Friday, December 21, 2007

Jerry Jeff Walker - Sangria Wine

Here's a blast from the (recent) past. This post originally appeared a few months ago when my little blog's audience basically consisted of my mom, my sister, friends Dave, Kris, Greta, Brendan at The Rising Storm, and Terry at Fits and Starts. I'm re-posting now in case you missed it the first time around.

It's organic and it comes from the vine;
It's also legal and it gets you so high....


What I'm talking about, of course, is sangria. One of the best inventions of humankind. Today's assignment is to make yourself some delicious sangria. To get started you need to locate your copy of Jerry Jeff Walker's album "Viva Terlingua!" and spin track 3 repeatedly. In case you don't yet own the whole wonderful record, check this out: Sangria Wine (buy album). An all-time great.

Anyway, Jerry Jeff's recipe (taken from the lyrics of the song) requires mixing the following ingredients in whatever amounts suit your fancy:

- Start with some wine
- Get some apples and brandy and sugar just fine
- Add sparkling Burgandy wine (huh? more wine?)
- Everclear is added sometimes (especially in Texas on Saturday night)
- Lemons and Limes

There you have it. For another, slightly more complicated mixture (which will require you to obtain a red apricot and split a strawberry into exactly three pieces), check in with Martha Stewart here.

And now for a word about Jerry Jeff Walker. He's probably best known for writing the 1970's hit "Mr. Bojangles." But in my mind his greatest achievement was becoming a key part of the Austin, Texas outlaw country movement. Viva Terlingua is a great introduction to this genre. See AMG review here. It was recorded live in 1973 at a virtual ghost town called Luckenbach, Texas -- a locale made famous four years later by fellow-outlaw Waylon Jennings' song Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love) (buy album). In fact, one of the verses in Waylon's song (the last one, sung with Willie Nelson) mentions "Jerry Jeff's train songs."

Another one of my all time favorite Jerry Jeff songs is the irreverant Pissin’ In The Wind (buy album), which describes one way to end a Saturday night sangria party.

And now for a genre shift: All of this semi-rowdy country music brings to mind the Replacements' 3rd album, Hootenanny--especially this track: Treatment Bound (buy album). While not really a country album in any way, shape, or form, Hootenanny hits a lot of the same tones as JJW. And the album Hootenanny also contains one of the world's great rock songs, "Color Me Impressed," which will be fodder for another post...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

fishspit here . . . maybe 3 hours sleep . . . how about you? this isn't gonna be about sangria (sp?) because i can't drink. too many times in rehab and it's soooo expensive (rehab, not alcohol). . . but i don't judge . . . alcohol is wonderful, i just can't drink it . . .
sangaria and absinth is the two i never had . . . i've tried everything else i think . . . unless it's new . . . the reason i mention absinth is a librarian gave me an article about it making a comback . . . i just want to know if it's with wormwood or not?
o.k. enough of that . . . i got sidetracked. . . i went to the used book and record store today . . .(christmas shopping).

i shot my mouth off with out knowing what i was talking about again . . . this concerns elvis costello . . .(not jerry jeff walker). . . they had almost blue on vinyl for 4 bucks . . . i got it (along with a carl belew record for 3 bucks) . . . . this place i'm staying at doesn't have a record player . . . so i shoot home and listen to it . . . i was wrong . . . it's good . . .
an egomaniac like me hates to admit he's wrong . . . .ha ha ha . . . but i'm learning . . .

my question for you today is (i don't search the internet -- i could probably find this out myself but i'm a record and vhs guy and so far it takes me a long time to figure out your site though i love it -- for instance (another tangent)-- when i click on best country song ever thing i can't get anything to come up -- o.k. back to my question . . . i watch a lot of old horror movies on vhs and you always see sound by glen glenn . . . is that the same glen glenn from missouri that used to do rockabilly? is he still alive?
perusing your site . . . i see the band the replacements . . . growing up they were too pussy for me . . . not that i ever listened to them but i knew they weren't hard core (i missed punk -- 80's hardcore was my thing . . . like ill repute and the bands out of oxnard) so give me some advice which record to start with.
just browsing i got to reading and thinking of the stagger lee stuff. i'm not a big fan of him but have you heard nick cave's stagger lee story on his murder ballads . . . it's amazing!
one last thing and i'll quit bothering you . . . i bought a live jerry jeff walker record i hated and gave away . . . so i wrote him off . . . give me a recomendation . . .
your the only blog i read! fishspit out!
p.s. i quit swearing because my mama would get a broken heart if she knew how much i started swearing. also i didn't know it just posted . . . i figured if i wrote something it had to be edited first. i'm computer illiterate (almost illiterate period) . . . because i work in the library it isn't as romantic as it sounds . . . i check in books . . . no brain power involved. . .
fishspit out.

Anonymous said...

Wow. Glad you liked "Almost Blue" (good to see my blog is working).

I'm not sure about the technical stuff. That's up to blogger.com. I just write the posts.

Lot's to cover here. My favorite Replacements record is Let It Be. Still not hardcore. For JJW I'd go with Viva Terlingua (which is probably the one you hated, since it's a live record). If you don't like that one, JJW's not for you. I like the Nick Cave song, but I've got nothing for you on Glen Glenn. Doesn't wring a bell.