“Conference of the Birds” is my weekly radio program on WNUR-FM. It airs on Tuesdays from 5-7:30 am Chicago time (UTC-5). And, of course, when technology cooperates, you can just come here for the archives. You can subscribe to the podcast with this URL (click here to subscribe in iTunes).
In 2008, before the show was even called “Conference of the Birds,” I did an April Fools show in which I played “music I wouldn’t normally play on my show.” Looking back, that kind of opened the floodgates, and now there really isn’t much that I like that I won’t play, so it was hard to return to that theme for this coincidence of the first of April and my show schedule. Instead, I cut myself a break and pulled together a playlist of music about fools, foolin, goofs, and suckers. It was not hard to find a show’s worth of stuff, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I went a little long, so we broke the theme. The archive ends just as the Harrison Bankhead track gets rolling.
Enjoy!
Listen:
download program (145MB, 2 hrs 38 min)
Artist: “Track” – Album (Label)
Big Boy Myles and the Sha-weez: “Who’s Been Foolin’ You?” – Creole Kings of New Orleans (Specialty)
Mose Allison: “Foolkiller” – Past Masters (10th Anniversary Southern Music) (Oxford American)
Mavis Staples: “You’re The Fool” – Only For The Lonely (Stax)
The Rolling Stones: “Fool to Cry” – Black and Blue (Atlantic)
Billie Holiday with Lester Young: “Foolin’ Myself” – Lady Day & Prez 1937-41 (Frémeaux et Associés)
Les Paul & Mary Ford: “I’m a Fool to Care” – The Best of the Capitol Masters (Capitol Records)
Lonnie Johnson: “I’ve Been a Fool Myself” – The Complete Folkways Recordings (Smithsonian Folkways)
Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers: “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?” – The Doo-Wop Box (Rhino)
The Clovers: “Fool Fool Fool” – The Dawn of Doo-Wop (Proper)
The Orioles: “I’m Just a Fool In Love” – The Dawn of Doo-Wop (Proper)
Rhymefest: “Foolin’ Around” – Mark Ronson Presents: Man in the Mirror (Allido)
Run DMC: “It’s Tricky” – Raising Hell (Profile Records)
Tone-Loc: “I Joke but I Don’t Play” – Cool Hand Loc (Delicious Vinyl)
Cat Power: “Fool” – You Are Free (Matador)
Neko Case: “Runnin’ Out of Fools” – Blacklisted (Bloodshot)
Dee Dee Warwick: “Foolish Fool” – Foolish Fool (Mercury)
Bill Coday: “When You Find a Fool, Bump his Head” – Get Your Lie Straight – A Galaxy Of Funky Soul (BGP)
George Jackson: “Find ‘em, Fool ‘em and Forget ‘em” – The Fame Studios Story 1961-73 (Kent)
Amos Milburn: “Three Times a Fool” – Chicken Shack Boogie (Riverboat)
Big Joe Williams: “Somebody’s Been Foolin’ #1” – American Roots Collection (Smithsonian Folkways)
Jimmy Collier & Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick: “You’re Just a Laughing Fool” – Everybody’s Got a Right to Live (Smithsonian Folkways)
Wilson Pickett: “Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You” – A Man and a Half (Atlantic)
Ike & Tina Turner: “A Fool in Love” – Beg, Scream and Shout – the Big Ol’ Box of 60′s Soul (Rhino)
Led Zeppelin: “Fool in the Rain” – In Through the Out Door (Atlantic)
Chuck Barrister & the Voices of Darkness: “Be Kind, Be Foolish, Be Happy” – The World Ends: Afro Rock & Psychedelia in 1970s Nigeria (Soundway)
United Future Organization: “My Foolish Dream” – United Future Organization (Talkin’ Loud)
Genesis: “More Fool Me” – Selling England By the Pound (Atlantic)
David J: “Ship of Fools” – On Glass (Glass Records)
Art Neville: “I’m a Fool to Care” – His Specialty Recordings (Specialty)
Charles Walker & the Daffodils: “No Fool No More” – Night Train to Nashville, Vol. 2 (Lost Highway)
Macy Skipper: “Goofin’ Off” – The Complete Stax/Volt Singles: 1959-1968 (Atlantic)
Hot Tuna: “Fool’s Blues” – Winterland 10/2/1973 (Concert Vault)
Sam Cooke: “Get Yourself Another Fool” – Night Beat (RCA)
Jerry Lee Lewis: “Fools Like Me” – The Complete Sun Singles, vol 1 (Sun)
King Tubby: “Politricks Dub” – I Am The King (Sprint)
Pete Seeger: “The Foolish Frog” – Birds, Beasts, Bugs and Fishes (Little and Big) (Smithsonian Folkways)
Herbie Mann: “Chain of Fools” – Memphis Underground (Atlantic)
Eric Dolphy: “April Fool” – Outward Bound (New Jazz)
Lee Konitz with the Gerry Mulligan Quartet: “These Foolish Things” – Konitz Meets Mulligan (Pacific Jazz Records)
Stevie Wonder: “All Day Sucker” – Songs in the Key of Life (Motown)
William Parker / Conny Bauer / Hamid Drake: “Parker” – Tender Exploration (Jazzwerkstatt)
Harrison Bankhead Quartet: “Take It To the Bridge Y’all” – Velvet Blue (Engine)
Vandermark Five Special Edition: “Friction” – The Horse Jumps & the Ship is Gone (Not Two)
