Deeper Roots Radio

Welcome to a common theme we share on Deeper Roots:  an eclectic blend of stories featuring grifters, the gallows, the law and prison time. Today we’ll be mixing current events with the rule of law and the focus takes on historic anthems of good versus evil. Playlists will feature topics of blind justice, the fate of liars and thieves, and stories of false prophets and demagogues. We’ll welcome them in their own words with pearls of justice that even the January 6th looters, traitors and thieves cannot escape. It’s a cult…and neither democracy nor faith abide much by the cult of personality that’s soiling our Constitution. We’ve got tracks from Dr. John, Three Dog Night, Hugh Laurie, Booker T and Ted Hawkins this week. Join us here on Deeper Roots for an expose about “Fear and Loathing at Mar-a-Lago”.

Break out the libations! Deeper Roots celebrates it’s ten year anniversary on Sonoma County Community Radio and today’s show takes some time to celebrate the blend of sounds we’ve featured with the focus being on our first ten shows. I’ll be grabbing some of my very favorites from those early playlists and sharing them with everyone this morning. Great sounds featured include a trip to Chickashay with Roy Rogers, gospel tradition from Fern Jones, jitterbugging with The Roosevelts, some Duke, Fats, The Louvins, and, of course, Miss Morse (Ella Mae, that is). I’ll look back at some of the shows featured, the many sites visited and the folks that dropped by along the way. A little nostalgia on a Friday morning on KOWS radio and Saturday morning on KRJF and KWTF.

"Gather ‘round everybody, gonna tell you a story, about a little fella, he’s really very mella’, sells the daily papers on Main Street USA. " That’s how we’ll open this week’s show, with a story told by Bill Haley and the Comets from 1955.  It’s a free form throwback road trip from Main Street to the deep South with some blues, country, and roots sounds from the past 100 years. Got some blues from Bertha Idaho, classic country from Hank Williams, some fresh southland sounds from Los Lobos, locally fresh sounds from Doug Blumer and JL Stiles…and so much more as we venture in and around all of the corners, north, south, east and west in today’s show. Friday morning breakfasts have never been so entertaining. Tune us in on 92.5 FM in West County or stream us on your listening device at kowsfm.com/listen.

 We’ll take a step back and revisit the songwriting of Cindy Walker in today’s show…told in her own words and lyrics. The music of Bob Wills wouldn’t have been the same without her and neither would the 20th Century American songbook. Her ability to turn a phrase, tailoring songs for diverse styles would lead to country, rock and pop standards alike. Her music was as comfortable in the hands of Gene Autry and it was on a crooning binge with Dean Martin or as a passionate performance of Roy Orbison. We’ll hear from these performers and more, including Asleep at the Wheel, Les Paul, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and The Byrds in the show today as our antenna work at the KOWS is about to move forward. Exciting times. Tune into KOWS radio on kowsfm.com/listen or download the free app from the App Store or Google Play. 

We’ll revisit the Carter Family this week on Deeper Roots with a collection of covers by their family’s inheritors, classic country and bluegrass favorites, as well as contemporary Americana artists. Aside from being a key ingredient in the ‘big bang’ of country music that occurred at the Bristol, Tennessee recordings in 1927, they would establish a rich catalog of songs and a monument to what American country music would hold as a torch for generations to come. The gathering of the elements of prose, poetry, passages and melodies that A. P. Carter gathered over his years of wandering predates the Lomax era and crossed the threshold when the 1927 encounter with Ralph Peer made history. We’ll hear from The Carters, but also Johnny Cash, Ashley Monroe, Loretta Lynn, Red Allen, and Emmylou Harris (among others) in our show today. Tune in for some of the classics from the family Carter.

A mix of just about everything your ears might need on a Friday morning with the focus being on preparing you for the weekend here in Sonoma County. Wake up sounds with themes that sport the connective tissue of a variety of genres and performers. We’ll hear some Bo Diddley, Chris Montez, Steve Earle, Del Reeves, and more than two dozen others. We’ll be highlighting small themes of trains, boogie Woogie daddies, sad and happy songs, weed and invitations to the party here on KOWS Community radio where free speech is coupled with a promise of no bull. We stream all over the planet on kowsfm.com/listen and will be celebrating the return of our antenna and the FM signal sooner rather than later. Join us.

What a decade. The Sixties. There was, of course, the mainlining of rock that took place, The Beatles, The Stones, Dylan, folk-rock, a rediscovery of tradition and the blues…and then there was something that had been bubbling underneath the pop, gospel, jazz, and rock elements. It would come to be called ‘soul’ and the sixties urban explosion out of a post-war northern cities like Chicago and (especially) Detroit, gave us something uniquely American. And the sixties charts were brimming with Motown, funk, cold sweat, and brassy ballads with a back beat and synchronicity of voice that established itself for good. The Isley Brothers, The Four Tops, The Supremes, Chuck Jackson, Mary Wells, The Temptations, The Impressions…the list goes on…all of these acts and hundreds of others staked their claim to the charts, easily competing (if not comfortably sharing) with the British wave and psychedlic sounds that had stormed the gates. Join Dave Stroud for a taste of 60s soul.

There’s no telling where this week’s show could lead because we’ve got the musical evangelists, pentacostals, and Baptists right alongside those charming bluesmen and rock and rollers to turn up the heat. We’ve got a burning revival of rockabilly, rhythm and blues, and God-fearing country and hillbilly sounds to take us into the weekend. Hooligans and bible-thumping holy rollers are pushing their way through the doors today and we’re here to tell you that we’re not gonna take anyone telling he or she what they can do with their bodies. Today’s performers will feature Sister Rosetta, Brother Claude, The Louvins, Hank Jr., Moon Mullican, and Jerry Lee Lewis…and that’s just a taste. Join us on Sonoma County Community Radio.

The archivists went back to the well for the core of a show first broadcast seven years ago, polished it up some by adding some fresh musical paints to the themes, but left the vintage drapes and findings alone. And this week’s Deeper Roots show is all the better for it. Tune in on Friday morning for songs about the ‘love bug’, private property and trespassers, biblical tales from about fellows named John, and some musical musings about dog houses and ramblers. We’ve the likes of Ry Cooder, Moses Mason, Arthur Smith, The Drifters, and Sharon Jones to help you get your head straight for a weekend to kick off a long summer of our discontent. Your rights. Our rights. When they come for some today, who says they won’t come for you tomorrow.

Country music started genre-life out as something different. Searching for a term more palatable than simply ‘folk’ or, more so, ‘hillbilly’, or ‘western’ music, music industry marketing found the term ‘country’ or ‘country and western’ a much smoother alternative. It softened the fiddle and accordion sounds and, at the same time, tempered the fears of human de-evolution through cultural disappropriation. Although what passes for country music today is a more a caricature of itself, the Golden Age of country, running through the decades of the fifties, sixties and seventies built a solid foundation with some of the great songwriters and performers that weren’t from the big east and west coast hubs. And their music would often be heard ‘peeking through’ the pop charts in a big way, reinforcing the notion that it was, and always had been, a common cultural denominator. Our show this week features some of the very greatest of the latter. Join us!