We’re taking a bit of a break to pull the covers out. A lot of the covers we’ll be sharing today come from recent years and cut a broad swath through the past, with a special emphasis on ‘modern sounds’ including new wave, country and rock covered by some of the modern Americana performers that you hear on KOWS Community Radio’s Blue Moon Americana each week (and mornings at 5). Tune in for Jason Isbell, Bill Kirchen, Carrie Rodriguez, Sarah Jarosz, Nick Lowe, and a host of others. A fun run of sounds this morning as we kick off spring with fresh Americana covers.
Category Archives: Theme Time
The Year in Music 1955
The year was 1955. Bill Haley’s Rock Around The Clock blasted off and just around the corner on the charts was Elvis who had a minor hit in 1954 that made some waves with That’s Alright, Mama and Good Rockin’ Tonight. RCA bought his contract from Sun Records for $35K. The minimum wage reached new heights of $1.00 per hour. The Brooklyn Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees in the World Series. The Honeymooners and Gunsmoke debuted on television. And we’ll be digging through the top ten charts of country, rhythm & blues, and pop in a year where the Cold War was a fact of life leading us to duck and cover. Tune in for some Webb Pierce, Eddy Arnold, Four Aces, Mitch Miller, Fats Domino, and Chuck Berry this week on our show that browses those dusty digital bins on a weekly basis on Community Radio here in Sonoma County.
Doo Wop Dreams
In today’s show we’ll be spinning up some special doo wop tracks, and not necessarily the ‘big hits’. We’ll be sharing some under-the-radar sounds from some of the greats and some of the ‘never-heards’. Doo wop’s heyday was clearly brief, running from the early urban street corner sounds of the early 1950s to the more commercially viable and polished sounds of the early 1960s. Tune in for the popular sounds of The Cadillacs, Little Anthony, The Flamingos, and The El Dorados as well as off chart vocal gems from The Pastels, The Quotations, The Kodaks, and The Fascinators. All with a story and all in clean fun on Sonoma County Community Radio.
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.
A Bowl Of Soul
This Friday’s Deeper Roots takes another dip into the brass and sass of soul and funk sounds from Duke, Kent, Motown, and beyond. We’re taking a bright and soulful circuitous route from Detroit to Memphis, Chicago, Philly, and the Chitlin’ Circuit. A little bit of rare soul beach music thrown in with some northern soul. We’ll hear from Mitty Collier, Donnie Elbert, Eddie Floyd, Willie Tee and an incredible roster of the known and not-so known from the past century. We’ll also pay tribute to Betty Davis, a soul and funk pioneer songstress who we lost this past week. Dial us up every Friday morning at 9 Pacific.
The House That Ruth Built
The decade of the fifties found the sounds of rhythm and blues being best represented on the Atlantic Records label. Founded in 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson, the catalog of artists and the quality of production were unparalleled for their time. And while Ertegun’s biography is subtitled “The House That Ertegun Built”, the performers were also undisputed heavyweights: Big Joe Turner, Ray Charles, Clyde McPhatter, and Lavern Baker to name a few. Things, however, exploded when a lady dubbed “Miss Rhythm” arrived with “Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean” leading to another moniker: “The House That Ruth Built”. This week’s show will feature some of the great tracks from Ruth Brown and the many contemporaries who made the label synonymous with R&B well into the seventies and beyond. Tune in for a special treat. Rock, rhythm, and dynamite doo wop from the Atlantic vaults on a Friday morning.
Brand New Day
That new car smell…applied to everything we can think of…all to celebrate this new 2022 thing…365 more rotations and one long trip around that giant luminous orb. What a long strange trip it was. So let’s celebrate all that’s new as we move into our second decade of celebrating the past century of America’s music. This week, we’re taking on the theme of ‘brand new’….new heartaches, new cars, new neighbors, new mornings, and new hopes…same as the old hopes no doubt, but with a different slant. We’ve got performances by Mel Tillis, Dion, Ruthie Foster, Fats Domino, Steve Earle and a couple dozen others to keep our dreams worth holding onto. Let’s put COVID in the rear view. Let’s send the truth-doubters back to their rat’s nests. And make good trouble. Welcome 2022 with a promise to hold those who led an insurrection and those who voted for the leaders accountable. Tune into the show. I promise we’ll keep it real.
Who We Lost 2021
New Year’s Eve will bring a look back at those we’ve lost this past year. 2021 was another year of COVID-19 with a couple of variants slipping into and out of the world. We wait patiently, for the most part, for vaccines and adult behavior to work. Unfortunately, there is a selfishness about our species that cannot be denied. This year’s losses have no boundaries musically: everyone from Biz Markie to Stephen Sondheim, Vicente Fernandez to Nanci Griffith, Lloyd Price to Stonewall Jackson. Performers of our lifetime. We go into 2022 having hope. Join Dave Stroud for a musical look back.
Dustbin Dynamite
A bit of a departure this week as we celebrate a mix of mayhem from the fuzzed out garage bands, greasy ducktails, oddball instrumentalists and mostly mondo misses tempered with a good dose of surf confection this week. We’re celebrating the three chord sensibilities of mid-century rock and roll rockabilly, surf, and proto-punk spit-ballers. They’re pulling out some wailing sax solos, fuzzed out bass beach thumpers, and some tongue-in-cheek easy listening to spin you around in your chair on an October Friday morning. You’ll be entertained by the likes of Tony Casanova, Sparkle Moore, Little Carolyn Sue, and Wild Bill and the Blue Denims…a forgotten list of lost culture that will take you down a rabbit hole that you hope might never end…or maybe just the opposite. This week’s show is dynamite from the dustbin of minor labels and first time producers that can only make the grade on Community Radio. Tune in for some mondo fuzz mayhem.
Guitar Routes
It’s a deep dive we’re taking today into the digital dustbin of the past century with the focus being on fretwork, string bending, bottlenecks and tripping the lap steel fantastic. That’s right…a collection of fascinating tonal embellishments that cross the genres of country, jazz, blues, folk and pop. Our show this morning will feature some Lonnie Johnson, Les Paul, Chet Atkins, John Fahey, Grady Martin and a few others. It’s a trip with a few well knowns but more not so much and you’ll just have to make room in your day because the sounds can’t be ignored. We’ll hear standards like Guitar Rag, Riders in the Sky, Black Mountain Rag, Indiana March, and a special playlist highlighting the work of Grady Martin in both country and rock. We’re once again hoping for the best as October and November approach.