Long before we were graced with the voices of SAM, Siri, or Alexa, and before we could carry our smart devices around like a wallet or clutch…there were the women and men who served us from behind the receiver: the telephone operator. Maybe they didn’t have the answer to everything but they could connect us to about anyone anywhere in the world. But it usually cost more than we were willing to admit. This week’s Deeper Roots show takes on the theme of the telephone operator, the long distance connector, and the person with a soul…and usually a quick hangup if there were not enough coins to drop in the pay phone. It was the penalty for human interaction I guess. We’ll let Jorma, Johnny Otis, Wanda Jackson, and Eddie Floyd take us on a trip back to rotary dials and party lines in this week’s episode, live from the Santa Rosa studios at KOWS.
Category Archives: Deeper Roots on KOWS
Mambo Baby!
Well, it might be a bit of a stretch, and it might have been a bit of a fad, but it also flavored the beverage. Mambo. A lively mix born of a Latin dance of Cuban descent in the 30s and introduced by Perez Prado to an American audience in the 40s. It found it’s way into the popular music culture from big band to jazz and R&B. This week’s show samples some of the performances that were totally infected by its rhythm. We’ll hear from Mickey Baker, Wynonie Harris, and Tiny Grimes on the R&B side as well as the bandleaders who brassed it up including Perez Prado, Desi Arnaz, and Xavier Cugat.
Western Sunsets
This week’s show has us revisiting the Old Chisholm Trail and prairie passages that resemble all things that follow those romantic icons whose life on the range was less than what their songs usually embellish. In the western sunsets where John Lomax first went out in search of the ‘cowboy song’, we’ll explore more enlightened performances from the silver screen to the deep folk traditions that have become so laminated with romance that it’s hard to see the images beneath. This week’s show will take us from Carl T. Sprague, the original cowboy crooner, to Johnny Horton, Fess Parker, Rex Allen, and Roy Rogers. The music is sometimes sappy (Rick Nelson’s My Rifle, My Pony, and Me), sometimes light (Roy Rogers’ My Chickashay Girl), and other times full of storytelling and history. So many performances to light up the evening sky…just before dusk…just before that ceiling of stars appears in the night sky. Join us for our first live show from our new KOWS studios in downtown Santa Rosa.
Bayou R&B
Back to the bayou once more. This time we keep our focus with laser precision on the rhythm and the blues swirling around in the stew that is Louisiana and the southern climes. You can look forward to some straight ahead blues from Katie Webster, B. B. King, and Lonesome Sundown as well as rhythm vocals from the likes of Art Neville, The Del-Chords, and Joe Richards. I’m telling you…you won’t be hearing anything like it anywhere on Sonoma County radio. It’s a down and dirty bayou collection including selections from the Ace UK archives, the Chess label, and includes some special treats from Little Richard, The Spiders, and King Karl.
Country Songwriters
This week’s Deeper Roots pays tribute to a collection of country songwriters who made an impact on the American musical art form, defining the tone and story that was told. We’ll walk through nearly a hundred years of performances by the familiars: Emmylou Harris, Jim Reeves, Johnny Cash, and Ray Charles, all taking on the songs of A.P. Carter, Jimmie Rodgers, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, and Cindy Walker. We’ll also hear from Dolly, Willie, and Elvis on a cold and wet January Friday in West Sonoma County. Join Dave Stroud as he enters his seventh year hosting our two hour show live from the Sebastopol studios of KOWS Community Radio.
Goodnight Irene
Free form this week. We’re pulling out the stops with a mix of gospel from the King’s Sacred Quartette, Band memories from Steve Forbert and Rick Danko, some sixties garage band, classic R&B from Shirley & Lee and Lloyd Price, and the Motown sounds of Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, and Stevie Wonder. The mix includes country, blues classics, and an After Hours mash-up…all for you…all for community radio on a Friday morning in West County. Join in the revelry.
Who We Lost 2018
We’ll circle back to the past twelve months on Deeper Roots’ Friday evening with a little bit of reverence and a whole lot of thanks. While this past year struck what could be a mortal blow to democracy as we know it, a number of greats (both high profile and ‘under the radar’) were lost along the way. The names may not be so easy to collate with only two hours to share but we’ll do our best. Remembering Clarence Fountain, Eddy Clearwater, Otis Rush, Eugene Pitt, Marty Balin, Lorrie Collins, Tony Joe White, Roy Clark, and so many others on a Friday evening on Sonoma County community radio. Tune into our last show of the year and help us remember what these performers brought us.
Stay a Little Longer
Country swing is the thing this morning on Deeper Roots. We won’t be spending time on the ancestral roots as much as we’ll be exploring the small local bands of the Southwest. We’ll use Jean A. Boyd’s excellent reference “Dance All Night : Those Other Southwestern Swing Bands Past and Present” as our rudder and guidebook in the show. The heartbeat of any American genre is usually the local band and during the later years of the Great Depression and throughout the Second World War people were looking for something uplifting to dance to. In Texas (and really all across the Southwest) the sound was country swing: a mix of jazz, blues, polka, latin and hillbilly fiddle. We’ll be featuring the small time big names like The Tune Wranglers, Cliff Bruner, Leon Selph, Floyd Tillman, and Adolph Hofner and so many more in our show this morning, direct from our studios in downtown Sebastopol.
Country Christmas 2018
It’s a holly, jolly, country Christmas on a Friday morning in West County. We’ll put our political blinders on this morning in search of the merriment that ’tis the season on Deeper Roots. This year’s Christmas special is a collection of country sounds, both new and old, that takes us down a path that mixes contemporary Americana, bluegrass, rockabilly, and classic country into a finely tuned blend of holiday cheer. We’ll be cooking from the Texas panhandle with Dale Watson, taking the high lonesome yule train with Jimmy Martin, spinning yarns with Johnny and Tommy Cash, and dropping by the Waffle House with Bill Anderson. Tune in knowing full well that the dinner’s in the oven and the stockings are all hung by the chimney with care. Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Louisiana Gumbo
Back to the bayou. Back to Bourbon Street. From a house of blues to the small clubs out across the river. We’ll be taking a journey into the deeper wells where the influences include urban blues, jazz, French Acadian, Caribbean, and African American. And one could argue a handful of others. It’s all there in the sounds of south where the pianos and guitar amps are wired into a foundation of tradition…as if performed from a garage or cabin. Cookie & The Cupcakes’ swamp pop, swamp rock from Randy & The Rockets, New Orleans busking from Snooks Eaglin, classic piano noodling from the Professor and Dr. John, and a warm bouillabaisse of southern musical cuisine from Dave Bartholomew and Fats Domino all served up on a Friday evening celebrating a few of the treats on community radio for Sonoma County, KOWS.