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.
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.
We’re sitting in for KOWS’ astrologer Matt Savinar in a show that swings with the jive to open things up and then heads down the path of tradition, New Orleans and zydeco spicing, country swing, and an assortment of gospel classics. In particular, we’ve got sets that are a precursor to our Friday and Sunday night specials about Blind Willie McTell, country swing that opens with the magical guitar work of Les Paul, and we remind everyone that Mardi Gras is just around the corner, with a set featuring Professor Longhair, Eddie Bo, and Snooks Eaglin. Join us in this special two hour ‘stand in’ show.
The railroad is the muse for the morning here in Occidental as the show uses the theme of the railroad: the stories of those who built it, the promise of the golden sunrise that awaits at our destination, the sorrow of a love taken away by rail, and the lonesome whistle from some far away valley. As an aside, did you know that Occidental itself was once a bustling community where the train would haul off the timber and bring tourists from San Francisco and cities beyond?
Join us for the sacred and the secular, including Peter Rowan, ELVIS PRESLEY, Kevin Russell, Paul Warmack & His Gully Jumpers, Furry Lewis, and many others as we explore the genres of bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, country, and so much more. #rootsmusic#railroad#Americana
Another beautiful winter Saturday morning in West Sonoma County and it’s time for a collection of hot blues, country gospel, early rock, early century pop, and swinging country on Deeper Roots… everything from Eddie Cantor’s 1922 song about a trapeze and Blind Willie McTell covering Jimmie Rodgers around mid-century, to a track from 2014 from a new band out of New Orleans called Hurray For The Riff Raff…another reason our tag line reads “A Century of America’s Music”. Join Dave Stroud on a brisk Saturday morning from the KOWS studios in downtown Occidental, California.
Lots of early sounds mixed with the new this weekend. Stay tuned for music from the medicine shows, lost provinces, gospel tents, swamps, bandstands, and digital playgrounds. We’ve got Sam Samudio, Shorty Godwin, The Seldom Scene, Shel Silverstein, and Tom Russell in our bi-weekly show broadcast live from the KOWS studios in downtown Occidental, a hamlet tucked into the redwoods along the Bohemian Highway in west Sonoma County. The drought is being beat down and, while we would welcome more rain, we’re hoping that it’s dispersed so that our neighbors can manage without threat of flooding. So we’ll flood you all with a fine collection of performances from the last century of America’s music.
Our show this week will focus on the fire and brimstone of the gospel guitar, including the slide guitar of Blind Willie Johnson, the evangelists like Sister O. M. Terrell, the rhythmic sounds of the Two Gospel Keys, and we’ll also devote a large block of time to the sounds of that splinter genre ‘sacred steel’. While a number of bluesmen like Blind Willie McTell or Gary Davis would use the guitar for an occasional reminder of their faith or to play guest in tent revivals, many of the performers we’ll hear in our show this coming Friday on KWTF will show the best example of the use of guitar as an integral part of the church service itself. Join Dave Stroud for another evening of Deeper Roots.
We’ve got a special Monday episode of Deeper Roots. The show originally broadcast live from the KOWS studios in Occidental, California, opens with some Light Crust Doughboys, fires up some modern country gospel from the Watson Twins and Johnny Cash, then goes for the jugular with a collection of Baptist-flavored gospel from Moses Mason, Mother McCollum, and Madam Edna…and that just scratches the sacred surface. The show also features the secular: jump blues from Jesse Price, jazz from Lincoln Center and Willie “The Lion” Smith. Had enough? You won’t. Be sure to check it out.
Here’s your morning coffee and tea! Join Dave Stroud for a helping of ukulele, blues, gospel, and outlaw meta-modern country sounds. If you haven’t had a chance to find us on a West County Saturday morning, your chance is every second and fourth Saturday morning at 9 PST on TuneIn radio http://tunein.com/radio/KOWS-LP-1073-…. This eclectic blend of music from the past century is also played out on Sundays at 10 PM This week’s show will feature a Langston Hughes reading, some Maria Muldaur, some early century pop from The Boswell Sisters, some cold hard country facts from Sturgill Simpson and Porter Wagoner, and blues from Dave Alvin and Big Bill Broonzy.
Paramount Records was born in 1917 and in the mere fifteen years of their existence they would introduce some of the greatest names in the blues. Ma Rainey, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton, Skip James, and Papa Charlie Jackson are but a few. In 2013, Jack White’s Third Man Records teamed up with Revenant Records to release the first of what would become one of the most ambitious attempts at documenting the story of a record company born from a furniture company that was driven to create product for the record cabinets they sold. Based on the book “The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records”, part two of the omnibus will be released later this year (or in early 2015).
This week on Deeper Roots, we share some of the story…and a lot of the music which was not necessarily limited to the blues but also some incredible gospel, mountain, and jazz recordings. When listening through what Dean Blackwell of Revenant Records calls the “gauze of static”, you’ll hear the music of the last century come alive. Tune in Friday night at 9 o’clock for a rare listen.
