(attached audio: â99 Poundsâ by Ann Peebles)

On a rare morning off of work today, I had Ann Peeblesâ âStraight from the Heartâ album on the turntable while I washed dishes. Itâs so good, I couldnât help but compare and contrast her to Aretha Franklin.

Whoâs better? Dumb question, I know, like, âWho would win between a tiger and a shark?â But asking it helps analyze each ladyâs music was at its peak: Arethaâs being the late â60s and Annâs the early â70s.

First of all, never let yourself forget that while their recordings appeared under these ladiesâ names, and they certainly do a lot of the heavy lifting, these songs exist largely because of brilliant teams of studio musicians, songwriters, producers and managers who put it all together. I think about that especially after re-watching my favorite movie, âThe Commitments,â earlier this week. Without the Jimmy Rabbittes, Willie Mitchells, Tommy Cogbills, Joey âThe Lipsâ Fagans, Teenie Hodges and Tom Dowds, it doesnât happen.

But no one could blow the roof off a song like Aretha. No one could, from her own lungs, make a song bigger. Calling on the power of God and her enormous will, she would lift the whole thing, expand it until the room sheâs in canât expand anymore. Then you get that sound where sheâs pushing the limits of the box sheâs in â beyond any recording studio. I bet that effect was somewhat intentional by the likes of recording engineers Dowd and Arif Mardin.

Sheâs also a fantastic piano player; thatâs her on 10 out of the 11 tracks on her most famous album, âI Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You,â her first for Atlantic Records. And itâs not like she had no competition among the Muscle Shoals studio ringers she was thrown in with. Session legend Spooner Oldham is relegated to organ.

But where Aretha makes a song big and beautiful, Ann makes it lean and athletic â more Althea Gibson than Serena Williams. Also, although both ladies wrote some great songs for themselves - âI Canât Stand the Rainâ is by Ann, and âSince Youâve Been Gone (Sweet Sweet Baby)â is Arethaâs), it sounds like more of Annâs were written for her, by Memphis aces like her eventual husband, Don Bryant. Thereâs more of a sense of her in them â scappy and screwed-up Ann - whereas Arethaâs are more everywomanâs songs. Annâs are the songs of someone who was never destined to transcend the soul-music circuit and become a household. Annâs a girl who got to make records because she was discovered by trumpet player Gene âBowlegsâ Miller, not by John Hammond; sheâs someone who recorded for small, Memphis-based label Hi Records, not New York giants Columbia and Atlantic.

And goddamn, Annâs songs tear you apart. Theyâre so honest about confessing bad feelings, like on âI Feel Like Breaking Up Somebodyâs Home Tonight.â âIâm just a little bad girl,â she sings on âI Take What I Want,â but while sheâs certainly bad-ass, sheâs also completely comfortable showing her vulnerable side. She sings about both sides of the adultery equation: the other woman and the wronged wife - although sheâs the tough-as-hell wife whoâs âBeen There Beforeâ (a song she wrote with Bryant), whoâs vengeful enough to âTear Your Playhouse Downâ and advises others like her to âDonât put him out tonight â Get your own thing rightâ (in âSomebodyâs on Your Caseâ). This is a dog-eat-dog world, she knows, and victims have to stick up for themselves.

More than anything else on Annâs records, though, you notice the deep, muscular Memphis ghetto groove. And she is right in the middle of it, audio-wise, shadow-boxing out from a clutch of musicians onstage, whereas Aretha always sounded like she was out front. And she was. Aretha was only physically in Muscle Shoals, Alabama for one recording session, which produced âI Never Loved a Manâ and âDo Right Womanâ; for the rest of that first Atlantic album, Jerry Wexler flew the Muscle Shoals boys to her in New York.

Annâs groove and her persona are never more perfectly aligned than on â99 Pounds,â written by her then-boyfriend, Bryant. In 2 minutes and 15 seconds, hereâs her whole deal:

â25 pounds of pure cane sugar, in each and every kiss - you wouldnât know what Iâm talking about, if you never had lovinâ like this.

âI donât mean to be bragginâ. Good God, itâs a natural fact. Good things come in small packages. You will have to agree with that.

â99 pounds of natural-born goodness, yâall â 99 pounds of soul. Iâm 99 pounds of natural-born goodness, yâall â 99 pounds of soul.

â25 pounds of tenderness, in each and every touch â 25 pounds of understanding my man, and I donât want to worry too much.

â24 pounds of something, yâall, that I canât even name, and it all adds up to 99 pounds, all put together in a fine young frame.â

(By the way, the Black Crowes did a screaming version of this song as an outtake from their second album, âThe Southern Harmony and Musical Companion.â Chris Robinson is probably the only male rock star who could nail it; heâs not much more than 99 pounds soaking wet. They also nailed âSomebodyâs on Your Caseâ on a âThree Snakes and One Charmâ outtake.)

Personally, Iâll take Ann over Aretha. Ann never descended into the âdivaâ pit, never did âWhoâs Zooming Whoâ and âFreeway of Loveâ in the â80s. Itâs been hard to listen to Aretha stuff since the â60s ended âbut hear Ann sing Bob Dylanâs âTonight Iâll be Staying Here with Youâ from Joe Henryâs 2005 âI Believe to My Soulâ project, and sheâs absolutely, brilliantly real.

Maybe in the end, Arethaâs is the music of someone who made the most of being âYoung, Gifted and Black,â to quote one of her album titles. Annâs is the voice of the black woman with much less self-esteem, but she never lets that hold her back because she knows sheâs got pure cane sugar, tenderness, understanding of her man and something else she canât even name.

Anyway, those are my idle thoughts today â something for you to think about, and hopefully a motivator to go out and listen to these soul ladiesâ great, great records.

Imagination exaggerates, right? Of course it does, and even though I knew I had loved rural California during the year I lived in Gilroy (a valley town south of San Jose), I figured that, upon returning for the first time in five years, it probably wouldnât live up to the pictures I had carefully preserved in my mind.

Wrong again. California really is a different world, and in a dayâs shift from cold and rainy upstate New York (lows in the 20s, highs in the 40s) to a sudden blast of eucalyptus and garlic smells, hot, dry air and that sun that makes all your photos look washed out, I was swept away.

Especially after I got outside the city limits. You have do that in California. Thereâre just too damn many cars and people otherwise.

My old hometown isnât bad at all, as cities of 50,000 go, but as soon as I got outside Gilroy on the Pacheco Pass Highway, I was is dreamland. Those golden hills, with their gnarled live oaks and outcroppings of rock, the dusty but amazingly rich soil (a contradiction that still amazes me), the tumbledown fences around humble farmhouses, the roadside stands with sweet corn at six ears for a dollar â fat ears, and so sweet, we discovered that night at dinner, that butter is huge overkill â plus a basket of softball-size plums for $6, or $5 for three pints of strawberries, which grow in the fields all around you. (âJust picked this morning,â the lady behind the counter said. âGo ahead, try one.â)

These things are fully as soulful as our imaginations hinted they might have been, once. But one other thing completed the perfection, melding manmade with God-made art â the right music. Driving through all this on Pacheco Pass Highway with My Morning Jacketâs âIt Still Movesâ is ethereal.

Album of the decade? If listened to on that drive, then yes, perhaps.

---

The rest of my week in Cali had wonderful moments, too: Listening to Woody Guthrie through the Central Valley was great, even if it was on I-5. In L.A. with my Uncle Paul, we wandered the canals of Venice (where beat-up old Coleman canoes are moored at luxurious houses) and made the rounds of Santa Monicaâs used record and guitar stores in my uncleâs old Mustang. I ate real Mexican food again, got my feet wet on three beaches, went to a love-filled family wedding near Santa Cruz (the purpose of the trip) and stood on holy ground amid 17-foot-wide, 300-foot-tall and 2,000-year-old redwood trees at Big Basin State Park. All these things sent me, but the one that will probably linger the longest, and maybe become my new mental pucture, is that 74-minute period in Pacheco Pass with My Morning Jacket. It still resonates, and it will abide.

(P.S.: For a fairly good review of this album, try here. Also, you oughtta read Ned's review of singer Jim James' new album.)

I interviewed Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, grandson of Pete Seeger, last week for my newspaper, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise. He's a good dude in general, and especially good for interviewers because he can talk to fill your digital recorder straight up. I say that fondly, as a descendant of a long line of talkers.

He played in Saranac Lake Saturday night, and when I introduced myself at intermission as they guy on the phone interview, he brought up how much he had talked - called it a Seeger family hazard.

If he and his band come to your town, go see them. You'll probably be glad you did, no matter how old you are or what kind of music you like. Onstage, he's full of fire and soul and spirit, and I really like his original songs. They only played a couple of Pete's old standbys, but man, I've still been singin' "Guantanamera" in my head all friggin' day today. I never liked that song before now.

It was funny to hear him say that when he moved back to the U.S. at age 16, after nine years of growing up in Nicaragua, he told his grandpa, "Why do you bother singing in Spanish? Your Spanish sucks."

"You have to understand, I was 16 and a complete jackass," he said.

Pete's response was, "Well, if your Spanish is so good, why don't you get up onstage and help me out?" The punk did, and it did him some good, I'll say. Here's to grandpas, in general.

(The photo here is mine from Saturday's show. You can see many more here.)

Itâs been well over a month since I wrote anything for this Web site, and it kind of feels like longer â like Iâve gone into a new room in my life: perhaps the living room instead of the kitchen, and canât do kitchen work in this room.

Itâs certainly not writerâs block because that would require me wanting to write. Itâs not even writerâs ennui. Maybe writerâs apathy.

Anyway, even when the Ten Dollar Radio Show went off the air, I had a backlog of things I wanted to write for this, mostly reviews of concerts and new albums. These next few entries, therefore, will be catch-up â if I even get past this first one here.

So first up is the Black Crowes on Sept. 11 at the Saranac (F.X. Matt) Brewery in the fine old upstate New York city of Utica.

I made it to the show after visiting some of my Irish ancestors that afternoon at a hillside cemetery in nearby Ilion, so perhaps I wasnât quite in the mood for full-on rock ânâ roll, especially since it was raining and cold and the opening band was kind of lame â in a â70s heartland, pop-rock, Grand Funk Railroad kind of way. But the Crowes more than made up for it all. Theyâre playing like champs again, anchored deep and reaching out for a more northern sound than before â they seem to have found some upstate soul in their experience of recording at Levon Helmâs studio in Woodstock.

No. 1 highlight: In a cover of Neil Youngâs âEverybody Knows this Is Nowhere,â Luther Dickinsonâs solo would have made the show if Rich Robinson hadnât followed it with one that touched the stars and kept on going. Good Lord, heâs one of the greats.

Other memorable highlights: the crowd singing along with the âMagnoliaâ line of the opening song, âGood Morning Captain,â and everyone shakinâ it on down in an âI Ainât Hidingâ that raged beyond disco.

Lowlight: The band is again dragging the backup singers around with them on tour, and these two black ladies were tucked way in the back of the stage in what looked like a glass booth. They didnât really have enough to do, except on âI Ainât Hiding,â which they got into. Also, they had hardly any room or visibility, and it seemed lousy to have them there. Iâm sure theyâre getting paid fairly well, but it was gratuitous to the point of being distracting â and not gratuitous like having an extra guitar on a stand beside you that you maybe only play for one song; this is making people, really talented people, stand there in the cold to do a little do-wopping way in the background. I could hardly hear them. If theyâre part of the band, bring âem into the fold and let âem really sing and move around on stage. But Rich and Sven sing a lot of backup anyway, so if the band doesnât need more than just the white boys, then let the white boys do it all.

Still and all, this show was wonderful. It made the Southerner and the northerner in me very happy. If you want a taste of this bandâs newfound depth, breadth and diversity, trot down to your local record store and buy their new album, âBefore the Frostâ and download the companion âUntil the Freeze.â And be sure to listen to them multiple times; to me, they get better with each spin.

Also, please do yourself a favor and check out âWhatâs Wrong with Steveâ (Gorman) on the Crowesâ Web site. Who needs Dear Abby anymore? Goddamn drummers are hilarious.

The shift from August to September has come abruptly this year, and suddenly everything feels different than it did over the weekend. With that comes a big bundle of new albums, and reviews thereof. I haven't listened yet, so I can't review, but AllMusic, which I always respect and often agree with, did. We'll go alphabetically:

A.A. Bondy, "When the Devil's Loose" - AllMusic gives Bondy a backhanded compliment, comparing him to Ryan Adams and says that works fine because he's always sounded like other people. I don't agree with that past imitation, by the way; I think Bondy has always has his own thing, in Verbena and solo, influences be damned. Meanwhile, Bondy covered Hank on a video session for Paste Magazine.

A SOUTHERN DOUBLE SHOT:

The Black Crowes, "Before the Frost"/"Until the Freeze" - I've written about these guys plenty, so I won't say more, but I'm glad to see AllMusic said it's good. It says that writing off the Crowes as '60s/'70s rock imitators is "too snide and easy, and does a disservice to what the Crowes pull off with aplomb on this rather remarkable record, a record that has all the easy interplay of a road-tested band but none of the weariness."

Sorry about the technical difficulties that delayed the release of the podcast these last two days. The evil robots that run this radio station's computer corridors haven't hassled me in a long time, but they got me this week. I beat 'em in the end, though.

And what an episode to screw up! I've wanted to have Eddy and Kim Lawrence do a Ten Dollar studio session almost since this show started, and it was just as good as I'd imagined. They are, truly, as nice as folks can get, and they're well practiced aces at the art of sounding good in a small-town studio with only three one-directional microphones to share between two singers, two instruments and three between-song chit-chatters. You like to think that people who write and play such wry, clever, good-humored music are also good humored in person; Eddy and Kim are. Deep thanks to them: for driving up (down?) from Moira to do this show, for being such good people and for writing and playing such fine songs, especially the ones that nail the North Country culture like no one else can. Kim also rehabilitates wild animals, especially raccoons; they have a bunch of 'em at home. Awesome, I say.

For you locals, they are opening for Connecticut-based songwriter Kath Bloom at 7:30 Friday evening at Bluseed Studios in Saranac Lake, and at the same time Saturday at forART'sSake in downtown Malone. Ms. Bloom's song "Come Here" was in "Before Sunrise," one of my and my wife's favorite movies.

By the way, while waiting in line at the supermarket today, I heard a song by Ben Kweller, whose "Fight" opens this week's show. I've played Ben's songs a bunch before, so it's nice to hear that people are listening.

The Ten Dollar Radio Show - sounds like a tastemaker and plays for free.

Hereâs âI Ainât Hiding,â new disco single from The Black Crowes that I mentioned in the last post. It eventually rocks out a bit, but really, not much. It kind of belies its title. Again, not bad, but â

The album is called âBefore the Frostâ - release has been bumped up a day to Aug. 31.

Closest places for Adirondackers to see them live: Saranac Brewery in Utica on Sept. 11; Higher Ground in Burlington, Vt. on Sept. 17; UPAC in Kingston (N.Y., not Ontario) on Sept. 18.

I heard a new Black Crowes single Aug. 6 on NPRâs World CafÃ. Itâs disco. No kidding. Itâs not bad, but not good, either â at least not for them. It would be good if the disco exploded into greasy supernova rock ânâ roll mid-song, but it doesnât. Is this supposed to be their âEmotional Rescueâ period or something? (I hate to refer to the old Stones comparisons that once dogged them, but this song begs it.) If so, itâs no âSend It to Me.â

The new album, to be released Sept. 1, is called âBefore the Frost,â and anyone who buys it will be given a code to download (for free) a second new album, âUntil the Freeze.â Both were recorded at Levon Helmâs studio in Woodstock, N.Y. in front of a small audience, which sounds cool, or at least a very interesting dynamic for a studio album. Youâd think even serious fans wouldnât be able to sit through the tedium of recording. Itâs even more interesting for the Crowes, who used to record albums under clouds of paranoid, sometimes brawling craziness that any other band wouldnât really want many people to witness. Consider this lead to Vic Garbariniâs brilliant cover story in the September 1992 issue of Guitar for the Practicing Musician magazine:

âMarc Fordâs first day as a Black Crowe got off to a flying start. The former guitarist for Burning Tree arrived early at Chris and Rich Robinsonâs Atlanta garage to begin rehearsal for what would become âThe Southern Harmony and Musical Companion,â the Crowesâ eagerly awaited followup to their multiplatinum debut. The first surprise was that the Robinson brothers had completely rewritten the album theyâd sketched out for Ford at the audition a couple of weeks before. The second came when as they began working on a new song called âSting Me.â They began the song as a slow ballad, then revved it up to a full tilt rocker. Which was better? Lead singer Chris Robinson began arguing with his younger brother Rich; suddenly Chrisâ mike stand was arcing through space â directly at Rich. âIt hit him right in the head,â recalls a still amazed Ford. âSo Rich threw his guitar down, lunged across the room, and grabbed Chris by the shoulders, throwing him up against the wall. Glass, candles and books went flying everywhere.ââ

The article (I wish you luck in procuring a copy; again, itâs really good) goes on to say that the brothers Robinson were hugging and forgiving each other 30 minutes after this skirmish and that an actual brawl between them was a rarity, although it tended to make good copy. Garbarini also writes that when rehearsals turned into recording for âSouthern Harmony,â they banged out every track in one or two takes. The result is arguably the most passionate rock album ever - easily one of my top five.

Iâve been listening to a lot of Black Crowes again, which I do in phases. Ned and I have been e-mailing back and forth about them, me gushing about their best, most fiery work and him pointing out what a mess they became later on. All true. Hereâs our exchange:

Me on Aug. 5:

â By the way, I find myself this week listening once again, in heavy rotation, to the Black Crowes' "Tall." I still say you were missing out on some of the best, most passionate rock music in the universe by saying you can't get into the Crowes anymore - and by not giving that CD more of a chance.

Weirdly, perhaps, I've analyzed it a lot. I could say love of the Crowes is at least partly a Southern thing, the same as love of Springsteen is partly a New-York-City-region-ring-of-fire thing, but geography doesn't cut it alone. First of all, it's not about being from a place so much as being able to GET something of the place's spirit from listening to music. But also, while the South looms fairly large in the Crowes' world, it plays nowhere near as big a role as it does in, say, the Truckers or Skynyrd.

More than geography, I think it's a chip-on-shoulder thing. I'm more defensive than you are, and there is nothing - NOTHNG - like the Crowes' mix of furious, defiant independence and bare-faced hope for deliverance.

"I've got nothing up my sleeve, 'cept this heart and a chip on my shoulder," Chris sings on "Sting Me," the lead song on an album that is definitely on my top 5 best in rock. "You see I'm younger, but I'm getting older."

"Can you sting me right down to my bones?"

It still stings me to hear Chris confessing like a man possessed and Rich compressing everything internally into a dark, raging crunch - and especially when Marc Ford was around to play lead that complemented that maelstrom. Goddamn good shit. You should give "Southern Harmony" another listen.

-Pete

Ned on Aug. 6:

A couple things: First, I think you should re-package these thoughts just a bit and post them on the $10 site. Second, my memory of "Tall" isn't sharp enough to really get into it here with you. That means you're right, I should give it another spin.

"Southern Harmony" is one of the great albums to have been released in our musically aware years. Start to finish, it's phenomenal. Has anyone, ever, come up with a guitar tone as rich and full as what Marc Ford comes up with for the solo in "Sometimes Salvation"? For that matter, that whole record should be a study in electric guitar tones.

After that, though, I stopped really caring about what they did. Why? "Amorica" has "Wiser Time" and "Cursed Diamond," which has the line, "Baby, unzip my pride." Points for that. And points for the original, pube-o-philic album cover, too. The next record has good stuff as well. But somewhere along the way I tired of Chris' voice. Not just the sound of it, but his phrasing, his approach, his accent, everything. What I once heard as energized, excited and desperate (good desperate), I began hearing as grating, whining and pestering. I'm a guy who loves Springsteen's and Dylan's singing, and yet I found myself thinking Chris had a scratchy voice with no range. Crazy, I know, but... And the lyrics started getting ridiculous. Not Lenny Kravitz bad, but pretty bad. "Ozone Mama" from Lions? That song's lousy.

Rich is a great guitar man and arranger, but by the time "By Your Side" rolled around, it seemed to me he was just doing the same old thing. He, and the band, weren't evolving. What were they singing about? What were they playing for? What was at stake? Bands that endure have to be able to answer those questions, right? Easier said than done, but that's why enduring bands are rare. (And I'm not counting bands like Little Feat, which hasn't done anything interesting since Lowell George kicked it. They're just cruising along, which is a different, lamer way to endure.) Maybe with this newer stuff, the Crowes have found a way to articulate their reasons for playing. As I say, I haven't spent enough time with the stuff to really know. Or maybe they're just a really good lil' rock and roll band. Better than a bar band, for sure, but not exactly world-dominating stars, as they were for a moment in the early/mid-nineties. Perhaps if they accept that, and play like the best goddam lil' rock and roll band the world ever saw, they'd find a stronger voice. Maybe the problem's with me and not them. Could be. I wish they'd settle on a lineup, though. Do you listen to "Warpaint" a lot? How's it wearing in?

-Ned

Me on Aug. 6:

I actually agree with you on pretty much everything here. No, I don't listen to "Warpaint" anymore, although I should. I like it because it's going back in the right direction, but I don't love it, partly because Luther Dickinson's playing is really pretty unmemorable, and while some of the songs are pretty good, none of them is that memorable either. Sure, he's the new guy, but Marc Ford had never played with them at all before he recorded "Southern Harmony" with them, and you're right about his "Sometimes Salvation" solo - it's a rocket to Valhalla.

But I'll send you a CD with mp3s of "Tall," which would have come out in 1993, and the less-good but still good "Band," a shelved album from 1997. You especially need to hear "Tall" again. Especially if you like "Wiser Time."

Ned on Aug. 10:

â the Black Crowes are recording an album at Levon's barn/studio in Woodstock. Larry Campbell's going to sit in, playing fiddle, banjo and mandolin, and they're going to record the whole thing live. This could be where I start to get back into the Crowes.

I can only respond to that optimism with a flat, âWeâll see.â I believe the Crowes are much, much better than the liâl old rock ânâ roll band Ned describes â I base that largely on seeing an absolutely galvanizing show by them in 2005 in Burlington, Vt., under a different name (Mr. Croweâs Garden, their Atlanta-days handle before the current one), with Marc Ford back, Chris being humble and everyone taking eye-contact cues from Rich. That show proved they could rage, but not that they knew where they were going other than getting back together after a long hiatus. âWarpaintâ didnât show that, either, really. Time will tell â

(The podcast on this post is âSometimes Salvation, so you can hear the guitar solo that Ned and I are in awe of. The photo is the Crowesâ 1992 appearance on the cover of the now-defunct Guitar for the Practicing Musician magazine. Gotta love the context.)

A resident of a low-income, mostly Latino neighborhood in Long Branch, N.J. calls the cops to report a scruffy-looking man wandering around, looking at houses. It's pouring rain.

"He was wearing black sweatpants tucked into black rain boots, and two raincoats with the hood pulled down over his head," the 22-year-old cop, Kristie Buble, told a newspaper reporter later.

Officer Buble is right around the corner when she gets the dispatch, and she easily finds the man in question and stops him.

"What is your name, sir?" she asked.

"Bob Dylan," he said.

"OK, what are you doing here?" the officer asked.

"I'm on tour," the singer replied.

"He said he was touring the country with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp. So now I'm really a little fishy about his story. I did not know what to believe or where he was coming from, or even who he was.

"We see a lot of people on our beat, and I wasn't sure if he came from one of our hospitals or something," she said.

So she asks him for ID, and she doesn't have any. In the squad car he goes - amiably, though, chatting about the tour with Nelson and Mellencamp. But then this ... "He asked me if I could drive him back to the neighbourhood when I verified who he was, which made me even more suspicious."

They drive to his hotel, where her sergeant, also in his 20s, is waiting. He doesn't recognize this sketchy-looking guy as the great American songwriter, either, but Dylan's manager saves the day by showing up with the man's passport.

This really happened on July 23. I took it from this article in the London Telegraph, this one by the Associated Press and this one by the BBC, but there are others.

Most intriguing of all is the speculation by the Telegraph that Dylan may have been looking for the bungalow where Bruce Springsteen lived for two years and wrote "Born to Run," "Thunder Road" and "Backstreets." It's just a few hundred yards away from where Bob was.

Coincidence? Yeah, maybe, but there's also this from the BBC: "Earlier this year it emerged Dylan mingled unnoticed with Beatles tourists during a minibus tour to John Lennon's childhood home.

"He was one of 14 tourists to examine photos and documents in the National Trust-owned home, when his European tour stopped in Liverpool for a concert on 2 May"

And in November, Dylan showed up at the Winnipeg house where Neil Young lived as a teenager with his mom. Rolling Stone had it here.

I like that Bob would feel compelled to track down clues of other great songwriters â especially on a tour bus, and in a downpour in sweats and two raincoats. I wonder if he expected to find anything in particular or just wanted to be there, like any other fan.

I'm gonna have to play Bob's "Man in the Long Black Coat" on this week's show.

(Photo is a free promotional pic from www.bobdylan.com. Thanks to them.)

To continue our rock beat-poetry series, Is This Thing On? ...

Marc Bolan groks the Liquid Poetess big-time, but she shrinks him and puts him in a can. At least Germaine is in there with him ... "Do the Rock. Do the One Inch Rock."

(Photo of Marc Bolan on a skateboard swiped from www.skateandannoy.com, which doesn't attribute its origin)

OK, the second half of Sunday's show is now posted, starting with Paul Simon's tale of plotting pigs, gradually sliding into illness and coming out to party for Cinco de Mayo (tomorrow). It all ends with one of my new favorite songs - El Vez tossing his hunk of burning love for Bachman Turner Overdrive like a hand grenade at Americans living so high on the hog they whine about being unemployed while Mexicans take care of business.

!!!!

For more about the show, see "Swine Flu Serenade (1st half)," posted last night. Here's the second half, as you'll hear here:

Pigs, Sheep and Wolves - Paul Simon
War Pigs - Hayseed Dixie
Pig in a Pen - The Stanley Brothers
Hogwash - Bill Emerson & His Virginia Mountaineers
I'm Sick Y'all - Otis Redding
Sick Feelin' Blues - Lightnin' Hopkins
Memphis Flu - The Felice Brothers
Sick - Boss Hog
Hospital Escape - Scott H. Biram
You Be Illin' - Run DMC
Fiesta de la Feos - The Spam All-Stars
Tacos, Enchiladas and Beans - Doris Day
La Cumbia del Mole - Lila Downs
Frontera - Calexico
Malaguena Salerosa - Chingon
Tequila - The Champs
Guantanamera (Guajira) - Los Lobos
Taking Care of Business - El Vez

(The photo of Elvin Bishop sharing his Bud with his other bud is the front cover of his 1978 album, "Hog Heaven")

Please, people, understand that you cannot get swine flu from eating pork. You can, however, get high cholesterol, which may be worse, considering how lean this fear-fattened virus is shaping up to be. Nevertheless, we here at Ten Dollar Central felt the need to do our part for public health by playing pork songs until you get the message that you have no more to fear from bacon than you did a week or so ago. It's too late for those 300,000 pigs Egypt ordered slaughtered, but hopefully they'll make it to hungry people's plates, at least.

Once again, Kelly Hofschneider (nee Hogg) co-hosted with me. She not only brought home the bacon but also a side of Cinco de Mayo, a refreshing palate cleanser after all that pork. In between the two we stuffed in a set about sickness from that old swine flu (H1N1 to the porkolitically correct).

You listeners did your part, too. I e-mailed you all a public service announcement on Wednesday asking for pig song suggestions, and I got a flood of responses. Not all of them made it into the show, some because Kelly and I couldn't dig them up (next time, "Scrapple in the Apple") and some because they're too classic rock for us (so long, "Pigs on the Wing"). We did play a bunch of them, though. Thank you, Rita, Mark, Ned, Uncle Paul, Carol, Duane, Kate, Corey, Paul, Jacob (from Tblisi!), Mikey, John, Tim, Phil and Ellen. Also, thank you, fellow Rock 105 DJs Pat, Chris and Doug; you may not know it yet, but I borrowed a song from each of your collections.

E-mail me more ideas, songs and whatnot to tendollarradio@gmail.com. Locals can listen to the show every Sunday from 6 to 8 p.m. on 105.5 or 102.1. The rest of you, catch it and Ned's and my musical musings here on www.tendollarradioshow.com.

The Ten Dollar Radio Show - sounds like a million indignant pigs, falsely accused of a flu they didn't start, and plays for free.

The evil robots of Rock 105 must dislike pork as much as the Egyptian government because they screwed up the recording again. I managed to get the first hour; I'll try to get the second later this week.

This week's playlist:

Pork Chops and Mustard Greens - Ernie Andrews
Bacon Fat - Ray Collins Hot Club
Ham an' Eggs - Leadbelly
Ham and Eggs - Tex Williams
Ham 'n' Eggs - A Tribe Called Quest
Barbeque - Devil in a Woodpile
Barbecue Any Old Time - The Alabama Gravy Soppers
Chittlin' Cookin' Time in Cheatam County - Arthur Smith Trio
Filipino Box Spring Hog (live, March 20, 1999, Austin Texas) - Tom Waits
Pigmeat - Leadbelly
Gimme a Pigfoot (and a Bottle of Beer) - Bessie Smith
Sic 'Em Pigs - Canned Heat
The Hair on My Chinny Chin Chin - Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs
I'm a Hog for You Baby - The Youngbloods
Hog of the Forsaken - Michael Hurley
---(First half cuts off here.)---

Pigs, Sheep and Wolves - Paul Simon
War Pigs - Hayseed Dixie
Pig in a Pen - The Stanley Brothers
Hogwash - Bill Emerson & His Virginia Mountaineers
I'm Sick Y'all - Otis Redding
Sick Feelin' Blues - Lightnin' Hopkins
Memphis Flu - The Felice Brothers
Sick - Boss Hog
Hospital Escape - Scott H. Biram
You Be Illin' - Run DMC
Fiesta de la Feos - The Spam All-Stars
Tacos, Enchiladas and Beans - Doris Day
La Cumbia del Mole - Lila Downs
Frontera - Calexico
Malaguena Salerosa - Chingon
Tequila - The Champs
Guantanamera (Guajira) - Los Lobos
Taking Care of Business - El Vez

(The photo, by the way, is from the back cover of Elvin Bishop's 1978 album "Hog Heaven," which, curiously enough, has no hog songs.)

Here's a forecast: Booker T's "Potato Hole," released to stores today, will be a standard house party soundtrack for many years to come. Maybe decades. It's just that groovy.

Backed smokingly by the Drive-By Truckers and Neil Young, it's as much a rock groove -- sometimes hard rock -- as a soul groove, which may mean that it will only play at white folks' house parties. That'd be sad, especially since when Booker T & the MGs broke out in the '60s, music had just gotten much less segregated than it is today. Booker says in the album's press release that he's always liked rock and Otis Redding did, too. "We were getting into it a bit, but couldn't really do it back then. It just wasn't right for Stax," Booker said. I'm right now happily imagining Otis albums made with multi-racial rock-soul-blues-country musicians. It was that kind of stew that bred the Allman Brothers Band, Booker T & the MGs and the beautiful Muscle Shoals, Alabama sound that the Drive-By Truckers were born into. (Patterson Hood's dad, David, was a key Muscle Shoals session man.)

Anyway, back to "Potato Hole": It's all about the groove, and the four hotshot guitarists hang back and serve that end. Neil barely solos, even though Booker T describes him in the liner notes as "like a race horse, unable to wait to get out of the gate." Curiously, his thanks to the Truckers are more toned-down: "for their enthusiastic musical support, for following my lead, and for letting me drive." He's right about who's driving; on every tune, his organ playing is clearly the hand on the wheel of this rig. He doesn't spiral like a virtuoso, and he hangs back a lot, too, but as soon as he comes in, there's no question that it's his gig.

This album was mostly recorded in four days in the Truckers' adopted hometown of Athens, Georgia. The tunes are written by Booker except for OutKast's "Hey Ya," Tom Waits' "Get Behind the Mule" and the Truckers' "Space City." But they've all been Bookerized. No vocal cords are heard anywhere near this album, which is just fine. Put it on repeat when the guests show up, and let it go all evening. No one will mind.

P.S.: You can get to a fair bit of cool stuff from Anti's Booker T page. And if you're curious about the album's title, here's another promo from Anti records that I like. "The Hole" he talks about, "a joint in the basement of a house in the 'hood where we would go to drink, play records and party" -- that's exactly what this album is all about.

A review: The Felice Brothers in concert, Saturday, April 11, 2009 in the front room at Higher Ground, South Burlington, Vt.

Live, the Felice Brothers are a whole new deal than on CD, as my wife and I found out Saturday. Itâs not that they have showmanship; they donât. Instead, they have the fire in the belly (more than just the bottle of scotch they sipped onstage) and splendid musical ability to back it up.

For those who donât know, their raw songs, which range from chilling to rousing, are among the best of their generation; the band is road-tested to sloppy perfection; and the lead voices are completely distinctive: Ian Feliceâs is raspy, wry and commanding, and James Feliceâs is a bearlike howl. Comparisons to The Band are inevitable, but the Felice Brothers are darker, meaner and more scarred. Perhaps this is partly because they were raised in upstate New Yorkâs bloody old soil, which The Band only adopted.

The brothers themselves look absolutely nothing alike. Big, grinning James, with his tousled black hair and beard, can play accordion and organ/piano like you wouldnât believe. Emaciated Ian, angled sideways and pushing his mic around with his mouth, always seemed on the verge of falling over. His Guild semi-hollow-body guitar is beautiful, but the area around the lower f-hole is completely thrashed from the metal fingerpicks he uses.

The third actual brother, Simone, is on hiatus. The fill-in, built like Rocky Balboa, hit the drums harder than anyone Iâve ever heard.

Also bringing the noise was fiddle and washboard player Greg Farley, who was all over the place: poking and prodding his bandmates, gesturing to depict Ianâs lyrics and seemingly wanting to burst into rap at any time.

Silent bass player Christmas just tried to stay out of the way; too bad for him the stage was so small.

From the first notes, the crowd was caught up in the glory of the songs bursting forth with extra power: raw ravers like âFrankieâs Gunâ and âRun Chicken Run,â slow ones like âHey Hey Revolverâ and one excellent cover: Townes Van Zandtâs âTwo Hands.â

Meanwhile, Ian leaped onto the drum kit for a guitar solo, James threw the half-full bottle of Dewarâs across the stage to the drummer, who caught it, and Greg smashed two washboards, one of them on the drummerâs cymbal.

These men are young and reckless, but they seem to be possessed by an old spirit.

(Photo by Michelle Crowley â Greg Farley flails as accordion player James Felice howls Saturday night at Higher Ground in South Burlington, Vt.)

It just won't warm up here in Saranac Lake. I'm not sure it broke freezing today, but the hot spot of my week was last night in Burlington, Vt., where my wife and I went to see the Felice Brothers - astoundingly good. My review and Michelle's photos of the show should be up Monday night on www.tendollarradioshow.com, where you can also find the podcast of this week's radio show and an archive going back to October.

On this show are four songs from the Felices' new album, "Yonder Is the Clock," which came out Tuesday. Imagine them with a double dose of gas on the fire, and you're getting an idea of how this band gets live.

Also this week, some more animals followed me into the studio - mostly fish, but the Felices threw a couple more chickens into the pot we were cooking on the March 15 show. Special thanks go to Brother John and Uncle Paul for sending tunes my way.

Plus, Dan Zanes wants payback, Dinah Washington wants trombones with butter, John Sinclair and Wayne Kramer share poetic hipster ironies, and an Iranian wails the blues in the Caucasus Mountains, a recording sent to us by ex-Saranac Lake newsman Jacob Resneck.

Jacob can only listen to the podcast, but those of you lucky enough to be local can tune in every Sunday evening from 6 to 8 on 102.1 or 105.5 FM.

The Ten Dollar Radio Show - sounds like a fish out of water in a former Soviet republic and plays for free.

This week's playlist:

Pay Me My Money Down - Dan Zanes
Plastic Jim - Sly & the Family Stone
Trombone Butter - Dinah Washington
The Old Days - Dr. Dog
Wicked Wanda - Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
Funk 49 - Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
Liberties - Attack in Black
The Big Surprise - The Felice Brothers
Chicken Wire - The Felice Brothers
Run Chicken Run - The Felice Brothers
The Boy from Lawrence County - The Felice Brothers
Beyond Here Lies Nothin' - Bob Dylan
Monk's Dream - John Sinclair
Revolution in Apt. 29 - Wayne Kramer & David Was
Hang You from the Heavens - The Dead Weather
Warped Sister - Booker T
Freedom Highway (live) - Mavis Staples
Talking Old Soldiers - Betty Lavette
Caucasian Blues (CUT) - Aidin Davoudi
Lime Rock - And the Moneynotes
Check Your Time - Westbound Train
Set in Stone - Catfish Haven
In this Lonely Town - Jeremy Jay
Talkin' Troutfishing in America Blues - Dooderonomy
Gone Fishin' - Bing Crosby & Louis Armstrong
Fishin' Blues - William Clarke
Sierra Fresca (Song for Teresa the Fishmonger) - Rolando Sanchez
An Ocean and a Rock - Lisa Hannigan
Spike Drivers Blues - Laura Veirs
Dead Man, Acoustic Theme - Neil Young

E-mail requests, ideas and comments to tendollarradio@gmail.com.

(Photo by Michelle Crowley - An accordion, the setlist, a Fender amp and a bottle of scotch sit onstage next to Ian Felice's feet Saturday night at Higher Ground in South Burlington, Vt.)

I'm listening to the new Neil Young album, "Fork in the Road," in 30-seconds-per-song bits, and I love what I hear. His best since ... "Broken Arrow"? Yes, I think so. That was 1996 - his prime. He's back. It's 1989 all over again for him, when he shifted from his '80s experiments into his '90s groove. All it took was a big old steel behemoth with a hummin' engine and a new source of fuel.

Allmusic's review says it all. Read it here: http://blog.allmusic.com/2009/4/3/neil-young-fork-in-the-road/

You can also listen to clips of each song on allmusic: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:39fqxz90ldde

And there's a lot of cluttered junk - some good, some crap - on the official Neil site: http://neilyoung.com/ . Watch the videos, if you can, for four songs from the new album: "Fork in the Road," "Johnny Magic" (2 of 'em), "Light a Candle" and - maybe best of all - "Cough up the Bucks," the chorus line of which is a question to the Wall Street barons: "Where did all the money go? Where did all the cash flow?" It may be populist, but it's still a good question.

It seems like a great time for new music from old geniuses who are getting their acts together again. Dylan also has a new album coming out April 28; read a very long interview with him about it on his site here: http://www.bobdylan.com/#/conversation . Marianne Faithfull has a great new one. Elvis Costello has an acoustic one coming that sounds good from the song I heard. Also, with new stuff by Felice Brothers, Neko Case and many more I can't think of at the moment (add some in comments below, if you like), you really need to take a wad of money from your account and head down to your local record store - not online or at some crappy chain - and buy some of this stuff. Me, I'll be dropping some dough at Ampersound in Saranac Lake - the only record store left in the Tri-Lakes area.

Seriously, these locally owned record stores are shrines, but they're dying. They need you, and although you may not realize it, you need them, if you're a music lover, to refresh your soul. Think about it; your soul is probably malnourished. Listen to this Neil album to find out what it feels like when a soul revives. It's like when his 1959 Lincoln Continental got a new, electric motor: It's as much of a glorious, heavyweight cruiser as ever, but it's get new, fresh juice flowing through thosewide-open veins.

Two hours of audio-poultry - 37 songs' worth - that's the kind of bounty we're blessed with when Kelly Hofschneider sits in as guest DJ. That's probably one chicken song per listener, I figure. Kelly describes it as our stimulus package. Which one do you want in your pot?

By the way, the phrase, "a chicken in every pot," is attributed to various political leaders, dating back to 17th-century King Henry IV of France, but it's most commonly blamed on Herbert Hoover's 1928 presidential campaign, when the Republican National Committee (not Hoover himself, according to the Hoover Presidential Library and answers.com) advertised in newspapers that the recent Harding and Coolidge presidencies had "put the proverbial 'chicken in every pot.' And a car in every backyard, to boot."

Like at a factory farm, Kelly's idea of playing chicken songs quickly got pumped up on steroids, but we kept it truly free range - over all kinds of musical genres: funk, swing, Latin, country, punk, blues, reggae, etc. One turkey song found its way into the henhouse ("Butterball" - I couldn't resist the Tijuana Brass), and Roy Orbison's "Running Scared" doesn't specifically mention chickens (although it's about being chicken), but otherwise, it's thematically pure. Included are four wildly different versions of "Cluck Old Hen" and the closely related "The Red Rooster" and "Little Red Rooster," which differ largely on perspective: One takes the voice of the farmer, the other the rooster.

Someone mentioned why we didn't pick a St. Patrick's Day theme, to which I can only answer, we did. The patron saint of chicken farmers is St. Brigid of Ireland, whose mother was baptized by St. Patrick. Read more here: http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-brigid-of-ireland/.

If you're in crowing distance, listen every Sunday from 6 to 8 p.m., or online at your leisure at tendollarradioshow.com.

The Ten Dollar Radio Show - sounds like a fox in the henhouse and plays for free.

This week's playlist:

Do the Funky Chicken - Rufus Thomas
Do the Chicken - Ike and Tina Turner
A Chicken Ain't Nothin' but a Bird - Cab Calloway
Nobody Here but Us Chickens - Louis Jordan
Chicken Heads - Oscar Brown Jr.
The Chicken - James Brown
Chicken Half - Sugerman 3
Thunder Chicken - The Mighty Imperials
Chicken and Rice - Jack Costanzo (Mr. Bongo) And His Latin Combustion Band
Legendary Chicken Fairy - Jack Blanchard and Misty Morgan
Chicken Feed - Bobbi Staff
Chicken Farm - Dead Kennedys
Running Scared - Roy Orbison
Chicken - Devendra Banhart
Rooster Blues - Lightning Slim
Little Red Rooster - The Rolling Stones
The Red Rooster - Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley
The Rooster Moans - Iron & Wine
Cluck Old Hen - Holly GoLightly & the Brokeoffs
Cluck Old Hen - Taj Mahal
Cluck Old Hen - Califone
Cluck Old Hen - The Stanley Brothers
Falsehearted Chicken - Samamidon
Butterball - Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
Know Your Chicken - Cibo Matto
Return to Hot Chicken - Yo La Tengo
Crow Black Chicken - Ry Cooder
Cackling Hen - New Lost City Ramblers
Poultry in Motion - Bill Kirchen
Chicken Wire - The Felice Brothers
Chicken - Mississippi John Hurt
Chicken Scratch - Lee "Scratch" Perry
Best Dressed Chicken In Town - Dr. Alimantado
Voodoo Without Killing Chicken - Knut Reiersrud Band
Chicken Reel - Les Paul
Chicken Rhythm - Slim Gailard
Cock-A-Doodle-Do - Wynonie Harris

If you have other animal-themed songs to suggest, or if you want my extra vinyl copy of Herb Alpert's "Whipped Cream and Other Delights," shoot me an e-mail at tendollarradio@gmail.com.

Although 41 days is, for Boozoo Chavis, the length of time his baby's been gone, it could be loosely - OK, very loosely - interpreted as a reference to the 40 days of Lent that begin this (Ash) Wednesday, plus Mardi Gras day before. Why else would he pick 41? I suppose there are plenty of other possible reasons out there, and Boozoo ain't telling. He doesn't say much that makes a lot of sense. Oh well, imagine for this show that that's what he means.

With lean Lent coming up, this Tuesday is the fat one in New Orleans, Mobile, Alabama and other places that celebrate Mardi Gras. In Brazil and parts of Europe, they'll be calling it Carnaval (translated loosely as farewell to meat/flesh). This week's show is heavy on New Orleans with a little side dish of Brazil. It's a big meaty party, and the hambone at the center of it all is a five-song block of Dr. John. I only wish I could have played more. I blogged about how good he is the other day; check it out (along with this show, and all our podcasts and articles) at www.tendollarradio.com.

Also on this show is new music from M. Ward, Charlie Louvin and Heartless Bastards, plus four scratchy songs from the '20s or perhaps even earlier - two of them copied from cylinders played on a 1914 Thomas Edison-brand gramophone.

If you're in range, listen next Sunday and every Sunday from 6 to 8 p.m. on 102.1 or 105.5 FM.

The Ten Dollar Radio Show - sounds like the cost of a night out in the French Quarter and plays for free.

This week's playlist:

Forty-One Days - Boozoo Chavis
Crescent City - Lucinda Williams
Froggie Moore - King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band
Mardi Gras in New Orleans - Professor Longhair
Let the Four Winds Blow - Fats Domino
Look Ka Py Py - The Meters
Century City - Galactic
Zu Zu Man - Dr. John
Little Closer to My Home - Dr. John
Chippy, Chippy - Dr. John
Anutha Zone - Dr. John
Hello God - Dr. John
Time Is on My Side - Irma Thomas
The Same Love That Made Me Laugh - Irma Thomas
River Boat - Allen Toussaint
Rag Mama Rag (live) - The Band
Mornin', Noon and Night - The Trumpet Kings (Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Roy Eldridge) and Big Joe Turner
God Don't Like It - Blind Willie Johnson
Shake, Rattle and Roll - Al Bernard
Whistling Foxtrot - Green Bros. Novelty Band
Tell It Like It Is - Aaron Neville
Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans? - Louis Armstrong
Hino Do Carnaval Brasileiro - Caetano Veloso and Jorge Mautner
Trem Fantasma (ghost train) - Os Mutantes
Quem Tem Medo de Brincar de Amor? (Who's afraid to jump up for love?) - Os Mutantes
For Beginners - M. Ward
Darling Corey - Charlie Louvin
Walking in My Sleep - Jim & Jennie & the Pinetops
The Mountain - Heartless Bastards
Going Back Home - Howlin' Wolf
I'm Gonna Booglarize You Baby - Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band
A Common Disaster - Cowboy Junkies
The Most Fair Beauty Bright - Jean Ritchie
Weeping Woman Blues - Ma Rainey & her Georgia Jazz Band

"Action News" kicks off this week's show, reporting on the plane crash heard round the world on Feb. 3, 1959. Tuesday marks the 50th anniversary, and the ghosts of Ritchie, Buddy and The Bopper are conjured for you here, plus cameos by Dion and Waylon Jennings, who survived the "Winter Dance Party" tour; the Stones, who covered a Buddy Holly tune for the first song on their first album; and Bob Dylan, who was in the audience at the tour's Jan. 31 stop in Duluth, Minnesota. Then still called Bobby Zimmerman, he was a high-school senior of 17, the same age as Ritchie Valens. (Ritchie was born May 13, Bob the 25th. Both also ditched last names that tagged them as ethnic minorities; Ritchie's original last name was Valenzuela.)

After that tribute is a run of vintage vinyl and new tunes from Ben Kweller, James Jackson Toth, Ryan Adams and Neko Case. The entire second hour is turned over to songs picked by my Uncle Paul in L.A. His list mixes lost-and-found treasures (Jo Jo Zep & the Falcons from '79, Volcano Suns from '85 and Brenda Khan from '92) with new stuff from the likes of Robyn Hitchcock, Anne McCue and Phosphorescent.

This week's show did not entirely escape the pranks of the Evil Robot Gremlin Droids. (They're so established now that I'm capitalizing them.) They nabbed my last voice track. I recorded it between the songs by Lisa Hannigan and Don Chamber & GOAT, but it never made it to the air. The droids ate it.

As always, we're podcasting and blogging on www.tendollarradioshow.com, and broadcasting from 6 to 8 every Sunday evening on 102.1 and 105.5 FM in the northern Adirondacks.

The Ten Dollar Radio Show - sounds like a "Lonely Teenager" left hanging 50 years ago in Fargo and plays for free.

This week's playlist:

Newscast;

It's The Truth Ruth - The Big Bopper;

Teenage Moon - The Big Bopper;

Ooh! My Head - Ritchie Valens;

Malaguena - Ritchie Valens;

Lonely Teenager - Dion;

What to Do - Buddy Holly;

Brown Eyed Handsome Man - Buddy Holly;

Medley of Buddy Holly Hits: Well All Right/It's So Easy/Maybe Baby - Waylon Jennings;

Not Fade Away - The Rolling Stones;

All Along the Watchtower - Bob Dylan and The Band;

Just Another Name for Rock and Roll - Roy Orbison;

Cat Man - Gene Vincent;

Hurtin' You - Ben Kweller;

Doreen - James Jackson Toth;

Going Back Song - James Jackson Toth;

I've Lost My Mind - The Candymen;

Magick - Ryan Adams & The Cardinals;

People Got a Lotta Nerve - Neko Case;

Boogie on Reggae Woman - Stevie Wonder;

Time in Mobile/Alabama Bound - Jelly Roll Morton;

Meu Refrigerador NÃo Funciona - Os Mutantes;

Shadows Fall - The Coral;

Anna - Charles Spearin;

Shape I'm In - Jo Jo Zep & the Falcons;

Jak - Volcano Suns;

Up to our Necks - Robyn Hitchcock;

I Don't Sleep, I Drink Coffee Instead - Brenda Kahn;

Keep a Light Showering Down - Lil Greenwood and David Amram;

Ever Born Again - Sarah Jaffe;

Money in the Morning - Anne McCue;

Reasons to Quit - Phosphorescent;

Love Me Blue - Ian McFeron Band;

I Don't Know - Lisa Hannigan;

Highwater - Don Chambers & GOAT;

Uncle Disney - Patterson Hood

I played multiple songs from each of my top five albums: Silver Jewsâ âLookout Mountain Lookout Sea,â The Felice Brothersâ self-titled album, Damian Juradoâs âCaught in the Trees,â Elliott Broodâs âMountain Meadowsâ and Drive-By Truckersâ âBrighter than Creationâs Dark.â After that, itâs a song an album. Listen up, and if you like âem, go buy âem at your local record store. I recommend Ampersound in Saranac Lake.

Only two songs interrupt the year-in-review experience, and each needs some explanation. â1969â blasts out in memory of Stooges guitarist, and sometime bassist and vocalist (I hate the term âvocalist,â but with The Stooges it really is more accurate than âsingerâ), Ron Asheton, who died this week. Finally, the show closes with a taste of things past and future: Johnny Rivers with all the glorious crackle of well-loved vinyl â a sound that marks a turning point in this showâs history.

You see, Rock 105 got rid of all its turntables years ago, so I havenât been able to dip into my record collection for this show. But I just bought a turntable that connects to my computer, so now I can record these songs digitally and play them for you on the air. I donât think Iâll edit out any of the Rice Krispie noise from the background; I love it too much.

As always, podcasts of the show (it worked this week) and music blogging are at www.tendollarradioshow.com, and locals can listen from 6 to 8 p.m. every Sunday on 102.1 or 105.5.

The Ten Dollar Radio Show â sounds like the snaps and pops on an old copy of âEnglandâs Newest Hit Makersâ (the Stonesâ first album) and plays for free.

This weekâs playlist:

Party Barge â Silver Jews

1969 â The Stooges

My Pillow Is the Threshold â Silver Jews

We Could Be Looking for the Same Thing â Silver Jews

Take This Bread â The Felice Brothers

Love Me Tenderly â The Felice Brothers

Dimes â Damian Jurado

Coats of Ice â Damian Jurado

The Valley Town â Elliott Brood

Garden River â Elliott Brood

2 Daughters and a Beautiful Wife â Drive-By Truckers

3 Dimes Down â Drive-By Truckers

Lover of the Bayou â Mudcrutch

 Victor Jaraâs Hands â Calexico

She Left Me for Jesus â Hayes Carll

Sammy from Massena â Eddy and Kim Lawrence

I Do My Fatherâs Drugs â Joe Pug

Loralee â The Whitsundays

Top Yourself â The Raconteurs

Palmyra â Jolie Holland

Well, Well, Well â Lucinda Williams

Go Away â Elvis Costello and the Imposters

Natural Ghost â Ryan Adams and the Cardinals

Librarian â My Morning Jacket

I Could Blow Your Mind â Eve and the Exiles

Youthless â Beck

Georgie Buck â Carolina Chololate Drops

Short While â Mike and Ruthie

Without Again â Elliott Brood

Everybody Wants to Rule the World â Clare and the Reasons

The Long Black Veil â Johnny Rivers

You folks either really like getting these e-mails or else were grossed out by last weekâs âso you want off the list, do ya?â trivia challenge. No one even bothered to guess the answer, except Ned, and then only under pressure by me. The question was, âWhat's yellow, curly, sweaty and probably sometimes got caught between a piano and a shoe?â Correct answer: Jerry Lee Lewisâ hair. Wrong answer: what Ned said, which was unprintable. New question: Do yâall want more questions or not?

âPete

So Ned was back in town and back on the air. You'd probably really like to hear him again. Plus, he brought back from NYC a whole bunch of great music: the Killer knockin' 'em dead on a Stax records smash, Bobby Charles finding solidarity in the alleys, Furry Lewis sounding like his nickname, more Jeannie C. Riley and Gatemouth, a pair of bands Ned saw recently - Yarn and Sometimes Why - and a pair of salty shakers: Elton White celebrating jiggly heinies and the York Brothers quaking with nervousness.

Yep, you would like it. It's sad that you missed it. I hope you can hear it someday soon, when we recover the recording of the show. Maybe in a day or so, if all goes well. Until then, you can blame the computer gremlin droids in the Rock 105 studio yet again. They can be, to put it kindly, tiresome. Oh well ...

I'll let you know when the show is posted. Meanwhile, this is an opportunity to catch up on the shows you missed on www.tendollarradio.com. What about that one where ex-Wailin' Jenny Annabelle Chvostek plays six songs and compares minivans with me? Or Ned's last show?

Meanwhile, if you're within FM range, you owe it to yourself to listen every Sunday evening from 6 to 8 on 102.1 or 105.5.

The Ten Dollar Radio Show - sounds like Jerry Lee's jelly-behind ladyfriend (only 14, too - the swine) and plays for free.

This week's playlist:

Stand Out - Love

Everybody's Gotta Live - Love ... with Arthur Lee

Hold On, I'm Coming - Jerry Lee Lewis

Philly Dog - Booker T. & the MGs

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Otis Redding

Cosmic Slop - The Fetish

Off the Record - My Morning Jacket

I Guess You're Right - The Posies

If You Want Me, You Can Find Me - Lawson and Four More

Street People - Bobby Charles

A Jelly Behind Woman Blows my Mind - Elton White

Tremblin' - The York Brothers

The Back Side of Dallas - Jeannie C. Riley

Rumrunner - Tim Hus

Beer Hauler - Tim Hus

Amos Moses - Clarence Gatemouth Brown

Empty Pockets - Yarn

Ain't That a Sin - Yarn

Hellhound - Earl Greyhound

Brownsville Blues - Furry Lewis

I Call Her Baby Doll - Herald Nix

B-19 - Slim Gaillard

Hey Mr. Landlord - Jimmy Witherspoon

Didn't Take Your Man - Ann Peebles

Love Me - The Little Willies

The Devil Is Real - The Felice Brothers

Palestine Texas - T Bone Burnett

I'm Leaving You Now - Lightnin' Hopkins with ? (unidentified woman)

The Seasick Dawn - Sometimes Why

Shell Game - Sometimes Why

Swimming - Shelley Short

Oh Babe, It Ain't No Lie - Elizabeth Cotton

Last week's "wanna get off this e-mail list?" trivia challenge was half-won by my brother John (who, by the way, drew me in the family Christmas gift exchange and gave me the Herald Nix, Tim Hus and My Morning Jacket CDs heard on this show). The challenge was to guess the first and last artists, alphabetically, in the Ten Dollar Radio music library. He said A.A. Bondy (right) and Z.Z. Top (wrong - just because we work out of a classic rock station ...). The real answer would have been too hard for anyone to guess - Zee Avi (we played a novelty Christmas song by her) - but the second last was Yo La Tengo, a little better known. Sorry John - you're stuck with these e-mails.

If anyone else wants off, that's fine - simply answer this riddle: What's yellow, curly, sweaty and probably sometimes got caught between a piano and a shoe?

-Pete

The evil robots returned to bedevil the recording of the show, but hopefully thatâll be re-recorded and podcasted in the next day or so. Keep checking for it here on www.tendollarradioshow.com, where you can also download plenty of rad past shows and read blog entries like Nedâs reports on Norah Jonesâ enthusiasm for certain NYC pizza joints and an NYC audienceâs unenthusiasm for live music.

As always, if youâre close enough, keep tuning in to 102.1 or 105.5 FM from 6 to 8 every Sunday.

The Ten Dollar Radio Show â sounds like a rock ânâ roll librarian and plays for free.

This weekâs playlist:

Brown Eyed Handsome Man â Buddy Holly

Blue â Cat Power

(Donât Worry) If Thereâs a Hell Below, Weâre All Gonna Go â Curtis Mayfield

Fathers and Sons â Del McCourey Band

Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar â Doc and Merle Watson

Frankie & Johnnie â Doc Watson and David Grisman

Travelinâ Prayer â Dolly Parton

Elvis Presley Blues â Gillian Welch

Mind Your Own Business â Hank Williams

The Rooster Moans â Iron & Wine

The Old Man and Me â J.J. Cale

Crossing Muddy Waters â John Hiatt

Think Twice Before You Go â John Lee Hooker

The Motor City Is Burning â John Lee Hooker

The Late John Garfield Blues â John Prine

Daddy Sang Bass â Johnny Cash

I Hung My Head â Johnny Cash

Devilâs Right Hand â Johnny Cash

Like the 309 â Johnny Cash

Waiting for a Train â Jorma Kaukonen

Tale of Woe â King Wilkie

Millieâs Song â King Wilkie

Room at the Top of the Stairs â Leo Kottke

8 Miles High â Leo Kottke

Go Go Liza Jane â Levon and the Hawks

Blind Man â Little Milton

Trouble on the Line â Loretta Lynn

This Old House â Loretta Lynn

Hesitating Blues â Louis Armstrong

Slidinâ Delta â Mississippi John Hurt

Too Far Gone â Neil Young

Half as Much â Patsy Cline

Strange â Patsy Cline

Farm Girl â Ry Cooder

O Pato â Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd

Watch Me Fall â Uncle Tupelo

Your Party â Ween

Peace,

Pete

It looked like we were well on our way to getting our second foot of snow in three days as the Ten Dollar Radio Show aired Sunday evening. Plus, it was the longest night of the year. Hibernation time. Instead of opening at 70 mph, this week's show began at snowplow speed and settled in with the steady rhythm of the flakes until things picked up about midway through the first hour.

For the second hour, Slyde and the family Doan (John and his daughter Hannah are half of this Lake Placid band) took over the studio. They are this program's first repeat performers, and they had deserved it after their fantastic session back in June. This time, they played six hot-pickin" tunes - still mostly instrumentals but also with some really nice singing by Hannah and John. They're playing Jan. 3 at BluSeed Studios in Saranac Lake, on the bill with the fabulous Frankenpine, and again at the Ski Jam on Jan. 23 at Dewey Mountain X-C Ski Center in Saranac Lake. Slyde, by the way, is Mike Portal on guitar, Chris Grant on cello, John Doan on banjo and dobro and Hannah Doan on bouzouki and guitar.

Listen anytime at www.tendollarradioshow.com and every Sunday from 6 to 8 on 102.1 and 105.5 FM in the northern Adirondacks.

The Ten Dollar Radio Show - sounds like two feet of powder and plays for free.

This week"s playlist:

Cumberland County - Fred Eaglesmith

Barstool Blues â Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Heavy Snow â Lightninâ Hopkins

Snowinâ on Raton â Townes Van Zandt

White Snow â Ben Weaver

Doubletree â Jeffrey Foucault

Rivers and Tides â Frankenpine

Faceless Weaver â Frankenpine

Fall on My Knees â Sam Amidon

Sheâs So Blonde â Illinois

Temporary People â Joseph Arthur and the Lonely Astronauts

Ding Dong Day â Mean Mary

This Old House â Loretta Lynn

So Sublime â Beth Rowley

You May Be Right â The Grapes of Wrath

Molasses â The Hush Sound

Interview with Slyde, with six songs: Sunset Song, Use Me, "Do Tellâ Bagatelle, The Mists of Down Below, Obama Delight and Spring Peepers/Slide

The Mightiest of Guns â A.A. Bondy

Marlboro Man â The Felice Brothers

Daddy Needs a Drink â Drive-By Truckers

Iâm Moving On â Elvis Presley

But when I met former Wailinâ Jenny Annabelle Chvostek Sunday at Saranac Lakeâs Blue Moon Cafà and stepped outside to caravan with her over to the Rock 105 studio to record tonightâs show, what was she driving? Damn straight. A white Chrysler minivan. Boo-yaa, Ned. In your face.

Annabelle spent 45 minutes on the air, during which she sang six songs and played three instruments, all framed between two songs from her new solo album, âResilienceâ (which I kept calling âResistanceâ for some reason). She was a perfect guest, a fun conversationist and a wicked good musician, all of which youâll hear when you listen to the show.

Inspired by how well the session went, I dug out the other gems we recorded in this bomb-shelter-turned-studio in 2008, dusted them off and listened as they shone. (Thatâs /shon/ to you Canucks like Annabelle, /shÅn/ to us U-S-of-Aâers.)

Returning to the subject of automobiles, my discovery of the week, the absolutely ridiculously stunningly brilliant Clare and the Reasons, do a song on this show called âCanât Your Car Do That? I Donât Think So.â And then â well, just listen.

Hereâs some more good news: Ned and I are going to start filling in the gaps on tendollarradioshow.com, making it more of a regular music blog instead of just a weekly podcast. So start thinking you can check it every day or two instead of just once a week. And thereâs even news on the analog signal; itâs now 102.1 from WRGRâs Tupper Lake tower instead of 102.3. (Itâs still 105.5 from WLPW in Lake Placid; timeâs still 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday.)

The Ten Dollar Radio â sounds like gang of minivanners rumbling through town and plays for free.

Playlist:

Resilience â Annabelle Chvostek

Interview with Annabelle Chvostek during which she played six songs: Nashville, The Sioux, Devilâs Paintbrush Road, Runaway Lane, I Get Ideas (tango) and Wait for It

Racing with the Sun â Annabelle Chvostek

John Henry â Steve Langdon

Whirlybug â Slyde

Flying Porcupine â Slyde

Strange Candy â Marygoround

I Donât Want to Go Outside â Marygoround

Tale of Woe â King Wilkie

Millieâs Song â King Wilkie

Hey, Old Man â King Wilkie

Not My Own â Gabe Berezin

Envy â The Dust Bunnies

Canât Your Car Do That? I Donât Think So â Clare and the Reasons

Everybody Wants to Rule the World â Clare and the Reasons

Mrs. Virginia â Brazos

A Canoe â Shelley Short

Circles Not Broken â Brilliant Mistakes

Go to Proclaim â Soul Messengers

Lowdown â My Morning Jacket

Ferris Wheel â Tractor Kings

From the desks of Ned P. Rauch and Peter Crowley:

Listeners,

Pete and I had been talking about hosting a radio show on and off ever since we met, in August of 2000, but it wasn't until a year and a few months ago that we got serious about it. One sunny Sunday afternoon we pushed an aluminum canoe out into the roiling waters of Moody Pond and started brainstorming formats, setlists and names for what would become the Ten Dollar Radio Show. By the end of the paddle, I was sure my idea for a nameâthe Sharks and Tigers Radio Showâwould win out. It didn't, and I learned how important it is to have great friends with great taste who know the difference between great names (like the Ten Dollar Radio Show, which we coined later) and names like the Sharks and Tigers Radio Show.

Last Sunday's show was my last for the foreseeable future, as I'm moving to New York to swing for the fences, as it were, but I will find a way to contribute somehow or other, even if it's just to plaster our posters all over Manhattan. Manning the controls in our bomb shelter of a studio (really, it was built as a bomb shelter, or so we were told) will be Pete and Pete alone. Which is good, because he's the guy who steered us clear of Sharks and Tigers.

It has been one of the brightest joys of my life to work with Pete, dive into our collections, unearth new tunes and share the music we love with you. Thanks for listening, and keep it tuned to the Ten Dollar Radio Show.

A word or two on last week's show: It's a good one. Springsteen starts with his show-stopper from the 70s, Detroit Medley. Holy smokes. Later, a few piano blues numbers, a farewell zamba from Jorge Cafrune, two live recordings of a 21-year-old Elvis, an unreleased cut from the Felice Brothers, and a funked-up old fave from Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.

The show airs every Sunday night from 6 to 8 on 105.5 and 102.3 fm. You can hear it whenever you like at www.tendollarradioshow.com.

The Ten Dollar Radio ShowâSounds like a little touch of the good life and plays for free.

Sunday's setlist:
Detroit Medley (live)  â  Bruce Springsteen
Big Time (live) â   Neil Young
Shouldn't Be Ashamed  â  Wilco
This Land Is Your Land  â  Sharon Jones
Time to Change Your Town  â  Wynonie Harris
Travelin' Blues  â  Slim Gaillard
Going Down Slow  â  St. Louis Jimmy
Blues Around Midnight  â  Blind Willie McTell
Hate to See You Go  â  Little Walter
Movin' on Out Boogie  â  Lightnin' Hopkins
Runaway  â  Del Shannon
Zamba Para Decir Adios  â  Jorge Cafrune
Endless Highway (live) â  The Band
Chicken Wire  â  The Felice Brothers
I Hope She Won't Let Me  â  Baby Teeth
Lived in Bars  â  Cat Power
It Don't Worry Me  â  Keith Carradine
Heartbreak Hotel (live)  â  Elvis Presley
Long Tall Sally (live)  â  Elvis Presley
1952 Vincent Black Lightning (live) â  Greg Brown
Talkin' New York  â  Bob Dylan
New York Town  â  Woody Guthrie & Cisco Houston
New York City  â  Leadbelly
City Never Sleeps  â  The Mammals
Oh My Life  â  Beth Rowley
So Long Blues  â  Ray Bonneville
Life Is Strange  â  Running With Scissors
Goin' Back Home  â  Lucinda Williams
River Boat Song  â  J.J. Cale
Stay a Little Longer  â  The Sadies & Neko Case
So Long I'll See Ya  â  Tom Waits
Without Again  â  Elliott Brood 

See a photo gallery of King Wilkie in our studio here.

You check out a photo gallery of Marygoround in our studio here.