Anniversary Waltz for ‘Folkscene’ on KPFK : KPFK’s ‘Folkscene’ Will Celebrate Its 20th Anniversary : Radio: Weekend broadcasts will feature highlights from Los Angeles’ longest-running live-music forum.

The second-worst thing that ever happened to Roz and Howard Larman during their two decades hosting the KPFK-FM radio show “Folkscene” was the time they inadvertently got locked in the station’s studio with an ill musician who was growing a bit green around the gills.

“We thought, ‘Great, we’ll be locked in here forever,’ ” said Roz, laughing with her husband of 33 years as they sat in the dining room of their small Canoga Park house.

The worst thing was an unprintable incident involving a drugged-out performer launching into a stream of semi-coherent expletives live on the air.

Aside from a few times that station management changed the locks and the Larmans couldn’t get in to do the show, that was about all the Larmans could think of when asked about the lowlights of “Folkscene.” It’s the good things that are on their minds these days--the special guests and serendipitous moments that have linked the show through two decades of tremendous changes in culture, folk music and at the often-tumultuous station itself.

“We’ve survived all the coups and the cuckoos,” Roz said of their sometimes uneasy--but now quite friendly--stay at the station, a Pacifica outlet known for its often left-wing agenda.

Those high points are what will fill two special 20th anniversary “Folkscene” broadcasts this weekend, 20 hours in all, with highlights from the ‘70s aired from noon to 10 p.m. today and the ‘80s the same time period on Sunday on the non-commercial station (90.7 FM).

“Someone asked us the other day what we mean by ‘folk music,’ ” Roz said. “We said, ‘If we like it, it’s folk.’ ”

Howard Larman estimates that he and Roz have hosted more than 2,000 live performances and interviews (the show is L.A. radio’s longest-running live music forum), which they’ve been culling through feverishly for several months at their home studio to assemble the special programs. In the process they’ve dug up audio documents of such moments as performances by Angeleno songsters Randy Newman and Tom Waits, the West Coast debut of Don McLean’s “American Pie” and visits from just about every noteworthy bluegrass, country, Celtic, roots or singer-songwriter type who has drifted through town in the past 20 years.

“In 1970, you had the remnants of the ‘60s folk scene, where if you had three chords and a capo you were a folk singer,” Howard said. “It’s no longer that way.”

The broad definition of folk music has rankled some die-hard folk traditionalists, but it’s also brought the Larman’s a wide following of people interested in the relationships of different musical traditions.

“I think that folk music as we thought of it in the ‘60s and ‘70s is quite limited,” said pop singer Jennifer Warnes, who has performed on “Folkscene” several times. “The Larmans are just interested in what they’re interested in. I like that.”

Warnes is just one of many performers--folk and otherwise--who count themselves as “Folkscene” fans. Some of them, including Peter Case, country-rockers Lucinda Williams and the Lonesome Strangers, will help the Larmans celebrate with a concert at At My Place in Santa Monica on March 8. Proceeds will be donated to KPFK.

The show’s followers listen as much for the Larmans as for the music. The couple is a storehouse of knowledge about whatever fits their definition of folk music, which they dispense in a very casual manner, with wit and humor (often at each other’s expense). Neither would likely qualify as a radio professional, but their obvious love for the medium and the music renders that moot.

It was Howard’s love for radio (as a boy in Chicago he hung out at broadcasts of “Captain Midnight” and “Jack Armstrong”) and his professional life as an electrical technician--first in the Marines and then for 20 years in the aerospace industry--that landed him as a part-time technician for KPFK in the late ‘60s. When a KPFK station manager learned of his love for folk music, “Folkscene” was born, with the first broadcast taped in the Larmans’ living room on Feb. 3, 1970. Eventually the show moved to the Sunday night slot (it runs from 7:30 to 10 p.m. now) with a 90-minute taped show on Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m.

“It was our way into the music,” Roz said. “We used to play music ourselves, but found people who could do it better.”

Obviously “Folkscene” is a labor of love for the unpaid volunteers (as well as their assistants, including engineer Peter Cutler, who has turned a once-amateur show into a professional-sounding live music showcase). But even the most loyal listeners may not realize that it’s also the main drain for their discretionary income.

“We buy our own tape, pay for our phone calls, use our own equipment” said Howard, who took vacation from work (he’s a technician for Pacific Bell; Roz investigates credit-card disputes for a bank) to concentrate on the special shows. “I’ve looked at this from all views. I’ve spent time with people who go boating or play golf. They spend lots of money on that. This is our recreation.”