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.
It’s the first of a two part series here on Deeper Roots, exploring the history of Chicago Blues, beginning with its jazz influences. The city of Chicago played a major role in the evolution of jazz as an American musical art form. And there are many reasons for it. Its locale, its ‘big shoulders’ of industry that attracted young workers from throughout the nation in the first half of the century, and its atmosphere of clubs and cabarets that stimulated the market for accomplished entertainment.
Our first episode covers the early jazz of King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, and Johnny Dodds but also covers the blues of Memphis Minnie, Peetie Wheatstraw, Big Maceo, and Tampa Red…classic Chicago sounds of performers who ‘built the city’ as one that invite post-War inheritors of the Great Migration.
Paramount Records was born in 1917 and in the mere fifteen years of their existence they would introduce some of the greatest names in the blues. Ma Rainey, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton, Skip James, and Papa Charlie Jackson are but a few. In 2013, Jack White’s Third Man Records teamed up with Revenant Records to release the first of what would become one of the most ambitious attempts at documenting the story of a record company born from a furniture company that was driven to create product for the record cabinets they sold. Based on the book “The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records”, part two of the omnibus will be released later this year (or in early 2015).
This week on Deeper Roots, we share some of the story…and a lot of the music which was not necessarily limited to the blues but also some incredible gospel, mountain, and jazz recordings. When listening through what Dean Blackwell of Revenant Records calls the “gauze of static”, you’ll hear the music of the last century come alive. Tune in Friday night at 9 o’clock for a rare listen.
Some time ago, Deeper Roots explored the female blues pioneers of the early century in a show called “Black Pearls”. In this week’s episode, we’re going to move forward in time a bit, into the mid-century to explore the ‘inheritors’, those women who were influenced by the blues stylings of Sara Miles, Sippie Wallace, and Victoria Spivey. Performers this week will include Julia Lee, Lil Armstrong, Nellie Lutcher, and many others in an episode titled “Blues Divas”. Post-Depression and Post-War jazz, R&B, and blues sounds from some of the influential female artists who, in step with their early century counterparts, would go on to provide a foundation for the many who would follow. Be sure to tune in.
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.
