Category Archives: Folk and Tradition

Demon Alcohol

Demon Alcohol
Demon Alcohol

We’ve got ‘songs of the sauce’, so to speak. Our show will feature a century of America’s music with stories of moonshine, rye whiskey, bubbles in the beer, bartenders, and hangovers going as far back as 1928. But we’ve also got a Bob Wills tribute piece from a new Asleep at the Wheel release, indie rockabilly from new Austinians Tammy Lynn & Myles High, R&B truckers The Harlem Hamfats, and local favorite David Luning. Join Dave Stroud for another two hours of a century of America’s Music on KWTF, member-supported community radio for Bodega Bay and all of Sonoma County.

A Dime Looks Like a Wagon Wheel

Deeper Roots on KOWS
Deeper Roots on KOWS

“A Dime Looks Like a Wagon Wheel”….a phrase that was used to indicate how fortunate you felt when just a little seemed so big when you had so little to start with. Old timey music, some sweet R&B from Sam Cooke, country styles from Johnny Cash and Hank Thompson, folk and blues from Dave Van Ronk, Woody Guthrie, and Peter Rowan….and newer sounds from The Far West, Steep Canyon Rangers, and Howell Devine. Two hours of Deeper Roots looks like that same wagon wheel…it goes by fast and we’ll have the very best of American roots music from the past century Saturday morning at 9am on KOWS.

No.
1Artist Title Album Buy
2Hardrock Gunter Boogie Woogie On A Saturday Night Boogie Man Boogie Amazon
3Rosanne Cash Big River Right or Wrong Amazon
4Johnny Cash Big River Get Rhythm [Sun] Amazon
5Bill Monroe Big River Bluegrass 1959-1969 [Disc 1] Amazon
6The Nashville Bluegrass Band The Johnson Boys American Beauty Amazon
7Don Reno/Red Smiley A Dime Looks Loke a Wagon Wheel Together Again Amazon
8Steep Canyon Rangers Good Old Country Baptizing Mr. Taylor's New Home Amazon
9Bobby Hicks & Del McCoury We're Steppin' Out Tonight Bluegrass Number 1's: A Collection of Chart-Topping Songs Amazon
10Willie Nelson Texas on a Saturday Night Revolutions of Time: The Journey 1975-1993 Disc 2 Amazon
11Red Foley Tennessee Saturday Night Hillbilly Fever [Disc 2] Amazon
12Ella Mae Morse Tennessee Saturday Night The Morse Code [Disc 2] Amazon
13Frank Sinatra Saturday Night (Is The Loneliest Night In The Week) Swing And Dance With Frank Sinatra Amazon
14Sam Cooke Another Saturday Night Portrait Of A Legend 1951-1964 Amazon
15Junior Brown Long Walk Back to San Antone Long Walk Back Amazon
16The Green River Boys feat. Glen Campbell Poor Boy Looking for a Home James Burton – The Early Years 1957-1969 Amazon
17Hank Thompson & His Brazos Valley Boys New Green Light, The Vintage Collections Amazon
18Roy Rogers I Can't Go on This Way 1942-1947 (Warped 4561) Amazon
19The Far West Maricopa City Lights The Far West Amazon
20Bo Diddley I'm Looking For A Woman His Best: The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection Amazon
21Markus James Diddley Bow and Buckets Head For The Hills Amazon
22Howell Devine Devil Got My Woman Delta Grooves Amazon
23Skip James Devil Got My Woman Ghost World Amazon
24Rory Block Devil Got My Man Gone Woman Blues: The Country Blues Collection Amazon
25Bonnie Raitt Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead Bonnie Raitt Amazon
26Peter Rowan Dust Bowl Children Dust Bowl Children Amazon
27Woody Guthrie Blowing Down That Old Dusty Road (Going Down the Road Feelin' Bad) Dust Bowl Ballads [Rounder] Amazon
28Ramblin' Jack Elliott Hard Travellin' Dust Bowl Blues Essential American Folk Amazon
29The Reverend Gary Davis You Got to Move At Newport Amazon
30Markus James Goin' Down South Head For The Hills Amazon
31Louis Jordan No Sale Jivin' With Jordan Amazon
32Benny Goodman He Ain't Got Rhythm Sing, Sing, Sing Amazon
33Johnny Hamp Orchestra Ooh! Hoo! Yoo-Hoo! Johnny Hamp at Archive Amazon

Country Gospel

Country Gospel
Country Gospel

We’ve got a show jam-packed with gospel sounds set against a backdrop of fiery fields, unclouded days, and great speckled birds. Join us on our regular two hour Friday night show on KWTF as we take a trip down the country gospel highway, celebrating a style of music that was mostly inspired by the memories of ‘back home’ and the church, where a lot of our performers were first introduced to music. We’ll share that old time religion in spiritual and song from deep in the heartland. We open with some of the classic old time gospel sounds of The Carter Family and J. E. Mainer’s Mountaineer then go flying down heaven’s railway on the Gospel Cannonball while Johnny Cash, The Louvin Brothers, T. Texas Tyler, Hank Williams, and Kitty Wells will be preaching on that old country gospel stage alongside bluegrass gospel favorites from mid-century.And we’ll also hear a couple of new tracks from Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives.

Deeper Roots on KOWS – April 11, 2015

Aimee Semple McPherson
Aimee Semple McPherson

Second Saturday on KOWS…that means a vintage blend of Deeper Roots. Our show opens with some contemporary bluegrass and gets right down to business with some country gospel and blues with an opening admonition from Sister Aimee Semple McPherson punctuated with songs of drinking and old time religion. From there we move on to the jazz sounds of Fats Waller and a run of mid-to-late century country featuring Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson, and the sass of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. It’s another beautiful spring morning in the small West Sonoma County hamlet of Occidental…nestled in the woods along the Bohemian Highway and celebrated from the studios of KOWS Community Radio.

Cajun Zydeco and Creole

Cajun, Zydeco, and Creole
Cajun, Zydeco, and Creole

From the French Quarter back to Congo Square…this episode celebrates a mix of sounds all thrown into a stew that’s been simmering and feeding the soul of the gulf for hundreds of years. Acadian songs, the word Acadian is derived from the French Canadian, were long ballads originating in France and they generally spoke of hard living. Mix that with the Native American and Scots-Irish jigs and reels, and lay it all out in Lousiana where even more influence could be absorbed from the Carribean/Cuban/Haitian populace and there  you have it. We’ll share the early century ‘ancestral’ sounds of Blind Uncle Gaspard and Leo Soileau as well as the music of Queen Ida and Beau Jocque. It promises to be uplifting, wild, and your foot will be tapping…

Songs About Jail

Songs About Jail
Songs About Jail

It’s theme time once again on Deeper Roots. We’ve got songs that explore the topic of jails, prisons, work farms, and the incarcerated. There we find the overnighters, the vagabonds, the jealous lovers, the desperate thieves, and the stories of ladies and gentlemen on both sides of the bars. There will be old-timey cowboy classics from Vernon Dalhart and Carl T. Sprague, modern covers by David Johansen and The Byrds,  blues from Lightnin’ Hopkins and Blind Boy Fuller, and a whole lot more. Join us for the stories of the songs and performers this week on Deeper Roots.

Deeper Roots on KOWS – March 28, 2015

Deeper Roots on KOWS
Deeper Roots on KOWS

It’s our regular (well, even Saturday mornings) show featuring an early country and bluegrass set featuring new sounds from Steve Earle and Robert Earl Keen, Jr. alongside the classic sounds of Buck Owens, Leon Chappell and The Louvins. We’ve got gospel and blues as well as a rare set of sounds from the second omnibus of “The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records”, classic late twenties country and blues. Stay tuned for your morning dose of brew d’Roots and American Roots Breakfast Tea on a spring Saturday morning in West Sonoma County.

Bob Dylan and Tradition

Bob Dylan and Tradition
Bob Dylan and Tradition

While Bob Dylan’s greatest early influence was likely Woody Guthrie he spent his career exhibiting both love and thievery of the Americana music canon. Love, in the sense that he would pay tribute and admire the story-telling, and theft, in that he would copy old lines for his own purposes or reassemble them into a larger story. His not-so-obvious album release titled “Love and Theft” hints at his own sardonic wit in the matter.

Pablo Picasso has been quoted thusly: “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” It’s a concept that goes back much further. The works of T.S. Eliot discuss the concept of how artistic theft leads to the creation of new ideas in art and many of the early playwrights, Shakespeare included, would steal in part or in whole. The argument that Dylan’s intentions are somewhat more nefarious in the era of copyrights and royalties is likely misguided because it assumes that no artist would have previously been paid for their ‘pilfered’ works.

In this episode of Deeper Roots, first broadcast on KWTF Sonoma County March 20, 2015, we’ll spend two hours mining through some of those influences with music from Jerry Garcia and David Grisman, Doc Watson, Frank Crumit, Mississippi John Hurt, and the bard himself in an episode titled “Bob Dylan and Tradition”. In keeping with our theme, parts of today’s show are loosely based, or maybe paraphrased, from a wonderful study of Dylan’s career in the context of American tradition including minstrelsy, gospel, folk, country, pop, and blues…all of those things that Dylan has imparted in sometimes not-so-subtle ways in his music. The book, Bob Dylan in America: the book by Sean Wilentz, contributing editor to the New Republic and Professor of History at Princeton. The book was published by Doubleday in 2010.

The Appalachian-Celtic Connection

The Celtic-Appalachian Connection
The Celtic-Appalachian Connection

In this special edition of Deeper Roots, we’ll spend some time with selections of Celtic origin that traveled with the memories of home from over the seas and into the mountains of Appalachia. These mountains were not only home to immigrants beginning in the 17th century, but also a haven for slaves who escaped the South during the Civil war and 19th century Civil War deserters. Out of all of this, some kind of musical serendipity seems to have happened. We’re excited to have three guests who will be talking about two upcoming events in the Bay Area this month. Joining us by phone will be musician, Celtic music evangelist, folklorist, and professor of music and Irish studies Mick Moloney and traditional Irish musician Athena Tergis who will share some of their insights into the migration of the Irish into Appalachia as well as sorting out the jig, the reel, and the hornpipe. Also joining us to discuss the upcoming event A Celtic Appalachian Celebration: Traditional Irish & American Old Time Music will be Margaret McPeake, one of the producers of the Festival whose credentials are overwhelming. She’ll share details about Irish-American Crossroads, an organization that has been producing the event for the past twelve years.

Deeper Gary Davis

Reverend Blind Gary Davis
Reverend Blind Gary Davis

He was from the Piedmont school of blues guitar but would find a wider audience and following through the work of Taj Mahal, Dave Van Ronk,Bob Dylan, Jorma Kaukonen, Dave Bromberg, and Ry Cooder. The majority of those named actually studied guitar with Davis but his own tutelage was under the legendary Willie Walker. He moved to New York in 1944, preaching and singing on the streets of Harlem, resuming his recording career in the 1960s when his appearances at Newport and other folk festivals brought a seemingly brief fame…but by all indications today, an enduring legacy. If you don’t have his classic album, Harlem Street Singer, produced by Rudy Van Gelder, in your collection…you might want to reconsider. We’ll explore a wide selection of pieces by Davis, by those who influenced him, and the many who were influenced by his music. We’ll also share excerpts of interviews and classic Gary Davis stories by others. It’s a very special two hours on Deeper Roots Radio: A Century of America’s Music with your host Dave Stroud.