Deeper Roots Radio

It was without question a natural progression. All of the attributes that country inherited from gospel, blues, and jazz resulted in what amounted to competition in the charts (and in some mid-century cultural clashes). Although The Beatles had suggested a kinship with mid-sixties tributes to Buck Owens and Chet Atkins, the only comfortable way to make the marriage work was to have it come from other directions...specifically from cultural prods of Nudie suits, coupled with folk and country nudges, and the inevitable respect for the music. Gram Parsons’ influence on the late sixties rise of something they called ‘country rock’ is easy to find but Dylan’s John Wesley Harding album from 1968, The Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and Leon Russell’s alter-ego Hank Wilson opened the doors to a sound that swept the charts. We’ll hear some originals, covers, and a whole lot more in this week’s Deeper Roots. Hope y’all can join us.

There’s hope in music. And if we need something to carry us forward over the coming years it’s hope. So we’ll take all we can get with all the music we can get. This week’s Deeper Roots show takes us through a blend of genres, making a free form journey across the landscape of America’s music from the past century. We’ll bring you Cannonball Adderley right alongside Hank Thompson and The Neville Brothers, The Doors, Patsy Cline and Mink Deville to start. Dave Stroud’s done some scouring through those dusty digital archives for well- (and little-) known gems with stories and ballads. He’ll be taking you to where country meets soul, jazz meets boogie woogie and where there’s an unlikely fusion of reggae, folk, and zydeco. Topics include wedding days, jiggers of gin, honeydrippers, and the topic of Texas and some big blue diamonds. Tune in this week. Take your mind off the grifters and haters that have polluted the pond.

We're revisiting a show from 2019 and it just happens to be our first show in the new Santa Rosa studios. It is one that celebrates that Old Chisholm Trail and other prairie passages that resemble all things that follow those romantic icons whose life on the range was less than what their songs usually embellish. In the western sunsets where John Lomax first went out in search of the ‘cowboy song’, we’ll explore more enlightened performances from the silver screen to the deep folk traditions that have become so laminated with romance that it’s hard to see the images beneath. This week’s show will take us from Carl T. Sprague, the original cowboy crooner, to Johnny Horton, Fess Parker, Rex Allen, and Roy Rogers. The music is sometimes sappy (Rick Nelson’s My Rifle, My Pony, and Me), sometimes light (Roy Rogers’ My Chickashay Girl), and other times full of storytelling and history. So many performances to light up the evening sky...just before dusk...just before that ceiling of stars appears in the night sky.

This week we’ll take some time away for a celebration of Americana sounds from every corner. It’s a mixed bag of jazz, blues, country, rock, and everything in between in another of our free form eclectic romps here on Deeper Roots. Count on some wild swings and some quiet moments reserved for the corner booth in the show today. Aretha, Cat Power, Etta Jones and Gale Garnett are some of the female vocalists that we’ll feature this morning. We’ll also visit that ‘boulevard of broken dreams’ with Esquivel, some lighter instrumentals from Ethel Smith and Herb Alpert; classic softer side Americana from Chris Isaak and Pokey LaFarge and the polar opposite from Creedence and BB King. What a way to blast on into 2025. Join Dave Stroud as he begins yet another year with the promise of doing the right thing...always.

The past century’s puritanical interlopers, better known as the ‘thought police’, have had their way with music. And we're not talking about just the lyrics (which will no doubt be the source of most of the songs in the show today)...whether that be the sound of the saxophone or Link Wray’s sinister fuzz and feedback...telling us how to think or suggesting that your children would be swayed to the dark side due a mention of Susie getting home past curfew. It’s an age old problem. It’s really stinkin’ thinkin’ if you’d have asked Frank Zappa. And someone did and summarized his opinions thusly: “Bad facts make bad law, and people who write bad laws are, in my opinion, more dangerous than songwriters who celebrate their sexuality.” All the songs this week suffered from some form of censorship, whether corporate or governmental. And we’re going to play them...damned be the fools.