Peter Stampfel and the Dysfunctionells [extended]

• You Must Remember This [Gert Town, 1995] A
• Dook of the Beatniks [Piety Street Files & Archaic, 2010] A−
• Not in Our Wildest Dreams [Don Giovanni, 2020] ★★★
• Peter Stampfel's 20th Century in 100 Songs [Louisiana Red Hot, 2021] A
• Wildernauts [Don Giovanni, 2024] B+
• Unholier Than Thou 7/7/77 [Don Giovanni, 2024] A
• Song Shards [Jalopy, 2025] A

See Also:

• Peter Stampfel
• Peter Stampfel/Eli Smith/Walker Shepard
• Unholy Modal Rounders
• Peter Stampfel, Friends & Daughters

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Peter Stampfel: You Must Remember This [Gert Town, 1995]
Stampfel has never known the meaning of the word respect, which is OK because he's never known the meaning of the word disrespect either. And if this made him a misfit among folkies, that was OK too--he was a misfit everywhere else. For his entire three-decade "career," the last half of which has had a distinctly not-for-profit aura, his own lyrics have celebrated the normality of his misfit life while his intense, eccentric, comic, loud, sincere vocal interpretations imparted to the widest range of pop songs ever negotiated by a single performer the beauty and wonder he originally discerned in Charlie Poole, Charlie Patton, and other icons of authenticity. Stampfel's enthusiasm is so unquenchable you figure he's got to be making fun of such understandably forgotten copyrights as "Haunted Heart" and "Cry of the Wild Goose," and for sure he's not above it. But he is above belittling a song--any fun he may fashion from one is just another facet of its mystery. Stampfel the inveterate fakebook collector says he loves the chords of the impossible favorites he resuscitates here, and I believe him. I also believe he's such a sucker for music that once he falls for a progression he wants to tie the knot for life. A

Peter Stampfel: Dook of the Beatniks [Piety Street Files & Archaic, 2010]
Having caught half these songs on the fly at gigs, I was so eager for the 1999 recordings to reach the marketplace that I volunteered to help Stampfel clean up his liner notes. Run through the excitable yelp that's mellowed and roughened only slightly in the ex-rounder's hi-NRG dotage, the lyrics get better still when you're able to dial back and make sure that that's what he just said. Two big sloppy marital love songs flank two outbursts of wordplay to kick-start the proceedings at a high that trails off for nine relatively mortal tracks. But the last four songs are zoom zoom zoom zoom, climaxing with a New Year's Eve rewrite of Little Richard's "Keep a Knockin'" and a morning-after rewrite of what those notes call "the wackest and most amazing gospel song" Stampfel's ever heard. Its sole remaining original line: "Holy terror's gonna blow you up for Jesus." A−

Not in Our Wildest Dreams [Don Giovanni, 2020]
mid-'90s: Holy yet also Unholy Modal Rounder fronts Rich Krueger's band for fun and peanuts ("The Pennsylvania Polka," "Midnight in Paris," "Prairie Biscuit") ★★★

Peter Stampfel: Peter Stampfel's 20th Century in 100 Songs [Louisiana Red Hot, 2021]
See A Century in Four Hours and Forty Minutes. A

Peter Stampfel/Eli Smith/Walker Shepard: Wildernauts [Don Giovanni, 2024]
Recorded in 2019, before the ringleader's now recovering 85-year-old voice bottomed out, the singing on these chestnuts scares up a clarity that somehow it skirts--here a cowboy whooping, there a teenager cracking. But the present-day eccentric and his two younger longterm buddies refuse to recline throughout. Try "Crazy Arms," "There Stands the Glass," "Not Tonight Dear, I Have an Earache." B+

Unholy Modal Rounders: Unholier Than Thou 7/7/77 [Don Giovanni, 2024]
Live at the Bottom Line decades ago, a surprise treasure: two discs comprising 31 songs, 25 of them non-Have Moicy! Plentiful Peter Stampfel, zero Steve Weber, ample Charlie Messing, other regulars, many lesser guests and minor legends, plus a voluble multi-authored 20-page booklet replete with many contributors' tales of reliably offhand musical triumphs and the occasional fucked-up life. Then pushing 40, Stampfel's voice retains the cartoon clarity of the 1964-65 recordings of the actual Holy Modal Rounders' still findable 1 & 2 best-of. But any Have Moicy! fan who lets this opportunity pass him, her, or them by is missing the chance to hear such standouts not in my recall memory as "Low Down Dog," "Kansas City Kitty," "Dance a Little Longer," "Places Where You Never See the Snow," and the William Tell Overture. Plus, never forget this one: "Fucking Sailors in Chinatown." A

Peter Stampfel, Friends & Daughters: Song Shards [Jalopy, 2025]
Comprising 46 often foreshortened "soul jingles, stoic jingles, vintage jingles, prayers, and rounds" that break down into 20 obscure hymns and apothegms and 26 long-lost radio ads in just 43 minutes, and what can I say? At first I thought those 72 . . . ditties (???) seemed pretty thin as pieces of vocal music and 2021's Peter Stampfel's 20th Century in 100 Songs it ain't. But Stampfel is so unpredictable and so generous of spirit that I found myself playing it over again after reading the downloadable 23 pages of notes Stampfel wrote to contextualize these compositions. These include his thoughts on the religious ramifications of the project, which though an atheist I found worthy of reading, rereading, and revisiting musically. How well they and for that matter it will endure there's no knowing at this point. But let me call attention to my favorite tunelet here, which goes: "When the values go up up up/And the prices go down down down/Robert Hall this season/Will show you the reason/Low overhead, low overhead." True, the clothing chain of that name went bankrupt in 1977. But take it from me—the songlets hang in there. Carola likes it too. A