Courtesy LC Media

​I was living in Holland in 1977 when my younger brother, who had attended Wayland Baptist University on a track scholarship until booze and girls were discovered in his dorm room, came for a visit. While living in Plainview, his stomping grounds had been the gin joints of Lubbock. Upon arrival, he immediately opened his suitcase and pulled out an album he said I had to hear. It was some guy he had seen play in Lubbock who had just put out his first album.

It was what is known as Joe Ely's "white album." Self-titled, it has sometimes been referred to as the "No Loud Talk" album because of the sign on the wall behind the band on the back photo.

Dropping the needle on side one of Joe Ely, my entire musical horizon changed.

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photo by Jason Wolter

Jesse Dayton onstage in Becoming Kinky: The World According To Kinky Friedman

​In our recent interview with Kinky Friedman, performing tonight at Dosey Doe in the Woodlands, we mulled over Jesse Dayton's on-going project of an album of Friedman's songs. Friedman was very enthusiastic.

"The last time we talked, Jesse had already done the basic tracks for eight songs," said Friedman. "I haven't heard them, but Jesse says he's trying to give them something like a Steve Earle or a Bruce Springsteen treatment. No one's ever really tried to do that with my work, so I'm very excited by this."

"What I'm glad about is that this is not going to be one of those fucking tribute albums," says Friedman. "I hate most of that stuff. I'm really happy that he's trying to put Jesse Dayton's stamp on them, not just do a half-ass regurgitation. But I'm really happy that Jesse's record may find new fans for those old songs."

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courtesy of Carolyn Farb

Little Jewford, Kinky Friedman, Ted Swindley plotting "Becoming Kinky: The World According To Kinky Friedman"

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The one-liners come out of Kinky Friedman's mouth so fast you need a protective shield.

"The only thing Rick Perry managed to do with his Presidential campaign was to make George W. look like Thomas 'Fucking' Jefferson."

"Real people don't get into politics. The only people who get into politics today are the bad people, the ones who were hall monitors in school."

"Choosing between the Democrats and the Republicans is like choosing between the Bloods and the Crips."

And on and on it goes at warp speed.

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​Nutty Jerry's in Winnie has been doing a great job bringing in legacy acts like Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Guess Who, Mickey Gilley, Ronnie Dunn, and Blood, Sweat and Tears. But the club really got our blood pumping when they booked the Cajun wildman, Jo-El Sonnier, who plays the club Saturday night.

Sonnier, who had been playing and recording since he was 13 years old, burst upon the national scene in the early 1980s with "No More One More Time" and the rocking cover of Richard Thompson's "Tear Stained Letter." Both singles reached the Top Ten on the country music chart.

Born to French-speaking sharecroppers in Rayne, Louisiana, today Sonnier, who last released an album in 2008, lives in Lake Charles. We spoke to him at his home Thursday afternoon and found him as perky and full of fire as ever.

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UPDATE -- a note from the author: We spoke to Mr. Ames again this afternoon. He informed us that he thought the conversation would not be used in our article and that it was only for background information. He also stated that he does not recall some of the statements attributed to him. Neither Mr. Ames nor the author is implying that Ms. Chorney or her radio promoter engaged in any unethical practices regarding airplay. The comments regarding such practices were general statements only, not specific to Ms. Chorney. We regret any confusion. Mr. Ames informed us that he will be interviewing Ms. Chorney on his show on Monday, January 30, at 8:20 a.m. We recommend that concerned readers tune in to hear Ms. Chorney in her own words at this link.

Gordon "Big G" Ames

​The Linda Chorney Grammy thing just won't go away. It seems now Chorney is barraging radio stations with her latest album, hoping to gain a smidgen of credibility before going to the Grammys with zero album sales, which we presume is going to be an historic first.

Former Houstonian Gordon "Big G" Ames, the program director at KOOK-FM, "Real Deal Radio," received a copy of Chorney's CD earlier this week. He was not amused. In fact, he is so not amused his Thursday show is going to be themed "Making An Example."

"I've been around a long time and I know how things work," says Ames from his home outside Kerrville. "You and I both know that if you put a thousand dollars in a few hands you can get your album on someone's quote unquote chart. You know it, I know it. And that makes me mad. It's sad and pathetic what the Americana syndicate chooses to accept payment for."

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​After several weeks of semi-classical, jazz, and folk music, Leon's Lounge takes a major swerve tonight with spiky haired Hans Frank. The front man of cow-thrash punkers Glambilly, Frank looks like he just stepped out of a bad Roxy Music video, and it's just possible that Bryan Ferry may be a major influence on the Appalachian born wild man.

One doesn't have to dig too deeply into Frank's musical career to see the connection with some of the original glambillys, the Hickoids and San Antonio musical mover-and-shaker Jeff Smith. When we asked Smith what's the deal with Hans Frank, he let fly with his usual lack of reserve.

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Photo by Lynne Hawrelko

Gurf Morlix

​Part of a storied singer-songwriter scene, former Houstonians Gurf Morlix and Blaze Foley were living in Montrose during the Urban Cowboy craze but were not impressed. In fact, according to Morlix, they worked so much they "hardly ever had a night off, and if we did we certainly weren't going to drive out to Pasadena to some fake cowboy joint." Somewhat ironically, we had just interviewed Mickey Gilley moments before calling Morlix to discuss his gig and the showing of the documentary Blaze Foley: The Duct Tape Messiah at Anderson Fair Friday night. Morlix, who released an entire album of Foley covers last year, Blaze Foley's 113th Wet Dream, spent all of 2011 traveling with the film, usually performing a set of Foley songs after each showing. We caught up with the Grammy winner at his studio in Austin.

Rocks Off: Is the Blaze Foley phase winding down for you or does it have more legs?

Gurf Morlix: I think I'm about done with it. I devoted all of 2011 to Blaze and the film and my album, but I've got other stuff to do this year.

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Photo by Jason Wolter

Dayton performing as Friedman at the Mucky Duck last year.

​Over the weekend we learned of at least one high profile 2012 recording project that involves Houston at least peripherally: local arts patron and charity fundraiser Carolyn Farb will be the executive producer of a Jesse Dayton album of Kinky Friedman covers tentatively titled Sold American.

Farb was part of a group who staged last year's theatrical event, Becoming Kinky: The World According To Kinky Friedman, which premiered at McGonigel's Mucky Duck. Dayton was one of a group of four actors on the stage, playing the part of Friedman in his singer-songwriter heyday. Accompanied by longtime Friedman sideman/sidekick Little Jewford on keyboards, Dayton handled most of the musical part of the production.

Dayton explains that while working on the play, he was forced to revisit Friedman's catalog and it came to him what a great songwriter Friedman was during the height of his career as a traveling troubadour beginning in the early Seventies.

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​You may or may not remember a week ago when we told you about how the head of the largest musicians' union in North America ripped into Lionsgate for farming out the score for the upcoming film Hunger Games to Europe despite the film's Appalachian setting and decidedly American style of music.

Well, this week the film company announced some of the names on its list of artists who will be performing original songs on the soundtrack and they are much more 'Merican. USA! USA!

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Photo by Jason Wolter

Jason Isbell (left) and Amanda Shires (right) are both more deserving than Chorney.

​The small world of Americana music is all a-twitter over New Jersey woman Linda Chorney's nomination for a Grammy in the Americana category. In case you haven't been following the story, Chorney discovered a way to game the system and managed to convince quite a number of Grammy voters (who obviously are a little under-educated and under-exposed to the Americana genre) to vote for her tepid album, Emotional Jukebox, to get it on the final ballot in spite of it not having sold a single unit so far according to Sound Scan, the official industry tabulator of album sales.

According to interviews she's given, Chorney seems to have very little working knowledge of Americana or the artists in it. The Americana Music Association, which normally issues a boilerplate congratulatory statement to all the nominees, has not done so this year and speculation is that the association is not happy about Chorney's nomination since she is not a member of the organization and has never attended any of the annual events.

Frankly, we don't care if she's a member of the AMA or not; what bugs us about Chorney's gameswomanship is that she has knocked a number of exemplary albums out of a chance to win. And we'll bet she hasn't heard a damned one of them. So here's a list for you, Linda, of people you are basically screwing over. Like we said, do the right thing and withdraw your nomination.

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