Tennessee

“Welcome to Theme Time Radio Hour – themes, dreams and schemes – where the future influences the present with no regard to the past.”

The Singers and Songs

  • Good Night Cincinnati, Good Morning Tennessee
    "...whose real name was Emidio Vagnoni"
  • Chuck Berry
    Memphis
  • John Hiatt
    Memphis in the Meantime
  • Tennessee Whiskey
    “Here's my man, the great David Allen Coe. A dangerous man, in and out of reform schools, correction centers and prisons since the age of 9. He supposedly spent time on death row for killing a fellow inmate who made advances to him. A Rolling Stone magazine reporter questioned Coe about this. His musical response was the song, ‘I'd Like To Kick The Shit Out Of You'.'”
  • Memphis Slim USA
  • Tennessee Waltz
  • Nashville Cats
    “This is a song about the great session players in Music City, USA, one of the only places where a banjo player can make a six figure income.”
  • Tennessee Border
    “Here's one for music lovers everywhere, make ya drop your teeth.”
  • Arrested Development
    Tennessee
    “They kind of updated the Sly and The Family Stone sound for the hip-hop generation”
  • The Memphis Train
  • Jerry Lee Lewis
    Night Train to Memphis
    “You can't stop off in Tennessee without paying a visit to the Killer”
  • Hey Memphis
    “One of the great singers of the rock and roll era, or any era”
  • Trucker From Tennessee
    “It's probably a good time for us to give a shout out to all our truck drivin' friends. We know you truckers were the first ones to get satellite radio. So whether you're in the Dirty, The Rubber, The Gateway, The Cow Town, the Bikini, Moonpie City, Beantown, The Hanging Gardens, The Panama Canal, The Bermuda Triangle – remember, don't have a lead foot, the smokies might be watchin'!”
  • All The Way From Memphis
  • Memphis Soul Stew
    “Here's a song that'll beat your eggs!”
  • Tennessee
    “(A song) about some folks who like to cock-a-doodle-doo about where they come from.”

The Other People and Players

  • Allen Arkin
  • Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Pete Drake
  • David Byrne
  • Buddy Emmonds
  • William Porter Lawrence
  • Red Foley
  • Cliff Bruner and the Texas Wanderers
  • Ian Hunter
  • Ella Fitzgerald
  • Dinah Washington
  • Sarah Vaughn
  • Sly and The Family Stone
  • Miss Patti Page
  • Santa Claus
  • Johnny Paycheck
  • Jim Keltner
  • Andrew Jackson
  • Jackson Pollock
  • Billie Holiday
    "Back then, Songwriters used to write songs and let the artist interpret 'em. Nowadays, People just write songs for themselves. They put themselves in boxes, ticky-tacky boxes. We've lost out on the whole art form on interpretive singing."
  • Chet Atkins
  • Tennessee Williams
    "One of my favorite play-writes, not to be confused with Tennessee Ernie Ford."
  • Nick Lowe
  • Elvis Presley
    "Cleaned up that naughty 'One Night' and hit big with it" “the swivel hipped rockabilly cat”

The Guests

The Books and Poems

The Movies and TV Shows

The Places

  • Tipton, TN
  • Ferriday, LA
  • Ripley, TN
  • Virginia
  • North Carolina
  • Georgia
  • Alabama
  • Jackson
  • Clarksville
  • Chattanooga
  • Knoxville
  • Richmond
  • Lexington
  • Mississippi
  • Missouri
  • Arkansas
  • Kentucky
  • Beale Street
  • Nashville, TN
  • Texas
  • Paris

Record Labels

The Recipes

  • "There's a lot of good barbecue in Memphis. Here's a recipe I gave the guys over at the Rendezvous " 1 cup tomato sauce
    1 cup vinegar
    5 T Worcestershire Sauce
    1 T butter
    ½ small onion
    a dash of black pepper
    some cayenne pepper
    1 ½ t salt
    ½ cup water
    mix it all together in large pan
    bring to a quick boil
    reduce the heat and let simmer 10 minutes “You can also figure out your own secret ingredients and dump it into the mix. I like about 3 fingers of Tennessee sippin' whiskey.”

Train Lines

Tennessee State Songs

Some of the Great Studio Musicians in Nashville

  • Chet Atkins
  • David Byrne
  • Charlie McCoy
  • Pete Drake
  • Allen Arkin