americana

After three albums of standards and selections from the Great American Songbook, Bob Dylan has just released his first record of original material since 2012. 

Rainbow Girls are an eclectic folk trio hailing from the golden countryside just north of the Bay Area. 

The latest installment in Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series chronicles the sessions in late 1974 that resulted in the landmark album Blood On The Tracks.

Jerry Garcia, co-founder of the Grateful Dead, would have been 76 on August 1.

Power-house acoustic duo Moonshine Jelly consists of violinist and vocalist Lee Corbie-Wells, and guitarist and banjo player Kent Kessinger.

Legendary musician TOM PETTY, leader of one of America's top rock 'n' roll bands for nearly 5 decades, passed away October 2 from a cardiac event. This special, hosted by music historian Paul Ingles, showcases some of Tom's legendary live performances. Wednesday 10/11 at 10 pm.

Long-time KALW morning host Joe Burke retired from his radio job last year, but he joins host Devon Strolovitch to talk about his new album, Just Watching the Show, and to spin some favorite records that the suits would never let him play during drive-time. Wednesday 7/19 at 9 pm.

The Railroad Square Music Festival is a free day of music this Sunday in Santa Rosa's Railroad Square. It's a project of The North Bay Hootenanny, a Santa Rosa based non-profit that has been working for the past five years to bring the North Bay music world to another level.

The Sam Chase has a voice like a nun on the lam with a mouthful cigarettes and curse words in a lonely bar, drunkenly dancing next to a broken jukebox. 

From 1993 to 2001, Kim Lembo recorded four blues albums with her band Blue Heat. Her special blend of hard rocking blues, gospel and roots brought out a voice unique in its depth, universal in its world weariness.

Son of composer Larry Lockwood and the grandson of the legendary Cantor Jacob Konigsberg, Jeremiah Lockwood began his musical career playing on the streets and subways of Manhattan performing with Piedmont Blues master Carolina Slim.

For more than 35 years, Kim Lembo has been giving back to the world of music singing her version of the blues.

Bob Dylan turns 75 on May 24. His first formal concert in the Bay Area took place in San Francisco on November 25, 1964; his most recent was October 30, 2014 in Oakland (he and his band return next month for a pair of shows in Berkeley).

20 on-air performances from the past two years are compiled on a brand-new third volume of Live From the Fog City Blues – local artists playing original blues (and beyond) live in the KALW studio. 

The Sam Chase has a voice like a nun on the lam with a mouthful cigarettes and curse words in a lonely bar, drunkenly dancing next to a broken jukebox. 

With Passover just around the corner, San Francisco bluesman Saul Kaye has just released Jewish Blues Volume IV: Down Home Nigguns and Other Songs from the Family Tree.

Busking outside of countless Bay Area venues, Tumbleweed Wanderers took the stage on the streets of San Francisco in 2011 with the hopes of simply sharing their music. 

Sights & Sounds is your weekly guide to the Bay Area arts scene through the eyes and ears of local artists. Our guest is John Givens: guitarist and bandleader of No Lovely Thing, performing Friday, 2/12, at Ashkenaz in Berkeley.

With a shared obsession for musicology, film, history, and design, Wolf & Crow sought to craft a fully immersive world within their 2015 debut album, Folklore. Sweetly chilling harmonies, woody folk-guitar picking, and rustic slide guitar interweave to form a haunting and beautiful American-Primitive landscape. 

Born in St. Louis to Sri Lankan parents, Bay Area-based singer-songwriter Bhi Bhiman pairs songs about immigration, history, race and global politics with a blend of bluesy pop, Caribbean-infused folk, Motown-inspired urban soul, and psychedelic garage rock.

In two short years, Tumbleweed Wanderers have gone from playing sidewalk jam sessions to headlining venues around the Bay Area. The story and sound of the band -- an Americana inspired mix of soul and classic rock-n-roll -- spread throughout the Bay, the West Coast and across the country, essentially, independently. They join host Devon Strolovitch for a live in-studio preview of their new album, Realize, this Wednesday 4/22 at 9 pm.

In 1967, Bob Dylan and several members of what became The Band got together in upstate New York. For months, they played and played – and recorded as they went along. It took 8 years for some of the music to come out officially, but in that time, the legend of The Basement Tapes grew. Bootlegs were passed around, little hints of the bigger treasure that existed somewhere.

"Folk Music & Beyond" offers new and recent releases in Americana by Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell, Greg Brown, Patty Griffin, Bruce Molsky and others.  Also featured are old-time fiddlers Rayna Gellert and April Verch.  Broadcast 6/15/13; available on KALW's Local Music Player until 6/22/13.