Blogs

The Dead Wax Artist of the Week is Mississippi John Hurt (1892-1966). We're going back to his final album, Today!, from 1966. We'll play three tracks from a vintage Vanguard pressing, including Spike Driver's Blues. John Smith Hurt grew up in Avalon, Mississippi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_John_Hurt). He was a share cropper and a farmer for most of his life, although he had a short, three record recording career in 1928. While these albums had little commercial success, they drew the attention of producer Tom Hoskins in 1966. Tom tracked John Hurt down using the lyrics in the song Avalon Blues, which references Avalon, Mississippi. Tom found John there and convinced him to move to Washington D.C. and record a few albums for the Library of Congress. These recordings were then produced by Vanguard and set John Hurt up with coffee house and small concert gigs, including a well received performance at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZLwd6ymZv8; John Hurt starts at 2:20 on the video).

Crossing jazz genres tonight: big band  --  hard bop  --  west coast cool  --  jazz funk  --  latin jazz  --  and wherever you want to categorize Oscar Peterson. And a ballad by Ella. It's all jazz! Duke Ellington And His Orchestra  *  Sonny Clark  *  Gerry Mulligan  *  Oscar Peterson Trio  *  George Benson  *  Ella Fitzgerald & Joe Pass  *  Tito Puente  *  Art Farmer  *  Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers  *  Charlie Byrd And The Washington Guitar Quintet

Celebrate KDRT's 10th anniversary UNDER THE COVERS--a night of cold craft beer and local cover bands Wealth of Nations (Grateful Dead), Sorta Like Heaven (Cure), and Cold Shot. The festivities take place at the Sudwerk's Dock Store on Thursday, October 23rd, starting at 5:30 pm. Come in costume or at least your PJs and receive an extra raffle ticket for the November 9th Sylvan Esso show presented by the Davis Music Collective. Supporting community radio really can be a blast! $5 cover, all ages.

We all know Parliament as George Clinton’s funky band that gave us “Up for the Down Stroke," “Chocolate City,” and “Tear the Roof Off the Sucker," but Osmium didn’t sound so much like those songs…nope. There’s rock, soul, gospel, country (with yodeling--no kidding!), and even a track with bagpipes on it--and screaming guitar from a guy named Eddie Hazel…yeah, things was real strange in 1970. And it was the last time that the P-Funkateers recorded as Parliament til 1974.  You gotta hear this one to believe it. 

Your host this week is Doug Deep.

Join in this Friday as Dr. Andy visits KDRT and Listening Lyrics. The topic is poetry in today's popular music culture. 

Education:   Ph.D., University of California, Davis (1996),  M.A., University of California, Davis (1992),  B.A., Boston University (1989)

Biography:

Andy Jones has taught for the English Department and the University Writing Program since 1990. Originally trained as a poet and interpreter of poetry, Andy has taught classes at UC Davis on TS Eliot, the Poetry of the Beat Generation, and Close Reading of Poetry, as well as the Advanced Poetry Writing Workshop. As a Lecturer in the University Writing Program, Andy enjoys teaching pre-professional writing classes, and counts among his favorites Writing in Fine Arts, Writing in the Professions: Elementary and Secondary Education, which he has taught once or twice a year since 1996, and UWP 104C: Journalism. Andy was named “Educator of the Year” by the Associated Students of UC Davis in 2006.

Tune in to 95.7 and The Golden Road on October 10th at 6:30 pm for a real cool trip with Bob Dylan and The Grateful Dead.  We'll be playing some of Dylan's very best studio recordings, the Dead doing some Dylan, Jerry Garcia doing some Dylan and some excellent rare material that you just can't hear these days unless you are tuned in to KDRT in Davis!

Replays of this broadcast will be on Sunday, October 12th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm, and Thursday, October 16th from 9:00 - 11:00 pm.

Here's the link to the broadcast and playlist:

http://kdrt.org/audio/golden-road-6pm-oct-10th-2014

"But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here, everybody's gonna wanna dose..."

An hour of jazz guitar, vocals, sax, and flute!

In 1995, Nora Guthrie approached Billy Bragg with the idea of setting music to many of Woody's lyrics to which there had been no music. These lyrics/poems came out of the Woody Guthrie Archive. Billy joined with the band Wilco and they set music to these songs. The album was released in 1998 to critical acclaim, made bestseller lists, and earned a Grammy nomination. The album's title comes from the street in Coney Island, Brooklyn where Woody and his family lived.

Your Host this week is JUSTIN COX

Parker Millsap is the Dead Wax Epsiode 1 Artist of the Week (Wednesday, October 8, 2014). We'll play 3 tracks from his new, debut record "Parker Millsap". This 21 year old Oklahoman plays a stripped-down blend of gospel, blues, and old-time rock and roll. He was featured last month with his three piece band on NPR Music and gave a nice question and answer session (http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2014/09/11/347466848/an-emerging-voice-of-americana-and-oklahoma). In the interview, Parker says that his vocal idols are "Tom Waits, Howlin' Wolf, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles and Freddie Mercury". These influences are all apparent. He was in San Francisco last weekend to perform at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, if you were lucky enough to see him. An Emerging Artist of the Year nominee at the Americana Music Awards festival last month in Nashville, Parker Millsap will definitely be in the rotation of future episodes of Dead Wax.

It's birthday time!  3 important figures in music get recognized on Civilization Phaze IV this Tuesday because all of them are birthday boys on October 7: 19th-century luthier (stringed instrument-maker) Jean-Baptise Vuillaume, iconic cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and Radiohead's mysterious frontman Thom Yorke.