstrated by the success of “Blurred Lines,” this year's biggest hit, which is based entirely on its compelling and distinctive beat. But the fullness of Gaye’s musical genius is best represented by the album made over Gordy’s strong objection, the brilliant and topical What’s Going On? To this day, it stands as the most accurate and detailed portrait ever made of Vietnam-era America.

Gaye didn’t record an awful lot of Christmas music in his lifetime. The best known of his holiday releases was probably “I Want to Come Home for Christmas,” which was released as a single in 1972 and later appeared on the compilation “A Motown Christmas” the following year. Written by Gaye and Forest Hairston, this incredibly beautiful and touching song is written from the point of view of a soldier serving in Vietnam. Amazingly, it never received much airplay until years after its release due to the allegedly sensitive nature of its subject.

“Purple Snowflakes” was written by Dave Hamilton and Clarence Paul and recorded by Gaye in 1964, but for some reason it remained in the vault until well after Gaye’s death. So far as I can tell, it was first released in 1993 on Motown’s “Christmas in the City” compilation. The Jackson 5 recorded the song in 1970 for their first Christmas album, but it didn’t make the cut. Gaye’s version has subsequently been included in a dozen or more different compilations, and it’s no longer so unusual to hear it in stores or on the radio. Of course, if I ran the world, this one would be played at least once an hour from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day.

Track 11

Just a Sad Christmas, by The Soul Duo (1969)
As most of us know all too well, Christmas isn’t always merry and bright; the good cheer we celebrate too often masks sadness, loneliness and despair, as evidenced by the many hard luck stories that find their way into the holiday music bins. (Don’t believe me? Check out any of the little Christmas ditties by country western singer Red Sovine, like this one, for example.) One of the nice things about this track is that while it starts out on a decidedly sad note, by the time it ends the light of increasingly good times is illuminating the end of the tunnel. Another nice thing is that it’s just a damn fine piece of classic soul.

Sadly, this terrific tune is one of the few songs The Soul Duo recorded together. The act consisted of Little Ida (Ida Sands) and Little Daddy (Joe Webster from The Anglos). Their first single, “This Is Your Day," was recorded in 1969 for the Philadelphia-based Shiptown label and subsequently distributed nationally on Jamie Records. “Just a Sad Christmas” was the duo’s follow-up effort, and it was apparently a solid holiday hit in the mid-Atlantic area. And for good reason: 

Ida and Joe turn in some amazingly deep vocals on this hard-hitting ballad with perfectly sympathetic backing from The Sounds Band (love that bluesy organ!). Definitely not your run-of-the-mill seasonal fluff, we think "Sad Xmas" deserves to be included amongst the classic soulful Holiday songs.

Funky Virginia Blog. I couldn’t agree more. Sadly, Ida Sands passed away earlier this year. Further details about her life and career, including clips, are available HERE.

Hear an alternate version of “Just a Sad Christmas” by the group Grillade HERE.


Track 10

Blue Christmas Lights, by Buck Owens (1965)

I can’t claim to be a big Buck Owens fan, or, for that matter, to know very much about country music at all. This song was recorded in 1965 for the album Christmas with Buck Owens and His Buckaroos, which appears to be one of several holiday records Owens released over his long and very successful career. I like this tune, and I thought it would be nice to include it next to a couple of soul tracks to illustrate just how well holiday music can bridge the various gaps between different styles of music and points of view.

We've now covered one-third of all of the tracks from this year's mix. Sooner or later, I'll be back with some thoughts on the next several cuts.