One of the world’s preeminent blues DJs, Kathleen Lawton has hosted the radio show Crazy ’Bout the Blues on San Mateo-based KCSM-FM since 1988. It can be heard live on terrestrial radio at 91.1 FM and streaming via the Internet, every Friday from 9 p.m. until midnight Pacific time. The program has also aired on Radio Free America (www.radiofreeamerica.com) for the past several years. As a result, Lawton’s listenership extends beyond the Bay Area to blues fans worldwide, from Montevideo to Mumbai and Miami. Lawton received the Blues DJ of the Year Award in 2004 from the Bay Area Blues Society. While jazz is KCSM’s core music, Lawton’s mission has been to show listeners how the roots of jazz, and so much modern music, lie in the blues, from Son House and Hop Wilson right up to the Cash Box Kings and Howell Devine. Above all, she aims to entertain and delight all during her three-hour Friday-night show with the passion, wit, wildness, and diversity of the blues — plus gospel, zydeco, and soul music —and make her listeners become “crazy ’bout the blues.”
