Deeper Roots Radio

The decade of the sixties saw top 40 radio get it’s cue from the sounds of the Motor City. The house that Berry Gordy built was overflowing with musical talent. And he knew how to use them. The Funk Brothers and other studio musicians coupled with the songwriting of Barrett Strong, Smokey Robinson, and the team of Holland-Dozier-Holland…were at the core of what was produced in Detroit’s Motown. There were also the performers that blossomed, some becoming household names: Mary Wells, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Martha and the Vandellas, and countless others. There is no question that this was the Motown Decade. This week on Deeper Roots we’ll be walking through the sixties Motown sound with just some of those performers…and more. Friday mornings at 9 Pacific on KOWS Community Radio.

Harlan Howard is said to have coined the term “three chords and the truth”. He’s also the guy that gave Willie Nelson his first job as a songwriter after the two met up at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville in 1960. Harlan was a well-established songwriter in Nashville by then and would go on to become one of the most prolific songwriters of his generation, having penned over 4,000 songs. To lead off next month’s release of Willie Nelson’s 73rd solo album, a tribute to Howard called “I Don’t Know A Thing About Love”, Deeper Roots will share a small sampling of Harlan Howard’s music. Songs that played a big part in defining the Golden Age of Country Music featuring the likes of Waylon Jennings, Skeeter Davis, Jan Howard, Buck Owens, and Patsy Cline. We’ll also hear a couple of Harlan’s own performances as well. Friday morning country on Sonoma County Community Radio.

We’re going silent today. Vocals-wise, anyway. Tune in Friday morning for the best rock instrumentals from the late fifties through the sixties as we journey through a slick set of the very best from Santo and Johnny to Mason Williams with our core focus being on the wild chart sounds of Duane Eddy, Sandy Nelson, The Tornados, Link Wray and more teen beat, pop and rock favorites from a particularly fertile time for rock n’ roll. Whether they were riffing on classic sounds of the past or blasting off into the outer stratosphere with sounds of space and surf, the instrumentals peppered the charts with themes for the time, owing more to roots than we appreciate. Join the fun on KOWS’ Friday mornings at 9 Pacific on Deeper Roots.

The landscape this morning is smothered in ominous clouds as the music we have for you features the gospel beat with a blend of suggestive celebratory, suspicious, and devil-may-care songs. We’ve got the fire and brimstone bible-thumping sounds of Brother Claude Ely, some classic gospel warnings from The Golden Gate Quartet, a pastiche of British Clerkenwell nuggets from The Real Tuesday Weld, The Weavers, Lonnie Johnson, and a whole lot more. An eclectic blend of songs of Satan, dark nights, and sinner’s bemoaning their dirty little religion on another Friday morning collection of sounds on Deeper Roots. Tune in. The ground is saturated with blues, gospel, country, and even some hillbillies from hell…just for you.

It may be Friday the 13th, but we won't be bothered with the superstitious. Instead, we'll go with traditional and popular country nuggets as our topics with some couplings of contemporary and vintage. We’ve gathered a collection of modern country covers from the likes of Rosanne Cash, Solitaire Miles, Charley Crockett, Chuck Mead and others and we’ll be coupling them up with originals and favorites from the distant past. Merle Travis, Red Foley, Hank Williams, and The Louvin Brothers take the stage from a dream-filled past. We’re celebrating country classics from fifties, sixties and seventies and having fun doing it while kicking back. You don’t need to be wearing pretentious boots and hats to appreciate the easy sway of classic country … you just need to close your eyes and appreciate the performances … well, unless you’re driving.

Elvis Presley’s performances, in particular those from his first decade, were based in some very deep roots. Those roots tapped into almost anything that could be heard in the south on that cultural touchstone of radio. Blues, big band, jazz, hillbilly, pop, gospel and country all played an enormous role in molding the iconic performer he was to become. In our Deeper Roots show this week we’ll be exploring the ‘influencers’ of the day; songs that played on the radio, songs that Elvis personally revealed as his favorites, songs that he enjoyed with his family as a young boy. We’ve got Mahalia and Sister Rosetta tracks, Little Junior Parker and Jimmy Reed, Red Foley and Roy Acuff, and a host of others to share this week so we’re hoping that we can remember how radio’s lifeline to culture that spoke to Elvis in a very, very big way.

The river of time flows on as our sturdy yet terminal transport is like any raft, a fragile one as our bindings become untethered. Let’s tip our hats and remember those who, over the past century, have contributed to American culture. This morning’s show is about the performers, the songwriters, the session musicians, and those behind the scenes who made a lasting contribution. We thank them as 2022 comes to a close. Tune in for a comprehensive and reflective show, our final Deeper Roots show of 2022, as we look ahead to the new year that is filled with so much promise.

This week’s show looks back at the year 2022 with a focus on the umbrella genre known as Americana. We’ll be digging deep into the releases that mattered last year, sharing some of the fresh new releases that made an impression. There are the singer/songwriters, the old hands with fresh perspectives, as well as those who have taken tradition and dressed it up fresh for the party. We’ll hear tracks from some of the very best albums of the year, including a few off the beaten one. Some great sounds coming your way from Aoife O’Donovan, The Black Keys, Tami Neilson, and Hurray for the Riff Raff. Pour yourself a cup of your favorite fresh brew, put on the headphones, and find yourself some new favorites from under that big tent they call ‘Americana’ on KOWS Community Radio. 

December’s arrived and we’re going to get ourselves warmed up for the Hot Stove League, New Year’s Eve, football playoffs, reindeer on the roof and all the rest of it. But our show today will take on a common thread: songs about ‘the street’ or streets or boulevards, avenues … only the surface streets, not the highways. Dave’s picked out a collection of songs that are sure to stir emotion bringing home music that take on the ‘street’ topics from the genres of country, early pop, rock, folk, blues and all the rest. We’ll hear from Dylan, The Ink Spots, the Punch Brothers, Charlie Spand, the Orlons and a couple dozen others taking on an eclectic blend of songs where the streets as the muse. Tune into Sonoma County Community Radio’s KOWS 92.5 FM, streaming to all of planet earth on kowsfm.com/listen. Deeper Roots brings you a morning of sounds from the locales of Easy Street, Lonely Street and 4th Street…directly from Orchard and 7th.

When trying to put together a Deeper Roots episode that covered the great session masters from the past one hundred years it became exceedingly clear that the show would need to be broken up into multiple parts. Percussion, keyboards, brass, bass and all the rest will follow but this week we’re going to focus on the string masters; those guitar stars who account for the bulk of Top 30 hits that graced our lives over the second half of the 20th century. They include Hank Garland, Grady Martin, James Burton, Joe Messina, Glen Campbell, Jimmy Johnson and, of course, Tommy Tedesco. There are many others who deserve the recognition but our show is only a two hour show and, even at that, picking only three or four examples per performer doesn’t do it justice. We’re going to give credit where it’s due…those who stood in the shadows.