Texas Thanksgiving – Live from the Armadillo

Armadillo World HQ poster by Jim Franklin

Editor’s Note: This is a blog post that originally appeared in 2010, repeated here in case you can’t get home to the Armadillo this holiday season.

Long as I can remember, the corner of Riverside Drive and Barton Springs Road in Austin, Texas,  has been a Thanksgiving Day oasis.  Today of course that’s the location of Threadgill’s World Headquarters, a down-home restaurant with killer chicken-fried steak and the best tattooed waitresses in town.  And yes, they are open on Thanksgiving Day: usually the place is packed by 11 a.m. and although no reservations are necessary you can expect to wait at least an hour before being seated.

Doug Sahm in the 1990s (Photo by Scott Newton/KRLU)

This Threadgill’s is also the living descendant of the legendary Armadillo World Headquarters, the city’s top music venue in the 1970s and the spiritual heart of the Austin music scene.  Many of the top touring acts of the era played there, as well as Lone Star legends like Willie Nelson, Asleep at the Wheel, Joe Ely, Janis Joplin, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jerry Jeff Walker, Delbert McClinton and many more.  One of the house favorites was Doug Sahm, the unofficial State Musician of Texas.

In 1972 Sahm decided to look up some of his friends and play a giant Thanksgiving show at the Armadillo.  He enlisted a who’s who of Austin musicians and added ace keyboardist Leon Russell.  Then he learned the Grateful Dead would be in town for a gig the night before; Sahm and the Dead went back a ways, so he gave them a call too.

Armadillo World HQ, back in the day (Photo by Steve Hopson)

So on November 23, 1972, Doug Sahm and his all-star band – including the Dead’s Jerry Garcia on steel guitar and Phil Lesh on bass – took the stage at the Armadillo and delivered a sonic feast of country, R&B, early rock ‘n’ roll, honky tonk, blues, bluegrass and Bob Dylan.  Somebody in the house had the foresight to roll tape from the soundboard, the recording of that show has been a sought-after souvenir for many years.

Thanks to a number of sources (mainly the excellent blog The Adios Lounge) you can download and hear the entire show here.  Think of it as a little thank-you gift to you, our loyal readers.  Being a soundboard recording from the early 1970s, the sound isn’t perfect but it’s a great way to celebrate a holiday.  The full set list is included in the download, and we’ll give you a few samples so you can decide if you want the whole meal.

Thanksgiving Jam samples

MP3: “Wild Side Of Life”

MP3: “Me and Bobby McGee”

MP3: “Swingin’ Doors”

MP3: “Roll Over Beethoven/Good Golly Miss Molly”

The Full Show (ZIP file)

MP3: Doug Sahm’s Thanksgiving Jam, 11/23/1972 entire show (269 MB)

Armadillo photo by Steve Hopson – here is his website

From “Armadillo Comix” by Jaxon

Concert for Bangladesh is now digital

George Harrison at the Concert for Bangladesh, 1971.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Concert for Bangladesh, George Harrison’s Grammy-winning album is now available at the iTunes Store, 40 years after the historic concert event on August 1, 1971. The concert featured Harrison, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Bob Dylan and others to benefit the country, hit by a typhoon and ravaged by war.

In the altruistic spirit which gave birth to The Concert for Bangladesh, each download will benefit the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF — helping to provide immediate emergency relief for children in famine and drought-stricken regions in the Horn of Africa.

Visit TheConcertForBangladesh.com to find out about The Concert and the George Harrison Fund For UNICEF.

The Concert for Bangladesh feature film will stream in its entirety in a 72-hour online event. The free video stream will be available worldwide from Saturday, July 30 through Monday, August 1 on iTunes as well as TheConcertForBangladesh.com and GeorgeHarrison.com.

A 5-minute video trailer for the album and a 49-minute radio program about The Concert for Bangladesh are also now available for free streaming on iTunes.com/TheBeatles.

MP3: “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” by Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Leon Russell and Ringo Starr

YouTube: “Jumpin’ Jack Flash/Youngblood” by Leon Russell (dig that outfit!)

YouTube: “Here Comes The Sun” by George Harrison w/Pete Ham of Badfinger

Video Du Jour: Leon Russell

This is a great moment in live music: Leon Russell’s performance of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash/Youngblood” at the Concert for Bangladesh, New York City, 1971. Simply a legendary performance, with a band that includes George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Jim Keltner, Billy Preston, Jesse Ed Davis and many more.

Your Sister’s (Record) Rack: Singles, Part 6

When I was a kid, singles were the best way to get into music – that is, music that wasn’t interrupted on the radio by some golden throat in love with his own voice.  I kind of remember having some singles with the price tag still attached to the paper sleeve; those were 50 cents but I more clearly remember paying about 68 cents for a single in the late 1960s-early 1970s.   And the first single I ever bought with my own money?  “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys, in 1966.

OK, here’s an old one: Procol Harum had a giant hit in 1967 with “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and they followed it up the same year with “Homburg,” a song that not coincidentally sounded a lot like its predecessor.  The followup did reasonably well, and although neither “Whiter Shade” nor “Homburg” were originally on the British version of Procol Harum’s first album (“Whiter Shade” was included on the U.S. version), they now appear on the CD release.

MP3: “Homburg” by Procol Harum

Jumping into the 1970s, we encounter the singer-songwriter duo Brewer and Shipley.  Mike Brewer and Tom Shipley are perhaps best known for “One Toke Over The Line” from their 1970 album Tarkio, but they had a handful of followup hits including “Shake Off The Demon,” the title tune from their 1971 album.

MP3: “Shake Off The Demon” by Brewer & Shipley

Your Sister’s (Record) Rack: Singles, Part 2

More singles from the back of my sister’s closet: they’re almost as good as albums!

First up, an all-but forgotten band from the late 1960s-early 1970s era: Seatrain.  Formed from the ashes of the ill-fated Blues Project by two of that band’s former members, bassist Andy Kulberg and drummer Roy Blumenfeld, Seatrain hit its stride with a self-titled album in 1970.  By this second album, there had already been a shift in the lineup – it now included folkie guitarist/singer Peter Rowan.  Anyway, the big hit single was “13 Questions,” which just missed making into the U.S. Top 40.  I remember FM radio used to play Seatrain’s wild version of “Orange Blossom Special,” from the same LP – the band finally broke up in 1973 after its third album.

MP3: “13 Questions” by Seatrain

The band McGuinness Flint was a British counterpart to Seatrain; it was also made up of former members of hit-making bands.  Tom McGuiness played with Manfred Mann, and Hughie Flint played with John Mayall, and their namesake band included songwriters Benny Gallagher and Graham Lyle.  And they had a minor U.S. hit with “When I’m Dead And Gone” (although it was big in the U.K.) but subsequent efforts stiffed.  Gallagher & Lyle quit to record as a duo  – in addition to writing “When I’m Dead And Gone,” they later wrote hits for Art Garfunkel, Don Williams and others.

MP3: “When I’m Dead And Gone” by McGuinness Flint

Here’s another band with a similar trajectory: King Harvest, which had its beginnings when four Americans joined forces in Paris, where they happened to be living at the time.  At one point the band had three keyboard players, including Sherman Kelly, who wrote the song “Dancing In The Moonlight.”  It was released as a single in Paris and it failed – but in 1973, the group re-formed in the United States and signed to a new record label.  The label re-released “Dancing” and it became a hit, climbing into the Top 20.  The group could never match this success and after disbanding some of King Harvest’s members including keyboardist Ron Altbach, sax player Rod Novak and guitarist Ed Tuleja toured with the Beach Boys and Mike Love’s Celebration.

MP3: “Dancing In The Moonlight” by King Harvest

Your Sister’s (Record) Rack: Delaney & Bonnie & Friends

Today we have a great album to share:  D&B Together, from Delaney & Bonnie & Friends.  The husband-and-wife team of Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett put out some great records in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  They started out on Stax Records, and you can get an idea of what these two funky white folks had to sound like to record for the likes of Stax (home to Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, etc.).

Delaney Bramlett is one of the great rock bandleaders, perhaps underrated today but certainly not when he was in his prime.  Bramlett not only had his fiercely soulful singin’ wife, but he recruited some of the greatest musicians to play backup on those Delaney & Bonnie albums.  D&B Together, from 1972, is the duo’s sixth album and man, they don’t cut records like this any more.

First, the band: Delaney, on guitar and vocals; Bonnie, vocals; drums, Jim Gordon (Derek & the Dominos); bass, Kenny Gradney (Little Feat); keyboards, Billy Preston!; keyboards and vocals, Leon Friggin’ Russell!; more bass, Carl Radle (Derek & the Dominos); more drums, Jaimoe (Allman Brothers); more keyboards, Bobby Whitlock (Derek & the Dominos); and even more bass, James Jamerson (Motown)!  Now the guitar players – Eric Clapton, Steve “The Colonel” Cropper, Dave Mason and Duane Friggin’ Allman!  Nice, eh?

The album kicks off with Mason’s “Only You Know and I Know,” which was a hit for Delaney & Bonnie.  Led by Bonnie’s soulful vocals (with backing vocals – oh I forgot those – by Merry Clayton, Rita Coolidge, Clydie King, Tina Turner and Eddie Kendricks, among others) the song establishes the easy rockin’ and intoxicating mash of soul, rock, blues and country that seemed to be so easy and unforced back in the early 1970s.  “Wade In The River of Jordan” could have been a tambourine-shaker from any white or black country church, and Delaney’s “Well Well” is another tasty slab of rockin’ soul.

Sampler Daze: The WB/Reprise Loss Leaders, Part 10

The world in 1976 looked and sounded a heck of a lot different than it did in 1969.  When you went to a club it was most likely a fern bar.  The ladies wore hot pants and halter tops, men wore stacked heels and checkered pants.  The 1970s had its own stupid haircut: the shag (later replaced by another all-star stupid haircut, the mullet).  Music was becoming more rhythmic and slick, it would be another year or so before we’d call it “disco.”  Music more often than not was made for dancing – even at a fern bar.

And so there was Supergroup, the first Loss Leaders sampler from 1976.  We had come a long way from the first Loss Leader sampler in 1969, from the underground to the dance floor.  The sounds of disco were unmistakable: First Choice updated the Philly Groove for a dance audience, and “Are You Ready For Me?” addresses the Big Question.  In answer, everybody seemed to be ready: even the Doobie Brothers, taking to the dance floor with “Rio,” and even a nominally jazz artist like George Benson gets into the groove with “Breezin’,” the title song for an album that would ride all the way to the top of Billboard‘s pop album charts.  Leon Russell had just gotten married, and he celebrated by cutting a record with his new bride.  Hit singles included Seals & Croft’s “Get Closer,” and former Lovin’ Spoonful leader John Sebastian crooning his No. 1 “Welcome Back.”

(More Than) 30 Years Out: Willie Nelson Picnic, 1974

 

Willie Nelson’s first July 4 picnic was in 1973 in Dripping Springs, west of Austin, and it was a near-disaster.  More than 50,000 fans jammed the rural roads leading to the concert site, and understaffed concert workers continuously treated heat exhaustion and fought with drunken fans.

So the next year, they just made it bigger.  Somebody called it “The Great Willie Nelson Commando Hoo-Ha and Texas Brain Fry.”  I can attest to that “fry” part – College Station, Texas, in early July is kinda like the surface of the sun and Willie’s picnic, a three-day event at the Texas World Speedway, was hotter than the devil’s digestive tract after a Tex-Mex meal at Las Manitas.

Of course, Willie opened the show.  He kicked off with “Whiskey River” and “Stay All Night” and you know you’re certainly gonna do that.  Now this all-day affair wasn’t country rock, it was stone country in some parts (Bobby Bare and Sammi Smith, look ‘em up).  But guys like Waylon Jennings rocked pretty hard; I remember everyone going nuts for him.  Jimmy Buffett was there, he hadn’t yet found the tropics so he sang “Let’s Get Drunk And Screw.”  And the crowd replied, “OK.”