Blind Willie McTell was a gentleman songwriter and musician who could play and sing popular music and storied blues in the same voice. He could bring you into the story and emotion of a song while he picked in the Piedmont style and, with the supporting rhythm of Curley Weaver, painted a picture that could be visceral, or maybe light-hearted, sometimes stern in narrative, or whatever the mood or lyrics demanded. Bob Dylan’s own poetry about Willie is summed up in the verses of his song “Blind Willie McTell”, written in 1983 but not released by Dylan until 1991 on his “Bootleg Series 1-3”:
I can hear them tribes moaning Hear the undertaker’s bell Nobody can sing the blues Like Blind Willie McTell
Join Dave Stroud for a new two hour episode highlighting the life, words, and music of Blind Willie McTell in this week’s episode of Deeper Roots: A Century of America’s Music, produced exclusively for KWTF 88.1 FM, community radio for Sonoma County.
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.
It’s another two hours celebrating the best of the last century of America’s music on Deeper Roots. In this week’s episode, Dave Stroud will be exploring the secular side of Thomas Dorsey, as Dorsey performed early century blues as Georgia Tom, and then more about Dorsey’s sacred side as the Reverend Thomas Dorsey in the mid-to-late century. As the Great Depression brought chaos to the lives of many, including the performers of the day, Dorsey finalized a lifelong transition from the secular to the sacred, although there is clear evidence that personal misfortune had its hand in the move. The evening’s playlist includes excerpts from Dorsey interviews, music by contemporaries and those who were influenced by his music, as well as pieces performed by Dorsey as Georgia Tom, featuring Tampa Red on guitar. Johnny Cash, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Kansas City Kitty, Clara Ward, and Sweet Honey in The Rock are among the acts who we’ll hear in a show called “Deeper Thomas Dorsey”.
Our show explores traditional pieces and versions that have been covered by contemporary artists. “Mama Don’t Allow”, “Soldier’s Joy”, “That Nasty Swing”, “Worried Mind”, and “Mary of the Wild Moor” are just a handful of the selections we’ll share in our show tonight. Some of the performers included in our set include Ivory Joe Hunter, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, The Dixon Brothers, and Byrd Moore. Join Dave Stroud tonight at 9 on KWTF as he shares the stories of the music, song stories, and performers from the last American century…it’s roots music that does matter.
Deeper Roots: A Century of America’s Music goes deeper…back 87 years to the summer of 1927 when Ralph Peer, a producer for the Victor Talking Machine Company visited the town of Bristol, Tennessee scouting for talent. He brought with him the equipment necessary to capture those first-take performances which would come to be known as The Bristol Sessions. From late July through early August artists such as The Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and the Stoneman Family made recordings in a makeshift studio inside downtown Bristol’s Taylor-Christian Hat Company. Johnny Cash once said that “These recordings…are the single most important event in the history of country music.”
Join Dave Stroud as Deeper Roots goes beyond the more notable names from these recordings and, with a certain leaning to the country sounds, he will also reveal the gospel and folk tradition that came out of these and the later Johnson City Sessions. We’ll hear from The Johnson Brothers, The Stamps Quartet, Alfred Karnes, Uncle Eck Dunford, and a host of others.
Deeper Roots explores a minor genre in this episode; coming from early 19th century minstrel shows and adapted with bawdy humor, double entendre, and biting sarcasm. A little bit blues, a little bit country, and always in your face, they call it “hokum”. The English dictionary defines the term as ‘nonsense’ or ‘trite, sentimental, and unrealistic’ but as a musical genre, it goes well beyond those simple definitions. As noted in Wikipedia, “Although the sexual content of hokum is generally playful by modern standards, early recordings were marginalized for both sexual “suggestiveness” and “trashy” appeal, but still flourished in niche markets outside the mainstream. Our show will take a journey through early to mid-century examples featuring numerous pieces by Tampa Red, Papa Charlie Jackson, Memphis Minnie, and Georgia Tom as well as some later fifties R&B examples that drew from the hokum well including The Dominoes, Julia Lee, and Bullmoose Jackson. Join Dave Stroud for a fun mix of musical nonsense that is anything but trite or sentimental.
Blues is the sound we share with you in this episode of Deeper Roots and we’ve got two solid hours of sounds from the Mississippi Delta, Chicago, and the clubs, juke joints, and barrooms found at points in between. Based on a fine blog post by the great American roots music author Peter Guralnick that you can find here, we follow what we found to the letter and note. You’ll hear the sounds of Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Otis Spann, and Robert Nighthawk in a playlist the Guralnick handed to his son as a reverent introduction to the music that’s inspired his writing and passion for American roots music.
On Deeper Roots …”The 99 Percent Blues”, featuring music reflecting on the Great Depression, The Dust Bowl, and the recent financial crisis…songs and stories of the working class. We take a trip back to the twenties and share with you the sounds of Vernon Delhart, Joe Stone, Harry McClintock, and others…and we’ll share the more contemporary songs of Ry Cooder, Randy Newman, and Uncle Tupelo.
No.
Artist
Title
Album
Buy
1
Uncle Dave Macon
All In Down And Out Blues [2003 Remastered]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
2
Joe Stone
It's Hard Time
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
3
Vernon Dalhart
The Farm Relief Song
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
4
Charlie McFadden
Times Are So Tight
Bankers Blues – A Study in the Effects of Fiscal Mischeif
5
Snooks and the Memphis Ramblers,Julia Gerity and Her Boys
Sittin' on a Rubbish Can [Remastered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
6
Ry Cooder
No Banker Left Behind
Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down
7
Little Village
Do You Want My Job
Little Village
8
The Reverend J.M. Gates
President Roosevelt Is Everybody's Friend [Remastered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
9
Randy Newman
Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)
Good Old Boys [Expanded] Disc 1
10
The Weavers
Brother Can You Spare a Dime
The Weavers Almanac
11
Cisco Houston
Do Re Mi
Best Of The Vanguard Years
12
Woody Guthrie
Dusty Old Dust (So Long It's Been Good to Know Yuh) [Remastered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
13
Mac "Harry" McClintock
Hallelujah, I'm a Bum [Remastered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
14
Fiddlin' John Carson
Taxes On The Farmer Feeds Them All [Remastered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
15
Ry Cooder
Taxes On The Farmer Feeds Us All
Into The Purple Valley
16
Hank Penny
Taxes Taxes
Bob Dylan: Radio Radio – Theme Time Radio Hour, Vol. 5 [Disc 4]
17
Ralph Willis
Income Tax Blues
Bankers Blues – A Study in the Effects of Fiscal Mischeif
18
Fenton Robinson
Somebody Loan Me A Dime
Living The Blues: The 70's Blues Classics
19
Bob Miller
The Rich Man And The Poor Man [Rematered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
20
Roy Bargy;Ramona
Raising the Rent [Remastered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
21
Bing Crosby
Brother Can You Spare A Dime?
Columbia Records' 125th Anniv.
22
William (Bill) Moore
Ragtime Millionaire
1927-30-Ragtime Blues Guitar
23
Lead Belly
The Bourgeois Blues
Best Of Leadbelly
24
Ry Cooder
The Bourgeois Blues
Chicken Skin Music
25
Uncle Tupelo
No Depression
No Depression
26
Sheryl Crow
No Depression In Heaven
The Unbroken Circle: The Musical Heritage Of The Carter Family
27
The Carter Family
No Depression In Heaven
Harry Smith's Anthology Of American Folk Music, Volume Four
28
David McCarn
Poor Man, Rich Man (Cotton Mill Colic No. 2)
Gastonia Gallop – Cotton Mill Songs & Hillbilly Blues 1927-1931
29
Cedar Creek Sheik
Jimmy Shut His Store Doors [Remastered 2003]
Poor Man's Heaven – Blues And Tales Of The Great Depression – When The Sun Goes Down Series
30
Woody Guthrie
The Jolly Banker (Woody Guthrie)
Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection [Disc 2]
31
Bo Carter
Times Is Tight Like That
Bankers Blues – A Study in the Effects of Fiscal Mischeif
Blues from the Mississippi Delta highlights this episode of Deeper Roots: A Century of America’s Music. The sounds are as deep and wide as the river and area of the south that gave it its name. The traditional music of all of the sounds that passed through, from the Civil War, to the music from the hills, the barrooms, brothels, and front porches are blended into a raw and sinuous sound that moved north with its performers, landing in the urban stages of the north. Chicago, New York, St. Louis, and Detroit…all born in the Mississippi Delta. We’ll start with Charley Patton, Garfield Akins, and Robert Johnson and work our way forward to Johnny Shines, Robert Lockwood Jr., and Honeyboy Edwards.
Deeper Roots explores the influences, the music, and those who themselves were influenced by the yodeling brakeman. His music was influenced deeply by the blues of Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Willie Jackson, and Blind Lemon Jefferson. And the performers he influenced read more like the comprehensive list of jazz, blues, country, and pop greats….to this day. It is sure to entertain with the music of Rodgers, Bob Dylan, Lefty Frizzell, and Merle Haggard.
