While the show this week is free form (something we like to do every few weeks), we’ll be leaning on a number of ‘connections’ including a couple of sets that feature tracks from the 1950 classic country album “Beyond The Sunset” which was released by Luke The Drifter aka Hank Williams, Sr. We’ll hear interpretations and originals that keep the focus on the country gospel solemnities that made this album one of country’s most interesting albums of the time. We’ll also be rocking with The Prisonaires, Aretha Franklin; riding down the canyon with Gene Autry and Jonathan Edwards; and connecting with boot kicking pieces from Robert Gordon and Elvis. An interesting and fun two hours is in store for you on West County community radio. Join Dave Stroud for selections from the last 100 years.
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Sugar Sugar
We’ve got a theme show for you tonight: the last century of America’s music with a focus on candy, cake, pie, and cola…all with that magic (deadly?) insidious ingredient that lures us to it’s flavor. A sure example of a muse if there ever was one. Tune for the sounds of Bill Haley, Al Hirt, Duke Ellington, Elvis, and the Collins Kids (among others). It’s folk, blues, R&B, country, pop, and rock…all in good sweet fun on KWTF radio.
Leon Russell Tribute
To quote one blogger: “[Leon Russell] was one of the most adept and prolific session men of the 1960s rock scene, playing on more records and [alongside] more artists than many people could name, and his abilities and multi-instrumental proficiency would make him an unstoppable force when he debuted as an artist in his own right in the early seventies.” Summed up perfectly. And Deeper Roots will pay tribute to Leon with a look at his music, his songwriting prowess, the arc of his career, and the performances that made him that ‘unstoppable force’. We’ll hear from Joe Cocker, The Carpenters, George Benson, and (of course) Leon himself in a hastily gathered, but oh so sublime, show that honors an artist who we lost this past weekend. Tune into (and support) Sonoma County community radio.
Buck Owens Time!
Join us in a celebration of the the music of Buck Owens, a producer, songwriter, and musician who introduced many of us to the Bakersfield sound, that very distinctive blend of country, honky-tonk, and hillbilly music from the fifties and sixties. We’ll hear a few from Buck and the Buckaroos but will take the lion’s share of the show highlighting the music of artists covering some of the great (and obscure) songs of Buck Owens. We’ll bring you the music of Ray Charles, Bobby Bare, Dwight Yoakam, John Fogerty, Patsy Cline, and many others.
Free Form – October 2016
We reflect on Columbus Day…that day of the year that something and nothing are both celebrated. While it may be another one of those “Flag Days”, it’s a day that we’ll set aside a set for in the most appropriate way. We’ll hear the “Ballad of Ira Hayes”, music from Robbie Robertson, and Maxine Sullivan in the set which is one of free form this week on Deeper Roots. A set about sin, a set about the glorious two-day event known as the weekend, ballads, bop, and and opening sweat bomb by Joyce Harris and the Daylighters. Sonoma County community radio it is…
Early Blues Women
We’ll take you to the early century when jazz was bubbling up in every urban quarter…Chicago, New York, New Orleans, Kansas City, and beyond. Our focus will be on the fringes where blues women would establish themselves with stories of cheating, stealing, and mean mistreating. The economy of the early twenties generated the disposable income for Victrolas, radios, and shellac recordings and the Great Migration from the south brought with it a culture that would affect the American music landscape forever. The ladies of the blues are featured on our show this week, including Lucille Bogan, Bessie Smith, Victoria Spivey, Gertrude Saunders, and an opening piece about a razor-totin’ mama from Perline Ellison.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Prine
In a special two hours, we’re going to celebrate John Prine’s music, observing his 70th birthday which just so happens have coincided with a new release of country duets this past October. We’ll hear some Steve Goodman, Johnny Cash, Bonnie Raitt, and The Boxmasters to name a few, performing Prine alongside some of the very best of Prine (prime Prine as it were). Happy birthday to one of the great songwriters of a generation. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: a true American treasure.
Celebrating the Circle
This week, Dave Stroud revisits the seminal release of 1972 that brought together multiple generations of musicians, introducing a new generation of listeners to their music and, in some cases, to each other. Will The Circle Be Unbroken was a concept made real by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, then a “bunch of long-haired West Coast boys” (as Roy Acuff would describe them) and the talent that they were able to muster would influence country, bluegrass, and rock for decades to come. In addition to the big names of decades before them like Roy Acuff, Maybelle Carter, and Jimmy Martin, the Dirt Band would bring together lesser known names like Vassar Clements, Norman Blake, and Oswald Kirby to make an album that is as fresh and listenable today as it was then. We’ll feature tracks from the album alongside some of the original performances by these legendary masters.
Gospel Dynamite II
In the second of two parts, we celebrate the very best in gospel sounds…songs and spirituals that are embedded in our culture. This week…”This Little Light Of Mine”, “How I Got Over”, “This Train”, “This Train”, and many more. We’ll play the sacred versions alongside the celebratory secular ones with performers like Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield, The Fisk Jubilee Singers, The Swan Silvertones, and Louis Armstrong. Tune in for two hours of rousing gospel in another two hour Americana roots journey on Sonoma County community radio.
Gospel Dynamite I
It’s a two part celebration of the very best in gospel sounds…songs and spirituals that are embedded in our culture. There just was not enough time to capture the great songs like “I’ll Fly Away”, “This Train”, “Please In The Valley”, “Down By The Riverside”, and so many others in just a single episode…so we broke it into two parts which is still barely enough. We’ll play the influential sacred versions alongside the celebratory secular ones with performers like Chet Atkins, Mahalia Jackson, Elvis Presley, and the CBS Trumpeteers. Tune in for two hours of rousing gospel in another two hour Americana roots journey on Sonoma County community radio.