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.
Friday, Oct 9 @9am on KOWS
Deeper Soul Roots I
Soul music didn’t suddenly appear in the 1960s. Its roots were a product of decades in church pews, blues clubs, juke joints and beyond. This week, Deeper Roots begins a special two-part journey excavating the familiar classics to explore the fertile ground from which soul music grew. In this first of two episodes, we’ll hear the gospel quartets, blues shouters, rhythm & blues singers and vocal groups who provided the language: call and response, soaring falsettos, sanctified piano, hard backbeats and a delivery that could turn a song into testimony. From The Soul Stirrers, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and the Five Blind Boys to the 5 Royales, Clyde McPhatter, and Little Willie John we’ll help connect the dots. These are the sounds where Saturday night meets Sunday morning—and of gospel fervor, blues feeling and rhythm & blues, all coming together to lay the foundation for something new. Next week, we’ll follow those roots into the first flowering of soul itself.
Saturday, Oct 10 @9am on KOWS
Summer’s Last Stand
Soul music didn’t suddenly appear in the 1960s. Its roots were a product of decades in church pews, blues clubs, juke joints and beyond. This week, Deeper Roots begins a special two-part journey excavating the familiar classics to explore the fertile ground from which soul music grew. In this first of two episodes, we’ll hear the gospel quartets, blues shouters, rhythm & blues singers and vocal groups who provided the language: call and response, soaring falsettos, sanctified piano, hard backbeats and a delivery that could turn a song into testimony. From The Soul Stirrers, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and the Five Blind Boys to the 5 Royales, Clyde McPhatter, and Little Willie John we’ll help connect the dots. These are the sounds where Saturday night meets Sunday morning—and of gospel fervor, blues feeling and rhythm & blues, all coming together to lay the foundation for something new. Next week, we’ll follow those roots into the first flowering of soul itself.
Saturday, Oct 16 @9am on KOWS
Deeper Soul Roots II
Last week on Deeper Roots, we went searching for the ancestry of soul music, following its trail through gospel quartets, blues shouters, rhythm & blues and the vocal traditions that supplied its language and emotional fire. This week, we continue, crossing into the late 1950s and early ’60s, when those ingredients began coming together as a music increasingly recognized as soul. These are the performers who grew from that fertile ground—and the records where you can hear the transformation taking place. We’ll dig beneath many of the obvious hits for early sides from Sam Cooke, Bobby Bland, James Brown, Solomon Burke, Jerry Butler, and others while, at the same time, exploring the emerging sounds of Chicago, Detroit, Memphis and beyond. Gospel’s testimony is still there, as are the blues and rhythm & blues, but something new is taking shape. By the time we reach the early ’60s, we’re no longer listening for the roots of soul. We’ll be hearing from the soul itself.