Thanks Marty, today we’re going to hear an original song recorded at the Arkansas Roots Festival.

I first met Sky City at Blues Fest. They volunteered so I booked them. They have always delivered wonderful performances.

Since then they played again at Blues Fest, Sunday In The Park and Bebopalooza. Nathan Crouch even joined us for an evening of Grateful Dead songs at TheArts@311. It is also through Sky City that I met Tonja McKay, an entomologist, and a fine violinist or fiddler, as we say in Arkansas. She helped me record “Three songs from Astral Weeks” at TheArts@311.

In fact all the musicians in the band are outstanding. Playing at the Arkansas Roots Festival on April 8, 2017 were Nathan Crouch – acoustic guitar and vocals, Grant Camp – bass and vocals, Tanja McKay – violin, Matt Pierce – electric guitar and vocals, and Jason Hatcher – drums, all long time Jonesboro residents.

I will leave many links at the Something Blue website at sbblues.com.

DJ Hairy Larry Presents Angie Owens Singing Serena’s Song
From The Archives Of Something Blue 2024-06-09

Thanks Marty, today we’re going to hear the coordinator of the Songwriter’s Workshop display her craft.

Angie Owens ran the Songwriter’s Workshop for many years. For a while there she held it at my Blues Alley jukehouse and I attended those sessions regularly and benefited from her lessons and from the song sharing. I wrote the song “Think I’ll Lay Around The House Today” over a couple of the workshops and it quickly became a requested favorite.

Then later when she was at The Edge Coffeehouse I started attending again, enjoying the workshop and the company of my friends in music, John Spencer and Paul Nunis.

She taught me the meaning of the word prosody and I’ll never forget the time when she covered the most common song structures and John Spencer and I would come up with hit songs for each structure. If this sounds a bit technical it’s because songwriting is a craft with it’s own vocabulary and that is what Angie Owens taught at her workshop.

The song I selected to play today is one that Vivian would request. Both Vivian and Angie had daughters later in life. Vivian sometimes wrote about Megan when she worked with her at The Times Dispatch and Angie wrote a song about Serena.

If you’ve raised a family you know there’s nothing easy about it and many young parents worry about whether they’re doing it right. Now you can’t stop a mother from worrying but when you have a child later in life after you’ve already raised a few you can spend a little more time enjoying yourself and a little less time worrying.

And you can focus on the most important part of family life, love.

Ok now, I’ve said it as well as I could but not nearly as well as Angie does in her song.

Here’s Angie Owens singing “Serena’s Smile”.

DJ Hairy Larry Presents John T. Parks Playing Life
From The Archives Of Something Blue 2024-04-14

Thanks Marty, today we’re going to hear a little philosophy from a fine Arkansas songwriter.

One of the benefits of volunteering to work at KASU and recording for Something Blue is that I get to meet so many great musicians. That’s how I met John Parks, recording him at KASU live events. And there’s been quite a few of them. I can even say that over the years we’ve become friends in music, one of the best kind of friends that you can have.

On November 11, 2014, KASU booked John T. Parks to play at the KASU Coffeehouse held at the Arts@311 in downtown Jonesboro. He played solo, standing there singing while accompanying himself on a 6 string guitar. I love duets, trios, and bands, and I’ve recorded John in all of these configurations. But there’s just something powerful about a solo performance.

Especially when the performer is playing all original songs. The truth rings clear from a single voice, words and music written by the singer.

From The Archives Of Something Blue 2023-08-07

Thanks Marty, today we’re going to hear The Bluescaster playing acoustic blues at KASU Jazz Thursday.

Paul Nunis is The Bluescaster. I met him at Blues Fest. He played so well I immediately started playing his music on Something Blue. He was also active at The Arts@311 and a regular performer in the Jazz Thursday Jam Sessions.

Later Paul was a founding member of Bebop Beatniks, playing bass in my band for years until his solo career didn’t leave him with enough time to play as a sideman. He wrote “At The Speed Of Love”, the hit on the Bebop Beatniks album, “Leaves”.

He wrote songs all the time and we often shared new material at Angie Owens’ Songwriters Workshop.

Now, about that name Bluescaster. Electric blues is often played on a Telecaster or a Stratocaster so that’s one way of looking at it.

Paul and I both read a lot of Science Fiction and Fantasy so that opens up another way to look at it.

He’s like a spellcaster, a bard who casts spells with his blues. That works for me because he’s a guitar wizard.

BODY OF WORK is an intimate new album of songs from throughout my catalog, revisited and undressed.

It’s been twenty years since I wrote my first good song. Before that, I loved songs from afar, with all the ache and daydream teenage love requires. I was sixteen, sitting on the porch, up early having never gone to sleep. I felt like I had been let into the center of the universe.

This is Hairy Larry inviting you to enjoy Something Blue every Saturday night at ten. This week we’re featuring Trade, John Spencer, and Niceness. For more about the show visit the Something Blue website at sbblues.com.

Don’t miss Something Blue, Saturday night at 10:00 PM CST, at kasu.org.

Trade Live at Penuches on 2021-01-23
archive.org/details/Trade2021-01-23

Niceness Live at Buckley Park on 2020-09-19
archive.org/details/niceness2020-09-19.matrix.flac24

Road to Brigadoon with protest song “Blood On The Water”
archive.org/details/road_to_brigadoon

From The Archives Of Something Blue December 25, 2022

DJ Hairy Larry Presents Vikki McGee Playing Scarlet Begonias

Thanks Marty, today we’re hearing a Grateful Dead song played at the Arkansas Roots Festival.

I was at the first Delta Blues Symposium and Vivian and I helped them with music for several years. And then you get busy and you grow apart so I was really glad when KASU started presenting the music for the Delta Blues Symposium at the Arkansas Roots Festival. It was like being reacquainted with old friends.

In 2017 The Vikki McGee Three were scheduled and I was excited when I found out they had added my favorite duo. So I was recording and taking pictures and enjoying Vikki McGee, Sonny Campbell, Jacob Brumley, John Parks, and Sarah Jo Roark, all fine Arkansas musicians.

I met John Spencer at Blues Fest and it wasn’t long before we had John and Tommy, The Spencer Brothers, on stage. John came to me with some songs that he and Tom Turner wrote, Tom was the lyricist and John put them to music. John is a regular at KASU events, both playing and in the audience and Tom Turner was raised at Burnt Hill, just down the road from me.

Thanks Marty, on this weeks From The Archives Of Something Blue I’ve got a Jack Johnson song recorded at the Craighead Forest Bandshell.

I met CJ Hoover singing in Astate Delta Vox. Every week I would walk from the music department to KASU to deliver Something Blue. And right there, on the benches behind the Communications Building, I would see CJ Hoover playing acoustic guitar entertaining the students as they passed. Kind of like busking without asking for tips. So I sat down and listened and I thought, “He’s pretty good”. I invited him to play at the Craighead Forest Bandshell.

On May 18, 2014, he entertained us with a set of contemporary rock songs. CJ, like just about everybody, is younger than me, so unlike everyone else in the audience I hadn’t heard a lot of the songs he was playing. I had heard Jack Johnson though, and I played him on Something Blue, because Jack Johnson is taper friendly and many of his shows are up on the Live Music Archive.

Now here’s CJ Hoover performing solo with acoustic guitar, playing a Jack Johnson song, “Better Together”, recorded at the Craighead Forest Bandshell on May 18, 2014.

Thanks Marty, on this weeks From The Archives Of Something Blue I’ve got a bluegrass band that turns out to be just one person.

I met John Spencer at Blues Fest and soon John and Tommy, The Spencer Brothers, were regular performers featuring Tommy singing old time country music mixed with some of John’s originals. They also played at several KASU events and were regulars in the audience at all of the KASU live music concerts.

One day John told me that he and Tom Turner had written some songs and he would like to record them at my studio. John was raised outside of Paragould and Tom Turner was raised down the road from me at Burnt Hill.

We started work recording and soon fell into a weekly schedule with John recording a song or two every session. Sometimes we had guest musicians and sometimes it was just me and John. The songs included protest music, folk songs, sea shanties, and calypso.

We still had a bluegrass number left to record. The bluegrass was a little bit different than what we had been doing because John played all the instruments, upright bass, guitar, banjo, and mandolin, as well as singing. In the end we had a song that sounded like it was recorded by a tight bluegrass band. You would never know by listening that it was the product of multiple overdubs.

And that’s the story behind “Dusty Old Arkansas Home”, written by John Spencer and Tom Turner and recorded at HairyLarryLand in 2011 with John Spencer singing and playing all the instruments.