Deeper Roots takes on new Americana. There is a lot of good roots-influenced music out there, you just need to know where to go. Country, alt-country, swing, gospel, blues, soul, and bluegrass continue to be heard and loved finding a voice across a (very) wide canvas called ‘Americana’. On Deeper Roots this week on KWTF radio, we’ll curate the sounds of new Americana that play weekday mornings on KWTF from 9am to 11am (including Thursday’s Blue Moon Americana show). Tune in for new music from Parker Millsap, The Cactus Blossoms, Sturgill Simpson, Ben Harper, Bonnie Raitt, and Loretta Lynn.
All posts by Dave
Trains & Boats & Planes & Automobiles
Deeper Roots takes on a theme this week… one that has us on the road, the rails, the ocean deep, and soaring in the clouds. We speak, of course, of our modes and muse of transport in music. There’s a variety of styling to be had including blues from Snooks Eaglin and Lightnin’ Hopkins, 50s country from Cowboy Copas and Bonnie Guitar, pop sounds from Jo Stafford and the Modernaires, and a host of others that all support the theme of the day. Tune in for another roots-infused Wednesday evening on KOWS, the heart and voice of West Sonoma County, California.
Folk Songs Pt 2 – Spirituals
The second installment in our exploration of the Alan Lomax book of the same name, this time focusing our energies on tradition in gospel and spiritual. Leader-chorus work songs to lighten the load of heavy labor; dancing songs to quicken the spirit on those rare holidays; and spirituals to replace their lost African religions and to console in times of physical torment and spiritual degradation are all captured here, including the stories and lineage behind the original pieces. We’ll hear from a diverse selection of performers including The Dixie Jubilee Singers, Odetta, Nina Simone, Tom Waits, Eva Cassidy, and many others.
American Novelties
It’s popular in just about every form…well, not so with gospel…but it’s tradition goes back to minstrelsy: the song that has a humorous hook or a running joke to share or maybe a bandleader who takes us into new a ridiculous territories. We’ve got a lot of novelty tunes of this nature to bring you this week on Deeper Roots… a bit of a departure from our normal fare but it’s all for the fun. We’ll hear country sounds from Johnny Cash and Roger Miller, tearjerkers and rock therapy from Mabel Scott, The Chips, and Tiny Hill, and some classic novelty sounds from Danny Kaye, Spike Jones (of course), and Fats Waller.
Deeper Blind Willie Johnson
Blind Willie Johnson’s music seems to resurface through discovery with each generation and understandably so. Because tied to the meager catalog of thirty songs that he recorded over some four sessions between December, 1927 and April, 1930, is a dark and foreboding voice in the night. Its glow is that of a solitary candle in a room of shadows in a house whose bones have fallen to derelict and decay. Willie is telling us to take notice.
The story of Blind Willie Johnson was best transcribed in Sam Charters’ introduction and liner notes for Columbia’s Roots & Blues Series’ “The Complete Works of Blind Willie Johnson”. We’ll go a bit deeper, dedicating our two hours to Blind Willie Johnson featuring tracks from the new tribute album “God Don’t Never Change: The Songs of Blind Willie Johnson”, some classic recordings of Blind Willie, as well as covers of every stripe and style.
Free Form – March 2016
We return to a free form collection of American music, featuring blues from Markus James, Blind Willie Johnson, and Dinah Washington; country from Porter Wagoner, Kitty Wells, and Leroy Van Dyke; pop memories from Frank Sinatra, Cliff Edwards, and Rusty Draper. The show will feature an expanded eclectic blend of bluegrass, gospel, rockabilly, and gospel and, in addition to Markus James, we’ll also feature a other local musical luminaries to ensure we’re reminded that our Sonoma County musical talent is a rich aquifer.
Songs of Cindy Walker
Enduring and prolific…country and pop songwriter Cindy Walker’s name is not as familiar to many but her music certainly is. She wrote early western-flavored pop and country swing pieces for performers like Bing Crosby and Bob Wills, composing hits for Hank Snow, Gene Autry, Al Dexter, Eddy Arnold, and others…almost owning the country charts in the 1940s. Her music endured well into the sixties and seventies, covered by Roy Orbison, Ray Charles, and dozens more. Her custom was to rise early and write songs, typing her lyrics on a pink-trimmed manual Royal typewriter while her mother, Oree Walker, would work out the melodies to her daughter’s words. They would station themselves in Nashville five months out of the year to help market the music, returning home to Mexia, Texas where Cindy would live out her life. Join us on a special run of Americana: the songs of Cindy Walker.
Deeper Roots Ragtime
Our theme this evening is ragtime and it’s impact on the past century of America’s music. Join Dave Stroud for a themed collection of early and mid-century ragtime beginning with Cliff Edwards and running all the way through to some modern sounds out of Hamilton County, Tennessee. We’ll explore the Tiger Rag, the Maple Leaf Rag, the Black Mountain Rag, and then settle in for some of the sounds of Deep Elem. Music embellished with the stories of the performers, the theme, the songs, and the time…something you can’t get but on community radio.
Waltzes, Polkas, and Two-Steps
It’s all about the traditional and popular dance music celebrated in the song of the past century. The show opens with the recognition of folk dance’s lineage, those ancestral elements that inhabit a very large part of our need to communicate and celebrate as a society. Most of the early rhythms we’ll hear to start the show are a blend of ancestral folk but we’ll also share the sound of popular dance. Tune in for country, pop, and folk sounds including cajun sounds from Michael Doucet, old-timey guitar and fiddle sounds of Darby and Tarlton, Tejano polka from Flaco Jimenez, and plenty more waltzes, polkas, and two steps.
Country Swing Pioneers
Join Dave Stroud for two hours of the very best of country swing music on Deeper Roots Radio: A Century of America’s Music. The west had been long-settled when a new sound exploded out of the dance halls and barn-dance venues of the Midwest that was to become popular for it’s upbeat blend of jazz, hillbilly, and down-home blues. The arrangements blended strings, guitar, fiddle and bass, with the rhythmic sounds of urban jazz to reveal something catchy and danceable…and marketable. Before the beat was modernized into the mass market country blandness that paralleled mainstream pop, there were the pioneers including Milton Brown, Bob Wills, Adolph Hofner, Spade Cooley, Light Crust Doughboys, and a host of others.