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.
It’s another two hours celebrating the best of the last century of America’s music on Deeper Roots. In this week’s episode, Dave Stroud will be exploring the secular side of Thomas Dorsey, as Dorsey performed early century blues as Georgia Tom, and then more about Dorsey’s sacred side as the Reverend Thomas Dorsey in the mid-to-late century. As the Great Depression brought chaos to the lives of many, including the performers of the day, Dorsey finalized a lifelong transition from the secular to the sacred, although there is clear evidence that personal misfortune had its hand in the move. The evening’s playlist includes excerpts from Dorsey interviews, music by contemporaries and those who were influenced by his music, as well as pieces performed by Dorsey as Georgia Tom, featuring Tampa Red on guitar. Johnny Cash, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Kansas City Kitty, Clara Ward, and Sweet Honey in The Rock are among the acts who we’ll hear in a show called “Deeper Thomas Dorsey”.
Join Dave Stroud once more as he digs into those dusty digital gospel bins for a selection of songs that celebrate the celestial sounds of a number of the greatest sacred hymns and gospel tunes from the past century of America’s music. “Wade In The Water”, “I’m On My Way To Canaan Land”, “I’ll Fly Away”, and many other classic gospel standards will be covered by some of the great gospel performers as well as those from the secular stable. We’ll hear from Bill Monroe, Blind Willie Johnson, Taj Mahal, Mahalia Jackson, and the Reverend Pearly Brown in a special Deeper Roots show called “Great Gospel Tracks”. Tune in for a show that explores the roots of sounds that explore those sounds of both Europeanized black church music as well as those that have their basis in the holiness-Pentecostal (or sanctified) movement.
This episode will look at the roots of Honky Tonk: a place where, on one side of the track you, as Roosevelt Sykes points out in “The Honeydripper”, you had the blues performer as Doctor who prescribed Blues as a cure for the Blues and on the other, you had the country sound of Moon Mullican who demanded that the beer bottles danced on the table when the band got rockin’. We’ll spend our time exploring the early sounds of Big Maceo, Albert Ammons, and Jimmy Yancey and move down yonder to the country bars where boogie woogie was also understood. The country honky tonk sounds of Merrill Moore, Bobbie Nelson, Jerry Lee Lewis, and a handful of others will get their chance to entertain. Boogie woogie came to the country and it was retooled and renamed as honky tonk.
Our show explores traditional pieces and versions that have been covered by contemporary artists. “Mama Don’t Allow”, “Soldier’s Joy”, “That Nasty Swing”, “Worried Mind”, and “Mary of the Wild Moor” are just a handful of the selections we’ll share in our show tonight. Some of the performers included in our set include Ivory Joe Hunter, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, The Dixon Brothers, and Byrd Moore. Join Dave Stroud tonight at 9 on KWTF as he shares the stories of the music, song stories, and performers from the last American century…it’s roots music that does matter.
Deeper Roots: A Century of America’s Music goes deeper…back 87 years to the summer of 1927 when Ralph Peer, a producer for the Victor Talking Machine Company visited the town of Bristol, Tennessee scouting for talent. He brought with him the equipment necessary to capture those first-take performances which would come to be known as The Bristol Sessions. From late July through early August artists such as The Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and the Stoneman Family made recordings in a makeshift studio inside downtown Bristol’s Taylor-Christian Hat Company. Johnny Cash once said that “These recordings…are the single most important event in the history of country music.”
Join Dave Stroud as Deeper Roots goes beyond the more notable names from these recordings and, with a certain leaning to the country sounds, he will also reveal the gospel and folk tradition that came out of these and the later Johnson City Sessions. We’ll hear from The Johnson Brothers, The Stamps Quartet, Alfred Karnes, Uncle Eck Dunford, and a host of others.
Deeper Roots digs into the early sounds of rock in another episode that explores the songwriters…this time focusing on the talents of the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, During the first decade of a rock ‘n roll, they brought the R&B music they loved to the pop mainstream, producing a catalog of enduring, influential, and spirited musical pieces. The two grew up on the East Coast, Leiber in Baltimore and Stoller in Queens, but met in Los Angeles in 1950 where they began a sixty year collaboration, Leiber serving as the sharp-witted lyricist, while the classically trained but jazz-and R&B-loving Stoller wrote the music. Join Dave Stroud in a show first broadcast on KWTF in 2014 as he’ll share the duo’s songwriting talents featuring the music of LaVern Baker, Big Mama Thornton, Bull Moose Jackson, Brian Setzer, and many, many others.
Deeper Roots explores a minor genre in this episode; coming from early 19th century minstrel shows and adapted with bawdy humor, double entendre, and biting sarcasm. A little bit blues, a little bit country, and always in your face, they call it “hokum”. The English dictionary defines the term as ‘nonsense’ or ‘trite, sentimental, and unrealistic’ but as a musical genre, it goes well beyond those simple definitions. As noted in Wikipedia, “Although the sexual content of hokum is generally playful by modern standards, early recordings were marginalized for both sexual “suggestiveness” and “trashy” appeal, but still flourished in niche markets outside the mainstream. Our show will take a journey through early to mid-century examples featuring numerous pieces by Tampa Red, Papa Charlie Jackson, Memphis Minnie, and Georgia Tom as well as some later fifties R&B examples that drew from the hokum well including The Dominoes, Julia Lee, and Bullmoose Jackson. Join Dave Stroud for a fun mix of musical nonsense that is anything but trite or sentimental.
Blues is the sound we share with you in this episode of Deeper Roots and we’ve got two solid hours of sounds from the Mississippi Delta, Chicago, and the clubs, juke joints, and barrooms found at points in between. Based on a fine blog post by the great American roots music author Peter Guralnick that you can find here, we follow what we found to the letter and note. You’ll hear the sounds of Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Otis Spann, and Robert Nighthawk in a playlist the Guralnick handed to his son as a reverent introduction to the music that’s inspired his writing and passion for American roots music.
On Deeper Roots …”The 99 Percent Blues”, featuring music reflecting on the Great Depression, The Dust Bowl, and the recent financial crisis…songs and stories of the working class. We take a trip back to the twenties and share with you the sounds of Vernon Delhart, Joe Stone, Harry McClintock, and others…and we’ll share the more contemporary songs of Ry Cooder, Randy Newman, and Uncle Tupelo.
No.
1
Artist
Title
Album
Buy
2
Uncle Dave Macon
All In Down And Out Blues [2003 Remastered]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
3
Joe Stone
It's Hard Time
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
4
Vernon Dalhart
The Farm Relief Song
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
5
Charlie McFadden
Times Are So Tight
Bankers Blues – A Study in the Effects of Fiscal Mischeif
6
Snooks and the Memphis Ramblers,Julia Gerity and Her Boys
Sittin' on a Rubbish Can [Remastered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
7
Ry Cooder
No Banker Left Behind
Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down
8
Little Village
Do You Want My Job
Little Village
9
The Reverend J.M. Gates
President Roosevelt Is Everybody's Friend [Remastered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
10
Randy Newman
Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)
Good Old Boys [Expanded] Disc 1
11
The Weavers
Brother Can You Spare a Dime
The Weavers Almanac
12
Cisco Houston
Do Re Mi
Best Of The Vanguard Years
13
Woody Guthrie
Dusty Old Dust (So Long It's Been Good to Know Yuh) [Remastered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
14
Mac "Harry" McClintock
Hallelujah, I'm a Bum [Remastered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
15
Fiddlin' John Carson
Taxes On The Farmer Feeds Them All [Remastered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
16
Ry Cooder
Taxes On The Farmer Feeds Us All
Into The Purple Valley
17
Hank Penny
Taxes Taxes
Bob Dylan: Radio Radio – Theme Time Radio Hour, Vol. 5 [Disc 4]
18
Ralph Willis
Income Tax Blues
Bankers Blues – A Study in the Effects of Fiscal Mischeif
19
Fenton Robinson
Somebody Loan Me A Dime
Living The Blues: The 70's Blues Classics
20
Bob Miller
The Rich Man And The Poor Man [Rematered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
21
Roy Bargy;Ramona
Raising the Rent [Remastered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
22
Bing Crosby
Brother Can You Spare A Dime?
Columbia Records' 125th Anniv.
23
William (Bill) Moore
Ragtime Millionaire
1927-30-Ragtime Blues Guitar
24
Lead Belly
The Bourgeois Blues
Best Of Leadbelly
25
Ry Cooder
The Bourgeois Blues
Chicken Skin Music
26
Uncle Tupelo
No Depression
No Depression
27
Sheryl Crow
No Depression In Heaven
The Unbroken Circle: The Musical Heritage Of The Carter Family
28
The Carter Family
No Depression In Heaven
Harry Smith's Anthology Of American Folk Music, Volume Four
29
David McCarn
Poor Man, Rich Man (Cotton Mill Colic No. 2)
Gastonia Gallop – Cotton Mill Songs & Hillbilly Blues 1927-1931
30
Cedar Creek Sheik
Jimmy Shut His Store Doors [Remastered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
31
Woody Guthrie
The Jolly Banker (Woody Guthrie)
Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection [Disc 2]
32
Bo Carter
Times Is Tight Like That
Bankers Blues – A Study in the Effects of Fiscal Mischeif
