“The Devil Ain’t Lazy” is a song by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys and it is also the title of this week’s Deeper Roots show. In our weekly ramble through the last century of America’s music this Friday night at 9, we explore how that malevolent spirit known as the devil has been a foil and muse in song. We start it off with the Almanac Singers and the Irving Berlin piece from pre-war, “Get Thee Behind Me Satan”, move into a 1928 musical sermon called “Warming By the Devil’s Fire”, and find ourselves in country bible land with the Louvins, Hank Williams, and Marty Stuart. In between we’ve got lots of jazz, gospel, blues, and some modern revelations about our culture’s call and response with Lucifer himself.
This episode of Deeper Roots explores music celebrating the “Father of The Waters”, “The Big Muddy”…”The Mighty Mississippi”. Between its head, Lake Itasca in Minnesota, to the point where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi is responsible for the watershed of 31 states, although its banks only border on 10 of them. Over the centuries, it’s been an inspiration in traditional song and story. Join us as we are entertained by the likes of J. J. Cale, The Mississippi Sheiks, Bessie Smith, Dr. John, and a host of others in a show about a natural wonder that is part of our national identity.
Two heads are better than one…indeed. Deeper Roots features music performed in pairs in an episode called “Duos and Duets”. The music will feature our usual assemblage of genres blended for a Friday night. They’ll include the heavenly country sibling harmonies of The Louvins, The Delmores, and the Whitsteins, special duets featuring Johnny Cash, John Prine, Blind Willie Johnson, and Otis Redding, as well as a full helping of pop, jazz, and rock.
Let’s celebrate a popular topic: food! Shall we? It’s a century of America’s music covering potatoes, pork, beans, cornbread, and biscuits…as well as some of your favorite desserts. And we’ll also celebrate the barbecue, another favorite immigrant tradition that had, by the 19th century, become a place of communal congregation in the American South.
We’ll be singing for our supper with Helen Humes, struttin’ with some barbecue with Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five, stoppin’ in at the donut shop with Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, stomping the blues with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, and sitting down to cake that Eileen Barton baked.
Our show is Songs of The Civil War. Deeper Roots plays a selection of music that explores the passions, purpose, and politics that led to the war. Join Dave Stroud as he shares the music of the battlefield, the hymns from homes, and the traditional music that soldiers from both sides would adopt to pass the time, to bond, and to help ease the fear of an unknown fate in their longing for home and family. We’ll hear a number of contemporary performers including the Carolina Chocolate Drops, David Wilkie, John Doe, and David Grisman as well as those long past like John Hurt, The Carter Family, and Paul Robeson. Be sure to tune in.
Deeper Roots celebrates its first holiday special this weekend spending two hours celebrating a wild yuletide journey filled with blues, jazz, gospel, R&B, and a bit of country. It’s our Blue Light Christmas Special! This year marks the release of a third volume of excavated Christmas recordings by Document Records out of the UK. These are the folks that have brought us the Blues Odyssey series by Bill Wyman and, most recently, they’ve teamed up with Third Man Records for an incredible set of re-mastered Charley Patton and Mississippi Sheiks vinyl releases. We’ll play a number of cuts from their most recent Christmas release, “Blues Blues Christmas” as well as tracks from the first two volumes. The show features performers like Kansas City Kitty, Titus Turner, Bumble Bee Slim, and Smokey Hogg…as well as a blend of country pieces from Merle Haggard, Nick Lowe, and Jimmy Martin. Keep in mind that our Deeper Roots podcasts are always available later in the weekend on deeperroots.podomatic.com for any of you who can’t make the party!
This episode has us belly up to the bar, exploring music that’s all about bad habits and those elements that are not very good for health and harmony…and the performers make that very clear. We’ll hear “It Ain’t Far To the Bar”, “Caffeine and Nicotine”, “Wacky Dust”, and a host of other songs that tell the story of misbehavior, anti-sobriety, barrooms, and dens of iniquity. We’ll hear happy, we’ll hear sad, and we’ll hear all those emotions in between…all from performers like Merle Haggard, Victoria Spivey, Johnny Tyler & His Riders of the Rio Grande…and so many others.
The story and tradition of the music of the Appalachians can be traced back to Scottish and English ancestral roots. The book “Tennessee Strings” by Charles Wolfe does a good job of finding the path from traditional ballads such as Barbara Allen and those of Lorena during the Civil War into the present day. It also traces a clear path from the early 20th century performers like Fiddlin’ John Carson to the sounds of Uncle Dave Macon and the early years of the Grand Ole Opry.
In this episode of Deeper Roots, we acknowledge the contributions of Tennessee to the country Americana art form, that drew both from sources in the white rural music of East and Middle Tennessee as well as from the church music of the singing congregations and the blues and jazz emanating from urban Memphis. With the commercialization of this musical fusion through radio and recordings, Tennessee soon became a national center for country music.
Featured performers include G. B. Grayson, Al Hopkins and His Buckle Busters, Uncle Dave Macon, and a couple of sets that feature the songs about Tennessee. We’ll hear about Nashville before it became the center of commercialism that it is today, the 1927 Bristol Sessions, and the Grand Ole Opry when it only resembled a dance hall social with WSM radio microphones held in an insurance building’s gathering hall. We’ll also hear a number of pieces celebrating the state of Tennessee.
We’ll be remembering Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967). Deeper Roots: A Century Of America’s Music host Dave Stroud visits the many different songs performed by Woody, his contemporaries, and some of the artists he influenced. In addition, we’ll hear excerpts from the Library of Congress interview where Alan Lomax asks Woody to share some of his personal stories and Woody makes the best of it.
From the Oklahoma Hills where he was born to the Great Northwest where he composed songs for the Columbia River project and into the heart of New York City, Woody spoke for those who would not be heard and railed against injustices that would not be spoken of out of fear. We’ll hear from Bruce Springsteen, The Byrds, Arlo Guthrie, and Billy Bragg (to name a few).
Our theme in this week’s episode of Deeper Roots…American Songwriters. Deeper Roots explores selections from some of the great American songwriters and a variety of interpretations by a host of performers. We’ll hear the music of Stephen Foster, Willie Nelson, Thomas Dorsey, and Johnny Cash from the likes of Bob Dylan, Jimmy Lunceford, and Sweet Honey In the Rock. Of course, two hours will only scratch the surface…
