Shoes

It’s night time in the big city
Bananas ripen on the dock
A number 5 bus breaks down. “Get out your shoe horns, because today we’re going to trumpet those things at the end of your legs.”
 

The Singers and Songs

  • Carl Perkins
    Blue Suede Shoes
    “Let’s start things off with one of the most famous pairs of shoes in rock and roll.”
  • Tommy Tucker
    High Heel Sneakers
  • Gallenkamp Shoes Commercial
  • Joe South
    Walk A Mile In My Shoes
  • Dinah Washington
    Take Your Shoes Off Baby
    “Her voice could make you cry or make you dance. One of the greatest singers in all of jazz, in all of music.”
  • Charlie’s Shoes
    “You ever buy those used vintage shoes? You ever wondered who walked in em before? Maybe it was Charlie.”
  • The Drifters
    I’ve Got Sand In My Shoes
  • Louis Armstrong
    Shine
    “I don’t think you could do a show about music without playing Louis Armstrong every couple of weeks...Louis was such a personality, you forget what a great musician he was. His singing totally inspired Louis Prima, and on the trumpet he was completely aware that sometimes playing less is more.”
  • Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy
  • NRBQ
    Get Rhythm
  • Paper In My Shoes
    “He was an energetic performer, always wore a plastic butcher’s apron so his sweat would not ruin his accordion.”
  • Running Shoes
    “He got his name because as a child he sang in local bars accompanied by the jukebox. He became a one man band, playing the blues hits of the day in neighborhood taverns, beatin the drum, strumming the guitar, playing the harmonica, and singing all at once. You’d think something like that would be really popular, but he still had trouble making ends meet.”
  • My Adidas
    “I remember buying this next record when it came out, down at St. Mark’s Records in New York. Actually I bought the twelve inch single, and it blew my mind. It was a powerful, exciting piece of music. Now when people listen to it, they think it’s quaint and old fashioned. They’re already condescending to it and turning it into an ‘oldie’. That’s the problem – people don’t always realize how powerful the innovators are. Take someone like Chuck Berry. When his records came out they were dangerous. There was nothing like them on the radio, they were like a stampede. Now all these bands just play it louder and faster and don’t really add anything to it. And so Chuck Berry, the creator, sounds ‘quaint’ and ‘old fashioned.’ They’re doing the same thing to Run DMC. Rap records have gotten louder, more camouflaged, faster and dirtier, with a thousand samples. Those records are colorful but it doesn’t mean that Run DMC should just be considered ‘oldies.’ They’re important pieces of art, and art isn’t looked at as something old or new, it’s looked at as something that moves ya. And here’s a record that moves me.”
  • Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes
    “As often as possible on Theme Time Radio Hour we try to feature artists who perform wearing turbans. Here’s one of my favorites.”
  • Barefootin'
    “The man who wrote the national anthem of shoelessness”

The Other People and Players

  • Carl Cross
    "There’s no unhappier creature on the face of the earth than a fetishist who yearns for a woman’s shoes and has to embrace the entire woman."
  • Oprah Winfrey
  • Professor Longhair’s Shuffling Hungarians
  • Derek and the Dominoes
  • Stu Bernstein
  • Randy Hughes
  • Grant Sawyer
  • Gene Austin
    “Crooner, songwriter, piano player, and gubernatorial candidate”
  • Billy Connolly
    "Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that who cares: he’s a mile away, and you got his shoes."
  • The Crickets
  • Robert Higginbotham
  • Colonel Sanders
  • “Makin’ the quick sound that just about drives that thing.”
  • Paul McCartney
  • Louis Prima
  • Stevie Wonder
  • Pablo Picasso
  • Chuck Berry
  • Patsy Cline
  • Elvis Presley
    "Cleaned up that naughty 'One Night' and hit big with it" “the swivel hipped rockabilly cat”

The Other Songs and Albums

The Guests

  • Sara Silverman

The Movies and TV Shows

The Places

  • Washington
  • Jam Master Jay’s Scratch Academy
  • St. Marks Records
  • Lake Charles, LA
  • Haiti
  • Montgomery
  • Queens, NY
  • Baytown, TX
  • Nashville, TN
  • Las Vegas
  • Kansas City

Record Labels

Commercials and Public Service Announcements

  • Keds Commercial

“See ya next week on Theme Time Radio Hour, your home for Dreams, Themes, and Size 9 Schemes.”