Building a better video February 16, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Music, Road trips.add a comment
Eric Paul Johnson, aka LoonNewsLoon on YouTube, said he didn’t like the videos that came with the song “Route 66.” So he created his own, using the version by the Nat “King” Cole Trio and lots of sharp editing.
Four-wheeled flourishes February 15, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Art, Attractions, Towns, Vehicles.add a comment
The Route 66 town of Pontiac, Ill., has come up with a novel way to decorate its downtown, reports the Bloomington Pantagraph:
The Pontiac City Council voted Monday to spend about $8,000 to purchase nine fiberglass models of 1957 convertibles, three of 1930s-era pickup trucks and artist supplies. The cars will be about 5½ feet long and 2½ feet tall, and the trucks will be about 4½ long and 3 feet tall.
The money will come from the city’s tax increment financing district.
Lori Fairfield, executive director of Pontiac Redeveloping Our United Downtown, said that nine local artists, the art classes at Pontiac Township High School and Pontiac Junior High School and the Route 66 Association will be responsible for painting the vehicles.
Officials hope to have them installed by early May to coincide with the state’s Red Carpet Corridor weekend in celebration of Route 66.
The decor is an offshoot of previous art installations in Pontiac that have featured decorated fiberglass dogs and doors.
The cost of the fiberglass vehicles is slated at $13,000, but $5,000 of that will be covered by proceeds of an auction of the fiberglass dogs.
BBQ in Tucumcari February 15, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Businesses, Food, Restaurants.add a comment
On a recent visit to Tucumcari, N.M., we noticed a battered pickup parked at the corner of Route 66 and Lake Street, with a sandwich-board sign on its bed advertising Watson’s Bar-B-Que two blocks north.
Tucumcari had long boasted good dining options, but barbecue was not one of them in the dozens of times in the past decade we had visited the eastern New Mexico town. Intrigued, we decided to pay it a visit on a Saturday afternoon.
Watson’s Bar-B-Que lists its address at 502 S. Lake St. (map here), next to Tucumcari Ranch Supply. Both businesses have the same owner.
Watson’s operates out of a large trailer (smoker included), and the dining area contains a series of wooden picnic tables on a wooden floor under a large, open-air canopy. The dining area is dotted with Western and railroad decor.
It serves three types of barbecue sandwiches — chopped brisket, sliced brisket and pork riblet — for $5.50. Plus it serves BBQ plates of sliced brisket, sausage, ribs, or combinations of all three that range from $8.75 to $10.75, including sides of potato salad and pinto beans. A full rack of pork ribs runs $13.25; a half-rack is $7.75.
Watson’s also offers sausage on a stick, a plain hot dog and Frito pies. It sells to-go orders by the pound, or by the ring for the sausages.
We were told that the meat is smoked with mesquite wood, common to that region and very popular for barbecue.
We ordered a sliced barbecued brisket sandwich, an order of pinto beans and a special — green chile stew.
The brisket turned out to be well-smoked and tender, with plenty of crispy ends that I like. Happily, the sauce tasted tangy with a hint of spice, but not too sweet. I’ve encountered many pit bosses who all but ruined decent barbecue by making a sauce that was too sugary.
Typical for restaurants in the area, the pinto beans were tender and just fine. But I was especially enthused by the green chile stew, which contained the right unfussy balance of heat and taste amid chunks of meat, potato, tomato and New Mexico green chiles. Jimmy Watson, who co-owns the ranch-supply store and the barbecue restaurant, said the stew came from a cook he admired in Albuquerque.
After hearing complements for his barbecue sauce, Watson said he used a “base” sauce to start, but adds his own ingredients. Watson said he wasn’t a chef or self-vowed expert, but “I know what I like.” He decided to take the plunge into the barbecue business in August after thinking about it for a number of years.
Watson’s Bar-B-Q is open from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., or until the food runs out, on Saturdays only. Watson said he might expand business hours to Friday evenings during the summer as well, if business merits it. That may happen, as motorcycle tours have already discovered him.
Watson’s Bar-B-Que’s phone number is 575-461-9620.
Needles’ only grocery likely will close February 14, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Businesses, Towns.1 comment so far
This is a fairly catastrophic situation for the Route 66 town of Needles, Calif. I’ll let an excerpt of a report from the Whittier Daily News explain:
Bashas’, the only grocery store in this tiny Colorado River town on old Route 66 is closing for good in six weeks. Its owners made the announcement this week, and it has left the townspeople stunned and frightened.
The nearest market is 27 miles away in Arizona, and many of the retirees in Needles don’t drive anymore.
It’s even worse for the mothers in town who are receiving aid under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s WIC (Women, Infants and Children) program — they’ll need to travel nearly 100 miles to Blythe to use their WIC vouchers.
The big problem is the Brashas’ chain has been in bankruptcy since July and that it will have to close about 10 stores, including Needles’, which is right on the main alignment of Route 66.
Needles has an estimated population of more than 5,000. I’ve never heard of a town that large not having a grocery store.
The city council is trying to figure out how to keep the Brashas’ store in the town. According to the report, the planned closing took city officials by surprise.
The huge problem is that the WIC cards cannot be used out-of-state. The closest grocery outside of Needles is in the southern Bullhead City, Ariz., which is about 20 miles away. If the city or other parties cannot keep a grocery open in Needles, it would seem prudent to waive the in-state WIC requirements for those residents. According to a USDA official, there is precedent for such a waiver, but it’s up to the state of California to do so.
“Welcome to the Future” February 14, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Music, Web sites.2 comments
This terrific song by Brad Paisley, as I recently found, is also a very good tune for a road trip.
And it’s a doggone good celebration of American progress and optimism.
This tune got me thinking about how ironic it is that modern technology has greatly helped spread the word about an old and even archaic highway such as Route 66.
We will continue to struggle to preserve old businesses and stretches of that historic road in the coming years.
But without the Internet, there’s not a doubt in my mind that the Mother Road would have been in much worse shape today.
The phantom musician February 13, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Music, Theaters.add a comment
This is the restored Mighty Wurlitzer organ that you can hear when you tour the historic Coleman Theatre Beautiful in Miami, Okla.
The medley of songs from “The Phantom of the Opera” musical comes from an electronic player-recording of a local musician when she performed it.
The last part of this video is taken in one of the pipe rooms. The sound from these pipes is so rich, full and loud that it vibrates your internal organs.
I shot this video months ago for a project that recently got the axe, so I’m glad to finally share this with you. If you get the opportunity to take a tour or, better yet, attend a show at the Coleman, do it.
Hopping with the Time Jumpers February 12, 2010
Posted by Ron Warnick in Music.2 comments
For years, a number of studio musicians in Nashville have been meeting every Monday night at the Station Inn, a nightclub that’s been a haven for traditional country music and bluegrass for years. The musicians called themselves The Time Jumpers.
As for what came next, I’ll let Great American Country explain …
Started as a jam session in which off-the-road and off-the-clock pros got together to unwind by playing their favorite kinds of songs, the performances were scheduled for the club’s slowest night of the week, a time when only the most hardcore and appreciative fans were likely to show up. If nobody came, that was OK, too, because the pickers and singers were quite content to play for each other’s entertainment.
At first, only the critics went wild about the show. Then, as word spread, some very famous folk began dropping in. Reba McEntire was so excited on her first visit that she joined the band to belt out some Bob Wills tunes. Vince Gill often sits in. Following one of her concerts, Bonnie Raitt came by with her band and listened in awe as the Time Jumpers breezed through an unforgettable program of Western swing, jazz, country, pop and cowboy classics. Recently, rock icon Robert Plant even pulled up a chair. [...]
On any given Monday, fans might find themselves rubbing shoulders with the likes of Rhonda Vincent, Ronnie Dunn, Delbert McClinton, Pam Tillis, Sonya Isaacs, Mel Tillis, Sheryl Crow, Lee Ann Womack, Jimmy C. Newman and Linda Davis; Nashville execs Tony Brown, Buddy Cannon; and legendary musicians Charlie McCoy, Paul Franklin, Gary Nicholson, Bob Moore, all of whom have been there to cheer the Time Jumpers on.
The Time Jumpers recently released a two-CD set of a live performance at the Station Inn, and a DVD of one of their concerts. Looking over the song list, it’s heavy with Bob Wills western swing tunes. Hearing the samples, fiddles and pedal steel guitar dominate the sound.
They include a performance of Bobby Troup’s “Route 66,” of which you can hear a sample here.
Here’s a video of a typical performance:
Such performances bring back great memories of the Station Inn, where I once saw the late, great Don Walser.