It’s summer and what better time to roll out the scorchers; vocals with an emphasis on big beats, screamin’ guitars and performances that sweat quite profusely in the noonday sun. This week on Deeper Roots we’ll be digging through the archives of early rock, rhythm & blues and rockabilly for some tumultuous and head-splitting numbers from the past. Songs that woke up the neighbors if only played at a moderate level and woe be the terrified fifties’ parents when they heard the hi-fi blaring these songs from the youngster’s room. We’ve put together a collection of wildcat tamers, killer dillers, and not a bit of filler in the show today that will leave you breathless. Among those sparking the fuel that could set the hair on fire are Tarheel Slim, Jimmy Breedlove, Chan Romero, Big Mama Thornton, and the one and only Richard Penniman. Tune in for another Friday morning collection of the very best from the past century with your host, Dave Stroud, on KOWS Community Radio.
Category Archives: Blues
Celebrating Tom Waits
This week we’ll spend our two hours in a shroud of barroom musk, out-of-tune brass, and painted ladies all spent before the tunes of an American treasure. We speak of Tom Waits. The New York Times, in a review of Barney Hoskyns’ 2009 biography of Tom Waits, Lowside of The Road describes our subject today thusly: “He is as potent and unpredictable a musical force as most of us have witnessed in our lifetimes, and that’s not faint praise. The graveyard croak of his gravelly, bellowing baritone is righteous, paint-scraping, unmistakable; it scatters small animals and slaps your synapses to startled attention. With what’s left of your adrenalized wits, you can attend to his mordant lyrics, which he packs into songs he divides (as his wife, Kathleen Brennan, put it) into two primordial categories: “the grand weeper” and “the grim reaper”. He’s our neighbor here in Sonoma County and we could not be more proud of the boy…really.
O Brother Revisited
Roots music found commercial success in 2000 with the release of the movie O Brother Where Art Thou, a finely crafted but outrageous tale of Depression-era America with fantastical imagery of hair wax, baptisms, and chain gangs woven into a tapestry built from Homer’s Odyssey. The music, assembled by T-Bone Burnett, was a major component of the film and recorded before the film even began with Burnett working with the Coen brothers while the script was in its working phases. It would become an effort that elevated a genre at the turn of the century called Americana. This week’s show will share some of the period-specific music that helped to propel the notion that blues, jazz, bluegrass, country, and gospel could be used to put that time and a ghostly familiar culture into focus. We’ll use O Brother’s musical sensibilities to take us somewhere quite familiar (and at the same time quite terrifying) as we pay homage with Americana roots, featuring sounds from The Carters, Jesse Fuller, Dan Tyminski, Jimmie Rodgers, W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel & His Hillbilly Boys, among others.
Soothe Me
Soul Divas
The sound of both longing and empowerment surfaces in this morning’s Deeper Roots show as we take the wayback machine to the 1960s for some of the very best in female soul. With every female vocalist, group-based or solo, that surfaced from the Motown stable there were dozens upon dozens of hopefuls lined up by other labels and producers. We’ve visited many of them in past shows but there are always more to share and some memorable performances that can get easily overlooked in the crowded field. And while we’ve heard a number of these performers in past shows: Betty Everett, Mary Wells, and Carla Thomas…there are also the unknowns who deserve attention. We’ll spend some more time with Mitty Collier, Dee Dee Warwick and Etta James and find some other names to pay attention to including Odessa Harris, Helene Smith, and Delilah Keenebruew. Tune in Friday morning at 9 Pacific for some deep tracks and favorites from a few of those 60s soul divas.
Sass & Gas
An eclectic episode full of sass, gas and plenty of brass. We’re going the free form route today and there’ll be plenty of embellishments to the morning as we take a blindfolded trip through a hall of mirrors with some classy vocals from Frankie, Peggy Lee and Helen Forrest; some honky tonk whiskey-in-the-bottle twangin’ from George Jones, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee; rocking rhythm passion from Tina Turner, The Marquees, and Elmore James; and much more including some little known nuggets from Bob Dylan, Merle Travis, and Daddy Cleanhead. We’re going to set the morning on fire with plenty of fuel from the deeper wells of the past century of America’s music. You don’t want to miss out. Join Dave Stroud for another Friday morning selection of wild tune-age on KOWS Community Radio.
Imperial Rhythm & Rockabilly
The Imperial label will be the subject of this week’s Deeper Roots show. Founded in 1947 by Lew Chudd, it’s early years featured some of the very best rhythm and blues and early rock you could find. Their lineup included some of the big names of early rock, not least of which was Roy Brown, Fats Domino, Frankie Ford and Ricky Nelson. They would dabble in country and jazz but also looked to strike while the iron was hot when Elvis hit with a blend of country and rhythm and blues in the mid-50s. They did so by looking for new names with ducktails and driving combos in the rockabilly era. This episode focuses primarily on the 1950s with a future episode taking us further into the label’s sale to Liberty Records in 1963 but not before Lew Chudd purchased Aladdin and Minit Records, bringing over even more of the R&B talent that they would be known for. It’s another Deeper Roots Friday morning on KOWS.
Rhythm & Blues Jezebels
Wild and sassy sounds from the archives of 40s and 50s rhythm & blues featuring some of the female dynamos of the genre coming your way on a Friday morning here on Deeper Roots. We’ll be featuring some great performances from the catalog of Jubilee Records (those Jubilee Jezebels) and a host of peers including some early scorchers from Little Sylvia (Robinson), Big Maybelle, Viola Watkins, Fay Simmons, and Ruth Brown. For the first three or four decades of the recorded blues and jazz, women played a major part in black music’s popularity and there was a resurgent ‘boom’ post-war that played a bigger part than we imagined in that tidal wave of wild rhythm beat that would become rock and soul. These are some classic tracks that don’t always get the attention they deserve…but they will here on Deeper Roots on a Friday morning on KOWS.
Country Rhythm & Blues
We’ll be covering the covers once more this week but this time we’ll be burrowing into a cross section of genres to get to the heart of the matter. It’s country songs with rhythm & blues interpretations, all from the decades of the fifties and sixties. We’ll hear from a few familiars rhythm rockers including The Coasters, Fats Domino, King Curtis and Ruth Brown as they take on the very best of country and tradition with a style all their own. But there’s also the surprises and unknowns like Thin Man Watts, Piney Brown, and The Ray-o-Vacs to fill out the show this morning. From Jambalaya to Tumbling Tumbleweeds, we’ve got some fine soul and R&B interpretations for you. Tune in and find out.
Cool Daddy
Welcome to the club. We’ve got some cool sounds from the jazz lounges and clubs blended with some beat generation salutations for you this morning. Beatniks, boppers, lounge chanteuse performances, saxophones, and some cool fifties sounds. Tune in for Patsy Raye and The Beatniks, Earl Bostic, Mose Allison, Charlie Parker’s Quintet, and a BeBop blend of out-of-this-world swing and percussion. From the Gaslight Café to Slim Gallaird’s Yep Roc sounds…we’ll have your foot tappin’ and your fingers snappin’ on a magical blend of cool ultra-lounge and café sounds from mid-century. Tune in on the web or grab our free app out on the Apple Store or Google Play. You can find them by searching for KOWS.