Join Dave Stroud for two hours of the very best of country swing music on Deeper Roots Radio: A Century of America’s Music. He’ll excavate the archives for a show from over eight years ago, reminding us that the west had been long-settled when a new sound exploded. It blasted its way out of the dance halls and barn-dance venues of the Midwest with an upbeat blend of jazz, hillbilly, and down-home blues. The arrangements blended strings, guitar, fiddle and bass, with the rhythmic sounds of urban jazz to reveal something catchy and danceable…and marketable. Before the beat was modernized into the mass market country blandness that paralleled mainstream pop, there were the pioneers including Milton Brown, Bob Wills, Adolph Hofner, Spade Cooley, Light Crust Doughboys, and a host of others. Drop in and celebrate this classic fusion of America’s best
Category Archives: Country Swing
Revisiting Cindy Walker
We’ll take a step back and revisit the songwriting of Cindy Walker in today’s show…told in her own words and lyrics. The music of Bob Wills wouldn’t have been the same without her and neither would the 20th Century American songbook. Her ability to turn a phrase, tailoring songs for diverse styles would lead to country, rock and pop standards alike. Her music was as comfortable in the hands of Gene Autry and it was on a crooning binge with Dean Martin or as a passionate performance of Roy Orbison. We’ll hear from these performers and more, including Asleep at the Wheel, Les Paul, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and The Byrds in the show today as our antenna work at the KOWS is about to move forward. Exciting times. Tune into KOWS radio on kowsfm.com/listen or download the free app from the App Store or Google Play.
Sagebrush Sweethearts
When we say roots, we mean roots. This week on Deeper Roots we’ll kick off Women’s History Month by paying tribute to the many female performers from early country, the Golden Age, and well into our latest century. Influential, talented, and more than many of the opposite sex, not afraid to make a political statement now and then. We’ll also be sharing some recent Americana ‘cowboy sweethearts’ with songs that are both winsome and traditional. Tune in to Community Radio for Sonoma County as we go back to the 30s with the Girls of The Golden West, Patsy Montana, and The Tune Wranglers. We’ve also got some favorites from Margo Smith, Dale Evans, Rose Maddox and Dolly Parton to share with you.
Sugar Moon
We’ll be settling into some classic country sounds from the golden age alongside some contemporary sounds that stay steadfast in a sound that rings true and authentic. We’ll hear some classics from Wynn Stewart, Buck Owens, Waylon Jennings, Webb Pierce and others. There will be plenty of original sounds from BR5-49 and Chuck Mead, k.d. lang, Don Edwards, and The Mavericks to remind us of the clear line between authentic and what’s attempting to pass for country these days. Tune in for a mix of swing, story songs, love songs, and foot-tappin’ treasures on Deeper Roots this week on Sonoma County Community radio where the music will always take you somewhere other than the main stream. We seldom venture there.
More Western Swing
The home page of the Western Swing Society describes western swing as “a division of the American phenomenon known as jazz [fusing] elements of musical roots…including blues, Dixieland, ragtime, big band, country, pop, and breakdowns.” That kind of explains why we revisit this genre so often here on Deeper Roots. What it has most in common with jazz is the use of improvisation; what it does try to do is to take things one step further: make it dance-able. The foot-tapping rhythm and the encouragement of participation drew audiences far and wide from the north, south, east and west. This week show meanders through some fun sounds including tracks Hank Penny, Milton Brown, Ocie Stockard, and (of course) Bob Wills. We’ll have some tribute songs and old standards for you on Sonoma County community radio.
Moon Baby
A laid back Friday morning in store as we celebrate a century of America’s music with classics from every corner. Dave Stroud hosts with a potpourri of doo wop, gospel, rock, R&B, soul, and country wrapped up just for Deeper Roots listeners out there. We’ll be hearing from Johnny Cash, The Ravens, Mike Farris, (more than one) Bo Diddley, and The Neville Brothers as we watch the trees turn their late summer umber under warm Sonoma County September skies. Tune in for the very best, including The Living Sisters and The Andrews Sisters, side by side, this one time. Only on Community Radio because all other $$$ stations fail to play with heart.
Stay a Little Longer
Country swing is the thing this morning on Deeper Roots. We won’t be spending time on the ancestral roots as much as we’ll be exploring the small local bands of the Southwest. We’ll use Jean A. Boyd’s excellent reference “Dance All Night : Those Other Southwestern Swing Bands Past and Present” as our rudder and guidebook in the show. The heartbeat of any American genre is usually the local band and during the later years of the Great Depression and throughout the Second World War people were looking for something uplifting to dance to. In Texas (and really all across the Southwest) the sound was country swing: a mix of jazz, blues, polka, latin and hillbilly fiddle. We’ll be featuring the small time big names like The Tune Wranglers, Cliff Bruner, Leon Selph, Floyd Tillman, and Adolph Hofner and so many more in our show this morning, direct from our studios in downtown Sebastopol.
Golden Age of Country
It’s a time that followed the second World War and baked into its foundation were the sounds of Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Spade Cooley, Bob Wills among others. The music was inspired by bluegrass, folk, blues, and jazz with Country Swing and barn dances sparking a popularity that blanketed the American musical landscape from the Pacific to the southern Atlantic. It was a sound that solidified the title of “Country and Western” and he’ll be sharing some of the great performances in this week’s episode: Patsy Cline, Little Jimmy Dickens, George Jones, Ferlin Husky, and Webb Pierce…just to name a few. While the sound would fade away sometime around the turn of the seventies, when rock n’ roll would elbow it (more like steamroll it) out in popularity on the airwaves, it is revered and restated to this day as a cornerstone of what we recognize as Americana music.
Truck Drivin’ Songs
White line fever…that endless gray ribbon…asphalt mixed with bennies…and a whole lot of attitude around semis, mile markers, county mounties, and bobtail returns. Terminology you won’t hear too much on our show…except for this show which shares the songs of the long-haulers. Bill Kirchen, Red Simpson, Buck Owens, and Merle Haggard are just a sample of the performers joining in the fun where Cliff Bruner & His Boys introduce us to the first truck driving song “Truck Driver Blues” right up to that bad boy honky tonkin’ guitar trucker Dale Watson. You can’t escape the 18 wheel energy on Sonoma County Community Radio…straight from the Bakersfield asphalt to yours.
Songs of Cindy Walker
Enduring and prolific…country and pop songwriter Cindy Walker’s name is not as familiar to many but her music certainly is. She wrote early western-flavored pop and country swing pieces for performers like Bing Crosby and Bob Wills, composing hits for Hank Snow, Gene Autry, Al Dexter, Eddy Arnold, and others…almost owning the country charts in the 1940s. Her music endured well into the sixties and seventies, covered by Roy Orbison, Ray Charles, and dozens more. Her custom was to rise early and write songs, typing her lyrics on a pink-trimmed manual Royal typewriter while her mother, Oree Walker, would work out the melodies to her daughter’s words. They would station themselves in Nashville five months out of the year to help market the music, returning home to Mexia, Texas where Cindy would live out her life. Join us on a special run of Americana: the songs of Cindy Walker.