Season 2, Episode 1: The Pandemic Tapes, Charlie Mosbrook

Charlie shares what he's up to and how he’s making the best of it, during the quarantine, as he shelters in place.

Charlie is an award-winning songwriter, performer, and advocate for American folk music. Beginning his career in 1988 as a street musician, he quickly became a popular open mic host throughout Northeast Ohio. From these early roots he nurtured his songwriting, musicianship, and stagecraft and today performs for major festivals and concert series throughout the US. His recordings of original and traditional songs have earned him rotation on many popular folk radio programs around the world. As a folk music advocate Charlie continues to organize local open mics and serves as the president for Folknet and vice president to FARM (Folk Alliance Region Midwest).

Season 1, Episode 5: Hotz Cafe - The Original Social Network

Season 1, Episode 5 - The Hotz Cafe is a Cleveland landmark. Hotz is a small neighborhood tavern in the Tremont area of Cleveland, Ohio. First opened in 1919, Hotz recently celebrated 100 years of family ownership. Listen to Clint Holley as he interviews members of the Hotz family with musical guest The Luckey Ones a local band in Cleveland.

This is part of our Ohio Heritage Music Project Series.

Season 1, Episode 4: Journey to Ripley, Many Steps to Freedom

Season 1, Episode 4 highlights songs and stories of the Ohio River and the story of the Underground Railroad and the role that the John Rankin House, and the daring abolitionist John Parker played in helping African-Americans flee slavery from Northern Kentucky. The John Rankin House is one of Ohio’s best-documented and most active Underground Railroad “stations”. Featured performers are alt-country blues singer/songwriter Amythyst Kiah, and the Pedigos, whose style spans folk and bluegrass. Narration and storytelling is provided by Betty Campbell from the John Rankin House, Dewey Scott from the John P. Parker House in Ripley, and Carl Westmoreland from the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. A direct-to-disc recording session with Amythyst Kiah was held earlier in the day at the John Rankin House Visitor Center.
This is great stuff . Enjoy and share with a freind.

This is part of our Ohio Heritage Music Project Series.

Season 1, Episode 3: A Fighting Heart, the Johnny Kilbane story and the Cleveland Irish Experience

 Season 1, Episode 3 Johnny Kilbane was a world champion featherweight boxer from Cleveland Ohio and held his title longer than did any other fighter in any weight class in history.  Born into poverty in Cleveland’s Irish Immigrant ‘Angle’ neighborhood, Kilbane eventually leveraged his celebrity, determination, and smarts into a successful political career – holding public office in Columbus and then in Cleveland, Ohio. 

Kilbane’s early life and career teach us great lessons about the immigrant experience – specifically concerning the Irish, but also lessons that apply generally to all those who have left their homes behind and journeyed to America in search of a better life.  No doubt, a ‘fighting spirit’ served Johnny Kilbane well during his well-lived life and a similar spirit has buoyed the prospects of  many of those who came before us from every corner of the globe.  

Roots Music Revue: “A Fighting Heart” is part of ROAM’s program called The Ohio Heritage Music Project, whose mission is to re-imagine music production in order to document, preserve and build awareness of regional music. Roots Music Revue is funded, in part, by the Ohio Arts Council.

This is part of our Ohio Heritage Music Project Series.

Season 1, Episode 2: Following the Crumbs, a tribute to American cartoonist and roots musician Robert Crumb

Season 1, Episode 2 Robert Crumb is an American cartoonist and musician. His work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contemporary American culture. His band Robert Crumb and the Cheap Suit Serenades released 3 albums on the Blue Goose record label, featuring pre-war acoustic blues, rags and old time classics.

Crumb is a prolific artist and contributed to the publication, Zap Comix. Inspired by psychedelics and cartoons from the 1920s and 1930s, he introduced a wide variety of characters that became extremely popular, including cultural icons Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural, and the images from his Keep on Truckin' strip.

This is part of our Ohio Heritage Music Project Series.

Roots Music Revue: “Following the Crumbs” is part of ROAM’s program called The Ohio Heritage Music Project, whose mission is to re-imagine music production in order to document, preserve and build awareness of regional music. Roots Music Revue is funded, in part, by the Ohio Arts Council.

Season 1, Episode 1: The Ghost of Frank Lloyd Wright

Photo: Daniel Coston

Roots of American Music is proud to introduce Roots Rearview, a limited-release podcast series celebrating, remembering, and revealing the history and the music of Ohio, the Rust Belt, and beyond.

Roots Rearview - Episode 1: The Ghost of Frank Lloyd Wright

Season 1, Episode 1 Recorded at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Louis Penfield House on River Road in Willoughby, Ohio. Listen to the history behind this home, the families who live in it, and the rare, final blueprints Frank Lloyd Wright created for an additional house that was never built. Music performed by David Childers, North Carolina’s most prolific living songwriter. This is ROAM’s first podcast in the Ohio Heritage Music Project Series. Stay tuned for more to be released soon!

Roots Rearview and the Ohio Heritage Music Project is generously supported by The Ohio Arts Council and Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

You can help Roots Rearview continue to discover unique stories and the music that inspires them. Donate today.