Many artists have those sliding door moments - being at the right place at the right time with just the right amount of talent, style and looks to make it out of having to work a “real job." Growing up in New York and then Paris where a young Madeleine began singing on the street, harnessing her deeply warm and eerily timeless voice (close your eyes and you might hear Billie Holiday) she went from being let go selling newspapers and toiling as a Applebees hostess in Nashville to creating beloved...
Aug 02, 2024•1 hr 1 min
It’s not fair to say every song that roots songwriting master John Moreland puts into the world is tinged with sadness and a palpable gravity. And yet, whether or not you’re seeing his big presence in person or hearing his deep and tender voice that can somehow cut through any loud bar like a laser to the heart - fans have been coming back to join Moreland in processing whatever grief they may be going through for a decade. His newest Visitor captures our unique American windswept loneliness in ...
Jun 14, 2024•56 min
This week we bring you an intimate talk with rising Cuban roots-pop singer-songwriter Daymé Arocena. Known for her honey-voiced records that honor Cuba’s joyous folk and jazz traditions, her newest Alkemi’ takes a sonic leap into the powerful pop and suave R&B music that she admired as a girl - Sade, Whitney Houston and even Beyoncé - while also paying homage to her grandmother’s lifelong practice of Santeria. Born to a musical family in Havana where she shared a two bedroom house with twent...
May 31, 2024•57 min
John Oates has been at this for a while. Ever since his family moved from New York to a small town outside of Philly in the early 1950s, he has been feverishly creating American roots music, blues, rock n roll and unabashed pop. After teaming up with his Temple college mate Daryl Hall at the dawn of the 1970s - Oates co-created a mind-melting run of funky rock-pop hits that still play on constant radio rotation: 21 albums, ten of them number one records which sold over 80 million units. It’s not...
May 17, 2024•48 min
What if you said the darkest thing you ever thought…or actually sang it out loud in a packed room of cheerful many-tattooed like-minded fans? You might find yourself at an Amigo The Devil concert - an experience that longtime self-professed “murder-folk” master Danny Kiranos has dutifully worked on for a decade and a half - bringing the banjo and acoustic guitar into a world once only populated by hardcore or death metal listeners. Murder ballads were first documented in 1840s Scandinavia, Engla...
Apr 26, 2024•37 min
This week we dive into the many lives and evolving music of much-respected singer and troubadour Peter One. Coming from humble beginnings in his native Ivory Coast, One became a folk hero for creating a new type of African roots music that was the backdrop for Nelson Mandela’s fight against apartheid and gained him a following around the globe. His partnership with longtime friend Jess Sah Bi created the 1985 classic (and newly reissued) Our Garden Needs Its Flowers and at their height, saw them...
Apr 11, 2024•53 min
We’re back for season six with a special conversation with a true blues and world music legend, Taj Mahal. Touring in his seventh decade behind nearly fifty albums and counting (including fourteen Grammy nominations) we dive into his new LP Swingin’ Live At The Church In Tulsa, how he toured with the Rolling Stones Rock n Roll Circus in the 1970s, and how classics like “Statesboro Blues” from his iconic 1968 self-titled record inspired groups like the Allman Brothers to bring the blues to a new ...
Mar 28, 2024•57 min
Remember when Easy Listening became the Smooth Jazz section of pop and rock n’ roll? But maybe we could use things a little easier these days. In the second part of my epic talk with Bahamas from his cozy cottage in Nova Scotia - we lean into embracing that softer side of ourselves as songwriters, fathers and edgy citizens just trying to make sense of a changing world. Afie Jervanen isn't shy about it: he would LOVE his records to be in the Easy Listening section of your local record store. Whil...
Dec 22, 2023•38 min
What’s the first thing you think about a mustachioed songwriter who enjoys rocking wind-breaker sweat suits and lives and creates on the edge of icy Nova Scotia? That he’s going to write maybe the best old-school Nashville country record of the year, of course. Maybe the warm, slightly humorous diversion is right in his tropical name. But with his newest LP Bootcut, beloved Canadian singer-songwriter and ace guitarist Afie Jurvanen AKA Bahamas might have thrown some long-time listeners (like thi...
Dec 14, 2023•37 min
Putting on a new record can feel like an instant sonic vacation for your mind - or maybe it’s the best type of time travel? This week we take a trip to the teaming clubs of Bogotá and Cali Colombia (or shall we say, Colombia came to a movie studio conference room here in LA) to talk to multi-lingual lead singer Catalina García who for the last fourteen years has led adored jazzy roots-pop icons Monsieur Periné along with master instrumentalist Santiago Prieto. It’s heady times for the band: thei...
Nov 30, 2023•34 min
What if you sang before you spoke? When you come from a vibrant San Juan musical family like iLe (the creative persona of Ileana Mercedes Cabra Joglar), it all makes sense. Singing has been in iLe’s bloodstream from day one: from listening to her actress mother and singer-composer grandmother, to joining school choir and then stealing the show as a teenager in her stepbrothers’ superstar Puerto Rican alternative hip-hop collective Calle 13. She made her critically-adored solo debut iLevitable in...
Nov 09, 2023•40 min
What do legends like Bob Seger, The Doobie Brothers, Jackson Browne, Stevie Nicks, Bonnie Raitt and Pink Floyd all have in common? They’ve all tapped pianist and master keyboardist Bill Payne - one of the co-founders of folky-funk cult favorites Little Feat to lend his special sauce to their records or touring bands. Stories? Yeah, Bill’s got a few to tell us. In this second part of our epic talk - we go back through Bill’s life from his first piano lesson to playing with the Greatful Dead in st...
Oct 27, 2023•32 min
Most bands who started in the tumultuous year of 1969 like Little Feat never make it out of that creative cauldron. How many heroes faded away or flamed out and can only be found now on classic rock radio or in dusty record bins? Little Feat is still here. And while the group lost talented but tempestuous lead singer and guitarist Lowell George along the way - as we learned in the first part of our wide-ranging conversation with renown keyboardist, songwriter, photographer and band co-founder Bi...
Oct 13, 2023•33 min
Think you know renegade roots songwriter icon Ani DiFranco? Think again! We are happy to bring you this special rebroadcast as Ani celebrates the 25th anniversary reissues of legendary albums Living In Clip and Little Plastic Castles which we dive into in this talk. Ani is more than a songwriter and singer of course. Call her an activist, author, and free-spirited feminist folk leader - who recently released her lushly orchestrated twenty-second album: Revolutionary Love. Many things have been s...
Oct 06, 2023•1 hr 7 min
We are in the most anxious time in human history - yet how do we still create compelling, joyful art and be a sane human being at the same time? We're back with the second part of our talk with rising singer-songwriter Raye Zaragoza who is celebrating the release of her striking new LP Hold That Spirit. We talk about her mother’s trying immigrant story told through her song “Change Your Name” and trying to forget all your internal and external haters in “Joy Revolution” and best of all - we feat...
Sep 28, 2023•39 min
Raye is about to have the craziest year of her life. Not only did she just get cast playing an iconic indigenous character in the national tour of a reimagined Peter Pan (Broadway bound?) but is also taking off from her Long Beach, CA home on her first headlining tour supporting her new LP Hold That Spirit. In this first chapter of our conversation, I was able to catch up with Raye before she hit the road to talk about her unique childhood in New York City - where her dad was also on Broadway, h...
Sep 21, 2023•40 min
What if you started a band with your best friend in high school - and the first song you put out went straight to the top of the charts? Sure, the journey singer/guitarist Clemons Rehbein and drummer/bassist Philipp Dausch have been on after meeting up in Kassel Germany isn't that simple...but it is remarkable that a decade after "Stolen Dance" and the blockbuster album behind it Sadnecessary changed their lives - their friendship and deeply-intiuative sonic connection have never been stronger. ...
Sep 07, 2023•42 min
How does a hit song stay beloved thirty years later? Sure, Smash Mouth's oddball blend of vintage rock, ska and unabashed 90s pop isn't for everyone - but they've weathered a generation of changing tastes and tens of thousands still go nuts every time they show up at a festival or concert anywhere in the world. Trust me, if you sang "All Star" anywhere on earth, people would be singing along, whether you dig it or not. There's just something special there. In the second part of my backyard conve...
Aug 17, 2023•40 min
Ok, you know "All Star". But on Part 1 of my chat with new frontman Zach Goode, we learn about how Smash Mouth's underrated ear worm hits like "Walking On The Sun" and radio (and Shrek soundtrack) smash covers like "I'm A Believer" came to be, how the band began in San Jose steeped in the ska world, and Zach's whirlwind journey playing in rock bands in relative obscurity to playing in front of 75,000 hysterical fans in his first gig in Mexico.
Aug 11, 2023•33 min
We’re back with David Shaw of the New Orleans soul-rockers The Revivalists to dive into what happens after the band really takes off - how being the conductor of a massive machine that plays before thousands every night and is faced with trying to top their radio hit, can mess with your head - if you let it. We dive more into the making of their powerful new LP Pour It Into The Night, how new babies in the band raised the stakes, how they love covering Dr. Dre, and David finally introduces us to...
Aug 02, 2023•25 min•Season 5Ep. 136
We dialed into New Orleans to chat with the tireless and talented lead singer- songwriter of beloved soulful rock n’ rollers The Revivalists. We dive into their bold fifth studio LP Pour It Out Into The Night, how their big-hearted hit "Wish I Knew You” changed everything and sent them around the world - and how David went from being a lonesome Ohio transplant laying pipe on a construction crew in a Katrina-ravaged crescent city to sleeping on floors and playing tiny bars across the gulf coast t...
Jul 27, 2023•29 min
This week, we bring back an old friend of the show, Fort Worth-based trickster singer/multi-instrumentalist Robert Ellis. We last spoke in 2018 while we were were both criss-crossing the Netherlands. Then he was in full character as the Texas Piano Man, jumping across the stage between keyboards and guitars with cheeky ear worms like “Topo Chico” and searing Harry Neilsen-esque ballads like “Fucking Crazy,” whipping appreciative crowds into a frenzy. After a long pandemic hiatus, he’s back witho...
May 25, 2023•1 hr 8 min
This week, we dive into the revelatory first solo record from rising Louisiana-born roots-soul singer-songwriter Durand Jones. Wait Til I Get Over is years in the making. While nearly giving up on his dream to be a singer several times, Jones was diligently collecting songs about his upbringing living in his father’s trailer in the tiny Mississippi River town of Hillaryville, his grandmother giving him the confidence to sing (and also dragging him to church), escaping broken relationships and in...
May 11, 2023•1 hr
This week, we call into Nashville to speak to one of the preeminent and most prolific singer-songwriters of our time, Courtney Marie Andrews. Born in Arizona, Andrews first started singing at Phoenix-area karaoke bars with her mom before setting out to see the country in Greyhound busses as a teenager, finding a place in bands like Jimmy Eat World with her signature high-aching voice and talent on guitar and piano. Writing in fiery spurts (she mentions on the taping that thirty new songs emerged...
Apr 27, 2023•54 min
This week, we feature a talk with genre-leaping singer-songwriter Devon Gilfillian who is back with a remarkable new LP, Love You Anyway. Shapeshifting between danceable southern soul, hip-hop, silky R&B, and AM gold rock n roll, the record isn’t afraid to confront the thorny politics of voting rights and wrongful incarceration while still celebrating a newly revolutionary Black joy. Raised in Philadelphia and now based in Nashville, Gilfillian was so inspired by socially-conscious soul icon...
Apr 13, 2023•59 min
This week, the show is back in New Orleans for a special talk with Sam Doores, one of the talented founders of well-traveled roots-rockers The Deslondes. We dive into their newest LP Ways & Means and how California-born Sam - who plays various instruments from electric guitar to keys, and sings in seven bands and counting throughout the Crescent City - collected many of its slow-burn soul-adjacent songs like "Five Year Plan" while holed up in a storage unit studio squat, questioning his plac...
Mar 30, 2023•49 min
This week, we feature a conversation taped live in New Orleans with Arkansas-born multi-instrumentalist and roots-soul singer Anna Moss, who has criss-crossed the country in recent years with her sonic partner Joel Ludford in their band Handmade Moments. Growing up as a bathroom-singing nerd playing saxophone in the school band, Anna admits that if she could wield any superpower it might be invisibility. Not necessarily the first thing you think of for an openly political, big-voiced folk festiv...
Mar 16, 2023•51 min
This week, we feature my conversation with beloved folk firebrand Iris Dement. Born the youngest of fourteen to a singing Pentecostal family in Arkansas and raised in California, Dement released her iconic 1992 John Prine-endorsed debut Infamous Angel and has been creating poetic protest records and warm collaborations ever since (garnering two folk Grammy nominations along the way), culminating in her much anticipated and fiery new LP Working On A World. Certain songwriters in the folk field wi...
Mar 02, 2023•1 hr
This week, my talk with self-described folk-country scientist and songwriter Cleve Francis, whose winding fifty year story in music is nearly unparalleled. Few African-American artists had their work heard in the folk boom of the early 1960’s, and while Francis studied to become a heart specialist after leaving the small hamlet of Jennings, Louisiana, the honey-voiced gems he laid down with his guitar in the gorgeous compilation Beyond the Willow Tree are finding devoted new audiences – this pod...
Feb 16, 2023•57 min
This week, we place a call to a Tennessee front porch to talk to rock-n’-soul trickster and acclaimed singer-songwriter Rayland Baxter. He’s our first returning artist on the show for a good reason. Besides being a personal favorite of host Z. Lupetin since his gorgeous, folky debut Feathers and Fishhooks a decade ago, Z. was first able to catch up with Rayland in a Vegas hotel room (where he played through a cigarette pack mini amp) to discuss his deliciously catchy and soulful 2018 record Wide...
Feb 02, 2023•56 min
