Nearly fifty years ago one song entered three different charts: Country, R&B, and Pop at the same time, unprecedented for the time. It was a year where the airwaves were filled with Dean Martin, Perry Como, Marty Robbins, The Platters, and the first hints of what was to be the infusion of R&B into popular music. Deeper Roots will take a peek at the year 1956 with an exploration of Elvis’ release of Hound Dog.

Dale Geist, singer-songwriter and passionate student of rock history, joins Dave Stroud in a special two-hour show that explores the impact of songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, blues and rhythm rockers Rufus Thomas, Big Mama Thornton, and  Roy Brown, as well as the music of The Coasters, The Robins, Big Joe Turner, and The Drifters.

You’ve heard his music and his story is bigger than life. Jerome Felder was raised in Brooklyn to a middle class Jewish family and contracted polio at a very young age. But he also contracted a taste for the blues as an adolescent and did more than make his mark on the American musical fabric of the mid-to-late century. He adopted the stage name of Doc Pomus and, along with Lieber, Stoller, King, and a few others defined the lyric and tone of a generation. Deeper Roots explores the music of Doc Pomus this Friday night at 9 on KWTF.  We’ll hear Big Joe Turner’s Piney Brown Blues, a song that inspired him as well as a couple of pieces that he would eventually write for Joe when he was recording in the Atlantic stable. We’ll share the stories and music, including performances by Doc himself, The Coasters, Elvis, Dr. John, and Ray Charles.