Deeper Roots Radio

Nat King Cole's transition from a respected jazz pianist to a mainstream icon was a perfect storm of technical brilliance, a groundbreaking vocal style, and a persona that radiated "suave sophistication." While jazz purists sometimes lamented his move toward pop, it was his ability to blend jazz's complexity with pop's accessibility that made him a household name. He delivered hit after hit with a penchant for candidates (or entries from) the Great American Songbook. With this in mind, we’ll take this week’s show in an direction that honors the songs he became most famous for…from Bobby Troup’s Route 66 to Billy Strayhorn’s Lush Life…covered by others including some rocking tributes, some ballads in the style of country and bluesy soul numbers from Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke. We don’t stop there. Join Dave Stroud for another celebration from a hundred years of America’s music

This week’s episode finds the heart of rock ‘n roll; that recipe of a rhythm and blues with just the right pinch of just about everything else. Chuck Berry’s legacy stands as one of the most important stories in rock ‘n roll’s 75 or so years. His music, particularly in those early years, was covered ad nauseum but it was always done best in an artist’s own voice. Why? Because the music speaks for itself. We’ll share music from Sleepy Labeef to Nina Simone, Linda Ronstadt to Peter Gammons (!), and Conway Twitty to the late, great John Hammond. Covers include You Never Can Tell, Sweet Little Sixteen, Nadine, and No Money down with another dozen, all honoring the King (or is it the Prime Minister) of Rock ‘n Roll whose 100th birthday will be celebrated later this year.

We’re going to take another journey through those dusty, neon-lit archives of Western swing, a genre that famously thumbed its nose at musical boundaries. While the “King” Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys rightly claim the throne, the true soul of the movement lives in the smaller, rowdier units that blurred the lines between Appalachian fiddling, big band jazz, and low-down blues. For our listeners, we’re looking past the “San Antonio Rose” to the grit of the lower Great Plains. We’ll be digging into the deep-cut recordings that highlight the genre’s technical audacity, exploring a sound that kept the dance halls jumping through the Depression proving that Western swing was always much more than just “hillbilly jazz”—it was a revolution you could dance to.

It’s a free form morning as Dave once again digs out some favorites and some deep tracks from the last century of America’s music. He’ll be paying his respects to Doug Sahm’s keyboard master, Augie Meyers, while at the same time picking on some thematic tones, including that of heaven, an early century legend by the name of Lulu, early rhythm and western from 1950 as well as a collection of soul tracks that glistened in the winds from 1967. Tune in for The Ink Spots, Jimmy Newman, John Prine, The Castaleers and Fats Waller…a sampler from the past one hundred years. Free form mornings here on KOWS occur only once in a blue moon so you’ll want to be tuning in for more music discovery from all genre corners. You're invited to come on up to the house where we’re ready, willing and waiting to entertain, putting the madness of a wannabe king behind you for a two-hour joyful jaunt where you'll find three chords and the truth.

This week we celebrate Women’s History Month the way we know best — by following the music. For more than a century, women have shaped the sound of America’s story. They didn’t just sing the songs — they wrote them, bent them, electrified them, sanctified them, and sometimes had to fight just to be heard over them. From the tent shows and juke joints of the 1920s to arena stages and global spotlights, women have carried rhythm, blues, gospel, country, rock, pop — and the truth — on their shoulders. Tune in this coming Friday morning for a journey that begins at the foundation. Before rock and roll. Before crossover radio. When the blues was still carving its name into shellac and history. We’ll then make our way into the genres of jazz, country, rock, and gospel where women’ influenced the deeper roots of American music and you find their fingerprints everywhere — in the blues phrasing, in the gospel shout, in the country confession, in the pop hook, in the rock-and-roll roar.

Join Dave Stroud for a look at a fascinating, if somewhat cringey, slice of music history, where white cover versions of black R&B nuggets were whitewashed across the pop charts in the 1950s. While the ‘cover version’ was a standard industry practice, so were the ‘sanitized’ versions of R&B hits by black artists that made them more ‘palatable’ for white radio audiences, spotlighting white artists while the original creators stayed in the shadows. It’s certainly something that could be the topic of numerous Deeper Roots episodes but we’ll limit our scope to a two hour exploration, measuring the original against the cover. On one side of the house we’ll hear from Fats Domino (a popular source for the practic), Big Joe Turner, The Moonglows and a handful of others. The other side of the house has the names of Pat Boone, Art Mooney, The Fontane Sisters and others among the dubious roster ‘favorites’. Radio and media helped to democratize the landscape but today’s parallels with the frothing ‘look over thereness’ of right wing hate is unmistakable and hard to ignore. It was George Santayana who observed that “those who do not learn from history, are bound to repeat it.“

Blue and cool is the mood as we spin the dial back to the 1950s — a decade of chrome, tailfins, Cold War tension, Beat poetry, and late-night cigarette smoke curling toward the ceiling of a dimly lit club. Beneath the middle class culture of the day, there was a restless heartbeat of jazz. This was the era when bebop matured into cool, hard bop caught fire, and modal explorations began reshaping the language of improvisation. Artists like Miles Davis refined understatement into revolution, John Coltrane stretched harmony toward spiritual searching, Thelonious Monk bent notes and expectations alike, and Ella Fitzgerald turned the human voice into a virtuosic instrument. Jazz in the ’50s wasn’t background music — it was conversation, protest, poetry, and possibility. Dave’s selected some important landmarks and deep tracks that take you into those dusty digital bins of jazz and improvisation this morning on Deeper Roots.

Spring’s just around the corner but we’re all holding out with rain, wind and more California sunshine in our forecast until then. Don’t you think that this might call for a party? Well, some of us do and we’re going to mix up the country with the blues, the rock with the rockabilly, and the brassy with the sass as we prepare for the holiday known as President’s Day. I suppose the toddler in the basement wants that named after him, too. Can someone explain the rules of common decency and sense to President McFuddlepants? Please. I beg of you. We’ll leave him out of the party today, though, as we hang in there with a delicious spread of the very best music from the past century, including Mitty Collier, Dr. John, Marty Stuart, Merle Haggard, John Fogerty and Elvin Bishop. We’ll also hear from a local favorite, Doug Blumer and The Bohemian Highway, with a reminder that “The Party’s At Our House”.

It may be Friday the 13th but that won’t stop us from fortifying ourselves with a ‘luck and fortune’ theme in today’s show. Hopefully, that will tip the scales. May our luck and fortune hold out until the next election. You’re welcome to drop in to our slightly superstitious edition of Deeper Roots on a day that usually sends people dodging ladders and eyeing black cats with suspicion. Whether you’re a believer in the 'unlucky' stigma or you consider yourself a master of your own fate, we’ve curated a playlist designed to explore the highs and lows of the cosmic dice roll. We’ll be spinning tracks that dive deep into the world of luck and fortune with some high-stakes anthems of the casino floor to the soulful laments of those down on their luck, we’re covering every corner of the wheel of fate. But...knock on wood…just in case.

Free form sounds are the order of the morning as we set sail for a two hour tour of sounds from the last century once more, leaning on a pretty exciting group of performers. You can tune in each and every Friday morning here on KOWS-LP Occidental where our word is our bond. Join Dave Stroud once again as he shares a selection of tunes by the Zion Harmonizers, Buck Owens, Mink Deville, Johnny Burnette, and Kay Kyser. It’s a fun mix of genres…some from the American Songbook, some from Bourbon Street, some from the Brill Building and a blend from the farther reaches. Tune in for a delightful Friday clamoring from Occidental’s own station.

We turn once again down that dark and dusty road in country music history—where temptation rides shotgun, regret sits in the back seat, and the Devil just might be waiting at the crossroads. From ballads of fear and heartfelt tales to outlaw confessions and modern Americana shadows, we’ll be sharing tracks that flirt with fire, bargain with fate, and wrestle with salvation. The Devil, or if you will Satan, drops on by as our recurring country music theme this morning with selections from a host of favorites: BR5-49, The Louvin Brothers, Cowboy Copas, and Bob Wills as well as some off-brands like Ray Winfree, Kitty Lee and Powder River Jack, Jesse Floyd and a couple dozen others. They’re all bemoaning the Devil’s due. So pour a drink, dim the lights, and listen close… because in country music, when the Devil comes calling, he often sounds a lot like the truth. Tune in Friday mornings at 9am Pacific for yet another spoonful of your favorite Deeper Roots concoction.

This week we’ll look a little deeper under the charts, focusing on the year 1959, a time when teenage targeted music encouraged new dances, new forms of self-expression and a sound whose influence went beyond the sweetheart, white bread sounds of middle America. To say the least, older generations associated it all with some sort of moral decline. But the sounds of the post-rock explosion laid the foundation for everything that followed: the rise of the teen market, generational conflict as a defining social theme and a sound that was a vehicle for identity and change. Adolescence itself was being redefined. We’ll tune into one of our favorite themes: under the charts. Songs you likely haven’t heard but a few I’m sure you have; tune in for music from Robin Luke, Tommy Sands, Chuck Berry, Carl Mann, Joe Antel and over two dozen others in a two hour sock hop blast here on KOWS Community Radio.

We’re going to be excavating the country archives, dusting off the 45s and 78s with abandon and making it a morning of deep tracks while the dust on the needle collects. Country music storytelling was often smeared with the tangled webs of cheatin’, drinkin’ and Sunday mornin’s blinding gleam of redemption…and the stories would start all over Sunday night. This week’s show doesn’t look for the hits so much as it looks for examples of classic themes from the late forties right into the seventies. Post-war hillbilly developed into what we know as country music and you’ll be treated this morning to the likes of Tony Douglas, Carl Butler, Anita Carter, Carl Belew and a host of others…some known, some hardly recognized. The selections are a special lot. So drop in why don’t you?

Another free form musical delight is ready and waiting for your ears this coming Friday morning. We dig into some mid-century nuggets from the country genre with Red Foley and Ernest Tubb as well as Merle Haggard, Asleep at the Wheel and Joe Ely. That, of course, hardly covers the two hours. There’s also some hot rhythms from NRBQ, Daddy Cleanhead, Slim Harpo, Fats Domino and the sweet and brassy sounds from Billie Holiday, Johnny Mercer, and Babs Gonzales. Our new year won’t make promises but our hopes are all we’ve got, remembering that hate will never win if you don’t let it. There’s been wars fought for much less.