Left Coast Cowboys

If you were like me, you knew Buck Owens, if you knew of him at all, as the toothy guy from that sappy old show Hee-Haw. I say, “if you were like me”, because I’m not like that any more. I have a new appreciation for Buck Owens. And in our upcoming roadtrip to San Juan Capistrano, we’ll be dropping by Bakersfield to pay him homage.

Many scholars of country music (and yes, you snarky people, there are such things) believe that Hee-Haw tarnished Buck’s musical legacy, by recasting him as a corny comedian. Apparently that was a view he shared toward the end of that show’s popular run. So forget Hee-Haw and let’s talk about that musical legacy — and what a legacy it is.

Central to Buck’s importance in American music is his large part in creating the Bakersfield Sound, a hard-driving, Fender guitar-dominated, raw country that melded the influence of migrant Okies, Texans and Arkies with honky-tonk and even such diverse influences as Mexican Mariachi music. Buck himself described the sound as “Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys meets Little Richard”. He also didn’t like to call his music “Country” but preferred to call it “American Music”. I’d call it “Buck’s Music” as no one did more to create it, promote it and popularize it than Buck, with the possible exception of Merle Haggard, who is often considered a co-creator of the sound.

The best introduction to Buck Owens? This album, available through iTunes.

Let me put this all in context. When Buck Owens and The Buckaroos burst on the scene in the late Fifties, Country Music was dominated by the corporate suits in Nashville and stringed, almost Pop-y arrangements were the standard. Suddenly with Buck, Country was back as the raw, hard-driving music of  hard-living working men. It was a blast of fresh air (well air that seemed to be tinged with cow manure, barroom sawdust and the sweat of a hard day’s labor). Buck was the real deal: a Texas Dust Bowl refugee, a truck driver through the San Joaquin Valley, and a honkey tonk musician who served his time in the Bakersfield bars. (Merle Haggard kicked it up a notch by robbing a Bakersfield honky-tonk which landed him in San Quentin.) Musicians from Gram Parsons to the Byrds to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones took notice and incorporated Buck’s influence. 

The fact that the Rolling Stones were fans is fitting as Buck and his life-long friend and co-guitarist, fiddler and Buckaroo, Don Rich, were the Mick and Keith of Country Music (I mean in the sense of the tight musical partnership not in decadence). I’m sure Gram Parsons, of the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Byrds, who introduced Mick and Keith to Country Music, got the idea of wearing flamboyant Nudie Suits from his hero Buck Owens.

Wikipedia actually has a really good article on Buck and his influence. But for musical context, especially for music that features guitars, I always turn to my brother. Steve’s been turning out hot licks since the day he grabbed the guitar I’d saved all my babysitting money to buy and shamed me into never picking it up again when he banged out a perfect Who riff by ear. Here is Steve’s musician’s take on Buck Owens:

“The thing that really got me with Buck Owens was his his injection of humor in his songs along with his seemingly effortless guitar playing.  He would give a little grin or sly smile as if what  he was doing was some sort of joke or not really serious and two seconds later he would play a tight guitar lick that proved he was a cut above. When you watch him play he seems to draw you in to his world as if you were in Bakersfield with him and a few buddies just having a few beers and some fun. 

He was very proud of the fact that he didn’t  do what Nashville wanted  him  to do.  He was told that if  you didn’t move to Nashville and play the game he would never make it, but he stayed in Bakersfield and kept making all those hit records his way.  Also all those outrageous clothes and guitars he had made a big impression. The other big thing were those great harmonies that he always seemed to have in the vocal lines.  They are not always traditional form, but his own Bakersfield way of singing things.  Tiger by the Tail is a good example of what I mean.  

For me it always seemed to come back to those tasty guitar licks and  trying to figure out exactly what he was doing to get his sound.”

My synopsis of Steve’s analysis: Buck does something few could duplicate or imitate and makes it all look easy.

So when Mom and I hit the road next week, one of our stops will be Buck Owens Crystal Palace in Bakersfield — the club and steak house where he played until the last night of his life. On March 25, 2006, Buck ate his favorite chicken-fried steak, then decided he didn’t feel up to his usual Friday night performance. But he met some fans in the lobby of the Palace who said they’d come all the way from Oregon to see him. Buck took to the stage saying, ”If somebody’s come all that way, I’m gonna do the show and give it my best shot. I might groan and squeak, but I’ll see what I can do.” Buck finished the show, went home and died peacefully in his sleep.

Thanks, Buck, for your showmanship and your contribution to American Music. Mom and I will salute you, probably over a chicken-fried steak, as we watch the house band kick out the Bakersfield Sound.

Oh, and my favorite Buck Owens songs?

Streets of Bakersfield which gives a hint at the hard-scrabble life there and innovatively incorporates Mexican border music from Buck’s childhood in Texas.

Act Naturally which was famously covered by The Beatles and Ringo Starr. (Somewhere on YouTube is a clip of Buck and Ringo singing this together.)

And to get a sense of Buck’s sense of humor, Waitin’ in Your Welfare Line which includes the immortal lyrics:

Well when I first met you babe you nearly made me wreck my old 49 Cadillac
Yeah I knew at a glance that it was you for me I had to have your love by heck
Now I’m right back where that I started from but that ain’t gonna change my mind
I got the hungrys for your love and I’m waitin’ in your welfare line

If you’ve read this post, you know my throw-down challenge that I have the most extensive Christmas music collection in North America. Today, I’m going to focus on a Christmas cocktail party. And I’m going to make it easy. I’m assuming this is a last minute party and you don’t have time to gather a load of individual songs. So I’ll be focussing on a few CDs — mostly compilation CDs — that will give you a party’s worth of Martini and Cosmo tinged holiday cheer. With a ten CD shuffler and these CDs, you’re good to go. Start mixing.

1. Ultra Lounge: Christmas Cocktails

There are three volumes: Christmas Cocktails Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. I’d recommend all three. If you can only afford or find one, make it Part Two. With lounge gods like Peggy Lee, Julie London, Dean Martin and Ferrante and Teicher, this is the collection that will keep your stick swizzling.

2. Yule B’ Swingin’

This collection takes it a bit earlier than the Lounge Era. Think Ella Fitzgerald, Glenn Miller and Kay Starr. In the worlds of Louis Prima (the first song on the track) “What will Santa Claus do when he finds everybody swingin’?” Indeed. He’ll know this CD is in the machine.

3. Pottery Barn Hip Holidays Trilogy

I hope, I hope Pottery Barn is still selling this compilation. It’s the best. Everything from Herbie Hancock to James Brown’s Soulful Christmas to Al Hirt and Ann Margaret doing the definitive version of “Baby It’s Cold Outside.”

4. Big Band Christmas Swing

This CD doesn’t just feature Benny Goodman and Lester Lanin. It’s got newer, retro artists such as Squirrel Nut Zippers and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. It’s another Pottery Barn compilation, so hopefully, they are still selling it.

5. Lifetime Music Presents “Christmas Belles”

Why is it television stations (yes, it’s that Lifetime) and stores (see Pottery Barn above) are the official guardians of alternative Christmas? Here’s a great CD featuring all the babes you’d love to see hanging around your tree in a short fur trimmed elf suit. I’m talking Pearl Bailey singing “Jingle Bells Cha-Cha-Cha”, Nancy Wilson with “That’s What I Want for Christmas”, Brenda Lee belting out “Papa Noel” and my personal favorite, the under-rated Doris Day performing “Silver Bells”.

That’s five collections, featuring nine CDs stuffed with holiday canapes. Each CD is worthy enough to go through the cycle again. But if you are serving the cocktails I think you’re serving, once is enough. Send your revelers home once these CDs have cycled through.

Need some recipes? Here are ten great ones. I recommend the Drunken Elf.

And if you are making classic Martinis? Remember that the only true Martini is made with gin. And as my friend Rob cautions, you just wash the ice cubes with vermouth. Nothing more.

P.S. — You may ask at this point why I’m departing from winemaking topics and Sonoma to focus on Christmas. Well, there are no posts I’ve ever written that are more popular than my music posts. The three top hit magnets: my post on the Best Christmas Songs You’ve Never Heard, The Ten Best Cowboy Songs and my post on Gram Parsons. Believe me, if I could write a post on Western Christmas Songs Sung by Gram Parsons, I’d do it. I’d have thousands of hits. Until then, this will have to do.

P.P.S. — Yup, no sooner had a posted this when I checked my stats and I had a visitor who got here on the keywords “Gram Parsons Christmas”.

Remember the old Romper Room when Miss Vickie (or whoever your RR lady was at your local affiliate) used to hold up the Magic Mirror and intone: “Romper, Stomper, Bomper, Boo.” Then she proceeded to say that she could see all of us ankle-biters in “TV Land” and would call our names: “I see Jimmy and Mary and little Ryan. . .” Even if I didn’t get a shout-out, it always creeped me out. SHE COULD SEE ME THROUGH MY TV! Romper Room usually ended at my house with me hiding behind the couch.

I lead you through Memory Lane for a purpose. Suddenly I have THAT power. Yes, the Romper Room Magic Mirror has been passed to me!

Because it’s the 21st Century, it comes in the form of a bit of code for my blog called TracemyIP.org and I got it here.

I don’t usually enthuse over plugins, widgets and code. More likely, I’m cursing at them or weeping tears onto my keyboard over them. But this thing is AMAZING.

It gives me a report of every single person who lands on my blog. No, not just a visitor count, but as accurate a profile as I would get if my blog were a high-security airport and my visitors had to go through a full body cavity search to get in.

A lot of counters can tell you who your visitors are by IP address, server and location, as well as by where they came from on the web, what circuitous route they used to get to your blog and how long they hung around. Yeah, TracemyIP.org can do that. But then it goes one Secret Squirrel Super Spy trick better.

I can actually click on a visitor and zoom in, through Google Maps, to see exactly WHERE they are by block and street. Well, I’m actually not so sure how completely accurate this is as one of my San Francisco visitors was shown to be in the middle of four lanes of Geary Boulevard while still on-line. May I put on the record that I want readership, but not badly enough to risk a pile up on San Francisco’s busiest street during morning rush hour.

But wait. Don’t order yet. There’s more. And to someone like me who is still struggling to figure out what an IP is, this is the best feature.

TracemyIP.org shows me little pictures of each of my visitors. Yes, little Jimmy, Mary and Ryan out in TV Land, I can see you through my Magic Mirror.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that these pictures are little avatars, but they are interestingly distinct.

This is one of my San Francisco visitors surfing my blog in the middle of Geary Boulevard. Kinda nerdy and techie looking.

And, hey, my visitor from Arkansas even has a mullet.

 My Florida visitor sports a killer tan and bleached blond hair.

This woman from the Ukraine seems to be a real fan. She’s logged on to my blog four times in the last day. She looks sort of like that annoying woman in the Progressive Insurance ads.

Michigan kind of threw me. I’ve got a good friend there, but he’s a former Navy SeAL. This doesn’t look like him. But he could be logging on from a friend’s computer in an attempt to confound my new super powers.

Likewise I have a typical blonde Swedish-looking friend in Minnesota and this isn’t her. Unless she’s decided to get a make-over with dreadlocks.

 This visitor is just plain scary looking. But at least I can see where he lives — down to street level — on Google maps. Thank goodness he’d have to drive hundreds of miles to get to me.

So how accurate are these avatars?

Here’s what TracemyIP.org says in their FAQs:

Q: I am curious, how are those visitor avatar images assigned to each visitor. Do you know my visitors’ gender and age?

A: Since everyone deserves privacy, we do not go as far as determining the gender and age of your visitors, however, their behavior and demographics are analyzed by our proprietary algorithms (while adding some random factors as well) to approximate the mood and the gender of each visitor. Thus, the incognito avatars are assigned to each IP address. On the other hand, no guarantees are made at any point as for the accuracy of the representation. The visitor identification algorithms are primarily established to help you to differentiate each visitor to simplify the navigation within your logs.

I’m reading that to mean, they’re peeking through the InterWebs and WE CAN SEE YOU! WE CAN SEE WHAT YOU ARE WEARING! MMMMMWWWWAAAAAHAAAAHAAAHAAA.

Just being able to see you in your jammies as you surf my site is only the beginning of my fun with this doo-dad. I’m starting to get a picture of why people come to my blog. And it’s not what I was thinking. You all are fascinated by our Green Acres adventure from City Slickerdom to established vineyard owners, right? Well, not exactly.

A shocking number of you are looking for Christmas Songs. Okay, I did once write an entry called The Greatest Christmas Songs You’ve Never Heard. Many of you are also searching for Country and Cowboy Songs and I wrote a blog for you about The Top Ten Cowboy Songs of All Time. Now that I know what my audience wants, expect a post on the Top Ten Cowboy Christmas Songs. Watch this space.

Not sure I can fulfill all requests. Three people landed on this blog after a google search for “where did cowboys get food and water”. Well, I can tell you where they got wine.

And all those visitors still landing here after googling “Ryan Lochte naked”: yes, I wrote about the Olympics during my Beijing trip in August, but I NEVER posted nude pictures. (Well, Michael Phelps’ Speedos were a 

little “low” when he leaped out of the pool after the qualifying heat we watched.)

And the rest of you, come back and set a spell. But before you surf, you might want to change out of that raggedy underwear.

I CAN TOTALLY SEE YOU! Romper, Stomper, Bomper, BOO!

I’m getting myself geared up for NaBloPoMo or National Blog Posting Month, where you commit to posting once a day, every day for a month. And no cheating and writing 5 advanced posts on Sunday!

This is my flight check week.

A quick dinner trip to Sonoma’s Girl & The Fig the other day and the arrival of Andy last night has saved me from going completely feral as I manned the winemaking and evaluated the grape harvest alone this week. That was a week with no TV, no radio, no Internet and spotty cell reception. It was dicey Thursday when I found myself talking to wildlife – especially large, horned wildlife. I’m better now.

One thing that has stuck as a result of my week of living “Country Dangerously” is that I’ve been listening to a lot of Western and Cowboy music. No, I don’t mean Country. Especially not that Pop crap with a twang overlay that passes for Country today. I mean good old fashioned cowboy songs. Think Marty Robbins, Sons of the Pioneers, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Gunfights, cantinas, cattle drives. THAT Western music.

And I’ve made a list. I’ve tried to mix things up. There are the classics, but there are also some surprises.

Don’t like Westerns you say? Sure you do. Star Wars was nothing but a big Western set in space. And Indiana Jones was a cowboy in a fedora. Even George Lucas admits it.

If you think you’ll be spending any time gazing at the landscapes of the American West. Or looking through a book of Edward Curtis photographs. You’ll want this soundtrack.

I'm living in a place like this, so any wonder I'm listening to Cowboy songs?

So from one whose brain is now thoroughly saturated with Whoopie Ti Yi Yays and Yippee Ki Yays, let me offer this humble list:

The Top Ten Cowboy Songs of All Time

1. Whoopie Ti Yi Yo (Git Along Little Dogies). This sort of has to top the list, although the list is in no particular order. Many cowboy stars have recorded this, but I’m partial to Charlie Daniels’ version. He’s got just the right sort of rough Texan voice and, of course, that great fiddle to really put the song across. Note to non-Americans, the chorus is “Git along little DOGIES” (pronounced DOH-gees) not “Doggies”. A dogie is a young male calf. Contrary to what one of my English friends thought, cowboys did not wrangle herds of dogs along with their cattle.

2. Ghost Riders in the Sky. Again, many versions to choose from, but how can you go wrong with Johnny Cash. His deep bass-baritone is perfect for this ghostly tale of a cowboy’s version of Hell.

You believe there are Ghost Riders in the Sky when you see clouds like this.

3. Big Iron. No list of cowboy songs is complete without a song of outlaws and shootouts. Marty Robbins is the master of these and El Paso could be just as easily in this slot. But Big Iron edges it out as El Paso is more a love song where Big Iron is pure High Noon.

4. Cowboy Logic. Want to get inside the mind of a cowboy and learn his special way of doing things? Listen to this song. Charlie Daniels does a credible version but the winner has to be the one sung by Michael Martin Murphey. Murphey has a couple of great cowboy albums out there and, if you get on his website, you can either buy his records or a Quarter Horse from his ranch. Now THAT’s a real cowboy singer.

5. Big Boned Gal. Just to mix things up with a contemporary song, a woman and a Canadian. K.D. Lang’s ode to a “full figured gal” with plenty of cowboy spirit hits the spot.

Of course, there's a cowboy hat and Kachina collection.

6. Cancion Del Mariachi. No list of cowboy songs would be complete without one or more Spanish songs, given that Vaqueros accounted for a large percentage of the people punching cattle in the Old West. This song, sung by Antonio Banderas and Los Lobos, is from Once Upon a Time in Mexico, one part of Robert Rodriquez’s stylish Mexican answer to the Man With No Name Series. This was the song Banderas sang, in full leather Mariachi gear, in the cantina shortly before he opened fire and killed all the bandidos. It’s even got the requisite “Ai Yi Yi” chorus. ‘Nuff said.

7. Big Ball’s in Cowtown. This song deserves to be in the Hall of Fame on so many levels. Firstly, this version is by Asleep at the Wheel, the great Texas Swing band formed as a tribute to the immortal George Wills and the Texas Playboys who pretty much invented the genre. “Wheel” is helped out on this song by George Strait and a lot of “Yee Hawin” and fiddlin’.

8. Beer for my Horses. You couldn’t have a list like this and leave out the original outlaw, Willie Nelson. This is his explanation of frontier justice back when even the cowponies were tougher than you’ll ever be. Not that I’m advocating the return of “Necktie Parties”, but there are certain news days where you can almost see it Willie’s way:

“Justice is one thing you should always find
You gotta saddle up your boys
You gotta draw a hard line.
When the gunsmoke settles
We’ll sing a victory tune
And we’ll all meet back in the local saloon.
We’ll raise up our glasses against evil forces
Singin’ whiskey for my men and beer for my horses.

A couple of dogies at the watering hole. Note: these may be the only grape pickers I'll be able to get on short notice.

9. I Ride an Old Paint. Michael Martin Murphey does a more mournful take on this classic, but I prefer the upbeat version by Riders in the Sky complete with great fiddlin’ by Woody Paul, King of the Cowboy Fiddlers. As far as capturing the American spirit, my vote’s in for this as our National Anthem. It’s got all the REAL American elements: horses, wide open spaces, cussed independence and a touch of violence in the form of a “bloody knife fight” that doesn’t dampen a cowboy’s spirit.

Not THIS Old Paint. The song is talking about a horse.

10. Pops Roundup. Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra? What cowboy cred could they have? Well, they’ve done something wonderful here by mixing all the most famous tunes from the great TV Westerns (Bonanza, Have Gun will Travel, Maverick, The Rebel, The Big Valley, Wagon Train and others) and melded them into the soundtrack for the greatest Western never produced.

Well, that’s the top ten. I could easily have made this twice as long. Or included the 400 cowboy songs that are in my Sonoma Cowboy Playlist on my iPod. If you’re coming my way, you’ll be listening to it. It’s the soundtrack for Two Terrier Vineyards.

Wine Update

As of Saturday, the Cinsault looks like it’s just finishing up fermentation. Specific Gravity is at 1035. At 1000, it’s done. By done, we mean that the yeasts have gobbled up all the sugars and converted them to alcohol. Which is toxic to yeast. So by feasting, they eventually kill themselves. Rough life!

The Grenache is at 23.5 Brix and the Mourvedre is still hanging in at 19.5. We don’t pick until they are at 25 or 26.

However, the Cabernet, our largest crop, is right up there are 24. That’s means another week for me up here and I’ll be picking probably around Wednesday or Thursday. Next weekend at the latest. By “I’ll be picking”, I really mean that. We can’t get hold of a crew on such short notice (all the big wineries have them locked up). So it’s going to be me and the terriers, and maybe Andy picking. Trying to fathom what that will mean given that the Cinsault was a lot of hard work and we’ve got 5 times more Cabernet. I expect it’s going to be a very selective harvest. Since this is not a full harvest year, I’ll just be picking the absolutely most perfect bunches. And leaving the rest on the vine for the foxes. I’m sure by 4 hours into the harvest, I’ll be saying that the foxes are welcome to them!

Me pick grapes? Let me check my Union contract. (Is it a coincidence that the dog matches the cowhide rug?)