Another beautiful winter Saturday morning in West Sonoma County and it’s time for a collection of hot blues, country gospel, early rock, early century pop, and swinging country on Deeper Roots… everything from Eddie Cantor’s 1922 song about a trapeze and Blind Willie McTell covering Jimmie Rodgers around mid-century, to a track from 2014 from a new band out of New Orleans called Hurray For The Riff Raff…another reason our tag line reads “A Century of America’s Music”. Join Dave Stroud on a brisk Saturday morning from the KOWS studios in downtown Occidental, California.
Celebrating a recent push into promoting Americana music by KWTF, Sonoma County, Dave Stroud will look back at 2014’s collection of outstanding Americana. The playlist for the evening covers those ‘long in the tooth’ including Willie Nelson and Billy Joe Shaver, a posthumous piece by Johnny Cash, and one of the more energetic throwbacks to 70s outlaw sounds you’ll hear from a songwriter by the name of Sturgill Simpson. There are also the newcomers: Lydia Loveless, Shovels and Rope, and Parker Millsap. Join us in a show that celebrates new music that digs into the roots of the past century of America’s music.
It’ s a yuletide blues, country, rock, and pop extravaganza. Deeper Roots celebrates the holidays with a selection of holiday hits from the past century. And we don’t necessarily stop there. You’ll also be entertained by some very special blues and R&B numbers selected from the past, featuring selected tracks from an incredible assortment of holiday tracks featured on the Document Records releases “Blues Blues Christmas”, Volumes 1 through 4.
Join Dave Stroud for music from Louis Armstrong, Butterbeans & Susie, Darlene Love, John Prine, and many, many more.
Our KOWS weekend show airs live every 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month, direct from the KOWS studios in Occidental. In this episode we feature the usual blend of roots music including the country sounds of Joe Maphis, The South Georgia Highballers, Lead Belly, The Levon Helm Band, and we’re going to be entertained by Emmy Oro and her 1950 piece “A Fish House Function (For a Cross Eyed Cat Named Sam)”. And, as usual, it’s so much about the personalities, the stories that the songs tell, as well as the stories behind the music itself. Join Dave Stroud for all of this and more.
In contrast with the folk, blues, and urban sounds being played in the juke joints, ballrooms, and bars in the early century, there was another, much lighter fare being broadcast over the radio airwaves and being celebrated on the silver screen. It was something that was somewhat more benign in its message and certainly more palatable to the masses. It would be called ‘popular music’. But it is as arguably significant as any of the genres we think of as Americana or roots…because it too often shared a common thread of influence.
Deeper Roots marches through the pre-War sounds of Tommy Dorsey and His Clambake Seven, Cliff Edwards, The Boswell Sisters, The Ink Spots, and Eddie Cantor…to name only a few. As the country was still hung over from the Great Depression, the entertainment industry concocted a formula for music and message, painting an overly bright picture of a golden sunrise, reminding folks that “we’ve got a lot of what it takes to get along” even as the dark clouds of tyranny were beginning to spread over Europe. The music represented a sort of blissful ignorance.
Deeper Roots takes the theme route in our next KWTF episode, featuring jazz, gospel, country, blues, rock, and R&B that all share the road with stories of that twentieth century cultural icon (and muse): the automobile. We’ll hear songs of Mercurys, Cadillacs, Fords, and Chevrolets that run the gamut of old and new and tell stories of love in the backseat, first car nostalgia, tragedy on the road, and racing in the streets. Performers in this show includeDavid Lindley, K. C. Douglas, Mink DeVille, Kevin Russell and others who will follow a theme that is one of the more common to come out of our age of assembly lines and the rust belt.
Here’s your morning coffee and tea! Join Dave Stroud for a helping of ukulele, blues, gospel, and outlaw meta-modern country sounds. If you haven’t had a chance to find us on a West County Saturday morning, your chance is every second and fourth Saturday morning at 9 PST on TuneIn radio http://tunein.com/radio/KOWS-LP-1073-…. This eclectic blend of music from the past century is also played out on Sundays at 10 PM This week’s show will feature a Langston Hughes reading, some Maria Muldaur, some early century pop from The Boswell Sisters, some cold hard country facts from Sturgill Simpson and Porter Wagoner, and blues from Dave Alvin and Big Bill Broonzy.
Every now and then Deeper Roots will take a step back and look at the unknowns, not for their anonymity as much for their stories and why their music is so important to the American story. A documentary was recently released entitled “Bayou Maharajah: The Tragic Genius of James Booker”, http://www.bayoumaharajah.com/ directed by Lily Keber. It tells the story of the classically trained session man and we’re going to also explore the contributions that Booker made to the music of others, his quirky yet brilliant talent in performances of his own, and we’ll also share some of the stories of James Booker’s celebrated ups and tragic lows.
Join us for some unbridled passion featuring ducktails, attitude, and rocking rhythm…all in the tradition of the north, west, east, and south. We speak of that genre that keeps on churning: rockabilly. It’s a genre that’s seen more revivals than a traveling preacher in the Midwest and South during the late 1930s. The recordings were pretty rustic: a bass, some driving percussion, and excitable guitar riffs and the vocals often phrased by rebel yells. We’ll be tearing it up with some of the very best including Johnny Burnette’s Rock ‘n Roll Trio, Billy Lee Riley, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis…and those were just the top drawer stars. We’ll also hear from the ladies: Wanda Jackson, Charline Arthur, and Janis Martin as well as the more obscure sounds of Bobby Lord, Hoyt Stevens, and Roy Hall.
In this episode of Deeper Roots, we explore the early works of a giant of American popular music: Duke Ellington. His career spanned over a half century where he composed thousands of songs for stage, screen, and the contemporary songbook. He called his music “American Music” and his signature sound, particularly in the early years, was unmistakable. This was in large part because he searched out musicians with unique playing styles such as Bubber Miley, Joe Nanton, Cootie Williams, Rex Stewart, and the great alto saxophonist. While our focus will be on the pre-War Elligton classics, we’ll also catch the early versions of “Sophisticated Lady” and “Take the ‘A’ Train” and, at the same time, include some telling excerpts from a few different interviews.
