The cat stepped through the doorway, the one humans can't see, appearing between the witch's ankles. She purred as the witch stumbled and swore, clutching at his spell ingredients.

DJ Hairy Larry Presents Billy Jones Bluez Singing I’m A Bluesman
From The Archives Of Something Blue 2024-06-23

Thanks Marty. Today we’re going to hear an Arkansas bluesman sing a song he wrote about his life in music.

It was October 8, 2013, when I met Mike Doyle in the parking lot at ASU to make our monthly sojourn down to Newport, Arkansas, for KASU Bluesday Tuesday. Mike was the KASU station manager at the time and he would MC the show. I was going to record Billy Jones Bluez for Something Blue.

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 Joe Lee And Friends playing Kinda Tawny
From The Archives Of Something Blue 2024-06-02

Thanks Marty, today we’re going to hear Joe Lee play his own arrangement of the Bill Holman song, “Kinda Tawny”.

“Boppin’ At The Forest” is the third album that I helped Joe record and release. It’s the first one where I recorded the band. On “Sounds Of The Sixties” and “Joe Lee Swings On” I digitized the music from Joe’s master tapes.

Joe had this idea. He wanted to record the charts that he arranged for his band and used when touring in Arkansas, Memphis, and all over the mid south.

Back in the day it took quite a setup to make audio recordings so live audio wasn’t recorded like it is today. But Joe still had the sheet music and he had some friends who knew how to play. So we had a project to work on.

The project was preserving Joe’s arrangements as music and recording the sound of Joe’s current band.

Joe’s new studio was his living room. I ran mic cables into his study where he kept his tapes and a bunch of recording stuff he used at Alley. I hooked the mics into a mixer board and recorded stereo to my computer. So in 2001 I was ahead of the curve doing digital recording.

Playing on “Kinda Tawny” were
Joe Lee – Tenor Sax
Craig Baker – Trumpet
Dru Davison – Bari Sax
Joy Sanford – Piano
Tom Mason – Bass
and
Mike Overall – Drums

All fine outstanding musicians with deep ties to the Northeast Arkansas jazz scene.

The results were spectacular. Joe really knew how to put it together. On “Kinda Tawny” he just kept building and building on the head, adding instruments and changing the parts. Then we’ll hear some great solo work by Craig Baker and Joy Sanford.

DJ Hairy Larry Presents Snap Crow Legs Playing Will The Circle Be Unbroken
From The Archives Of Something Blue 2024-05-26

Thanks Marty, today we’re going to hear a gospel song recorded by a rock band at the Craighead Forest Bandshell in 2011.

When they first played at the bandshell Snap Crow Legs knocked everyone out with their bright, upbeat sound. They soon became regulars playing popular repertoire that included classics from all genres and contemporary rock. On May 15, 2011, they had a little personnel update with Mitch Hollifield as their front man playing acoustic guitar and sharing lead vocals with Greg Phillips.

The recordings I made that day quickly became my favorites and not just because they invited me up to play on three songs. I love it when I go to festivals and the bands invite guests from other bands to play. I really love it when I’m the guest.

DJ Hairy Larry Presents Giant Steps Playing Perdido
From The Archives Of Something Blue 2024-05-25

Thanks Marty, today we’re going to hear a Duke Ellington tune played at KASU Jazz Thursday.

By Duke Ellington tune I mean composed by Juan Tizol, a longtime member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. “Perdido” was first recorded on December 3, 1941. Miles Davis made it his own. He recorded it with the Tadd Dameron Quintet in 1949, released as “Wahoo”. Then again with Jimmy Forrest in 1952.

Joe Lee loved the song and often played it. The musicians Joe played it with also played in the bands, Nightlife and Giant Steps.

DJ Hairy Larry Presents Striding The Blast Playing Twist Of Fate
From The Archives Of Something Blue 2024-05-12

Thanks Marty, today we’re going to hear an original song recorded In The Loft At The Edge.

I’ve played at The Edge Coffeehouse for years either in one of the rooms downstairs or on the front porch. When I learned about their loft it was an eye opener. The room upstairs was usually used for meetings, game nights, or book clubs but it was an ideal performance venue with an obvious stage area in front of two windows overlooking the ASU campus.

DJ Hairy Larry Presents NJHB Playing El Amor Cubano La Mujer O El Caballo
From The Archives Of Something Blue May 5, 2024

Thanks Marty, today we’re going to hear a Cuban love song written and performed by the Dean of Fine Arts.

When Don Bowyer came to ASU he was looking for someone to play music with so, of course, everybody mentioned me. I was a student in the music department at the time and I played out a lot, including at our monthly New Jazz In Jonesboro show with NJHB, the New Jazz House Band.

We played all original songs and Don Bowyer is an outstanding jazz composer, so he fit right in. On February 2, 2013, he brought music for a song he wrote called “El Amor Cubano: La Mujer o el Caballo?” roughly translated as who is your true love, your woman or your horse? So the title’s funny but the song is actually quite beautiful.

DJ Hairy Larry Presents Hairy Larry Singing Promises
From The Archives Of Something Blue 2024-04-28

Thanks Marty, today we’ll hear a song I wrote recorded by some fine Northeast Arkansas musicians.

My song “Promises” was released on the album “Collaborators” by Richard Murray and Hairy Larry. The album is full of songs cowritten by Richard and myself. I’ll save that story for another podcast. “Promises” was written, music and lyrics, by me.

We ended up with nine songs and I knew just who I wanted to record them. On December 2, 2009, I got the band together. Paul Moore on electric mandolin, Corey Emerson, bass, Addison Boling, drums, and I’m playing acoustic guitar. We all lived in the Jonesboro area at the time and we all had strong ties to ASU.

Since all of the songs were originals I was the only one at the session who had ever played them before. I gave Corey some pages with the chords scratched out in pencil, my notes while writing the songs so I wouldn’t forget them. Paul is blind so he plays by ear. And our drummer, Addison, like most drummers was used to playing without written music.

The rhythm section recorded all nine songs in a two hour session. We did two takes on each song and Addison’s time was so precise that sometimes I used pieces of both takes, spliced together on the album. I added vocals, trumpet, and harmonica later as overdubs.

Like most songwriters I write a lot of love songs. When I sing a love song people come up to me after the show and ask if I wrote that song about Vivian. And I usually have to say, nope, sorry, that songs not about Vivian.

But I’m here to tell you now I wrote the song “Promises” about Vivian and I sing it from my point of view. I not only wrote the song about Vivian I’m singing it to Vivian.

This is Hairy Larry inviting you to enjoy Something Blue every Saturday night at ten. This week we’re featuring Copyright Infringement, Eddie Roberts, and Robert Walter. For more about the show visit the Something Blue website at sbblues.com.

Eddie Roberts & The Lucky Strokes Live at Brooklyn Bowl on 2024-04-12
archive.org/details/erls2024-04-12.cmc622.sbd.matrix.flac24/

Robert Walter’s 20th Congress Live at Star Theater on 2022-05-14
archive.org/details/rwtc2022-05-14/

Copyright Infringement Live at Riceland Hall on 2018-07-13
archive.org/details/hl2018-07-13