We’ll circle back to the past twelve months on Deeper Roots’ Friday evening with a little bit of reverence and a whole lot of thanks. While this past year struck what could be a mortal blow to democracy as we know it, a number of greats (both high profile and ‘under the radar’) were lost along the way. The names may not be so easy to collate with only two hours to share but we’ll do our best. Remembering Clarence Fountain, Eddy Clearwater, Otis Rush, Eugene Pitt, Marty Balin, Lorrie Collins, Tony Joe White, Roy Clark, and so many others on a Friday evening on Sonoma County community radio. Tune into our last show of the year and help us remember what these performers brought us.
All posts by Dave
Stay a Little Longer
Country swing is the thing this morning on Deeper Roots. We won’t be spending time on the ancestral roots as much as we’ll be exploring the small local bands of the Southwest. We’ll use Jean A. Boyd’s excellent reference “Dance All Night : Those Other Southwestern Swing Bands Past and Present” as our rudder and guidebook in the show. The heartbeat of any American genre is usually the local band and during the later years of the Great Depression and throughout the Second World War people were looking for something uplifting to dance to. In Texas (and really all across the Southwest) the sound was country swing: a mix of jazz, blues, polka, latin and hillbilly fiddle. We’ll be featuring the small time big names like The Tune Wranglers, Cliff Bruner, Leon Selph, Floyd Tillman, and Adolph Hofner and so many more in our show this morning, direct from our studios in downtown Sebastopol.
Country Christmas 2018
It’s a holly, jolly, country Christmas on a Friday morning in West County. We’ll put our political blinders on this morning in search of the merriment that ’tis the season on Deeper Roots. This year’s Christmas special is a collection of country sounds, both new and old, that takes us down a path that mixes contemporary Americana, bluegrass, rockabilly, and classic country into a finely tuned blend of holiday cheer. We’ll be cooking from the Texas panhandle with Dale Watson, taking the high lonesome yule train with Jimmy Martin, spinning yarns with Johnny and Tommy Cash, and dropping by the Waffle House with Bill Anderson. Tune in knowing full well that the dinner’s in the oven and the stockings are all hung by the chimney with care. Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Louisiana Gumbo
Back to the bayou. Back to Bourbon Street. From a house of blues to the small clubs out across the river. We’ll be taking a journey into the deeper wells where the influences include urban blues, jazz, French Acadian, Caribbean, and African American. And one could argue a handful of others. It’s all there in the sounds of south where the pianos and guitar amps are wired into a foundation of tradition…as if performed from a garage or cabin. Cookie & The Cupcakes’ swamp pop, swamp rock from Randy & The Rockets, New Orleans busking from Snooks Eaglin, classic piano noodling from the Professor and Dr. John, and a warm bouillabaisse of southern musical cuisine from Dave Bartholomew and Fats Domino all served up on a Friday evening celebrating a few of the treats on community radio for Sonoma County, KOWS.
Carl Sandburg’s Songbag Pt 2
We had so much fun with our first installment a few months back that we thought it was worth a second installment…well, that and the depth and breadth of the American Songbag certainly lends itself to doing so. It doesn’t hurt either that it fits our deeper roots sensibilities so well. This installment finds us meandering about those classic songs whose topics include mellow blues ballads, hobo songs, Mexican border songs (how appropriate), tarnished love tales, and the ‘road to heaven’. Helping us through our sets we’ll be featuring an interesting collection of performers: Dave Van Ronk, Dock Boggs, Rosanne Cash, and Peter Case. A host of others will join in the fun on Community Radio for Sonoma County.
Suzie Blue
Another Friday morning of sounds from the deeper wells, the archives of Americana, featuring the very best of early century pop, southern gospel, bluegrass, jazz, and swamp seasoned blues. Tune in at 9am for a fresh blend of performances that span the genres: Charles Sheffield to Ernest Tubb, The Dells to Mildred Bailey, and Jimmie Rodgers to John Prine. Dave Stroud will be sharing sounds from the Excello vaults, new Americana from recent years, classic gospel from The Soul Stirrers and the Southern Stars. You can only hear the variety and depth of selection on community radio. So be sure you listen in Friday mornings on KOWS and Friday evenings on KWTF.
Music of Albert E. Brumley Sr.
The music of Albert E. Brumley resides in a shadowy corner of country gospel, but when it’s given the light of day, the glow is blinding. He was a shape note music composer and publisher whose southern gospel pieces are familiar to many. There’s not a lot of information about Albert but the musical legacy of his “I’ll Fly Away”, “Rank Strangers”, and “Turn Your Radio On” are masterpieces of the genre made popular by everyone from The Carters to Bill Monroe and Aretha Franklin to Alan Jackson and Kanye West. We’ll spend time with his music today, sharing numerous interpretations for you on a Friday morning in Sebastopol, live from KOWS studio at the UMC in the heart of town.
Golden Age of Country
It’s a time that followed the second World War and baked into its foundation were the sounds of Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Spade Cooley, Bob Wills among others. The music was inspired by bluegrass, folk, blues, and jazz with Country Swing and barn dances sparking a popularity that blanketed the American musical landscape from the Pacific to the southern Atlantic. It was a sound that solidified the title of “Country and Western” and he’ll be sharing some of the great performances in this week’s episode: Patsy Cline, Little Jimmy Dickens, George Jones, Ferlin Husky, and Webb Pierce…just to name a few. While the sound would fade away sometime around the turn of the seventies, when rock n’ roll would elbow it (more like steamroll it) out in popularity on the airwaves, it is revered and restated to this day as a cornerstone of what we recognize as Americana music.
Eight to the Bar
It’s a free form collection that knows no boundaries. Dynamic sounds from the past century of America’s music including tracks from Kinky Friedman, Hank Snow, Clara Ward, The Charioteers, and a host of others from every corner. We’ll be sharing The Old Spinning Wheel, a parlor song; songs about a baseball and silver screen legend; and gospel from the deeper wells. Join Dave Stroud for another Deeper Roots evening on KOWS Community Radio.
The Arhoolie Label
There are a handful of record labels that subscribe to the ‘deeper roots’ dogma. And our show tries to cover all of them. But East Bay’s own Arhoolie, whose catalog was recently acquired by Smithsonian Folkways is a very special example, maybe the premiere example, of what it means to dig deeper. Founded in 1960 by Chris Strachwitz, a German transplant who moved to the States in 1947, Arhoolie was founded on the principle that the best music could be found by traveling the backroads. And that is precisely how it got started, with a recording device in his trunk and an ear for the sublime. Join us this Friday evening as we explore just a hint of the music you’ll find on a landmark roots label.