Radio Free America

What just happened here?Well, as this episode of 3 Chords & the Truth came together and headed to the Internet tubes, a former president of the United States was convicted on 34 felony counts in New York. That's a first in two and a half centuries.Momentous stuff, to say the least.And, unsurprisingly, convicted felon Donald Trump and Republican politicians from soup to nuts -- emphasis on the nuts -- are waging a brutal rhetorical war on the American justice system. Throw some dude in the 'hood under the jail, our criminal courts are great. Convict a psychologically damaged, orange authoritarian? THE TRIAL WAS RIGGED! DEMOCRATS ARE WAGING WAR AGAINST THE PEOPLE!Even though our system held here, even though we saw that no man is above the law -- in New York state, at least -- the United States remains in a world of hurt. American patriots (the real ones, not the performative ones) continue to fight for our democratic lives. Interesting week to come out with another Big Show.And the existential question remains: Which side are you on, boys? Which side are you on?Here, we're on the side of America -- the noble idea of America. America is an idea, you know. It's a creed, an aspiration. We haven't fully lived up to the tenets of that creed yet, but the defining characteristic of Americanism is that we keep trying to.Our national bond, now so horribly frayed, is in the trying . . . trying to live up to the words of the Declaration of Independence. Trying to remain faithful to our constitution.This is a music program, however. We're also on the side of great music, and we're pretty firmly rooted in that respect. I'd recommend, after the day -- after the decade -- we've had that you kick back and chill with the musical greatness of the Big Show.It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Life is a mixed bag, and not everything was better when we were young.Actually, lots of things were awful, even cruel, when we were young. To deny that, it seems to me, is to fall into what I like to call malignant nostalgia. Rose-colored glasses tend to make your hindsight blurry.Perhaps even offensive.That's what is on my mind as another edition of 3 Chords & the Truth goes into the can and onto the Internets. For instance, I think the music from my time back in the day was, overall, pretty damned good. That doesn't mean it all was . . . God, no! A lot of it was crap.Same goes for today. There's a lot of crap on the radio -- and on Spotify or whatever, There's also a lot of amazingly good stuff which, as was true to a lesser degree when I was young, can be less in your face and might take a little effort to connect with.But the thing about the Big Show is that we celebrate the good. The bad, we don't mess with.That, methinks, is all that needs to be said here. Really, it's time to get to the music now.It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

What can I say?Well, I don't know.I've been in a contemplative mood but, unfortunately, that hasn't readily translated into something in particular to actually say on this week's 3 Chords & the Truth. Guess the music will have to do the talking.Good thing the music, as usual, just says it all.That's the Big Show for you.And that is all I have to say.It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

"These are the times that try men's souls."Thomas Paine opened his essay "American Crisis" with that sentence in December 1776. The revolution against Great Britain wasn't going so well at that point.Two hundred forty-eight years later, with a country riven as much as it's been since the Civil War, with a deranged authoritarian commanding the loyalty of a good 40 percent of Americans -- with American democracy itself teetering on the sharp edge of oblivion -- these are the times that try people's will to get out of bed in the morning.Scratch millions of average Americans, and you're likely to bring forth a flood of existential dread. It's been that way for much of the past nine years.And here I am doing a music podcast. You may have heard of it -- 3 Chords & the Truth. And the Truth is, we don't know how much more of this mess we, and the United States, can take. Think of the 3 Chords part as a pleasant refuge from the encroaching dread.Ninety minutes' peace a week from existential dread ain't nothing. Well, that's one way to market the Big Show.The quintessential 2024 way to market a music program.Fortunately, that 90 minutes a week of musical refuge are 90 quality minutes of musical refuge. An absolute dread-free zone.Thank God.It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

This is where I'm supposed to be clever or funny -- or something -- as I say something that's vaguely about this week's episode of the Big Show.And perhaps you've noticed that I'm rather late posting this week's 3 Chords & the Truth.Truth is . . . clever, funny or saying much about this week's show isn't really in the cards this early Saturday morning. I'm posting the show because it's been in the can since early Friday morning, but hyping it would be, in my reckoning right now, kind of vulgar.Maybe you've heard on the news that Omaha (a.k.a., Omaha, by God, Nebraska) was hit hard by tornadoes Friday afternoon. The biggest one, out in far western Omaha, was massive and powerful -- perhaps an EF-4 or EF-5. That has yet to be officially determined, but it was really big, really powerful . . . and there are many homes and a few neighborhoods that no longer exist.ON THE OTHER side of town, just north of downtown Omaha, a tornado tore through our airport, heavily damaging the general aviation section. My wife and I saw that happen on live TV.The monster tornado missed our house (a.k.a., the Culture War bunker) by about 9 miles or so. The other one missed us by about 7 miles and change. We were lucky.Not so for folks in a ruined path through western Douglas County, the western suburbs of Omaha and up through Bennington and well into Washington County. Also down toward Lincoln, Neb. And across the river in Iowa, tornadoes leveled huge parts of a few small towns, as well as some areas in Council Bluffs.This area hasn't seen anything like that since the Tornado of 1975, an EF-4 monster that ripped through the middle of Omaha and was the United States' first billion-dollar twister.Yes, this week's Big Show is as fine as ever. It's just that that seems rather unimportant now. As is the self-serving social-media hype one is expected to do these days.I mean, "Too bad about the devastation across town, but now let's get back to the bitchin' tunes!" just doesn't cut it.The show's done, and I didn't want to junk it, and that's about all I feel like saying about it. So I suck at modern marketing. Whoopee.It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Listen. Or don't.In the grand scheme of things, it's not that important, actually.

Sooner or later, the Big Show's gonna get ya.Sooner or later, friend, you got to give in.Sooner or later, the tunes are gonna let 'cha.Sooner or later, the music's gonna win. Music's gonna win.IT'S JUST a matter of time before you make up your mind.To give all those grooves that you've been hiding.Its just a question of when, I've told you time and again. You'll get all the tunes you've been denying.Sooner or later, 3C&T is gonna get ya.Sooner or later, friend, you got to give in.Sooner or later, the tunes are gonna let 'cha.Sooner or later, the music's gonna win. Music's gonna win!So . . . here comes the Big Show. You betcha.It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

I sit here at the keyboard, naked before you, telling and playing the truth.Well, not naked naked but figuratively naked. And certainly not nekkid. As any Southerner will tell you, there's a difference between naked and nekkid. Naked is clothesless. Nekkid is naked while up to something. There's a 3 Chords & the Truth naked truth for you.I'll tell you the naked truth of why Linda Martell's debut country album was her last album. It is not an easy path for Black women in Nashville today. It was exponentially harder in 1970 and, indeed, it didn't work out -- for obvious reasons five years past the technical end of Jim Crow.Back then, the miraculous apparently was all used up on the great Charley Pride's stardom.Here's another naked truth for this edition of the Big Show: Great music encompasses all genres, and they all can coexist on a single program. You know. like this one. And yet another one: Too many people are too parochial to embrace that fact.Having grown up before the culture splintered into microcultures, it was pretty easy for an old guy like me to realize that at a relatively early age. It got even easier when I aged out of any concern for being "cool."And the nakedest truth for me right now is that, in writing this, I'm just all over the place. Like, are people going to think I'm an idiot when I say The Who's "Naked Eye" is on Who's Next? Well, if you have a later CD re-release, it is.Another version is on Odds and Sods (1974). The naked truth is that digital re-releases of classic albums make one's musical-geek life confusing. Bonus tracks good; bonus tracks kinda bad if you nerd out on who released what when.Like I said, all over the place, I am. No, I am not Yoda. I just write like him.Perhaps I'd better stop now. That's the naked truth, but not the nekkid truth. Nekkid truth, you would not want to see.And there goes the thread, which I have lost.It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Ever had one of those weeks when all you could manage was to go off on a tangent?This has been one of those weeks, following a couple of weeks off. Which led to this week on 3 Chords & the Truth, with what I could manage.But -- oh! -- what a tangent. Actually, make that two legitimate tangents. Sometimes, all you can manage after a couple of challenging weeks turns out to be pretty glorious.And this week, that is your Big Show.It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

When does "old people's music" become your music, too?I think that happens in a couple of ways -- when you start playing it yourself, then something happens in your head and in your heart . . . and when you encounter magic in the night. Let's just call it "moonglow."Or, more properly, "Moonglow."That is what this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is all about. Let's go deeper, and I'll use my own experience to do that.Big band was my parents' music, kind of like country, Lawrence Welk and Guy Lombardo. As a kid in the pre-digital age, I was force-fed three things on TV in the days of one or two TV sets in the house and just two channels in Baton Rouge. First, it was The Porter Wagoner Show. Second, The Lawrence Welk Show. Third, every Dec. 31, Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians counting down to the new year . . . also pre-digital.OF COURSE, I was lucky to have grown up playing, and loving, the records bought by the younger version of my parents. We're talking jump blues, gut-bucket jump blues, Western swing, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers and Thin Elvis.The "race music" thing and my racist parents? One of the many contradictions of the segregated South. If you try to make sense of it, you'll fail.But then came high school, and high-school radio.Two of the shows I had to do as a student DJ at Baton Rouge High's FM station, WBRH, were the big-band show and the jazz show. I not only learned a lot (sometimes painfully), but I also learned to love the music -- "old folks'" music. Go figure.And then, when I was in college at Louisiana State, I discovered Moonglow With Martin on WRKF public radio, which then was a brand-new thing in Baton Rouge -- broadcasting from a house trailer on Frenchtown Road. The late-night show was a continuation of something legendary disc jockey Dick Martin had been doing, on various stations around the country, since the early 1950s on clear-channel, 50,000-watt WWL in New Orleans.Martin was a big-band and jazz DJ. He only played the good stuff -- the really good stuff. His show was, not to put too fine a point on it, magic. I missed out on his WWL show, and I was just a little kid when, after a stint in Kansas City, he brought it for a time to Baton Rouge's WJBO-FM in 1965. (Besides, who listened to FM in 1965? Apart from the folks in dentists' offices?)BUT I DIDN'T miss Moonglow With Martin on public radio after 'RKF came to my cultural-wasteland of a hometown in 1980. Seriously, people, we didn't have public TV until 1975; WBRH was the city's first noncommercial radio station since WLSU-FM went under in 1957. And we had only Channel 2 and Channel 9 until 1971, when we got an ABC affiliate, Channel 33.And in the white, working-class world of my childhood, subversiveness was called SOOOUL Train! But what about my parents' old race records? Do not try to square that circle; you'll hurt yourself.So, like my parents' old country and blues discs, and the Top-40 and progressive FM rock of my growing-up years, Dick Martin's Moonglow With Martin is in the Big Show. It's a marvelous mix of my youthful force-feedings, rebellion and . . . musical discovery.If you want to know what 3 Chords & the Truth is, exactly, it's me. And maybe it's you, too. Thank you, Mr. Martin.It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Perhaps you've rolled your eyes through a less-than-stellar production put on by not-so-good high school thespians.Well, if you sat through U.S. Sen Katie Britt's response to the State of the Union address, you certainly have had that experience. Alabama's got some 'splainin' to do.Well, this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is not that. If it ever is, I'm hangin' it up for the public good.But the proof is in the listening, and I guaran-damn-tee that there's not a cringe in the entire 90 minutes. I play music on the Big Show; you decide.That is all.It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.