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Auntmama – DJ Appreciation Spotlight

April 24, 2025 - 6:00 am

Graphic for a DJ Appreciation post in KBCS theme colors brown and chartreuse green. There is an image on the right of the graphic of Auntmama, a light skinned woman with grey hair looking at the camera with whimsy. She is wearing a blue cowl neck sweater and gold pearl earrings. Auntmama, Co-Host of Sunday Folks, Sunday's at 9am

In 2001, Mary Anne Moorman (Auntmama) was awarded a contract with Bellevue College to create an operational plan for KBCS. Consulting led to telling stories on Walkin’ the Floor and in 2003 she began co-hosting Sunday Folks on Sunday’s, 9am to Noon. “Playing music for the KBCS community is an honor.”

Graphic for a DJ Appreciation post in KBCS theme colors brown and chartreuse green. There is an image on the right of the graphic of Auntmama, a light skinned woman with grey hair looking at the camera with whimsy. She is wearing a blue cowl neck sweater and gold pearl earrings.

Auntmama, Co-Host of Sunday Folks, Sunday’s at 9am

INSPIRATION

In my Appalachian growing up home, music was everywhere. Mama played an upright piano and ran those 88 keys through Gilbert and Sullivan, hymnals and Hank Williams. European ballads and strings mixed with what we now know as strong African influences. A whole lot of music vibrated porches. Radio was everywhere. We woke to Red Smiley and Jimmy Rogers and went to sleep with Patsy Cline or Patti Page doing the Tennessee Waltz.

In the 1950s, we didn’t categorize “hillbilly” sounds. Sometimes we caught a Chicago airwave and heard working class music like Woody Guthrie or The Weavers. This was only possible with a metal coat hanger attached to brother’s old leather radio. We were country and western, blues, bluegrass, folk. About 1955, Daddy took me to see the Louvin Brothers. Their opening act was a new kid named Elvis. He changed things and more change was “Blowing in the Wind” as the 1960s folk revival ignited.

When I found all those sounds and influences at KBCS, it was love. I first became a KBCS fan tuning into Our Saturday Tradition, The Gospel Highway, Music of Africa and be still my heart, when I heard Sunday’s Hornpipe, I was carried back to the Blue Ridge. Naturally, Bluegrass Ramble is a habit and an important branch of the Americana tree. AND there’s the news and new shows and oh do I enjoy the banquet of programs.

I became a supporter of KBCS because of the global, authentic, local and wildly diverse quality programming. I want to bring that quality to Sunday Folks where listeners fest on a smorgasbord of traditional, independent, old time and alternative folk music.

We keep evolving. I’ve been working with Music Community Resources, Music My Mother Would Not Like and Folk Alliance Region West, where new folk artists showcase. Sometimes there are drums. Sometimes folk artists produce stripped down protest music in the Phil Ochs tradition. For the past five years I’ve been fortunate to join with a group of Folk Alliance DJs sharing new music for our listeners. The national DJ folk list is a computerized chart system created and launched by KBCS’s Richard Gillman (“The Real Folk”). In an age of digital entertainment, community radio is the only place where music is curated and shared by humans.

Thanks to change and the pandemic, I unexpectedly became a venue operator. Radio adapted to new regulations and venues shut down during covid. That gave me time to renovate an old barn in Kingston, WA. Auntmama’s Stage3 is a house party space for touring musicians, poets and storytellers. We’ve hosted several artists residencies and partner with other arts organization to maintain the community heritage of music and storytelling.

Photograph of Auntmama performing live in front a microphone. She is a light skinned woman with gray hair wearing glasses, gold pearl earrings, a black turtleneck, and three white pearl necklaces. Her expression is pensive and contemplative with her eyes looking up and fingers pointed down.

Auntmama performing live

Music Community Resources and the Seattle Storytellers Guild

Stories and music, music and stories as old as the hills, are a huge part of my life. I have had the pleasure of telling stories for a variety of folks like FAR-West, Northwest Folklife, Fresh Ground Stories, Wintergrass Music Festival and along Virginia’s Crooked Road. Whenever possible, I tell stories with musicians. It’s better that way.

RECENT CONCERTS

The most recent live concert I attended was folk/blues/pop artist, Whitney Monge. Whitney now makes her home in Nashville. The most recent digital concert I attended was Crys Matthews. The most recent concept concert was Seattle’s Bushwick Club where northwest musicians created new works inspired by the poetry of Claudia Castro Luna. Next month there will be a new book and new songs by local artists.

FILMS

My top favorite most recent film delivered on a small screen is Kate Winslet’s “Lee”. Talk about erasure! It’s a documentary drama about the first female World War II photojournalist, Lee Miller, who’s documenting the history we must remember.

Larger screen favorite was the holiday gift “Like A Complete Unknown”. How could it not be a folk DJs favorite 2024 movie?

My next small screen movie will be the new Tyler Perry’s “The Six Triple Eight”. I understand I will learn more stories that have been erased and refound.

BOOKS

Story tellers feed on stories. As anyone could guess, I am a product of Mark Twain and have the retelling of Huck Finn on hold at the King County Library. “James” is written by Percival Everett. Tan Twan Eng’s “The House of Doors” is on my Kindle. If I am ever on a desert island (highly unlikely) I hope there’s a library and a copy of “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neal Hurston and “Sometimes a Great notion” by Ken Kesey.

RECOMMENDED SONGS

Evening

Heather Pierson
“I’m Coming Home to the Wisdom in My Bones”
(album: Wishes of Lovingkindness)

Morning

Jody Stecher
A Little Home to Go To
(album Instant Lonesome and Twinkle Brigade

Auntmama might surprise you with Cooking in the Kitchen

Kali Uchis
Dame Beso // Muevete
(album Orquideas)

Rossini
Figaro Figaro
(The Barber of Seville)

Black and white image of Auntmama in her KBCS office. She is a light skinned woman with glasses positioned in the center of the photograph in front of the window in a confident pose with her arms crossed and head turned slightly to the left. The office is cluttered with papers, images, a bookshelf on the left, a whiteboard on the right, and a large KBCS banner above the window.

Auntmama in her KBCS office