John Fullbright performed a wonderful set of his songs at the Summer Breeze concert series in Oklahoma in 2025.
Oklahoma singer-songwriter John Fullbright has an amazing voice that backs up his fantastic songs. While his albums have received some acclaim, he is one of those artists who does not get the national recognition he deserves.
I first discovered his YouTube cover of a Steve Earle song, and I have been following his career, waiting for his next album. I strongly recommend his album Songs as one of the great Americana albums of the last few decades.
While he does not release albums frequently enough to make me happy, he remains active performing around Oklahoma and elsewhere while also helping other artists. B
Fortunately, the camera was rolling during one of his recent performances at the Summer Breeze concert series in Oklahoma on June 29, 2025. Check it out.
Don’t let Fullbright’s everyman appearance fool you. The band rocks and plays blues, but the highlight for me is when Fullbright stands on the stage solo starting around the 47 minute mark, after which he does some songs solo while playing the piano. In these moving songs about love, heartbreak, death, and God, his ragged voice and the emotion conveys a deep power that touches one’s heart directly.
In 1974, the band Redbone had a top-10 hit with “Come and Get Your Love,” the first song by an all-Native and Mexican-American band to accomplish that feat.
In January 1974, the band Redbone released the single “Come and Get Your Love.” The catchy song, which appeared on the 1973 album Wovoka, rose to number 5 on the Billboard chart by April of that year. Many of those who only heard the song on the radio, though, did not realize the song was making history as the first song by an all-Native and Mexican-American band to have a top 10 hit on the chart.
The man singing lead on the song, Lolly Vegas, also wrote the song and played the guitar and electric sitar on the track. Other members of the band included Tony Bellamy, Peter DePoe and Pat Vegas (Lolly’s brother, who, according to his biography, co-wrote “Come and Get Your Love”).
While their hit song was not a political song, the band recognized the impact of their heritage. On the same album, they included the song “We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee,” which became a hit in the Europe even as the record company refused to release it as a single in the U.S.
The record company and the band instead released “Come and Get Your Love” as the single. Pat Vegas once explained the song is about more than romantic love: “It’s love all around, in every facet and every part of your being, you know? And that’s the message: What’s the matter with your mind and your sign? Come and get your love. In other words, where you come from and who you are doesn’t matter as much as what you believe, and what you feel.”
If you were around in the 1970s, you knew the song from the radio and from it repeatedly playing in your head. More modern listeners may know the song from its many appearances in movies and TV shows, including Guardians of the Galaxy(2014), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), and F is for Family (Netflix).
But back on February 22, 1974, Redbone performed “Come and Get Your Love” on NBC’s The Midnight Special. They introduced the song with a traditional Native American dance.
The title track from Anna Tivel’s “Animal Poem” album is a tender bedtime story about the messiness of living.
Anna Tivel, a singer-songwriter from Portland, Oregon, has been recording and performing for more than a decade. Her seventh album Animal Poem was released in August 2025, and has been described as deep “with wisdom into the experience of existence, forgiveness, love for humanity, nature, and reconciliation with mortality.”
On the album, Tivel hoped to capture the spirit of people sitting on a porch playing songs for each other. And she accomplished that goal.
She explained, “Everyone in the studio made it feel so open, made it easy to forget technology and permanence and just play, messy and alive. It’s this vital mess that moves me when I listen now – ghost notes in the high register of the piano, melodic guitar and bass lines briefly interwoven, earthy cymbals breathing, my dog barking. . . . Most of what you hear is just people sitting together in a small room, listening and talking with tenderness and abandon.”
I love the album’s title track, where Tivel spins a number of lessons together into a tribute to living, presented as a poem that one may hear as a bedtime story.
Courage is a tired mom, milk crate and a cardboard sign, Trying to find a story for her daughter; This is how the world exists, let me spin it for you kid, In a way that’s easier to swallow.
Everyone is in a play, characters in constant pain, Reaching for a way to taste some beauty; You can be someone who loves, or you can be somebody else; That’s all there is, you breathe, then you’re not breathing.
Sturgill Simpson releases the new album “Mutiny After Midnight” by Johnny Blue Skies & the Dark Clouds.
Sturgill Simpson, who with his previous album started recording as Johnny Blue Skies is releasing a new album backed by the Dark Clouds called Mutiny After Midnight later this month. He announced that the album would only be released on physical media, but, perhaps because there was an early leak, he posted the album’s music on YouTube early for fans to enjoy. Alas, though, the streaming version was only available temporarily (so no longer posted here). Despite the confusing drama around the release, fans still rejoiced.
The album’s cover features a sword in a disco ball with dripping blood, hinting this music is for dancing, influenced by disco. The title track title is a nod toward a certain president’s hat while signaling that the music is about havin fun, “Make America Fuk Again.” While it may seem like Simpson has diverted drastically from his country roots, the album still features his strong songwriting and Simpson has always defied categorization. On first listen the album also seems to be capturing the joy from his recent tours heavily influenced by jam bands.
Simpson is releasing the album Mutiny After Midnight on physical media on March 13, 2026. Buy it, play it loud, and get up and dance.
Allan Melvin was one of the great charactor actors of the 1960s and 1970s, appearing in recurring appearances on popular TV shows such as “The Andy Griffith Show,” “The Brady Bunch,” and “All in the Family.”
If you watched TV in the 1960s and 1970s, odds are that you recognize the face and voice of Allan Melvin but may not know the name of the actor. Melvin — who was born on February 18, 1923 in Kansas City, Missouri — made many appearances on popular shows and voiced cartoons for several decades. Among many roles, Melvin had recurring appearances on some of the most popular TV shows of the era, including The Andy Griffith Show, The Brady Bunch, All in the Family, and Gomer Pyle, USMC. On top of that, he also had one of the most memorable recurring roles in a TV commercial.
Many viewers will see his face and immediately remember him as Sam Franklin, aka Alice’s boyfriend “Sam the Butcher” on The Brady Bunch. Yet, he only appeared on eight episodes of the show between 1969 and 1974.
As what many might call a “character actor,” Melvin was a great one and seemed to have been in constant demand. I became inspired to write this post after watching several episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. He also appeared in eight episodes of that classic show, but in those shows from 1962 to 1967, Melvin appeared as a different character each time, ranging from a convict to a bully to a hotel detective to a recruiting sergeant. It seems the producers loved his work and kept bringing him back, ignoring how it might seem confusing to viewers that the same man was someone different even during the same season.
Melvin had recurring roles in other classic shows. In Gomer Pyle, USMC, an Andy Griffith Show spinoff, producers kept him as the same character. Perhaps because of his great work as a sergeant on an episode of The Andy Griffith Show, he played Sgt. Barney Hackett in sixteen episodes of Gomer Pyle, USMC in 1965-1969.
Additionally, he played a recurring role in All in the Family as Archie’s friend and neighbor Barney Hefner. Yet, he had also started out on that show with one appearance playing a sergeant.
After the sergeant appearance, Melvin appeared as Barney Hefner in twenty-four episodes of All in the Family from 1972 to 1979, continuing to play the character in the spin-off show Archie Bunker’s Place in numerous episodes from 1979-1983.
Melvin earned his big break in TV with the role of Corporal Steve Henshaw on the The Phil Silvers Show, often credited as “Allen” Melvin. He appeared as Henshaw regularly throughout its run from 1955-1959. Perhaps that early role helped set the stage for his many military parts in his career.
While he had recurring appearances in those shows, he also acted in many other memorable TV shows. For example, he appeared on Mod Squad (1969), Green Acres (1970), Mayberry R.F.D (1970), Love, American Style (1969-1971), The Brian Keith Show (1972), and Kung Fu (1975).
When he was not appearing in TV shows, he was doing significant voice work. He was the voice of Drooper in The Banana Splits Adventure Hour from 1968-1969. His voice appeared in Pufnstuff (1970), Wait Till Your Father Comes Home (1972-1973), Yogi’s Gang (1973), The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty (1975), and Flash Gordon (1979-1982). In the 1980s, his professional work slowed down, but he continued to do significant voice work, including The Jetsons (1985-1987).
Finally, you may also remember Melvin from his TV commercial work. In that arena, he may be best known as playing Al the Plumber for fifteen years promoting Liquid Plumr.
Melvin died of cancer on January 17, 2008. His television work left an amazing legacy. He is buried in Westwood Memorial Cemetery just a few yards from Carroll O’Connor, who played Archie Bunker on All in the Family and Archie Bunker’s Place.
Even if Melvin was always behind more famous actors and viewers did not know his name, they knew his face, his voice, and his talent. Although he never had a definitive leading role, his broad range of work in recurring roles on many landmark TV series brought him many fans and friends.
What is your favorite Allan Melvin role? Leave your two cents in the comments.
