The music of football: sizzling brats

Slow start this morning. We have to pace ourselves for tonight's Bears-Packers game, which is certain to bring out hostilities on both sides of the Illinois-Wisconsin border.

I was reading some online posts today to psyche myself up for the game and there's absolutely no doubt about it: these fans don't like each other. You can't call this a friendly rivalry, no sir. It's downright nasty what they're saying.

You can even feel it down here in Florida. No doubt many fans will be checking in this afternoon on ol' what's his name -- Brent Favre? -- but the Vikings-Browns pales in comparison to tonight's prime time matchup. Wish they could play it right now and get it over with.

My Packer Backer bratwurst from the Falls Meat Market in Pigeon Falls, Wis., are ready to grill. Sometimes I'll let brats stew in beer and onions, but these are so good I'll just put them over a fire before kickoff and be set. I'll leave a couple whole for the buns, then cut up the rest with onions and green and yellow bell peppers and have some tasty kabobs with mustard dipping sauce.

The garlic cheese curds will tide me over until then...

You think it's easy being a cheesehead? No way. Never has been, never will be. Tons of fun, though. And oh, so yummy.

Go Pack go.

Happy birthday, Possum

George Jones appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night and performed one of the greatest tear-jerkers in country music history. Click below and enjoy.

The Possum turns 78 today, and from all appearances he's still going strong. He has a new album "A Collection of My Best Recollection'' offered exclusively at Cracker Barrel and featuring two standards he hadn't previously recorded: "Long Gone Daddy'' and "I Don't Want To Know.''

He's even Twittering! Check it out here.

And word is the legendary hell-raiser has been sober for years. So this morning, in his honor, make mine a virgin bloody mary. Here's to you, George...

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Just an American songwriter

The events of 9/11 were barely a year behind us when Steve Earle released "Jerusalem'', unleashing a torrent of negative publicity.

I don't make a big deal about it, but I'm as patriotic as my next-door neighbor. And I admit flinching upon hearing the controversial ballad "John Walker's Blues'' for the first time. I remember a friend at work saying "Your boy really stepped in it this time.'' Maybe. But I wasn't naive enough to believe that Earle had written a song in support of Walker and the Taliban.

Many people, including critics who review music, thought otherwise. And the lyrics to the song, with its eerie Eastern sound and mullah chants, seemed to support their conclusion.

I'm just an American boy raised on MTV
And I've seen all those kids in the soda pop ads
But none of 'em looked like me
So I started lookin' around for a light out of the dim
And the first thing I heard that made sense was the word
Of Mohammed, peace be upon him

The Arabic prayer in the chorus sounded downright spooky:

A shadu la ilaha illa Allah
There is no God but God

It certainly was a different point of view, which is what we come to expect from our best songwriters. But the timing might have been too close to the deep wounds opened on 9/11. We were still looking to round up all the evil-doers, and it was jolting to hear early news reports about an American kid taking up with the Taliban.

It turned out John Walker, while a troubled and conflicted young man, wasn't quite the jihadist he was made out to be. Nine of the most serious charges against him were dropped.

Nor did Earle's song deserve the wrath it received, including this New York Post headline: "Twisted Ballad Honors Tali-Rat"

David Carithers, a professor at the University of Tennessee at Martin, offers a fascinating view of the songwriter in his paper ''Steve Earle and the Possibilities of Pragmatism.'' It originally appeared in the Fall 2005 issue of Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture, but you can read it by clicking here.

Earle once called himself a Marxist, which didn't win him many fans. Pragmatist fits him much better. Whatever label you choose, ''un-American'' shouldn't be one of them.

As Earle explained at the time: "I'm not trying to get myself deported or something. In a big way this is the most pro-American record I've ever made. I feel urgently American."

Don't we all?

Still lighting a fire at 64

A lot was made of Bob Dylan when he "plugged in'' at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, but has anybody been paying attention to Jose Feliciano?

Apparently he has been appearing on stage for years with an electric guitar, which is quite a departure from his early classical days covering the likes of "Light My Fire'', which won him a Grammy in 1969.

I hadn't seen el tremendo guitarrista with a solid body in his hands until stumbling across a clip from a 2007 concert in Belgium. He plays a blazing electrified version of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door'', power tuning as he digs into the song.

Enjoy this today on Feliciano's 64th birthday.

He gave the world a thrill

Elvis Presley made his memorable first appearance on Ed Sullivan's television show on this day in 1956 and the rest, they always insist on saying, is history.

(The photo posted here is from a 1960 show called the Frank Sinatra Timex Special. I couldn't resist sharing it now. I'm just sorry I don't have video of this dynamic duo singing "Love Me Tender'' and "Witchcraft'' together at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami.)

Reportedly one in three Americans tuned in to the Sullivan show, or about the same percentage that views this blog each day. Seriously, who could draw numbers like that today? Certainly not the President.

But it wasn't Elvis' first appearance on TV. That came earlier in the year, on January 28, when he sang "Heartbreak Hotel'' on Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey's Stage Show. Elvis would also appear on Milton Berle and Steve Allen's shows, setting the stage for his delirious debut on Sullivan.

There's a bit of misinformation flying around about the Sullivan appearance. It's true that some factions in ultra-conservative Fifties America found Elvis' onstage antics and gyrating offensive, but "the Pelvis'' was not censured by either Sullivan or CBS. It wasn't until Elvis' third appearance on Sullivan in 1957 that he was shown from the waist up, and that was more likely a publicity stunt hatched by his manager, Colonel Parker.

Whatever the reason, no songwriter has referenced the occasion better than Fred Eaglesmith:

Elvis Presley, he came up from Jackson
With a brand new way of singing, Lord, and a brand new way of dancing
And even from the waist up, Lord, he gave the world a thrill
He ended up on alcohol and pills.

"Alcohol and Pills'' is a cautionary lament about the hazards of fame and includes as evidence mentions of Hank Williams, Elvis, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Gram Parsons. But you have to give Eaglesmith credit for slipping in the line "even from the waist up.''

Lord, he did give the world a thrill.

Reconsidering Donovan

He was hip with his denim cap, unruly locks, acoustic guitar and a harmonica strapped around his neck. And he wrote songs that reverberated with the masses. Wait, wasn't that Bob Dylan?

Comparisions to Dylan were inevitable, but Donovan was simply too good to be dismissed as a copycat folk singer with a cool first name. He emerged on the Sixties music scene with a distinctive Scottish-English voice that sang catchy lyrics, a finger-picking style that other guitarists would emulate, and songs that hinted of the psychedelic days ahead. He was the first flower child from across the pond.

Sunshine came softly through my window today
Could've tripped out easy but I've changed my ways
It'll take time, I know it, but in a while
You're gonna be mine, I know it, we'll do it in style
'Cause I've made my mind up, you're going to be mine

"Sunshine Superman'' topped the Billboard chart on this day in 1966. It would be Donovan's only No. 1 hit, but there were many other worthy songs from his catalog, including "Catch the Wind,'' ''Hurdy Gurdy Man,'' "Season of the Witch'' and "Wear Your Love Like Heaven'' -- which might be best remembered in the commercial for Heaven Scent perfume.

Probably nothing matched "Sunshine Superman'' with its conga beat, sitar accents and the studio guitar work of Jimmy Page.

I'll tell you right now
Any trick in the book now, baby, all that I can find
Everybody's hustlin' just to have a little scene
When I say we'll be cool, I think that you know what I mean
We stood on a beach at sunset, do you remember when?
I know a beach where, baby, it never ends
When you've made your mind up forever to be mine

There went the Hurdy Gurdy man, singing songs of love...

Brain and muscle, heart and soul

I don't know the melody to "Labor Day'' by John McCutcheon, but the lyrics pretty much sing a song all by themselves. Read this, and enjoy your day:

In school we learn the well-known names
The ones whose money was their fame
Who ran the railroads, bought the West
Today we mention all the rest
Who blazed the trail that brought us here
Whose family names we'll never hear
Who laid the track and dug the coal
The brain and muscle, heart and soul

Labor Day, Labor Day
September or the first of May
To all who work this world we say
Happy Labor Day

The ones who work behind the plow
The ones who stand and will not bow
The ones who care for home and child
The ones who labor meek and mild
The ones who work a thousand ways
That we might celebrate this day
The ones who raise our cities tall
For those who labor, one and all

Chorus

In history books I often find
That children worked in mill and mine
No time to play, to learn, or grow
Just send 'em in or down below
Today too many have forgot
The goals for which our parents fought
When I grow up I hope to be
As strong as those who fought for me