Last year, you couldn’t avoid hearing The Black Keys on TV. And I have to admit, it started to annoy me a little bit. But I realize their marketing strategy is dead right.

I mean, who listens to the radio anymore, unless it involves sports talk or NPR? And with the music industry such a fragmented mess, TV is now the new Top 40. But it’s more like a radio station programmed by a small army of ad agency geeks – which is a good thing, actually… far better than listening to something programmed within an inch of its life by so-called professionals sporting the latest Arbitron ratings.

And that means occasionally I get turned on to some pretty cool stuff just by watching my favorite TV shows. For a while I thought Mad Men was the best thing on cable. Turns out it’s quite possibly the third-best show on AMC, which also is home to the incredibly tense and satisfying series The Killing as well as my new personal favorite, Breaking Bad.

Our flawed hero, Walter White

The latter is really an extended exercise in “what would you do under the same circumstances?” Chemistry whiz with dead-end teaching gig finds out he has cancer – and his lame-ass health care plan threatens to make his wife and son indigent upon his demise. What to do? Why not team up with a former student – now a full-time homey – and put their chemistry chops to work cooking the best crystal meth in the tri-state area?

Of course this traps our hero in a web of lies that could tear his family apart – which, to him, is a far greater concern than spending his last months in prison. Trust me, there are few better ways to waste an hour each week than following this cancer-ridden teacher and his cartoony sidekick down one rabbit hole after another. And Breaking Bad’s superb writing and direction have already earned it a boatload of Emmys (not that those haven’t gone to far less deserving programs).

Back to the music… One episode included a beautifully disturbing sequence that gave viewers an inside look at the meth supply chain. The show’s producers had the brilliant idea of juxtaposing the seedy footage against a jaunty little number by legendary New Orleans horn player Alvin “Red” Tyler: The Peanut Vendor. Actually, I didn’t know what the song was or who performed it, so I took a lengthy side trip on google to find out. Guess I should’ve checked youtube first… Here’s the clip:

My like/not so like relationship with the HBO series Treme continues with Season 2. The first season ended with John Goodman’s seething character, a professor at Tulane, doing himself in by jumping off a ferry. Which was fine with me, because I found him annoying – and I’m secretly hoping a couple of other characters on the program follow Goodman’s lead.

I keep coming back to Treme because of the one thing the program consistently gets right: the music. It’s always been a life-affirming force in New Orleans, but even more essential post-Katrina as local musicians and entrepreneurs like Antoine Batiste (played by the wonderful Wendell Pierce) struggle with a number of indignities – both self-inflicted and otherwise – in their day-to-day lives.

I’ve been hooked on New Orleans music for quite some time, so I can’t say the show has exposed me to a lot of songs and performers I wasn’t aware of already. But they did throw me a curve in the finale of the first season with a tune by the Baby Dodds Trio. Dodds was a Crescent City drummer who played with Louis Armstrong and King Oliver, among others. Although he spent many years living outside of New Orleans, his stock in trade was a syncopated, improvisational style of drumming that owed everything to his hometown. My Indian Red also features singer and banjoist Danny Barker. It’s an expression of pride and strength among Mardi Gras Indians: “We don’t bow down on nobody’s ground.” Here’s the scene from Treme that featured the song in its entirety:

The award for best use of a Black Keys song in a TV show or commercial goes to… Eastbound and Down – the ongoing saga of washed-up pitcher and part-time philosopher Kenny Powers. In this scene from the first episode, Powers makes his not-so-triumphant return to his old middle school in Shelby, North Carolina, to start a new job as a substitute physical education teacher. Gives me goose bumps every time I watch it:

As much as I try to avoid them, commercials are about 20 times more tolerable when they use the right soundtrack. This one has some powerful images, but the real star of the show is the Godfather of Soul, James Brown (then again, using Super Bad with an HR training video would still pack a wallop):

And of course the best music on TV is often saved for booze. I’m sure a few of you will tell me that there’s something inherently wrong with a tune that’s used to flog beer or liquor. I say bullshit. Listen to this steamy little number by Cold War Kids and tell me it doesn’t stand on its own merits without the help of Heineken, which tagged it for a TV spot several years ago: Mexican Dogs/Cold War Kids

Love that opening riff… but it still doesn’t match my favorite beer commercial soundtrack of all time – by the Master of the Telecaster, Albert Collins: Kool Aide/Albert Collins

I’ll close with another alcohol-fueled number, this one prominently featured in a new TV spot promoting the hard stuff (Jack Daniels). It’s a cover of Slim Harpo’s King Bee by a nasty little garage band from the Bay Area called the Stone Foxes. I think these guys are onto something… even if it has the whiff of a certain two-piece from the Rubber City: I’m a King Bee/The Stone Foxes

The first real band I joined (“real” meaning paid gigs) was The Warsaw Falcons, a neo-rockabilly outfit based in Cincinnati. I was fresh out of college and just landed a job downtown, editing a magazine for the screen printing industry. So I needed the gigs more for mental health reasons than income.

Our main weapon was our fearless leader, David Rhodes Brown, a great singer and songwriter who also happened to be a one-man wrecking crew on guitar. It always amazed me how he could play the right notes and even actual chords while his limbs were flailing in every direction. And the spectacle of a man well over six feet tall prowling the stage like a mad hyena only added to the buzz surrounding our band.

Thankfully, Dave had a mild-mannered sidekick, Tom Schneider, who played sax and sang lead on a number of songs, including a few he wrote. Since we didn’t exclusively play originals, Tom and Dave would go through a painstaking process to find fairly unconventional songs to cover – mainly to create the illusion that everything we did was fresh and new.

I touched on one of those tunes here, a slow-burning number by Conway Twitty called Lonely Blue Boy. We also covered Trying to Get to You, a song originally recorded in ’54 by an R&B group called The Eagles and reinterpreted by Elvis the following year during his groundbreaking sessions at Sun Studios. Other gems included Rip It Up by Little Richard, Shame Shame Shame by Jimmy Reed and Break Up by Charlie Rich.

Which brings us to Ricky Nelson and the shit-hot rockabilly sides he recorded with legendary stringbender James Burton.

Back in the late ‘70s, I prided myself on being somewhat of a purist when it came to blues and rockabilly. Why listen to Clapton cover Robert Johnson or Skip James when you can go directly to the source? And Ricky Nelson… wasn’t he some slick, preening star of a crappy TV show that my older siblings used to ridicule?

Well, I’ve since learned that a puristic approach to music is essentially useless (hell, it’s fun to hear Mick Jagger ape Muddy Waters). And one of my first lessons along those lines was finding out about songs like Believe What You Say and It’s Late that featured Nelson’s seemingly effortless vocals framed by Burton’s blazing leads: Believe What You Say

Tom and Dave jumped all over Believe, which quickly became one of the Falcons’ show-stoppers. And that sent me searching for other rockabilly tunes by baby-faced Nelson and the dangerous guitslinger Burton, who somehow made his Fender Telecaster sound pretty and menacing at the same time.

On paper, the combination seemed highly improbable. Born in Dubberly, Louisiana, Burton started playing professionally at the age of 14 and eventually joined the staff band of the famous Louisiana Hayride radio show in Shreveport, where he backed up country stars like George Jones and Johnny Horton. Meanwhile, Nelson – a native of Teaneck, New Jersey – was growing up under the hot glare of Hollywood studio lights as a child actor on “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” featuring his real-life parents and siblings. But Burton and Nelson obviously shared a deep appreciation of Elvis Presley and the hillbilly music that inspired his first recordings at Sun Studios.

Kirkland, Nelson and Burton

Burton arrived in L.A. in ’57 to do some shows and sessions for rockabilly singer Bob Luman (My Gal is Red Hot). At the same time, a 17-year-old Nelson was making his first forays into the music biz, having covered Fats Domino’s I’m Walkin’ and a few other tunes for the jazz-based Verve label. Nelson caught Luman’s band rehearsing for a rock ‘n roll movie and apparently liked what he heard. Shortly after that, Burton received a telegram asking him and bass player James Kirkland to perform on “Ozzie and Harriet” as part of Nelson’s backing band. Before long, they had severed ties with Luman and went all-in with Nelson, who then signed a lucrative five-year deal with Imperial Records (thanks mainly to Ozzie Nelson’s considerable clout). Burton even moved in with the non-fictional Nelsons for a couple of years before he found his own place to stay.

The best of Nelson’s Imperial recordings – mostly featuring Burton, but also including a few with monster picker Joe Maphis – are available on Ace Records’ “Rockin’ with Ricky” (you also can find many of these cuts on “Lonesome Town: The Complete Record Releases, 1957-1959″). “Rockin’” includes a few syrupy duds, but most of it is top-shelf rock ‘n roll. And Burton, who already had cemented his status as a guitar legend with a vicious solo on Dale Hawkins’ Susie Q, was clearly at the top of his game: Shirley Lee

Actually, some of the best moments are in the more polished, tightly arranged numbers, where Burton’s twisted guitar seem almost subversive. You get the sense he was openly mocking the background singers and other sappy flourishes. Just for the hell of it, I spliced together a couple of solos on this next sample: Burton solos: Oh Yeah, I’m in Love/Stop Sneakin’ Around

But there’s plenty of raw meat to go along with the pop-flavored desserts. Among other blues and rockabilly standards, Nelson and band even cover Little Walter’s number one R&B single from 1955: My Babe

And call it heresy, but Nelson’s version of Milk Cow Blues may be my favorite of the many takes on this age-old standard: Milk Cow Blues

Burton stuck with Nelson all the way through 1967, when he gave in to a steady gig on the TV show “Shindig!” and a lot of well-paying session work in L.A. (he was a member of the hallowed Wrecking Crew, a group of hard-bitten studio musicians who contributed to thousands of hit songs in the Sixties by artists ranging from The Monkees and Nancy Sinatra to The Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel).

In 1969, Burton signed on with Elvis Presley and was a fixture in his band until the King’s untimely demise in 1977. He also was a founding member of Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band and spent 16 years touring and recording with John Denver. In 1990, Burton moved back to Shreveport, where he continues to perform – mainly to raise money for his charitable foundation, which provides musical scholarships and instruments to children and young adults.

On the other hand, Nelson was cut down at the young age of 45 – victim of a rickety aircraft that also killed six other members of his entourage, including his fiancee and bandmates (the pilots somehow survived). Nelson had experienced some success since Burton’s departure – including a Top 40 hit with Garden Party in 1972. And although his career had been in limbo before the crash occurred on New Year’s Eve in 1985, he rarely failed to deliver live and consistently surrounded himself with first-rate musicians.

Since my buddies in the Falcons turned me on to Nelson and Burton, I came across a few other musicians who couldn’t get enough of the Imperial singles. But the greatest validation of their place in rock history came during one of my chats with cousin Robert Quine, who is responsible for some of the most distinctive and uncompromising solos you can find on any instrument, in any genre.

Rob’s playing sounded like no one else, but I knew it was informed by early rock ‘n roll. So I asked him something along the lines of, who were some of your first influences? And what sent you down the path of pursuing a life-long career as a guitar player?

His response surprised me at first, but then made total sense. He said he started to get serious about the guitar when he first heard James Burton playing with Ricky Nelson.

Nelson and Burton on video… Nasty solo by Burton on this one – a cover of Ray Charles’ number one R&B hit from 1955:

Thank god Nelson was a star on a hit TV show – lots of great footage on youtube. Here’s a clip of Nelson and Burton screwing around on acoustic guitars:

Here’s a quick hit while I’m fumbling my way through Europe…

A while back, we featured a great clip of soulmen Sam & Dave tearing it up in front of a TV studio audience in Offenbach, Germany, 1967. Turns out there’s more prime footage from the same concert – including performances by the hugely underrated Lee Dorsey, Arthur Conley and Linda Carr.

Dorsey, of course, is best known for his massive hit from ’66, Working in a Coal Mine. But most of his classic stuff never showed up on the Billboard charts. I highly recommend anything he recorded with legendary New Orleans producer Allen Toussaint and the world’s funkiest rhythm section, The Meters – including an essential album from 1970, “Yes We Can.” As these next two clips demonstrate, Dorsey also was a consummate performer (although even Bruce Willis would have a fighting chance if he were backed by Sam & Dave’s tough-as-nails touring band). And let’s hand it to the Germans for capturing this historic occasion with first-rate sound and camera work. Hard to find better footage of live soul music from the era:

Next, Memphis meets Motown as Linda Carr covers a ’66 favorite by The Supremes. Carr eventually became a fixture on the U.K.’s Northern Soul scene. Here she pledges allegiance to the two great strains of American soul music:

Otis Redding protege Arthur Conley scored a huge hit in ’67 with this next tune, released on the Atlantic label. Don’t blame the current crop of country stars with the whole name-checking thing – it started right here. Although I have to admit, Brad Paisley ain’t got nothin on Conley:

Can’t call it a post without another great clip of the masters at work. Sam & Dave, once again showing why it was a fool’s game to follow them on stage in the Sixties:

After I pushed the button on my Dan Hicks/Mike Flowers post, I realized I’d made a big mistake… Should’ve featured those videos in a more appropriate format. Why not put together a virtual variety show for the interweb generation? What a great idea, right? And even if it doesn’t make sense, who’s going to argue with a guy wearing an ankle bracelet?

(start here)

Bobby Whitewall

Hi, welcome to the Rubber City Variety Show… I’m your host, Bobby Whitewall. We’ve got a real humdinger of a show this week, and it’s brought to you by our good friends at Johnson Motors – it’s all about you, your friends and your Johnson.

So how ‘bout this weather in northeast Ohio? Don’t like it? Wait five minutes – it’ll change… (click)

Wow… this audience is a lot better than the one from last week. I tell ya, that crowd was so tough, they started leaving five minutes before they showed up… (click)

Yeah, I mean tough… And who’s idea was it to book that pastry chef? Poor guy had to use a crème brulee torch to defend himself… Now that’s a tough crowd! (click)

Hey, how ‘bout those Indians? They’re really on a tear. Just last week, Slider finally showed up at the ballpark without a bag over his head… (click) See, he’s a mascot – no need for the bag! (click)

You guys are great! I wish I could take all of you home with me – and throw my wife out the back door! (click)

Just kidding, sweetie… Alrighty, let’s light this rocket! We’re gonna kick things off with a swingin’ little band from Southern California, Big Sandy and his Fly Rite Boys. Sandy?

Dad gum it, how ‘bout those boys? I’m old enough to remember the original by George “Thumper” Jones. Hell, I even remember when George had most of his liver! Man, he used to fight like mad with Tammy Wynette… She got tired with all that honky tonkin’ – told George she didn’t like him drinkin’ and drivin’ too. George said “I don’t drive when I’m drunk. I just sit in my car and wait for my house to pull up”… (click) What’s that, Vic? Yeah, good idea. Go ahead and edit that one out.

We’re gonna take a short break for a word from our sponsor, Johnson Motors. But stick around – because we’ll be right back with a very special guest from a far-away land…

You know, when the sun’s going down and I’m heading back to the harbor, I can always count on my Johnson to get me home. (click)

I caught this next fella’s act last week at Sonny’s House of Meats over by the racetrack. Now I’m a “moon in June” kinda guy, so it took me a little while to warm up to his crazy songbird schtick. But my wife was on him like a cheap suit, so I figured you ladies out there might dig him too. Turns out he’s here on a visa from one of those “stan” countries – Kazakstan, Turkmenistan, Nolyricstan, whatever. (click) And Sonny, there’s a man with a heart… Not only did he get this guy a job packing meat, he also designed the set for this very special performance. So the least I can do is throw in a little plug for Sonny’s House of Meats. Remember, you can beat Sonny’s prices, but you can’t… Christ, Vic. Quit waving your arms around. I’m moving as fast as I can. Let’s give it up for the great Trololo…

Nice job, Trolly… Come back when you learn a few songs. Y’know what chicks also dig? Harmonica players. Not sure what that’s all about, but it reminds me of a joke I stole from my Uncle Gus, who blew more than a few Hohners over the years. What’s the difference between a pizza and a harmonica player? Pizza feeds a family of four. (click) Anywho, we found this guy down by the Greyhound Station – home of the Dirty Dog, as we like to call it. And we’ve got a very special guest today who just happened to be visiting relatives in Cleveland on her way to Reno. Peggy, let’s see if you can resist an unemployed harp player…

Hey, that harp player was pretty good. Stepped all over Peggy, though… don’t think she’ll invite him on the bus.

Man, the air’s getting kinda stale in here. Let’s wheel a couple of those cameras out the back door and take a little walk outside. Besides, we’ve got some groovy cats set up near the shipping dock, ready to slap you upside the head with some serious blues. You heard of B.B. King, Albert King, Earl King?? Well, none of those guys were available to play today. (click) So I called my booking agent and asked him to find another black guy named King who plays blues guitar. Here’s Freddie:

Hey, Freddie… watch those lapels. You’ll poke somebody’s eye out. (click) Time for another pause for the cause. Don’t go away – we’ve got a little taste of Vegas for you Rubber City Chickens.

A few years ago, I had a job booking fresh talent over at the Tangier. You know, the kinda class acts you used to see on the Ed Sullivan Show. So when they let me go, I was smart enough to grab my old Rolodex. Luckily, I still had the number of Ed’s former assistant, Cosmo, who convinced us that plate-spinning is the way to go. Kids love it, and it gives mom and dad enough time to mix another highball. Then again, Cosmo also sent us that sicko with the fist puppet. Kids couldn’t sleep for a week. Can’t say I’ve seen this guy’s act before, but he comes highly recommended. Alphonse, bring this guy out while I freshen up my drink…

Well, guess he was over-served in the green room. Remind me to pull Cosmo’s number out of the Rolodex. Anywho, that’s about all I can take for one night. It’s been a real pressure… and you won’t want to miss our next show. Booked a guy you won’t believe – juggles baby goats. Got his name from Ed’s former accountant. See you next week! (click)