Radio

Already tired of the Christmas music?Listen to these Blues classics

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By Michael Stevenson

I know that many among us dislike the early onslaught of Christmas music playing in grocery stores, shopping malls, government-run immigration detention centers, etc. Years ago, I wrote a Hobbledehoy post claiming there are only ten good Christmas songs. I’ve since expanded that total to thirty songs, which of course destroys my entire original premise. Serves me right for being such a pretentious bastard!

Hrumph.

Anyway, last Sunday I guest-hosted the weekly radio show Shades of Blue on WRIU and played three hours of classic Blues music, sans the mistletoe. During the show, I received a phone call at the studio thanking me for not playing any Christmas Blues tracks (B.B. King, Charles Brown, and John Lee Hooker each recorded Christmas songs) Is there an LP out there titled “I Saw Mommy Kissing Peg Leg Howell?” I wouldn’t doubt it.

Soon it will be time to just “give in” to the Christmas music blitz, but until then, I thought a replay of my Shades of Blue program might be appreciated by the hobbledehoy among us. As John Lee Hooker would say, “I’m in the mood, baby. Yes, I’m in the mood.”

Mike Stevenson, WRIU

LISTEN TO THE SHOW (Below)

PREACHIN’, MOANIN’ & HOWLIN’

• Rev. D.C. Rice “The Same King of Power Over Here” [Rev. D.C. Rice Complete Recorded Works (1928-1930]

• Miles Caton & DC6 Singers Collective – “This Little Light of Mine” [from the film Sinners, 2025]

• Son House “Preachin’ Blues” [1930]

• Tedeschi-Trucks Band “So Long Saviour” [I Am the Moon: II. Ascension, 2022]

• Tom Waits “Chocolate Jesus” [Mule Variations, 1999]

• Harmonica Frank “Howlin’ Tom Cat” (Bo Carter)1952

• Lead Belly “Moanin'” [1935]

• Howlin’ Wolf “Howlin’ for my Darling” [1959]

THE BIG HOUSE & A SMALL KITCHEN

• Bukka White “When Can I Change My Clothes” [1940, Chicago]

• Paul Geremia “Skin Game Blues” (Peg Leg Howell) [Gamblin Woman’s Blues, 1992]

• Delaney & Bonnie w Duane Allman “Come On In My Kitchen” [Anthology Vol. 2]

• Ballaké Sissoko & Piers Faccini “Special Rider Blues” (Skip James) [Our Calling, 2025]

I AIN’T BLUE

• Lonnie Johnson (with Elmer Snowden) “Haunted House” [Blues & Ballads, 1959]

• John Koerner “I Ain’t Blue” [Running, Jumping, Standing Still, 1969]

• Mississippi John Hurt “Keep a Knockin’.”

• Bukka White “Sleepy Man’s Blues” (Bukka White)

• Big Bill Broonzy “Hey, Hey Baby” (Broonzy)

• Big Bill Broonzy “The Glory of Love” (Billy Hill)

JIM JACKSON GOT A DOG NAMED BLUE

• Geoff Muldaur “This Morning She Was Gone” (Jim Jackson)[Sleepy Man Blues, 1963]

• Jim Jackson “Mobile Central Blues” (J Jackson)

• Lovin’ Spoonful “Wild About My Lovin'” (J Jackson)

• David Johansen & the Harry Smiths “Old Blue” (J Jackson)

BLIND WILLIE’s BLUES

• Blind Willie McTell “Last Dime Blues” (McTell )

• Blind Willie McTell “Statesboro Blues” (McTell)

• The White Stripes “Lord, Send Me an Angel” (McTell)

• Francis Cabrel “Comme Blind Willie McTell” (Dylan)

KILLING FLOOR CHICAGO

• Howlin’ Wolf “Killing Floor” (1964, Chess single)

• Robert Johnson “Sweet Home Chicago” (1936)

• Paul Butterfield Blues Band “Born in Chicago” (1965, Elekta)

• Howlin’ Wolf “Smokestack Lightin’ (1956, B-side “You Can’t Be Beat”, Chess)

• Muddy Waters “Mannish Boy” (1955, Chess single)

DICK CLARK’S ICE CREAM FOR CROW

• Television clip from “American Bandstand.”

• Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band “Diddy Wah Diddy” 1966

• Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band Ice Cream for Crow” 1982

MR. JELLY LORD

• Jelly Roll Morton “Boyhood Memories” [Alan Lomax interviews, Library of Congress]

• Paul Geremia “Doctor Jazz” [Gamblin Woman’s Blues, 1992]

• Leon Redbone “If Someone Would Love Me” (Morton) Champagne Charlie, 1978

• Jelly Roll Morton “Winin’ Boy Blues” (Morton) The Last Sessions

• Allen Toussaint “Winin’ Boy Blues” (Morton)  The Bright Mississippi, 2009

BLUES CROONERS AND BELTERS

• Nat King Cole “Blues in my Shower” [1947]

• Nat King Cole “Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good to You” [1943]

• Charles Brown “Trouble Blues” [1949]

• Charles Brown “I’ll Miss You” [1948]

• Bessie Smith “I Got What It Takes (But It Breaks My Heart to Give It Away)” [1929]

• Dinah Washington “Backwater Blues” (Bessie Smith) Dinah Sings Bessie Smith, 1957

Music from Todd Snider, Dion’s classic folkrock LP “Kickin’Child,” and more on The Kingston Coffee House

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WRIU Kingston Coffee House 11/18/25

By Mike Stevenson

A bittersweet show is planned for tonight’s KINGSTON COFFEE HOUSE. We’ll listen to music by Todd Snider, the much-loved Folk artist who tragically passed this week. There’ll also be more cheerful stuff from Bert Jansch’s classic “LA Turnaround”, the lovely Leyla McCalla, John Hartford, birthday-boy Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, and selections from Dion DiMucci’s unheralded folkrock classic “Kickin’ Child.”

PLAYLIST

OPEN: Coffee Time

  • Mississippi John Hurt “Coffee Blues” (Live)
  • Dion “Spoonful” (The Road I’m On: A Retrospective) 1997
  • Dion “Farewell” (m.Trad / l.Dylan) Kickin’ Child 1967

BROKEN HEARTS AND DIRTY WINDOWS

  • Todd Snider “Beer Run” (Near Truths and Hotel Rooms Live, 2003)
  • Todd Snider “Conservative Christian, Right Wing Republican, Straight White Male” (East Nashville Skyline, 2004)
  • Todd Snider “I Can’t Complain” (Near Truths and Hotel Rooms Live, 2003)
  • Todd Snider “John Prine” (Near Truths and Hotel Rooms Live, 2003)
  • John Prine “Souvenirs”
  • Franz Casseus “Lullaby” (Haitian Dances, 1954)

WISH YOU WERE HERE

  • Leyla McCalla “Money Is King” (Neville Marcano) The Capitalist Blues, 2014
  • Yael Naim & Leyla McCalla “Ima” (traditional) Older, 2016
  • Leyla McCalla “Little Sparrow” (A Day For Hunting, A Day for Prey, 2004)
  • Dom La Nena & Rosemary Stanley “Wish You Were Here” (Waters/Gilmour) Ramages, 2020
  • Neil Young “Til the Morning Comes (After the Gold Rush)
  • Tunde Adebimpe Unknown Legend” (N. Young) from Rachel Getting Married, Johnathan Demme, 2008
  • Lukas Nelson & Sierra Ferrell “Unknown Legend” (single, 2025)

MORE LOVE
• Tim O’Brien “More Love” (J. Hartford) A Tribute to J.Hartford: Live From Mountain Stage, 2001
• Tim O’Brien & Kathy Mattea “Gentle on My Mind” (J. Hartford)
• John Hartford “Presbyterian Guitar” Aere-o Plain, 1971
• Sam Robbins “Rosie” So Much I Still Don’t See, 2025

BERT, MONKEE MIKE & SUSAN COWSILL

  • Bert Jansch “Fresh As a Sweet Sunday Morning” (L.A. Turnaround,1974)
  • Bert Jansch “Needle of Death” (L.A. Turnaround, 1974)
  • AJ Lee & Blue Summit “I’m a Believer” (N. Diamond)
  • The Cowsills “Thinking of You” (Cocaine Drain, 2025)
  • The Continental Drifters “Meet on the Ledge” (R.Thompson) Drifted in the Beginning and the End, 2015
  • Fairport Convention “End of a Holiday” (R.Thompson) What We Did on Our Holiday, 1969

KICKIN’ CHILD
• Dion “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” (Dylan) Kickin’ Child: The Lost Album 1965
• Dion “Time In My Heart For You” (D. Dimucci) Kickin’ Child: The Lost Album 1965.
• Dion “I’m In the Mood for You” Kickin’ Child: The Lost Album 1965.
• Dion “Abraham, Martin and John” (Dick Holler) Dion, 1968

Selections from RACHEL GETTING MARRIED, 2008

  • Zafer Tawil “Wedding Waltz”
  • Zafer Tawil “Kym’s Homecoming”
  • Robyn Hitchcock “America”

OH, MY GORD
• Gordon Lightfoot “Early Morning Rain” Gord’s Gold, 1975
• Gordon Lightfoot “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” Summertime Dream, 1976
• Connie Caldor “If You Could Read My Mind” Beautiful: A Tribute to Gordon Lightfoot, 2003

BLUES RUN THE GAME: Paul Simon in London 1963–1965
• The Secret Sisters “Kathy’s Song” You Don’t Own Me Any More 2017
• Jackson C. Frank “Blues Run the Game” (1965)

Hear Bonnie Prince Billy, Freakons, The Rheingans Sisters on “The Kingston Coffee House”

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WRIU Kingston Coffee House 10/28/25

By Mike Stevenson

On tonight’s KINGSTON COFFEE HOUSE, you’ll hear songs about heroic union organizers, deadly mine disasters, wailing orphans, and coal mining’s grim history of economic and ecological devastation in a set we call Dark As a Dungeon. We feature the wonderful collaboration between Freakwater and The Mekons! (“Freakons”, of course!)

In hour two, we will be taking a deep dive into the music of Will Oldham (aka “Bonnie Prince Billy”)

In the third hour, we play a set called Little Devils and Dark Angels – haunting music for the Halloween season provided by Faun Fables, Lankum, The Rheingans Sisters, Josienne Clarke and Róis 

Along the way, you’ll hear some classic Greenwich Village folk music from Fred Neil, Tim Harden and Karen Dalton

PLAYLIST

Ann Sheridan – Coffee shop banter from “They Drive by Night” (1940)
Freakwater – “Waitress Song” (Old Paint, 1995)
Rod Stewart – Tomorrow Is a Long Time (Dylan) Every Picture Tells a Story, 1971

DARK AS A DUNGEON
Merle Travis – Dark as a Dungeon (Folk Songs of the Hills, 1947)
[From the LP Freakons, 2019:]
Freakons – Blackleg Miner (traditional)
Freakons – Abernant 84/85 (The Mekons)
Freakons – Dreadful Memories (Sarah Ogan Gunning)
Freakons – “Corrie Doon”/”A Coal Miner’s Lullaby” (Matt McGinn)
Cowboy Junkies – “Mining for Gold” (traditional)
The Journeymen – “Dark as a Dungeon” (Travis) Coming Attraction: Live! 1962

GREENWICH VILLAGE FAVORITES
Fred Neil – Everybody’s Talkin'(Fred Neil, 1967)
Fred Neil – Ba Di Da (Fred Neil, 1967)
Tim Hardin- “Misty Roses” Tim Hardin #1 (1966)
Karen Dalton – “Something On Your Mind” (Dino Valenti)
Bobby Darin “If I Were a Carpenter” (Hardin)
Rod Stewart “Reason to Believe” (Hardin) Every Picture Tells a Story, 1971

Featured Artist: Will Oldham
Will Oldham/Palace – “New Partner” Viva Las Blues (1995)
Will Oldham/Palace – “Oh Lord, Are you in Need?” (There Is No-One Who Will Take Care of You, 1993)
Bonnie Prince Billy – The Dragon Song (from the film “Pete’s Dragon”, 2016)
Bonnie Prince Billy – “Intentional Injury” (from the film “True Detective”)
Bonnie Prince Billy & Dawn Landes – “Dark Eyes” (Bob Dylan)
Bonnie Prince Billy & Dawn McCarthy -“What Am I Living For” (What the Brothers Sang, 2013)
Joan Shelley “The Fading” (Like the River Loves the Sea, 2019)
Trembling Bells & Bonnie Prince Billy – “I’ll Be Looking Out for Me”
Bonnie Prince Billy “One of These Days” (The Purple Bird)
Johnny Cash “I See a Darkness”(American II; Solitary Man, 2000)

The HOBBLEDEHOY SET: Little Devils and Black Angels
ROIS – “Angelus II” (Mo Léan, 2024)
Jean Ritchie – “The Little Devils” (traditional)
ROIS – “Caoine” (Mo Léan, 2024)
The Rheingans Sisters – “Devils” (Devils, 2025)
ROIS – Oh, Lovely (Mo Léan, 2024)
Lankum – Fugue
Faun Fable “Black Angels” (Counterclockwise, 2024)
Lankum “What Will We Do When We Have No Money?” (Cold Old Fire, 2017)
The Rheingans “The Great Devil / Mr. Turner’s (Devils, 2025)
Josienne Clarke “The Madler Horror Story” (Far From Nowhere)

Hear early Tom Waits and more on “The Kingston Coffee House”

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WRIU Kingston Coffee House 10/14/25

By Mike Stevenson

Early Tom Waits
Early Tom Waits

In the first hour of THE KINGSTON COFFEE HOUSE, we feature tracks from Tom Wait’s first three albums, Closing Time (1973), The Heart of Saturday Night (1974), and Nighthawks at the Diner (1975), which were more folk-leaning.

Hard to believe, but Waits released The Heart of Saturday Night 51 years ago on October 15, 1974.

During the second hour, we play music from 1950s-era folk singer Terry Gilkyson (The Easy Riders), as well as the music of his children, Cowpunk guitar twanger Tony Gilkyson (Lone Justice, X, Exene Cervenka) and singer-songwriter Eliza Gilkyson, performing tracks from her acclaimed new release Dark Ages.

In hour three, a box of Kleenex® is required for a set of heartbreaking “confessional” folk music from the 1970s love-triangle involving songwriters Loudon Wainwright III, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and the Roche sisters.