Friday, Oct 2 @9am on KOWS
Under Western Stars
Saddle up, but don’t expect the usual Hollywood version of the American West. This week on Deeper Roots, we’re heading beyond the familiar cowboy standards to explore the songs, stories and voices that grew out of cattle trails, bunkhouses, chuck wagons and wide-open country. We’ll reach back nearly a century for early cowboy recordings from Carl T. Sprague, Billie Maxwell, Harry “Haywire Mac” McClintock and Jess Morris, where ornery horses, stampeding cattle, lousy wages, worse cooking and lonely nights on the trail were simply part of the job. Along the way we’ll discover a West far more diverse than the one portrayed on the silver screen, with music touching on Black cowboys, Mexican and California traditions, ranch hands, buffalo hunters, outlaws and gunfighters. We’ll then follow those old trails forward through Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and into the hands of later storytellers including Ian Tyson, Guy Clark, Mary McCaslin, Dom Flemons, Corb Lund and Colter Wall. Somewhere between history and mythology lies the West that survives in these songs — sometimes romantic, sometimes brutal, often funny and rarely quite what we’ve been led to expect. Join Dave Stroud for a trip Under Western Stars.
Saturday, Oct 3 @3am on KOWS
Blue Moon Americana Episode 580
Episode 580! Somehow Blue Moon Americana has wandered, rambled and occasionally stumbled its way through a whole lot of Thursday mornings—and we’re marking this particular milestone the only sensible way we know how: by cueing up another couple dozen tracks and seeing where they take us. This week there’s a particularly healthy stack of new releases, with country, folk, blues, roots rock and singer-songwriters all elbowing one another for a little room. We’ll hear some young voices carrying old traditions forward, a few veterans who clearly haven’t run out of things to say, and more than one song that reminds us there’s still plenty of life left in three chords, a good story and a little twang. And because shiny and new only gets you so far, we’ll rummage around in the back pages as well—pulling out some folk, western swing, classic country and rootsy rock & roll, with a few familiar voices and unexpected detours along the way. It’s less talk, more music, and absolutely no concern for keeping the genres properly separated. That’s pretty much how we got to Episode 580 in the first place.
Saturday, Oct 3 @9am on KOWS
High Lonesome Country
There’s something about being lonesome that country music understands better than just about any other kind of music. It might be a love that walked out the door, a highway stretching toward nowhere, or just that empty feeling when the night gets a little too quiet. This morning on Deeper Roots, we’re calling it High Lonesome Country, and we’ll be traveling through more than seventy years of country music that knows that feeling all too well. We’ll hear from some familiar voices along the way—Hank Williams, Dolly Parton, Roger Miller and Don Gibson—but we’ll also dig a little deeper into the dusty corners of country music for Charlie Moore, Clyde Moody, Bill Clifton, Jimmie Skinner and others whose names may have faded some with the passing years, but whose music certainly hasn’t. From honky-tonk and bluegrass to old-time country and sounds from a newer generation, we’ll find out that lonesome never really goes out of style. So settle in for two hours of lost love, empty rooms, weary hearts and that unmistakable high lonesome sound. This is Deeper Roots.
Thursday, Oct 8 @Midnite on KOWS
Jukebox Saturday Night
The journey on this encore episode of Deeper Roots is a long train ride back eight years as we celebrate the record, the radio, and those disc jockeys who shook the tables and chairs from the soda shops to the bar rooms. We’re going to rev that theme up once again, but with a bit of a twist. This morning’s show pays tribute to that nickel, dime, and quarter evaporator known as the jukebox. We’ll also extend the music selections to include sounds of record hops, soda fountains, and the healthiest way to partake in any or all of the festivities. Tune in for new and old, including country sounds from Kitty Wells, Buck Owens, and Bill Walker; R&B from Shirley & Lee, Charles Bronw, and The Marigolds; and pop straightaways from Gale Storm, Dodie Stevens, and Brook Benton. All this on a midnight Saturday show on KOWS community radio.
Thursday, Oct 8 @9am on KOWS
Saturday, Oct 10 @3am on KOWS
Blue Moon Americana Episode 581
We’ll open the show today with a song about a ‘gal who invented kissin” and wind around from the Golden Age of Country to a newly resurrected John Prine release, some Norton Buffalo and Bruce Springsteen and more vintage tracks from the vaults, including an early single from Willie Nelson. New Americana tracks are in very good supply and in very good order so you won’t want to miss the bright new sounds to be had. They include Ian Noe, Orville Peck, Neil Young, Joy Oladokun, Brandy Clark and Rhiannon Giddens. The North Bay’s own Doug Jayne will be in the mix as well with a track from his 2010 album Folk City and we’ll complement the Deeper Roots episode from last week with Colter Wall’s Cowpoke from his 2020 album Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs, a particularly spare, yet delightful song of the western myth. Join us as we deliver two hours of the very best that Americana has to offer each and every Thursday morning at 9 Pacific on KOWS Community Radio. We’d love to have you.