Category Archives: Blues

Blind Willie McTell’s Blues

Blind Willie McTell's Blues
Blind Willie McTell’s Blues

Blind Willie McTell was a gentleman songwriter and musician who could play and sing popular music and storied blues in the same voice. He could bring you into the story and emotion of a song while he picked in the Piedmont style and, with the supporting rhythm of Curley Weaver, painted a picture that could be visceral, or maybe light-hearted, sometimes stern in narrative, or whatever the mood or lyrics demanded. Bob Dylan’s own poetry about Willie is summed up in the verses of his song “Blind Willie McTell”, written in 1983 but not released by Dylan until 1991 on his “Bootleg Series 1-3”:

        I can hear them tribes moaning
        Hear the undertaker’s bell
        Nobody can sing the blues
        Like Blind Willie McTell

Join Dave Stroud for a new two hour episode highlighting the life, words, and music of Blind Willie McTell in this week’s episode of Deeper Roots: A Century of America’s Music, produced exclusively for KWTF 88.1 FM, community radio for Sonoma County.

Deeper Roots on KOWS – January 29, 2015

Deeper Roots on KOWS - Jan 29 2015
Deeper Roots on KOWS – Jan 29 2015

We’re sitting in for KOWS’ astrologer Matt Savinar in a show that swings with the jive to open things up and then heads down the path of tradition, New Orleans and zydeco spicing, country swing, and an assortment of gospel classics. In particular, we’ve got sets that are a precursor to our Friday and Sunday night specials about Blind Willie McTell, country swing that opens with the magical guitar work of Les Paul, and we remind everyone that Mardi Gras is just around the corner, with a set featuring Professor Longhair, Eddie Bo, and Snooks Eaglin. Join us in this special two hour ‘stand in’ show.

The Railroad Blues

Railroad Blues
Railroad Blues

The railroad is the muse for the morning here in Occidental as the show uses the theme of the railroad: the stories of those who built it, the promise of the golden sunrise that awaits at our destination, the sorrow of a love taken away by rail, and the lonesome whistle from some far away valley. As an aside, did you know that Occidental itself was once a bustling community where the train would haul off the timber and bring tourists from San Francisco and cities beyond?

Join us for the sacred and the secular, including Peter Rowan, ELVIS PRESLEY, Kevin Russell, Paul Warmack & His Gully Jumpers, Furry Lewis, and many others as we explore the genres of bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, country, and so much more.
#rootsmusic #railroad #Americana

Songs About Texas

Songs About Texas
Songs About Texas

It’s theme time once more on Deeper Roots Radio: A Century of America’s Music. Join Dave Stroud as he digs up some classic songs about the Lone Star State.

We defer now to John Steinbeck: “I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study and the passionate possession of all Texans.”

It’s  country, bluegrass, blues, R&B, jazz, and more from the past century of America’s music.

Deeper Roots on KOWS – January 10, 2015

Deeper Roots on KOWS - January 2015
Deeper Roots on KOWS – January 2015

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.

Deeper Roots on KOWS – December 27, 2014

Deeper Roots on KOWS
Deeper Roots on KOWS

Lots of early sounds mixed with the new this weekend. Stay tuned for music from the medicine shows, lost provinces, gospel tents, swamps, bandstands, and digital playgrounds. We’ve got Sam Samudio, Shorty Godwin, The Seldom Scene, Shel Silverstein, and Tom Russell in our bi-weekly show broadcast live from the KOWS studios in downtown Occidental, a hamlet tucked into the redwoods along the Bohemian Highway in west Sonoma County.  The drought is being beat down and, while we would welcome more rain, we’re hoping that it’s dispersed so that our neighbors can manage without threat of flooding. So we’ll flood you all with a fine collection of performances from the last century of America’s music.

Blue Light Christmas Special – 2014

Blue Light Christmas Special
Blue Light Christmas Special

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.

Deeper Roots on KOWS – December 15, 2014

Deeper Roots on KOWS 12/15
Deeper Roots on KOWS 12/15

We’ve got a special Monday episode of Deeper Roots. The show originally broadcast live from the KOWS studios in Occidental, California, opens with some Light Crust Doughboys, fires up some modern country gospel from the Watson Twins and Johnny Cash, then goes for the jugular with a collection of Baptist-flavored gospel from Moses Mason, Mother McCollum, and Madam Edna…and that just scratches the sacred surface. The show also features the secular: jump blues from Jesse Price, jazz from Lincoln Center and Willie “The Lion” Smith. Had enough? You won’t. Be sure to check it out.

Deeper Roots on KOWS – December 13, 2014

Deeper Roots on KOWS
Deeper Roots on KOWS

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.

Car Theme

Cars Themed
Cars Themed

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.