Category Archives: Jazz

Grapes on the Vine

Percy Mayfield
Percy Mayfield

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.

No.
1Artist Title Album Buy
2Asleep at the Wheel/Johnny Gimble Big Balls in Cowtown The Very Best of Asleep at the Wheel Since 1970 Amazon
3Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys I Had Someone Else Before I Had You Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 5 Amazon
4The Light Crust Doughboys Blue Guitars Western Swing: Hot Hillbilly Jazz & Blues – 1935-1947 Amazon
5Skeets McDonald Fuss and Fight Skeets McDonald – Heart Breakin' Mama (Gonna Shake This Shack Tonight) Amazon
6W. Lee & His Hillbilly Boys Congratulate Me Western Swing Chronicles Vol. 4 1933-1938 Amazon
7Willie Nelson Cherokee Maiden You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker Amazon
8Warren Smith Got Love If You Want It The Sun Country Box CD4 So Long, I'm Gone Amazon
9Bobby Hicks & Del McCoury We're Steppin' Out Tonight Bluegrass Number 1's: A Collection of Chart-Topping Songs Amazon
10Ralph Stanley Are You Washed In The Blood A Mother's Prayer Amazon
11Ralph Stanley Dad's Old Rocky Field Old Songs & Ballads Amazon
12The Rice Brothers Grapes On the Vine Bluegrass Number 1's: A Collection of Chart-Topping Songs Amazon
13The David Thom Band The Little White Church That Old Familiar Amazon
14Selah Jubilee Singers I Saw the Light Gospel Quartets 1921-1942 Vol. 2 Amazon
15The Selah Singers I'll Be Satisfied Capitol Records' From The Vaults, Volume 5 – Roots Of Rock 'N' Roll – 1944-53 Amazon
16The Dixie Hummingbirds Christian's Automobile 20th Century Masters – The Millennium Collection: The Best of the Dixie Hummingbirds Amazon
17Nina Simone I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free Forever Young, Gifted & Black: Songs Of Freedom And Spirit Amazon
18Aretha Franklin River's Invitation Queen Of Soul: The Atlantic Recordings [Disc 2] Amazon
19Percy Mayfield Strange Things Happening ABC Of The Blues Vol 28 Amazon
20Ray Charles Hit the Road Jack Genius & Soul: The 50th Anniversary Collection Disc 2 Amazon
21Buddy Miller Please Send Me Someone To Love Midnight And Lonesome Amazon
22Freddie King Look On Yonder Wall Woman Across the River Amazon
23The Mississppi Mud Mashers Bring It On Home To Grandma Flashbacks #3 CopulationBlues 1926-1940 Amazon
24Texas Alexander The Risin' Sun As Good As It Gets: Country Blues [Disc 2] Amazon
25Blind Lemon Jefferson Easy Rider Blues Classic Sides Disc 2 Amazon
26Ishman Bracey Woman Woman Blues (Pm 12970, L-239-2) The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 2 (1928-1932) Amazon
27Charlie Spand Ain't Gonna Stand For That (Pm 12856, 15454–) The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 2 (1928-1932) Amazon
28Jean Brady and Big Bill Broonzy Knocking Myself Out Flashbacks #1 Drug Songs 1917-1944 Amazon
29Lightnin' Hopkins Buddy Brown's Blues (98 Degree Blues) The Complete Prestige-Bluesville Recordings [Disc 2] Amazon
30Frank Crumit There's No One With Endurance grimriper2u@yahoo.com FRANK CRUMIT Amazon
31Cliff Edwards K-K-K-Katy & When You Wore A Tulip CLIFF EDWARDS grimriper2u@yahoo.com Amazon
32Herbert Payne Smoke Clouds Flashbacks #1 Drug Songs 1917-1944 Amazon
33Al Jolson Toot, Toot Tootsie (Goo'bye) 50 #1 Hits Of The '20s & '30s Amazon
34Billy Joe Shaver Hill Country Love Song Oxford American Southern Music Texas Amazon
35Marty Robbins The Strawberry Roan Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs Amazon

Fair and Warmer – KOWS May 23, 2015

Deeper Roots on KOWS
Deeper Roots on KOWS

The show kicks off with some mid-century country fiddlin’ courtesy of Curly Fox but makes a quick left turn with a set about liars, tattlers, and some straight-forward testifying from Sister Rosetta Tharpe. We’ll also be entertained with some classic roots from the Dallas String Band, Lead Belly, E. C. Ball, and a tribute set to Sam Cooke.

Back To The Cotton Club

Back To the Cotton Club
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.

Forties Rhythm

Forties Rhythm
Forties Rhythm

Just ahead of World War II, a sound began to bubble up through the floorboards. There was the new, brash, swinging sound of big bands, country swing had surfaced, and jazz was alive and well as an evident inspiration to both. But there was a raw, bluesy, expressive, jump sound coming from the barrooms and halls of the urban expanses of Chicago, Kansas City, New York City, and beyond; something that would become known as R&B and would later be the bedrock of rock and roll. Deeper Roots explores the sounds of Big Joe Turner, Wynonie Harris, Buddy Johnson and a host of others, including the ladies: Effie Smith, Nellie Lutcher, Julia Lee, and Viola Wells. This episode has them all and more…

Deeper Roots Goes To Mardi Gras

Deeper Roots Goes To Mardi Gras
Deeper Roots Goes To Mardi Gras

Fat Tuesday or, translated to French, Mardi Gras, comes but once a year and signals the penitential season of Lent. It also provides us with an outlet for the many things that we do as part of our celebration. One of them involves the backdrop of music. We’ll visit the sounds introduced by the Second Line of “Sugar Boy” Crawford, Fats Domino, and Stop, Inc. We’ll follow with The Meters, Bo Dollis and The Wild Magnolias, Louis Armstrong, and many others in a show that separates our locales by almost 2000 miles. Join Dave Stroud for the big beat coming from the French Quarter, Bourbon Street, and the Mississippi waterfront in our newest episode, another produced exclusively for KWTF, 88.1 FM, member-supported community radio for Bodega Bay, Sonoma County, California.

Blue Light Christmas Special – 2014

Blue Light Christmas Special
Blue Light Christmas Special

It’ s a yuletide blues, country, rock, and pop extravaganza. Deeper Roots celebrates the holidays with a selection of holiday hits from the past century. And we don’t necessarily stop there. You’ll also be entertained by some very special blues and R&B numbers selected from the past, featuring selected tracks from an incredible assortment of holiday tracks featured on the Document Records releases “Blues Blues Christmas”, Volumes 1 through 4.

Join Dave Stroud for music from Louis Armstrong, Butterbeans & Susie, Darlene Love, John Prine, and many, many more.

Deeper Roots on KOWS – December 15, 2014

Deeper Roots on KOWS 12/15
Deeper Roots on KOWS 12/15

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.

Car Theme

Cars Themed
Cars Themed

Deeper Roots takes the theme route in our next KWTF episode, featuring jazz, gospel, country, blues, rock, and R&B that all share the road with stories of that twentieth century cultural icon (and muse): the automobile.  We’ll hear songs of Mercurys, Cadillacs, Fords, and Chevrolets that run the gamut of old and new and tell stories of love in the backseat, first car nostalgia, tragedy on the road, and racing in the streets. Performers in this show includeDavid Lindley, K. C. Douglas, Mink DeVille, Kevin Russell and others who will follow a theme that is one of the more common to come out of our age of assembly lines and the rust belt.

The Paramount Label

The Paramount Label
The Paramount Label

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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/arts/music/jack-white-explores-history-of-paramount-records.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&

 

Blues Divas

Blues Divas
Blues Divas

Some time ago, Deeper Roots explored the female blues pioneers of the early century in a show called “Black Pearls”. In this week’s episode, we’re going to move forward in time a bit, into the mid-century to explore the ‘inheritors’, those women who were influenced by the blues stylings of Sara Miles, Sippie Wallace, and Victoria Spivey. Performers this week will include Julia Lee, Lil Armstrong, Nellie Lutcher, and many others in an episode titled “Blues Divas”. Post-Depression and Post-War jazz, R&B, and blues sounds from some of the influential female artists who, in step with their early century counterparts, would go on to provide a foundation for the many who would follow. Be sure to tune in.