FREE SAN DIEGO ROUBADOUR Alternative country, Americana, roots, Tfolk, gospel, and bluegrass music news November 2003 Vol. 3, No. 2 what’s inside Welcome Mat………3 Mail Box Mission Statement Contributors MUSEUM OF MAKING MUSIC Full Circle..…………4 Sam Phillips Lou Curtiss Front Porch…………6 Andrew Beacock Sheb Wooley Peggy Watson Baja Bugs Parlor Showcase...…8 The Museum of Making Music Ramblin’ …………10 Bluegrass Corner Radio Daze José Sinatra RantHouse Of Note.……………12 Steve White Bender The North Star Session Meghan LaRoque The Cables ‘Round About .......…13 November Music Calendar The Local Seen……14 Photo Pages Johnny Cash 1932-2003 San Diego Troubadour • November 2003 welcomewelcome matmat SAN DIEGO ROUBADOUR Alternative country, Americana, roots, MAILBOX Tfolk, gospel, and bluegrass music news Dear Troubadour, Dear Troubadour, I just moved here from Austin, I want to say thanks for printing MISSION CONTRIBUTORS Texas. I really love your paper and such a wonderful article on Bart To promote, encourage, and PUBLISHER appreciate you helping out Mendoza in your June issue of the provide an alternative voice for the Lyle Duplessie Americana musicians. I have many Troubadour! I really dug deep into great local music that is generally friends in Austin that I will pass the the roots, the nuance of a very tal- overlooked by the mass media; EDITOR word to about it. Thanks for all ented man . namely the genres of folk, country, Ellen Duplessie you’re doing for the music and keep Sincerely, roots, Americana, gospel, and up the good work. Sandra Castillo bluegrass. To entertain, educate, GRAPHIC DESIGN Peace, Dear Troubadour, Dear Troubadour, and bring together players, writers, Liz Abbott Aliah Selah I will soon be moving to the San Your paper is magnificent and and lovers of these forms; to Diego area and am completely out loaded with information for perform- PHOTOGRAPHY of touch with the San Diego music explore their foundations; and to ers. I read it from cover to cover. Ellen Duplessie scene. I’m from Champaign, Illinois, expand the audience for these Thanks, once home to Jay Bennet, Allison types of music. Paul Grupp BJ Camp Kraus, Jeff Austin, and Dave Johnson. Mildred Moreno $ To receive advertising rates and I did a search for San Diego information, call 619/298-8488 or DISTRIBUTION Americana, came up with your publi- e-mail [email protected]. cation, and was thrilled! I have been Kent Johnson to Belly Up for Mother Hips and San Diego Troubadour heard of a few other clubs, but was P.O. Box 164 ADVERTISING unable to get a good handle on the La Jolla, CA 92038 Kent Johnson music scene. Considering good E-mail: [email protected]. music is what keeps the blood run- WRITERS ning through my veins, it’s a very SAN DIEGO TROUBADOUR, the Sandra Castillo important element of my happiness local source for alternative coun- Lou Curtiss and well-being. try, Americana, roots, folk, gospel, Lyle Duplessie I’m relieved to see that Americana and bluegrass music news, is pub- Phil Harmonic music has a presence in San Diego. lished monthly and is free of If you can point me in the direction Paul Hormick charge. Letters to the editor must of some good local acts and venues Morris Jones be signed and may be edited for to check out, I would definitely Jim McInnes appreciate it! content. It is not, however, guaran- teed that they will appear. José Sinatra Thank you! Paul Williams Meg Wolf All opinions expressed in SAN Gus Williker DIEGO TROUBADOUR, unless Ed. note: The S.D. Troubadour is not D. Dwight Worden otherwise stated, are solely the opin- on line yet, but information about us is John Philip Wyllie linked to the Adams Avenue Business ion of the writer and do not Association at GoThere.com. represent the opinions of the staff or management. All rights reserved. ©2003 San Diego Troubadour. Z WRITE TO US! We want to hear from you! Send your comments, feedback, and suggestions to: [email protected] or to San Diego Troubadour, P.O. Box 164, La Jolla, CA 92038-0164. 3 November 2003 • San Diego Troubadour fullfull circlecircle by Lyle Duplessie THE WORLD MOURNS A Sam Phillips MUSIC PIONEER f rock ‘n’ roll’s paternal radio job to In 1986 father is Elvis Presley, then fund the proj- Phillips, along I its obstetrician had to be ect. With a with Presley and Sam Phillips. Phillips, age 80, young family Jerry Lee Lewis, passed away on July 31 of res- to support, it were the first piratory failure at Saint Francis was a tough inductees into Hospital in Memphis, time for him, the Rock and Roll Tennessee. With his death, but that did- Hall of Fame. He America lost both a musical n’t stop his was likewise visionary and an unwitting cul- drive to inducted into the tural revolutionary. record the Blues and Phillips was proprietor of hillbilly Country Music the tiny, but legendary, Sun music, blues, Halls of Fame, Records studio in Memphis or and both making him the The legendary Sun Studio building in rock ‘n’ roll’s “maternity ward,” black and first person ever Memphis if you will. Though Elvis was white gospel so honored by all arguably the biggest name to to music rife in three American arguably helped undermine be birthed at Sun Records, by the city. music genres. segregation and serendipitously no means was he the only one. With Though he never dovetailed with the birth of the It was Phillips who introduced each new invented any- civil rights movement. white hillbilly music to black record thing new, he was Moreover, he understood the blues and brought forth rock Phillips lis- instrumental in music would have a natural ‘n’ roll. During the ’50s Phillips tened for reformatting the appeal to a restless youth, but delivered to the world a stun- something great American how could he have anticipated ning array of stars, both black that, music that was its use both for peaceful, radi- and white, that included Elvis, “...might already there and cal, and even destructive politi- Ike Turner, Johnny Cash, break the introducing it to cal and social change over the Howlin’ Wolf, Roy Orbison, mold a little new segments of next 50 years? Rufus Thomas, Jerry Lee Lewis, bit.” He soon the population. During its half century of Little Milton, Carl Perkins, and heard the 1923-2003 Phillips’ life, Phillips saw rock ‘n’ roll even Charlie Rich. sound he had genius was in his go through a myriad develop- Born January 5, 1923 in hoped for in released five Presley singles. ability to analyze mental changes, and undoubt- Florence, Alabama, to impover- his very early pre-Sun record- But that’s all it took to launch and understand the culture and edly there are more in store. As ished tenant farmers, he ings of B.B. King and Howlin’ a musical and cultural revolu- society of the time. Although he stood back and witnessed recalled how, as a boy, he first Wolf. This led to his recording tion whose tremors were felt he recognized and recorded the effects of the music he heard the music of the south- of “Rocket 88” with singer and still are today. Unprepared music that to him had “feel- brought into this world, his ern working class. Though Jackie Brenston backed by Ike to handle Presley’s meteoric ing” and realized that there was emotions probably ranged from blacks sang the blues and Turner’s band. Some music his- and unprecedented rise to a market for that music, he joy to regret. But one thing is whites sang “hillbilly music,” torians hold this as the first fame, and needing the cash to nevertheless underestimated certain: he intended his music both styles struck a common ever rock ‘n’ roll record. The develop and promote a stable the power and influence that to stir up and release human chord as they chronicled the sound that Phillips heard was of future stars and legends, he rock ‘n’ roll would have on feeling. And that it did. abject poverty and hopes of the the sound of hot-rodded sold the singer’s contract to country as a whole. He had tar- rural poor. Even as a youth he African-American blues and RCA for $35,000. In time, his geted a young white southern grew up with the sense that the R&B. In the context of the other finds — Perkins, Lewis, audience, but the music quickly South’s greatest resource was early ’50s, this kind of music Cash, Orbison, Rich — would spilled over regional boarders the music of its poor, both was called “race music.” There also outgrow Sun Records and and became national in its black and white. was a small but enthusiastic move on. Unable to compete impact, cutting across racial, Phillips had early dreams audience for race music in with the big record labels, and social, and economic classes. of becoming a criminal defense Memphis, but in the segregated fiercely independent and Because the new music was lawyer, but fate had other plans South of the day it was nigh to unwilling to align or answer to conceived in rural black and in store. By 1945 he took a job impossible to get white youth a major label, Phillips sold Sun white poverty, it was racially at WREC in the musically preg- in large numbers to openly sup- Records in 1969 and got out of mixed. It was an integrated Left to right: Elvis, Bill Black, Scotty nant city of Memphis. In a port black music as either radio the record-making business.