Musicians' Spotlight

Faced with a guest's musical CV longer than his own arm, the wise radio host takes a tag-team approach to conversing with in-demand drummer, composer, bandleader, producer and teacher Clarence Penn . In this edition of Musician's Spotlight , John Floridis and Montana drummer and percussionist Ed Stalling hold radio rhythm-camp with the versatile, highly respected, chops-rich Penn.

Is there such a thing as “Nordic Americana?” Host John Floridis has discovered at least one example: the songwriting team of Danish singer, Mette Kirkegaard and legendary Montana songwriter, Kostas Lazarides. Their collaboration forms the backbone of Kirkegaard's most recent recording, “Simple Matters.”

“A people blessed by God" is how Gullah speakers translate their Afro-English dialect's name. Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA are hotbeds of Gullah language, songs and stories, and the rich repertoire of the Charleston quintet Ranky Tanky doesn't disappoint: "ranky tanky" is Gullah for “get funky.” Singer Quiana Parler shares the band's origin story with John Floridis, and reflects on their 2020 Grammy win for Best Regional Roots Album.

Missoula's Josh Farmer is a whirlwind of joyous musical creativity whose roles include but are not limited to: pianist, bandleader, performing singer-songwriter, teacher, choir director and community music organizer. With the album Mental Picture , Josh can add "solo recording artist."

(Broadcast: Musician's Spotlight , 4/13/21. Listen on the radio Tuesdays, 7 p.m., or via podcast .)

When Duane Betts and Devon Allman decided to join musical forces, the collective heft of their last names served as an additional member of the Allman-Betts Band . Their dads, Dickie Betts and Gregg Allman, had co-founded the Allman Brothers Band.

How does Shawn Colvin stay busy during a pandemic? By pairing her own hits with classics of the silver screen. In Live From These Four Walls you’ll hear a solo acoustic reinterpretation of her 1992 album, Fat City, and a second album of movie songs like “Edelweiss,” “Beyond Thunderdome,” “To Sir With Love” and “Everybody’s Talking.”

In 2020, singer Falu Shah, bassist Yasushi Nakamura, drummer Clarence Penn and guitarist & vocalist Clay Ross teamed up to form American Patchwork Quartet . They're on a mission to reclaim the immigrant soul of American roots music, interpreting timeless songs through a 21st century lens.

You might know pianist, bandleader, composer and podcaster Chad Lawson for his interpretations of Chopin, Bach, his jazzy reimagining of the Wizard of Oz, or from his years in The Chad Lawson trio. Maybe you've heard his compositions for the podcasts "Lore" and "Unobscured," or his solo piano albums.

"Michael Jackson brushes shoulders with Sarah Vaughan in the person of Cyrille Aimée , a saucy, curly-haired jazz singer with one foot in tradition and the other in electronics." - Stephen Holden, New York Times

Sharon Isbin , "the Monet of the classical guitar," returns to Musician’s Spotlight to talk technique, collaboration and guitar diplomacy with host John Floridis. Isbin's accomplishments involve big numbers: she has recorded more than 30 albums, premiered 80 new works by composers like John Corigliano, Joseph Schwantner and Lukas Foss, performed as a soloist with over 200 orchestras around the world, appeared on numerous television and radio programs, hit #2 on Billboard , and won dozens of prestigious honors and awards.

Bassist and vocalist Bridget Kearney of Lake Street Dive joins host John Floridis in conversation from her basement studio in Brooklyn, New York on Halloween Eve, 2020.

Since high school, Chris Cunningham and John Hermanson of Storyhill have been mining the synergistic power of harmony singing and the scenic imagery of Montana to forge their memorable, acoustic guitar-based songs. On an auspicious 2020 winter solstice, during the great confluence of Jupiter and Saturn, they chatted with Musician's Spotlight host John Floridis about their new holiday album.

As part of Montana Public Radio's "Honor, Hope and Healing" Week, Musician's Spotlight highlights two individuals, each part of a family musical dynasty, who didn't survive 2020. First, Justin Townes Earle , singer-songwriter and purveyor of honest American stories, who died on August 20, 2020, age 38, of an accidental overdose of fentanyl-laced cocaine. Second, a visit with the great jazz pianist and teacher, Ellis Marsalis, who died from complications of Covid-19 at age 85 in his hometown of New Orleans on April 1, 2020.

"Cast your mind back to the first time you heard Hank Williams, Big Bill Broonzy or JJ Cale and remember how good it felt. Think of the opening encounter with Leon Redbone or Leo Kottke. They say newcomers to Chris Smither’s brand of country blues-tinged southern folk experience those same emotions. It’s true." - Maverick

Self-described "instigator" Jayme Stone returns to Musician’s Spotlight to talk about AWake , a recording that "sings from a white-hot core of love and loss." It's accompanied by a lush, immersive website containing a virtual listening post, a visual art project and choreographic interpretations of the songs. Even accounting for the diverse range of Stone's previous collaborations, the sound palette and emotional landscape of "AWake" is a departure.

In grade school in Malta, Montana, eleven-year-old John Roberts --the trombone player, not the Supreme Court justice--watched as the band director, playing a blues solo, muted the bell of his trombone with a handleless toilet plunger. Roberts's destiny was sealed. "I guess that's my personality right there. ... I guess I gravitate towards things that are brash and obnoxious."

Bettye LaVette 's big ears, wide-open mind and ability to get inside a song's lyric, melodic line and harmonic implications “LaVetticize" every song she interprets. Her career parallels the rise of soul music, and she's among a tiny handful of her contemporaries who continue to create vital recordings.

Legendary jazz guitarist John Scofield speaks with host John Floridis and answers questions submitted by Musician’s Spotlight listeners through social media.

Elizabeth Bougerol, co-leader and singer with The Hot Sardines , joins host John Floridis by phone to talk about the band's genesis. During their COVID-19-enforced performing hiatus, members of the band have been composing new music.

Lucy Kaplansky returns to Musician’s Spotlight , joining host John Floridis by phone from Cape Cod. She self-produced her most recent recording project, Everyday Street , and released it only through her website. Shawn Colvin joined Lucy on one of the album's songs, “Old Friends."

Host John Floridis interviews Rob Quist, Don Collins and Don MacDonald of the New Big Sky Singers . At the time of this interview, the group was planning a CD release and reunion concert for their new recording, 50 Years Ago Today , right when the COVID-19 pandemic brought live music performances to a halt.

Singer songwriter Jonatha Brooke joins host John Floridis by phone from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Recorded in early April, 2020 during the initial days of the COVID 19 Pandemic and the abrupt halting of her planned tours for the rest of the year, Brooke talks about those effects on her work and life.

Whether she’s playing piano and singing jazzy pop songs onstage, or hosting “Saturday Night Jazz” for the Canadian CBC Music network, exuberance is the hallmark of pianist-songwriter-singer-arranger Laila Biali . The Vancouver, BC native has collaborated with Sting, Chris Botti, Paula Cole and Suzanne Vega, and has headlined festivals and venues across five continents. In May 2020, with the tour supporting her new album “ Out of Dust ” on hold, she’s collaborating with fellow musicians via video, calling the series of recordings “ Quarantunes .”

Merriam Webster's defines the noun “fruition” as “pleasurable use or possession: enjoyment.” With the cancellation of the band's 2020's live stage concerts, how does Fruition member Jay Cobb Anderson define it? The same as always: creating songs that sing for themselves. "We are pretty adamant and a bit obssessed about making the song shine in its own way, realizing the song, taking out our egos or expectations of what the song is and letting it be itself."

Host John Floridis catches up with Seamus Egan : teen prodigy, multi-instrumentalist, film composer, bandleader and co-founder of the beloved Irish-American band, Solas. If you've watched the film "The Brothers McMullen" or listened to Sarah McLachlan’s “ Weep Not for the Memories ,” you've heard Egan's compositions.

Bear's Den , the British band fronted by Andrew Davie and Kevin Jones, first toured the US in a campervan, a trip featured in the 2014 documentary, “Austin to Boston.” Davie and Jones talk with host John Floridis about their 2019 album, "So That You Might Hear Me," and the change in tone it represents. Next, Flathead Valley singer-songwriter and actor Nick Spear explains how projects like the series of music videos shot in Montana ghost towns help him keep “the story” front and center, combining his passions for acting and music-making.

The vocation of instrumentalist, composer and NEA National Heritage Fellow Rahim AlHaj has brought him joy and exile, praise and torture -- always accompanied by a soundtrack provided by the 5,000-year-old Arabic oud .

Matt Wilson personifies the spontaneous energy of jazz. He's a drummer's drummer who seems to be everywhere at once, teaching, playing, recording, and bringing jazz to new audiences with the motto: "The answer is YES ... if it's legal."

The day eighteen-year-old Tanya Gabrielian's true dedication to music revealed itself was the day she slipped during kung fu practice. A Harvard biomedical engineering student on a gap year at London's Royal Academy of Music, she kicked, slipped, and fell forward. But instead of shielding her head with her hands, the pianist-violist pulled her hands back in order to protect the tools of her music.

Listen now on Musician's Spotlight: Singer songwriter Colin Hay from Men at Work talks with host John Floridis ahead of Hay's March 2020 show in Missoula, MT.

Watching The Lil Smokies set up their acoustic instruments before a show, you'd expect to hear some gentle front-porch picking. In fact, a Smokies show carries the punch of arena rock filtered through bluegrass. The five-member group from Missoula captured their live-wire onstage act in the recording studio with the recent album Tornillo , melding soulful songwriting and well-honed bluegrass chops into a uniquely sweet, cohesive sound.

Acoustic guitar virtuoso Mike Dawes visits with Musician’s Spotlight host John Floridis by phone and discusses his involvement with the International Guitar Night tour featuring Dawes and three other guitar master from Hawaii, Jim Kimo West, from Finland, Olli Soikkeli and from Turkey, Cenk Erdoğan. Listen now on Musician's Spotlight .

“ The Hot Club of Cowtown ’s stylistic genesis–as well as title–stems from the realization that the great heritage of strings (guitars and violins) originates mutually with the Manouche gypsies of France and the no-less virtuosic hillbilly pickers and fiddlers of Oklahoma and Texas….Together for over 21 years and fourteen albums, the threesome of high-heeled violinist Elana James, guitarist Whit Smith and bassist Jake Erwin showed from the beginning that jazz and country music could exist together on the same page, a highly commendable achievement if ever there was one.” -Will Friedwald, Wall Street Journal

Israeli-American cellist, conductor, and teacher Amit Peled first test-drove the cello at age 10. "I grew up in a rural kibbutz in Israel, and when I was in 4th grade, we were asked what instrument we would like to play. I picked the cello, because of a girl I wanted to get to know." At that time, Peled, who stands 6'5", was more interested in basketball than music. But by age 17, the two passions had swapped places, and his musical engine was firing on all cylinders.

Host John Floridis is spinning tunes for the winter solstice and holiday season, featuring songs by artists who have appeared on Musician’s Spotlight during its 25-year tenure: Ben Harper, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, the Turtle Island String Quartet, Bonnie Raitt, the Indigo Girls, the Cowboy Junkies and Derek Trucks and others.

Jazz guitar master Pat Metheny has won twenty Grammy awards in ten different categories, playing and improvising a style that is modern in conception but grounded deeply in the jazz tradition of melody, swing, and the blues. in 2013, John Floridis welcomed Metheny to Musician’s Spotlight , taking a close look at the art behind Metheny's “bright, accessible modern jazz.”

This week, Musician’s Spotlight features an audience with some of the Crescent City’s funkiest musical kings. In 2010, John Floridis spoke with drummer Stanton Moore and sax and harmonica player Ben Ellman of Galactic , the jam band that’s been “holding uptown down with that funky sound” since 1994. In 2011, vocalist and baritone saxophonist Roger Lewis of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band told John how the legendary group - which began in 1977 as the house band for the Dirty Dozen Social Aid and Pleasure Club - has injected r&b and modern jazz into the brass band heritage of New Orleans.

The audience at a Bruce Cockburn concert gets boisterous over “If I Had A Rocket Launcher” and reflective with the opening chords of “One Day I Walk” and “Wondering Where the Lions Are.” More than five decades into his career, Cockburn’s guitar craftsmanship and gravelly-to-smooth voice convey wide-eyed wonder, full-on fury and everything in between, delivering the mixture of opinion, observation and quietly stinging humor that characterizes his songs.

This week's Musician’s Spotlight features two Austin, TX, Grammy-winning singer-songwriters who choose not to stay at arena's length from their fans: from 2016, Patty Griffin , and from 2013, Shawn Colvin .

From the Musician’s Spotlight archives: a pair of programs featuring Marc Cohn and James McMurtry, each of which won a Montana Broadcasters Association’s E.B. Craney Award for best non-commercial radio program.

After penning "Wide Open Spaces," a song that blew the doors off country music for The Dixie Chicks, former Montanan (and faithful annual visitor) Susan Gibson hit the open road with a van full of happy dogs and a heart full of songs to share. But the trip hasn’t only traversed la-la land. Gibson's latest album, The Hard Stuff , takes an uplifting look at the stuff that hurts.

Singer, composer and arranger Alicia Olatuja first entered the national spotlight in 2013 as featured soloist with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. John Floridis caught up with Olatuja to talk about her second recording, Intuition: Songs From The Minds Of Women.

If you attended college in Missoula in the last 25 years, you probably closed down the Union Club dancing to Russ Nasset and the Revelators. Nasset takes his inspiration from songs, genres and stories passed down to him from a childhood spent in Shelby, on Montana’s Hi-Line. "The River and the Light," "The Shape of Things Gone Missing, The Shape of Things to Come:" the titles of Martha Scanlan 's recordings reflect time spent in southeast Montana with generations of Tongue River Valley ranchers who are trying hard to hold on to a quiet, treasured way of life. From the archives: Russ Nasset Live On Montana Public Radio (Broadcast: Musician's Spotlight , 10/29/19. Listen on the radio Tuesdays, 7 p.m., or via podcast .)