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 a…

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…

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, …

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…

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 …

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 four…

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…

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…

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 alo…

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, a…

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 s…

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…

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…

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" anyw…

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 band…

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 po…

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 Ohi…

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” a…

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…

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 …

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 celebrat…

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 Ci…

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…

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 fol…

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, Louisia…

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…

This week, to kick-start our fifth season we call into an organic vegetable farm in Texas to chat with an upright bassist who also happens to be a former New Orleans ace street performer, and singer and songwriter, who sounds like she might have stepped out of a saloon in 1955 filled with the warm echoes of her heroes Hank Williams and Patsy Cline:…

Welcome back, friends. Season 5 is here to help launch us into 2023, starting off with the new old-time sounds of the singing upright bassist who everyone calls “daddy,” Melissa Carper. Plus, the return of the rock-n-soul butterfly Rayland Baxter taped on his porch in Tennessee, and also a fascinating talk with Cleve Francis, a singing heart doctor…

How can I try and summarize the soundtrack to my life this year? Indeed, we are in year three (!) of this endless pandemic and I find I am more and more drawn to pure escapism, fantasy and what I might call the “new nostalgia”? Personally, I don’t go more than a few hours in the day (or during sleep at night) without something on, whether it’s play…

This week, we cross the pond for a talk with rising British roots-rockers Will Turner and Georgie Fuller, who harness the freewheeling sonic spirit of the sixties with a new Brighton-based band they call The Heavy Heavy. While the British coast isn’t exactly known for its blissed out sunshiny beaches (or as a haven for rock 'n' roll stardom), Will …

This week, we head down to Austin, Texas where we talk to multi-instrumentalist and renowned producer Adrian Quesada. Many know him as half of ground-breaking deep soul duo Black Pumas, where songs like “Colors” rose up the charts, taking them from tiny Austin clubs to the biggest festivals in the world, garnering Grammy nods, playing as the theme …

This week, we talk with Kenyan singer-songwriter Ondara, who came to Minneapolis in search of his voice as a young musician, and found a new creative persona which he now embodies called The Spanish Villager. He has since taken audiences by storm, garnering a Grammy-nomination and now returning with a stunning politically-charged new LP. Spanish Vi…

This week, we call into Minnesota to talk to frontman and lead-songwriter Dave Simonett of the innovative jamgrass pioneers Trampled by Turtles. Celebrating a new record, Alpenglow, produced by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, the six-piece band has gone from storming shaggy local bars in Duluth to playing their famously fast roots-n-roll in the biggest venue…

This week, we call on an Americana pioneer and a beloved fixture of the Nashville roots-country scene, the always affable Grammy-winner Jim Lauderdale. This year he celebrated the release of his thirty-fifth record Game Changer. Growing up in both North and South Carolina, as a young man Lauderdale fell in love with country music but took an unconv…

This week, we return to the Crescent City to talk to one of the new leaders of the Grammy-winning Rebirth Brass Band, trumpet player Glenn Hall III who is part of a deep New Orleans musical family. Rebirth will be coming from NOLA to LA to help headline the inaugural Paramount Ranch Sonic Boom on October 15th. It’s a brand new music festival co-cre…

This week, we dial into New Orleans for a fascinating talk with master funk-guitarist and songwriter Leo Nocentelli. Discerning listeners may known him as the chief groove-creator behind the legendary group The Meters with Art Neville on keyboard, George Porter Jr. on bass, Zigaboo Modeliste on drums. There is no mistaking his soulful dagger-sharp …

This week, we’re back for the fall season with the first face-to-face taping in nearly two years. I was able to catch up with the fearless deep-voiced frontman BJ Barham of North Carolina roots-rock favorites American Aquarium, in the front bar of The Troubadour in LA as his tour was passing through. American Aquarium’s rawly personal new LP Chicam…

On this new episode, maybe we need something soft to counter the hard news many Americans have witnessed this week: so why not dive into the crystalline brother harmonies of Minneapolis duo The Cactus Blossoms, who just put out a lush new record One Day? Sure, you could write off what Jack Torrey and Page Burkum are creating as simply a loving homa…

This week, the show dials into the Nashville studio of one of the most gifted songwriters and empathic storytellers of her generation: Mary Gauthier. While Mary has become known for her darkly honest tales of overcoming addiction and seeking truth and joy after overcoming her troubled upbringing in Louisiana, she was nominated for a Grammy for her …

This week on the show, we talk to a startling new talent placing a gut-punch into the folk and blues scene, the Milwaukee-raised and now Austin-based singer-songwriter Buffalo Nichols. Growing up learning on his sister’s dreadnought guitar and then traveling widely through West Africa after high school drinking up the sounds of the kora and percuss…

This week, The Show On The Road is back with an intimate talk with Texas-born folk pop collaborators Andy Baxter and Kyle Jahnke who for the last decade have toured the USA as symbiotic harmonizers Penny & Sparrow. Their lush 2022 release Olly Olly showcases their unique lifelong friendship and was their first collection where they relied only on e…

This week, we bring you a conversation with Birmingham, Alabama’s Paul Janeway, frontman of the storied soul and art-pop experimenters St. Paul & The Broken Bones. While many first learned of Paul as the bespectacled former bank teller and accounting student who went from playing tiny clubs around the south to stalking stages from Red Rocks to Coac…

This week, to help celebrate the end of Black History Month, we bring you an in-depth conversation with Compton-raised blues and roots master Keb' Mo', who has helped preserve the haunting Delta blues of Robert Johnson while also making his own cheerful and slyly subversive R&B Americana for the last thirty years - winning four Grammys along the wa…

This week, we launch season 4 of the show with a bilingual banjo-slinging singer-songwriter originally from Montreal and now based in Nashville: Allison Russell. After two decades of quietly creating heart-on-her-sleeve roots music in hard-touring groups like Po’ Girl, Birds Of Chicago, and recently the supergroup Our Native Daughters - playing the…

We’re back! Season 4 is here and we have some very special conversations coming your way. Listen in for a little preview of our upcoming deep dives with Grammy-winners like Keb’ Mo’, newly-risen roots star Allison Russell (nominated twice this year), howling frontman Paul Janeway of soul icons St. Paul and The Broken Bones, longtime folk-pop hero a…

To finish out the season, we bring you a talk from Toronto with rising roots singer-songwriter and folk philosopher AHI (pronounced “eye”), who celebrated the release of his acclaimed third full-length album Prospect in November. Born in Brampton, Ontario, to Jamaican and Trinidadian immigrant parents, AHI (short for Ahkinoah Habah Izarh) didn’t in…

This week, we bring you a conversation with one of Nashville’s supreme songwriters: Brandy Clark. Born in a logging town in Washington state, Clark started playing guitar at age nine before setting it aside and getting a scholarship for basketball. Music kept tugging her back in though. Reba recorded two of her songs in “Cry" and "The Day She Got D…

This week, we get on the horn with renowned Texas-born singer and deeply observational songwriter Hayes Carll, who is celebrating the release of his seventh LP, the atmospheric country-tinted You Get It All. While some may just be discovering Hayes’ lived-in songs which are often spun with dark humor (he admits John Prine and Jimmy Buffett were ear…

This week, we call into the Catskills of New York for a deep conversation with James Felice: accordionist, pianist, songwriter and co-founder of fun-house-mirror Americana group The Felice Brothers. James started the band with his brothers (poet lead singer Ian) and percussionist Simone in 2006 as a busking folk pop experiment with a literary rebel…

This week, we bring you an in-depth dive with vintage roots-n-soul excavator and beloved Illinois-born songwriter Pokey LaFarge. With his trusty guitar on his lap during the talk, taped in his LA breakfast nook, we go through the making of his funky and cheerful new LP In The Blossom of Their Shade. For the last decade and change, Pokey LaFarge (bo…