Jazz guitar masters take center stage on a February Friday in Sonoma County on community radio. Join Dave Stroud as he revisits some of the great jazz guitar performances including tracks from Charlie Christian, Eddie Lang, Teddy Bunn, and Kenny Burrell. This week’s two hour show will also include some country and rock favorites whose guitar work stands alongside the great influential performers of the day….Les Paul, Chet Atkins, and Hank Garland among them.
Category Archives: Early Jazz
420 Music
It’s a topical theme…it’s a medicinal thing…it’s a blend of sounds celebrating vipers and jives from the past century. There is no shortage of material to pull from the well of Americana…whether that be from the 1920s or from the 2010s. We’ll hear mellow sounds from Trixie Smith, Charlie Burse & His Memphis Mudcats, winsome themes from Fountains of Wayne, snark from The Harlem Hamfats, and recent relevance from The Devil Makes Three. While April 20th has passed, the topic is a lively one here in California these days and we’re mostly on friendly terms with the weed…even for those that don’t imbibe. The fact is, we have the freedom to do so if we so choose, right?
Mix of the Blues
Deeper Roots will spend time with a variety of blues styles this week with no focus but the roots of feeling blue, themes about being blue, junker’s blues, bar fly blues, cold rainy day blues, and the dark and somber blues. We’ll feature the urban sounds of Lowell Fulson and Bobby Blue Bland, the smooth sounds of T-Bone Walker, and we’ll also pick on some early jazz and blues vocals including Bertha “Chippie” Hill, Hattie McDaniels, and Memphis Minnie.
Free Form – May 2016
Country sounds from Johnny Cash, Wynn Stewart, and Ferlin Husky kick things off and we’ll run the blues and R&B gamut with B. B. King, John Jackson, and Duke Robillard…who will also complement the sounds of Dr. John. A free form extravaganza continues with early pop and big band sounds, including Helen Forrest vocals, The Boswells, and Harry James.
Pop Music of the 1920s
We’ll revisit the third decade of the 20th century where the social and cultural watershed events following the first World War were more than one could have anticipated. The Jazz Age; Prohibition; Radio and the Victrola meant entertainment could be had in the front room, replacing the family and neighborhood parlor entertainment. While the Great Depression loomed on the horizon, the music that found the middle was hopeful and full of man-meets-girl songs were all the rage…even if signs of hard times to come were easily spotted. Listen in for a chronological selection that includes the sounds of Duke Ellington, Paul Whiteman, Annette Hanshaw, Ethel Waters, and the peerless pop icons Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor.
Free Form – December 2015
Every couple of months, Deeper Roots shares a free form playlist with host Dave Stroud. This week we’ll share ‘contemporary roots’ infused music including the sounds of Howell Devine, Jason Isbell, and Ian Tyson as well as a broad selection of R&B (from The Blenders), early blues (from Blind Lemon Jefferson), and ‘ding dong daddy’ country swing (featuring Bob Wills). We’ll also wrap it up with a festive foodie theme.
Take Me Back – KOWS Nov 18, 2015
Our final show at the old KOWS studio will feature the lineup you might expect…with a couple of themes running through it. The ‘take me back’ theme works well as we bring in Tennessee Ernie Ford, Jimmy Rushing, and Peter Rowan to make the plea and we’ve got the gospel themed pleas of working on a building from The Highway QCs. In addition, we’ve got some doo-wop, some ladies whose theme was ‘blues is her business’, and a run of country swing and bluegrass…all packed into two hours of elementary roots. Tune in after dinner for dessert.
Wild Men and Wild Women
It’s theme time once again and we’re going to find ourselves among the wild and crazy men as well as the wild, woolly women. Round town girls celebrate, burning that candle, and Keely Smith will jump, jive, and wail with Louis Prima. Red Ingle and His Natural Seven will join the Sons of the Pioneers in spreading the word about ‘cigareets, whuskey, and wild, wild women”. Mae West, Julia Lee, Ernie Ford, and Jerry Lee Lewis will keep the party going and Deeper Roots will keep the lights on ’till 11pm sharp (that’s Pacific Time, of course). Join Dave Stroud for another two hours of a century of America’s music on KWTF, 88.1 FM, community radio for Bodega Bay.
Grapes on the Vine
Raising the roof once more on KOWS in West Sonoma County on a bright Saturday morning. And we make it count with an opening salvo of some country swing from Bob Wills, W. Lee O’Daniel, The Light Crust Doughboys, and Willie Nelson. Not to be outdone, we’ve got bluegrass from The Rice Brothers and our own David Thom, gospel from the Hummingbirds, and a special set celebrating the “Poet of the Blues” Percy Mayfield. We’ll also feature blues from Texas and, if we find the time, early century pop from Frank Crumit and Cliff Edwards. Tune in Saturday morning at 9 on KOWS for a dose of roots sounds from the past century of America’s music with Dave Stroud.
Back To The Cotton Club
We follow up to a previous episode and get back to the music of the Cotton Club, the jewel that grew out of the Harlem Renaissance. While it featured the top shelf acts of Harlem, it was also the typical whites-only club where African-Americans could perform but not attend. Despite these Jim Crow policies, what the Cotton Club brought us was a legendary lineup of performers and performances that rivals none in the history of jazz. Our show features the music of Fletcher Henderson, Cab Calloway and his sister Blanche, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford and others whose careers were launched there.