Deeper Roots Radio

Our show this week features sweet dreams, swamp pop, Americana, doo wop, and all that makes the past century of America’s music a delight to dream on. We’ll touch on the new album from a legend who is most deservedly having his moment right now with a new album and where a one hit wonder once existed. Tommy McLain’s new album is a revelation and reminds us that music, when carried and shared with a passion like his, will always bring a bright light even in the darkest of times. This week’s show is a free form romp featuring Tommy, Mark Knopfler, Robert Plant, Bill Kirchen, Corb Lund, Bob Wills, Paul Thorn, and a couple dozen others. Some fiery rock and roll blended with country, doo wop, pop and lots of circumstance. Please join in…we’d be delighted to spend a Friday morning with you on Sonoma County Community Radio.

It’s list time! For better or worse, we’re going with the top tier of the Rolling Stone’s Top 100 Country Albums of all Time as our guidepost. There’s some great ones here, in fact the majority are agreeable in our estimation but there are also some “huh?” moments. We’ll just assume that that is par for the course with any opinion-based list by a disparate group of critics. For the most part, it captures the core of country pretty well. We’ll share music from Tom T. Hall, The Carters, George Strait and a few nineties and aught pop stars that made the list because they swim the pop country charts. Join Dave as he walks down the list, one that has its cringe-worthy moments, right alongside moments of pure Americana country gold.

This past October, we lost a couple of very important ties to two whose stars shone bright in both the Golden Age of Country and the Golden Age of Rock ‘n Roll. We’ll take on a dual tribute to the passing of Loretta Lynn and Jerry Lee Lewis. The torch has surely passed but their fire burned white hot as their stars rose, both sharing controversy and almost overnight fame. They also continued to perform into their later years, teaming up with songwriters and performers who were relevant to new generations, but true to their core calling. Our first hour take time to visit Loretta Lynn’s humble but no-nonsense storytelling and the second hour will take us into the whirlwind of unapologetic badassness that was Jerry Lee Lewis.

Crazy rhythm! Big bands, scat vocals, syncopation, snapping fingers, drum and trumpet solos, all packed into two hours on a Sonoma County autumn morning on Deeper Roots. We're celebrating that fascinating rhythm with some classic jazz, smooth vocals, and the voot of Slim Galliard as well as we take a trip through the big band sounds of Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven, Cab Calloway, and Artie Shaw. That's not all, though. We'll also hear the celebrations of rhythm with the brothers and sister teams of the Boswells, the Colemans, the Delta Rhythm Boys, and Three Sharps and a Flat. Sweet and sentimental with a celebratory blast. Join Dave Stroud on a journey that celebrates rhythm with the best rhythm-makers on KOWS Community Radio.

A mixed bag of the soulful sounds with an undercurrent of gospel mixed in this morning. Songs whose construction bears some resemblance or, in most cases, far distant ancestry to the sacred sounds of the church gatherings. The music this morning isn’t really gospel in its obvious form. It’s more the sound of performances that owe gospel music a debt of gratitude for the sound, the rhythm, and the form. Tune in for a bright, shining blend of popular sounds from Paul Simon, Laura Nyro, Curtis Mayfield, Percy Sledge, Mitty Collier, and a couple dozen others as we take a closer walk with rhythm, soul, rock, and pop on a Friday morning in Sonoma County on KOWS, your low power community station with a big heart. Tune in on 92.5 FM or stream us on kowsfm.com/listen.

We’re reaching deep into those roots Americana archives this morning for a free form blend of country, gospel, folk, and blues. Buckets of music planned for your Friday morning: whether you’re here in the warm October folds of Sonoma County or on the other side of the planet, we’re here to soothe the fray of what’s occurring at every corner. The music we have in store includes new tracks from Dr. John and Sweet Megg, Neko Case, the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Haden, Randy Newman and more than a dozen others. Songs about the long road, six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline, and sunrise and sunset couplets. It’s a Friday morning here on the West Coast and our community is always willing to share with you on KOWS-LP Community Radio. Join us, why don’t you.

The 40s and 50s post-war migration brought tough working conditions in Chicago which offered stability over the miserable sharecropper existence of the Delta.  Both were fodder for the some of the very best in classic blues. The production lines of Detroit and other cities on the Eastern seaboard were models of a different kind of work that the Industrial Age had to offer. But the West Coast wasn’t the place you’d expect to find the blues: shipyards, agriculture, and urban sprawl would aggregate so many different styles that rhythm and blues was a fusion of the many different sensibilities that were brought with both performer and listener alike westward from east of the Mississippi. Having the hub of the world of entertainment in the Southland didn’t hurt either. We’ll be browsing the sounds of some of the greats: McCracklin, Fulson, Otis, Mayfield, and (of course) T-Bone Walker in the Deeper Roots morning show today. West Coast Blues led to blues-based rock in large part because of the exposure to the many different styles of the mid-century blues bands and solo rockers. West Coast Blues Roots is the name of our show this morning on KOWS-LP Occidental.

No tribute here, only an exploration of the musical legacy left behind by one of the premier production geniuses of 20th century rock and roll. We won’t dwell on the poor example of a human being attached to his personal legacy; but the music he gave us was pure gold and his ‘wall of sound’ became synonymous with early sixties classics from The Ronettes, The Righteous Brothers, The Crystals, Gene Pitney, and so many others. His later career found him turning up in production studios with the likes of The Beatles, The Ramones, Leonard Cohen, and others. Along the line his name was also attached to a wide range of songs in copyright; songs that celebrated youth, love, blusterous rivers deep, and soaring mountains high. And we’ll fit as much as we can into our two hour show on Sonoma County Community Radio.

 In the early 1950s, trade magazines were bemoaning the overabundance of vocal groups making it difficult for single artists to break through. It was just the beginning of a wave of adolescent boys finding that street corner singers were attracting the neighborhood girls. Well, that’s the story anyway. But it might not have been too far off the mark as the mid-to-late 1950s saw the charts exploding with groups with vocal prowess in both instrumental imitation and harmonies with inglorious sound effects. It would become an cultural art form born in the tradition of some of the vocal groups of the 30s and 40s. This week on Deeper Roots we’ll revisit doo wop’s golden age where the harmonies were tight and sweet and the ballads were recycled gems of the past or low-brow teen crooning of the present. Join us on Sonoma County Community Radio for some of the best examples of Doo Wop’s Golden Age. 

We’ll be spending two hours on a century of hard work, little pay, striking it rich as well as failing to do so. Songs about working the mines, panning in the mother lode, welfare and pittance wages, as well as the country sounds of Merle’s Working Man Blues. Plenty to keep us reflecting on a lifetime of keeping afloat knowing full well that you can’t take it with you. Not necessarily money for nothing and kicks for free but we’ve also got songs about blowing it all on a Saturday night. Join us for music from Johnny Horton, Wynn Stewart, Tex Ritter, Merle, Hazel Dickens, Roy Orbison and a cast of the very best of performances from the past century here on Sonoma County Community Radio.