The Show On The Road with Z. Lupetin

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 major-label jazz pop albums like Dreamland and Careless Love (one of my all time favorite albums) where she expertly sang out-of-box covers in English from singing poets and kindred spirits like Leonard Cohen and also jazzy French favorites that got her in front of millions of listeners around the world.  Slowly Peyroux began inserting personal and often politically powerful originals as her profile grew - leading to her new protest-forward all-original LP Let's Walk. While she was a staple of the early 2000s jazz pop best-sellers alongside Nora Jones and Diana Krall, the new record finally unleashes Peyroux's full creative potential: there's playful bluesy bops like “Showman Dan” which feels like a cheeky Jim Croce hit - and darkly prophetic songs like “Nothing Personal” which takes a clear-eyed view of sexual assault as a weapon of war. She's not holding back and her intuitive band, always a highlight, matches her intensity at every point. Much like her genre-defying albums, a conversation with Madeleine goes in many directions - she's got a lot on her mind, she has a lot of ideas and having lived much of her creative life in both America and France, she has a unique double perspective about what music and culture can do for our well-being and how governments and its citizens can support music more.

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 a way that only he can.  A song like “Gentle Violence” off the new LP is everything John does best - kernels of Prine-approved lyrics that seem to stick to your ears like tiny knives, reminding us that he always prefers to tour and write alone, processing pain with silence as his forever companion. And while he's happily married now (his wife joins him on the road as his tour manager), in 2022 Moreland almost checked out and didn't come back - stepping away from playing and displaying himself hundreds of days a year for people to sing along to cathartic heartbreakers like “You Don't Care Enough For Me To Cry” that have become Americana hits - for a chance to recharge and clear his brain from the internet's growing shadows.  The time away was tough but worth it - Visitor has a renewed clear-eyed power that shines in songs like the opener “The Future Is Coming Fast” - maybe it shows remnants of his punk-rock origins too. Most country-roots artists don't have the cajones to talk about climate change or addiction or grief but for Moreland who grew up idolizing Steve Earle - there is freedom and joy in mining the darkness. People come to Moreland's hushed concerts to feel something - and listening to Visitor makes me grateful that Moreland is here to help us cope with whatever we happen to be feeling right about now.

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 twenty-one extended family members (her mother and grandmother sang locally and dad owned a night club), she was accepted into a prestigious music conservatory at age ten and has been off to the races since, co-founding and the all-female Cuban-Canadian jazz collective Maqueque in 2014, which toured internationally and earned a GRAMMY nomination and releasing four solo albums. Cubaphonia from 2017 is a favorite of this listener.  Like many artists caught in Cuba's long history of repression and poverty - she was forced to leave the island to protect the safety of her husband, a photojournalist whose coworkers had been imprisoned. Canada was their only option at the time due to travel restrictions, but after three years living there, the pandemic pushed her to look for a new home again.  She was advised to contact Grammy-winning producer Eduardo Cabra, better known as Visitante Calle 13, he invited her to come to Puerto Rico to spend a few days in his house - and a new album and a new home base was found. Sometimes you just need that island energy to make you feel whole again. Listen to the deeply spiritual (yet still catchy as hell) “American Boy” - about her finding her happiness and power even without the love of her life being by her side. For someone who grew up as a dark-skinned girl feeling invisible, what's clear is Daymé wants to be seen and understood more than ever before.

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 a shock to see that Hall & Oates are technically the most successful duo in modern music history.  But Oates' half a dozen solo records are quite underrated (look to the stripped back Arkansas to see what I mean ), and with the new LP Reunion dropping this week, we see him sonically rejuvenated, leaning into his love of early 20th century acoustic music and how his family history formed who he is today.  For this listener and songwriter - getting to dive into how “Maneater”, “She's Gone”, “You Make My Dreams” was quite a thrill, but I was also moved at how generous Oates was towards the young artists he gets to work with (Sierra Hull for one) and how he has reacted to the fractious relationship with his former co-creator Daryl Hall with a sense of zen, even as the tabloids spin yarns of their many years in the making “breakup”.  While playing arenas may be in his past, Oates is excited to play intimate shows telling the humble stories on Reunion like “This Field Is Mine” which he teamed up with beloved mandolinist Sam Bush. 

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, England, Ireland and Scotland - but what Amigo The Devil has done with a squirmy, personal new LP Yours Until The War Is Over is to take them to a new level - probing with his deft fingerpicking and at turns tender and then ferocious vocals - his own sicknesses, his own dark family secrets and our national plunge into addiction, murder and hate. And yet, it's still fun to listen to? Quite a balancing act. Why does it feel so good to shout “I Hope Your Husband Dies!” in a packed auditorium - or to discover our own “Cannibal Within”? There must a reason why true crime podcasts and novels and horror films continue to obsesses us. Danny takes these obsessions a step further of course - he collects skulls, serial killer art, letters from jail from men who have done the unspeakable…and yet, after hearing him talk on his songwriting process, you see he is among the most thoughtful and underrated writers and performers on the road today.  To see the whole uncut nearly two hour talk - go to the Show On The Road Youtube channel!

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 playing stadiums across West Africa. The two mates from Abidjan were equally inspired by Ivorian village songs as Simon and Garfunkel, Dolly Parton and American soul titans like Otis Redding - creating a unique fusion while singing in French, English and Gouro (a Mande language). Escaping the unrest of his home country where he was a history teacher, One finally came to the United States and worked as a nurse for years before diving back into his original passion for music.  At the age of 67, last year One put out his heralded return LP Come Back To Me on Verve Forecast, featuring the golden-voiced harmonies and Ivorian country-folk songs he does best, with new forays into blues, French love songs and more - featuring his old partner Jess Sah Bi and new collaborators like Allison Russell. Co-produced by Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, John Prine) with contributions from members of Wilco and Calexico, the record shows that even as he nears seventy, One is only just getting started. Last year he even made his debut at the Grand Ole' Opry. 

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 generation of listeners. Born Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr to a renown jazz arranger and gospel singer, Taj Mahal is one of the first mainstream artists to champion world music - sharing his passion for the music of Mali, Jamaica and especially Hawaii with his rowdy audiences around the world.

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. While Afie's newest record Bootcut may seem like a warm country-tinted collection that you can safely put on in the background at a dinner party with everyone wearing turtlenecks and sweatpants - underneath, there are needles and shards of memory glass sticking up through the softness. Look no further than “Sports Car” maybe about his absent father who would have preferred a fast muscle car to a new kid in the house - or “Gone Girl Gone” the banger of the LP which takes a squinting look at what that crazy (but exciting) ex is up to now (yes he references Only Fans). Wonder how that one went over at his Opry debut a few months back? Feel free to dive into the first part of our conversation to jump into more songs from Bootcut or stay right here as Afie and I discuss how travel, social media and the tricky financial realities of being a touring musician and dad mess with our sense of self as partners, fathers and creators - and how the music can always be there like a magic potion - no matter who you choose to be in the future. 

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 this podcaster) for a loop by channeling his inner Alan Jackson and George Strait, but in a nice, warm way. I'll admit I was concerned at first. Must everyone go country? Sliding steel guitars, twangy solos, his signature low-drawl and gorgeous lady-led harmonies? You bet. But it feels serenely natural on him. And yes, Bahamas did make his Opry debut a few months back so he is fully diving in and it shows. In this first part of our dive into Bootcut and beyond - we hear how Bahamas brings his daughters into his songwriting, how he's had to let go of his younger “hunk” guitarist roots and how he's connected being a songwriter and a quirky online “content-creator” into his art. In these fractious times, especially as the seasons get darkest - maybe we all need a new LP that doesn't try and reinvent every sonic wheel or show off with shredding guitar histrionics (he used to tour with Feist) and rapid-fire poetic gymnastics. Is Bootcut like a warm hug reaching out from your car speakers? Maybe.  Try listening to the heartfelt, soft opener “Just A Song” and the yearning piano-ballad closer “Nothing Blows My Mind” - to hear how he's trying to be at peace with the chaos and mystery of being a father, a son and a citizen who is just doing his damn best. With his second time here on our show, it's easy to hear how comfortable Afie has gotten in his skin. Thankfully, his music has never been better. 

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: their newest LP Bolero Apocalíptico was just crowned best alternative music album at the Latin Grammys and I was able to catch up with Catalina the night before her performance at Disney Hall with the LA Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel. While her infectious laugh and the band's often nostalgic and cheerful sounds may lean one way - listen closer and the new LP dives into some serious subjects that hit close to home for Catalina - like the desperation of climate change, government sponsored violence and poverty.  Harnessing her love of cumbia, swing, bossa nova, and folk styles from across Latin American, Catalina  sings in Spanish, French, Portuguese and English depending on the mood and with her work in Monsieur Periné, she's been able to collaborate with some of the brightest lights in Latin music such as Ana Tijoux, Vanesa Martin, Vicente Garcia and more. Take a listen to “Cumbia Valiante” featuring Tijoux which touches on the massive protests against corruption that she and her family have participated in in her native Colombia.  While the world was shut down over the pandemic - an unexpected surprise happened for the band. An older jazzy song of theirs "Nuestra Canción” (a fan favorite) from their 2015 record Caja De Música somehow became a Tik-Tok sensation, rising to the top of the music chart and was then streamed over 150 million times. If you're in a bad mood? Put that one on ASAP.  Indeed, the group rarely comes to California - but when asked about her favorite all time show - Garcia mentions playing at sunset at the Santa Monica pier many years before. Truly the amount of travel she and her bandmates have undertaken across three continents is staggering - and there are many more stories to come. 

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 2015 and has become a master at gathering some of the leading Latin-music luminaries (from Natalia Lafourcade to Ivy Queen) and speaking truth to power through her music, celebrating and challenging Puerto Rico and its rich traditions. During the fiery Telegramgate protests, she collaborated her stepbrother Residente and Bad Bunny on “Sharpening The Knives” which focused on the unheard voices of local Puerto Ricans still suffering after Hurricane Maria. It can be hard to describe ILe's sound. She mentions that a little dose of feminism may be what dreamy boleros, Caribbean folk music and cheerful salsa of her childhood needs - after all, even the female-sung classics were often written by men. ILe isn't afraid to upend classic genres by using hip-hop, trap beats and synth-psychedelia alongside ringing acoustic instruments and old-school Caribbean percussion to create a bigger technicolor soundscape. The more personal LP Almadura followed in 2019 and in this taping, we sit down to discuss her lushly cinematic and unapologetically political 2022 LP Nacarile.

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 stadiums - and keeping the spirit of his lifelong project with the late Lowell George - Little Feat going fifty years and counting. How do you create that adrenaline of a life show in the hush of the studio? Bill's idea: create your own audience in your head.  Check out the beautiful deluxe reissues of Sailin' Shoes and Dixie Chicken which feature never-before-heard songs and demos.

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 Bill Payne, this ever-evolving collective of artists was able to keep the dream alive, delighting devoted fans with seminal live records like Waiting For Columbus and showing off their signature harmony-rich folk and brassy funk with a new tour while reissuing their beloved records Dixie Chicken and Sailin' Shoes with never-before-heard material.  The more you look, the more you see that Little Feat is like a fifty year old best kept secret - the genre-bending band that many masters like Elton John and Robert Plant and even The Rolling Stones love to see live - with songs like “Willin'” being covered by everyone from Linda Ronstsadt to Gregg Allman to The Byrds. Meanwhile Payne has had an epic career playing keys in bands like The Doobie Brothers and expanding his creativity into fine art and authorship. Little Feat has always been that special group that, while never achieving world-wide fame, is always waiting to be discovered anew. 

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 said about the music Ani DiFranco has created for the last thirty years since she burst on the scene with her fiery self-titled LP in 1990. With her shaved head on the cover, fearlessly bisexual love songs, dexterous guitar work and hold-no-prisoners lyrics sparing no one from her poetic magnifying glass, DiFranco's persona became almost synonymous with a rejuvenated women's movement that blossomed in the late-1990's Lilith Fair moment. And yet she was always a bit more committed to the cause than some of her more pop-leaning contemporaries, who faded away as soon as their hits subsided. Framing herself somewhere between the rebellious folk-singing teacher Pete Seeger and the gender-fluid show-stopping rock spirit in Prince, (who she recorded with after he became a fan,) DiFranco was always just as passionate about raising awareness for abortion rights, ensuring safety for gay and trans youth and bringing music to prisons, as she was promoting her latest musical experiment. She began playing publicly around age ten, and as a nineteen-year-old runaway from Buffalo, NY, she started her own label, Righteous Babe Records, that allowed her to operate free of corporate (and overwhelmingly male) oversight. Indeed, despite gaining a wide international fanbase she has released every album herself since the beginning — as well as championing genre-defying songwriters like Andrew Bird, Anaïs Mitchell, Utah Philips, and others. It was DiFranco's encouragement that helped Mitchell's opus Hadestown become a Tony-winning Broadway smash. DiFranco may have been deemed a bit too left-of-center for pop radio, but her beloved 1997 live record Living In Clip went gold. Let's get something out of the way real quick: was this male podcast host initially a bit intimidated to dive into her encyclopedic album collection after admiring her work from afar and believing the songs were not meant for his ears? Indeed. I grew up with girlfriends and fellow musicians who rocked Ani's Righteous Babe pins and patches on their jean jackets like they were religious ornaments. What I found during this mind-bending conversation, and after listening to her polished and mystical newest record especially, was that DiFranco has never tried to push away people that don't look or talk like her — or tried to mock or belittle conservative movements she doesn't agree with or understand. There is a deep kindness and empathy in her songwriting that I never expected and in her 2019 autobiography, No Walls And The Recurring Dream, she acknowledges how lonely and exhausting it can be trying to fight against a societal tide that doesn't want to stop and give you space to be who you are. What became increasingly clear during our conversation was that DiFranco wants to make music for everyone. She prides herself on her quirky, multi-generational fanbase — with grandparents and kids, dads and sons, daughters and aunties alike singing along to favorites like “Both Hands,” “Untouchable Face,” and covers like Woody Guthrie's “This Land Is Your Land” at packed shows across three continents.

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 feature an exclusive acoustic performance of her track “Garden” which has not left this podcasters head for the last month straight. 

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, her struggles with body acceptance and overcoming toxic relationships, processing trauma in her records, and how her ancestors spoke to her through emotional new songs like “Still Here”. 

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. I was able to call into their tour bus to talk about their humble start to headlining Red Rocks and touring four continents behind their lush new record Living In A Haze. More than ever, the new LP mixes their roving love of jazz, electronic dance music, reggae and folk forms into a sound that is wholly their own. Standout international collabs with Charlotte Cardin (Quebec) and Fatoumata Diawara (Mali) create a gorgeous aural tapestry that is still danceable but shares more raw emotion than previous releases. Both Clemons and Philipp are dads now, so a three month tour is a big family affair - with their band, there are seven kiddos on the bus. Throughout our talk, it was stirring to hear how they've kept the creative fires burning while balancing new pressures like family and relative fame while keeping their own ever-evolving friendship growing. Also, they let us know exactly what a "disco boy" is...and why dancing the night away is still the best medicine if you're feeling lost.

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 conversation with Zach Goode, the new frontman of Smash Mouth - we dive into his long journey playing in groups that inspired many early 90s hard rock luminaries but never quite rose to the top, and making the most of this strange and life-changing opportunity to be in the spotlight at last - and the tough sacrifices in his personal life that came from this new fame.

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.

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 each member of the band - and their oddball superpowers.  

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 to selling out Red Rocks and creating a loving community that keeps him inspired to keep hitting the road. Make sure to listen to their new AAA radio staple “Kid” which could be David talking to himself in the past - or sending good vibes to his not-yet-here child in the future.

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 without his lion tamer white tux, stripping things way back to bring us an achingly intimate trance-lullaby of a new record called Yesterday's News. With no jaunty piano to speak of, the new LP uses his tender nylon string guitar and voice as the main storytellers (with upright bass and assorted hand percussion lifting up the songs saturated in delicious tape hiss), diving into the delirium and beauty of being a dad, a husband and an artist who maybe has finally let go of his ravenous ambitions to find a sort of uneasy peace.  As a fellow sleep-deprived songwriter dad myself, the quiet rage and bleary-eyed hope in “Close Your Eyes,” about the long nights spent with a newborn, hit very close to home. Ditto the opener “Gene,” which could be seen as both a moonlit conversation with his young son, but also a fantasy talk with his younger self who maybe didn't have enough encouragement to just be his oddball self and live his truth. How does he put himself to sleep these days, you ask? He listens to old X-Files episodes… in audio form.  While many things have changed since our first episode with Robert (he now owns and runs a bar-music-venue-studio and is touring much less) his mischievous streak remains (you'll hear his cackle of laugh pop the mic many times) making us wonder if the lovely title track to Yesterday's News is both a clear signal of defeat (the relentless capitalist album cycle push is so last century!) and a quiet reminder that Ellis still has so many sharp stories to tell. And this time, you'll have to lean in close to hear them. He will be making some appearances at listening rooms and jazz clubs this summer, and I for one am really looking forward to seeing and hearing this new side of Robert's shapeshifting songwriting in person.  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 infidelity, his yearning for a connection to a higher power, and how betting on the music and himself was a jubilant radical act that just may be finally paying off.  The lush strings and almost Broadway-ready power of his voice on the opener “Gerri Marie” harken back to a time when artists like Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin were creating cutting edge pop and soul music that could at once get you to hit the streets to protest injustice and woo your new love with total abandon.  Most folks may know Jones as one of the co-lead singers with falsetto-master (and drummer) Adam Frazer of the Bloomington, IN-based throwback "sweet soul” group Durand Jones & The Indications, a project he began out of graduate school (he also plays the saxophone) at The University of Indiana. Starting with their hard-hitting 2018 self-titled record and the follow ups American Love Call (2019) and Private Space (2021), they became a coveted national act and AAA radio favorite, with this writer seeing their biggest show yet, last summer at the Hollywood Bowl in LA. You would be forgiven if you thought the club-ready romantic earworm “Witchoo” dropped in 1971 not in the height of the pandemic - but the unrestrained Chaka Khan-esque vibes are hard to deny. As I told Jones, that tune got me through a very hard time. While Jones admits he likes to play a certain version of himself on stage - flamboyant outfits and soaring vocal runs are what keep audiences coming back - at home, he's a much more introspective character who is a big fan of journaling. It's the quieter, more vulnerable sides of his story (being queer in the Deep South for one,) and the complicated figures like “Sadie" (not her real name) that he renders in full cinematic detail that point to a powerful solo career ahead if he wants it.  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 just last month), Andrews has put out eight records and counting, beginning with 2008's Urban Myths and culminating in 2022's lush and cautiously hopeful Loose Future. “These Are The Good Old Days” finds her trying to be present in a world of relentless distraction and hidden pain – and while the chord changes and harmonies harken back to 1950s girl group vibes, there is always a searching, aching energy roiling underneath. If you feel like you missed out seeing touchstone genre-defying singers like Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris in their 1970s roots-pop primes, fear not: it can be argued that Andrews is leading the newest wave of honey-voiced performers who just happen to be writing the most honest, heart-stopping work in the expanding Americana universe. Many first heard her with the acclaimed, gorgeously direct Honest Life in 2016 which helped develop her following, especially in Europe, and the mournful and cathartic Old Flowers which earned her a 2020 Grammy nomination for Best Americana Album. We all go through painful breakups and have to learn how to process the fallout. But what Andrews can do with the thorny moments most of us would want to forget, may be her superpower. “I'm not used to feeling good,” Courtney Marie Andrews sings with a weary smile on “Change My Mind” towards the finale of Loose Future. And yet, as she penned many of these timeless tunes in a small cabin on Cape Cod during the height of the lockdowns, sometimes realizing that you can be happy after all is that big first step that can get your future to start opening up. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 icons like Marvin Gaye that he used his time in the darkness of 2020 to release two albums: first the fiery Black Hole Rainbow which became a critical hit, and then a new take on What's Going On, which raised funds for low-income communities of color, and provided resources and education around the democratic process. Taking a cue from the lush production of 1970's Stax and Motown, the new LP leads with the joyous “All I Really Wanna Do,” inviting us onto a cosmic journey of discovery and continues with the playful, sultry "Brown Sugar Queen," a Prince x Anderson Paak super-sized jam that features rising Swedish pop star Janice. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 place as an adult with real responsibilities who also happens to be a soul-searching artist criss-crossing our beautiful (or crumbling) almost-post-pandemic world. Imagine if you will, you walk into a saloon lost somewhere between 1930 and 1975. The band onstage has three distinct lead singers, and the songs feel like hard lived-in tales that could live in a TV western or the soundtrack to Boogie Nights, with vibes that would inspire both Ray Charles and Woody Guthrie, Tom Waits and The Beatles. If you're confused, good. Algorithms can force music upon you at any time these days and I'll admit, Spotify wants me to listen to The Deslondes, at all hours. They're not wrong. If I have one job in this podcast it's to share the music that lights a fire in me as a fellow songwriter and has me grasping for genre-descriptor straws. I have no idea, clearly, how to describe this band. I will say, songs like “Howl at the Moon” make me feel like I'm somehow still proud to be an American, plying my trade somewhere in the still kind of Wild West. Starting with their charmingly ramshackle and bluesy self-titled debut in 2015, the band, which formed in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, has always made a point to write democratically and spread songs around to their singers. Sam for one, Dan Cutler (bass) for another and notably the always compelling Riley Downing, whose ancient deep drawl sounds like it should be its own character in Yellowstone - and all harmonize gorgeously together. Downing and Doores also both have duo and solo albums which are lovely, but what they create here in The Deslondes - especially in timeless story songs like “South Dakota Wild One” about Riley's wandering youth - are special in the way accidental supergroups make music that somehow shouldn't exist.  It was a pleasure getting together with Sam for a rare in-person chat just off Frenchmen Street. If there's one thing I love most about New Orleans, it's that it creates new artists that seem to follow the beat of their own drummer, genres be-damned. Give Ways & Means a spin - it might transport you somewhere you need to go. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 festival favorite who has made a name for herself sitting in with some of the biggest names in the Americana scene. A recent collaboration with Rainbow Girls bore especially potent fruit - and if you read my Music That Moved Me in 2022 list you'll see at the very top was Anna's thorny "Big Dick Energy.”  Rarely does a song make you laugh and then dance and then follow with a sucker punch about how unsafe many women feel just taking up space in the world. The video also illustrates the song's deft twist: how women can gang together to mock and minimize the men who for so long have taken away their agency and power. And yet, the song also makes you want to forget it all and just groove to the sexiest flute solo in recent memory. If this is a foreshadowing of what's to come with Anna's solo work, call me quite intrigued.  Whether she's playing crunchy bass clarinet or upright bass, electric or acoustic guitar, or singing with Joel in Handmade Moments or her other jazzy group the Nightshades, Anna is never shy about speaking her mind in her music. Take a listen to Handmade Moments' rapidly rhyming, gorgeously harmonized climate change banger “Hole In The Ocean” which wouldn't feel out of place in a slam-poetry jam. A song on their forthcoming record End Of The Wars (coming in May) directly confronts Trump's cult-like status, again not pulling any punches. Want to see an early version of the song played with sax in a cave? Sure you do.  The dangers of the road are not lost on Anna and Joel of course. They were hit head-on during a freak accident on a run in Northern California years back and were lucky to make it out relatively unscathed. She's trying to keep things a bit mellower these days. It was special talking to Anna in her adopted new home of New Orleans, and the soulful sounds that trickle into her living room on Frenchman Street can be heard throughout the songs she's working on. Fittingly, a slow burn live track she released, “Slow Down, Kamikaze,” is a great reminder to stop trying to do too much and focus on what actually matters.  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 will occasionally speak up about injustice or corruption - but with Working On A World, Dement puts the protest front and center: honoring luminaries like Mahalia Jackson, John Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr. and even The Chicks for giving her hope that putting your principles and life on the line will help bend history towards progress and righteousness. Dement, who is now based in Iowa with her musician and collaborator husband Greg Brown (check out their biting co-write “I'll Be Your Jesus”), will be the first to say that at times in her wide-ranging career, playing clubs to enraptured but small audiences, she has questioned whether she was doing enough to make a difference. But songs like the epic Dylan-esque take-down “Going Down To Sing in Texas” show that Dement is still at her fired-up best, confronting the Lone Star State's open carry gun laws that put so many at risk, while also spitting in the face of all the wannabe tyrants who shun the very progress she is still hoping to see. In many ways, Working On A World is a hard-won release of pent up energy, created over the course of six years with co-producers Richard Bennett, Jim Rooney and Pieta Brown. While many of her longtime fans are used to her fearless political confrontations - 1996's seething The Way I Should and its dark anthem “Wasteland of the Free" demand answers from sexual abusers and government war mongers alike - casual listeners may only know Dement from her playful duets with sonic soulmate John Prine, most notably the foul-mouthed love song “In Spite Of Ourselves.” With a little laugh, she says she's alright with that too. Life is long and the music, no matter the light or the dark, is equally as powerful. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 podcaster included. After diving into that encyclopedic collection which showcases his songs from 1968-1970, you can see that Francis's tastes were vast. Sparsely recorded with his beautifully airy yet powerful voice leading the way, he covers everything from Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement to his loving interpretations of Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, The Beatles and Bob Dylan (his fiery take on “With God On Our Side” is a must-listen). And yet, if you look deeper into his story, you'll notice that Francis's real love was for old school country music. In Nashville, the list of major-label Black stars not named Charley Pride was short thirty plus years ago – and still is. But in the 1990's, while already a successful cardiologist, Francis took leave of his office in Virginia and jumped on a tour bus to promote his catchy CMT-approved records Tourist In Paradise and Walkin'. Always the trailblazer, he also founded the Black Country Music Association to help find opportunities for up and coming artists who were left out of the Music City limelight. While he did return to his patients and left Nashville to its devices in the late 1990's, Francis and his work creating what he likes to call “soul-folk” are thankfully being discovered anew via the wizardry of the internet. I was so personally moved by the open-hearted power of his collection Beyond the Willow Tree that I had to find out more, and I'm so glad I did. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 Awake and how growing up around his side-man legend dad Bucky Baxter (pedal steel and guitars for Bob Dylan's touring band, and countless others) inspired him to make his own playful visions real and to always follow his ear. But while Wide Awake felt accessible as a funky aural high five, his 2022 offering If I Were A Butterfly is a more challenging, experimental work - think Jackson Pollock filmed through a Super 8 camera after a mushroom trip. He uses archival audio going back to his childhood, sings about goats, demons and his forever yearning to find a love that loves him back in a way that doesn't seem transactional. The result is a fractured but intimately moving portrait. I'll admit, it took a few listens to warm to Butterfly, but after our latest talk, we can see how the ever-upbeat Baxter was processing some pretty heavy adult stuff on this record - most notably losing his dad and two of his most trusted recording partners to sudden ends. He hence did much of the producing himself, laying down the record in an abandoned rubber band factory. “Graffiti Street” shows Baxter at the height of his unique game, writing signature effortless rootsy-rock hooks with a new sense of gravity that never holds the butterfly within him down. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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: Melissa Carper. Is there such thing as a “new nostalgia” movement happening under our noses in the Americana scene? I'm going to say there is, thanks to folks like Melissa. She's lived several lives as a working music maker in groups like Sad Daddy (“Daddy” being her beloved nickname), Buffalo Gals, and the Carper Family (her folks in Nebraska growing up had a roving band), before collecting her favorite vintage-tinted songs and breaking out with her whip-smart solo debut Daddy's Country Gold and then 2022's Ramblin' Soul, which she penned while working on that vegetable farm with her fiddle player/partner during the height of the pandemic. The latter record is a celebration of the small victories and tiny glories of taking your hard earned art onto the road, while also pausing to reflect on the important folks she lost recently, like her beloved pup. While Melissa gets a good chuckle about being called the “Hillbilly Holiday” with her high lilting voice and silky delivery, it's the impossible pleasure of hearing the lost music of pre-modern country, jazz and blues fronted by a proudly queer bassist lead-singer that almost seems like science fiction when you look at it deeply. Make “new nostalgia” a new genre! Or throw genre right out the window and just turn modern classics like “Makin' Memories” (one of my top songs of 2022) up nice and loud, however you listen these days. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 who once rubbed elbows with Garth Brooks and the big boys in the country pantheon, but was recently rediscovered for putting out a transcendent complication of rare Black folk songs from the late 1960s. Recently Z. Lupetin went down to New Orleans and talked to artists in their studios and living rooms and, as the bandleader of Dustbowl Revival, will continue to bring you newly discovered music he found on the trail from coast to coast. New episodes every other Thursday!  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 playing on my bluetooth speakers around the house, or in headphones as I walk the dog or the toddler around the neighborhood, or in the car rolling to the next spot. As I teeter towards 40, I admit I love old school radio - while driving especially - and while most of the year has felt like a bit of a creative slog, I was thrilled to finally launch my own radio show on actual airwaves which you can listen to on Saturday mornings. And as a new dad, I am not ashamed to say that playlists like morning classical chill or sadgirl piano background are what actually got me through. But what about the songs that moved me? I live for a new song that knocks me out of my reverie: unexpected lyrics, or ripping solos, or funky beats that slap me across the face and make me go, "WHAT. WAS. THAT?" And there are some songs in the list below that surely did that. But does one song sum up a whole year? A year that began with me almost losing my wife to a horrifying rare syndrome while giving birth to our daughter? Of seeing her recover courageously and witnessing my daughter growing like a grinning weed that careens from room to room like a joyful banshee? Or traveling the country playing songs I wrote to sometimes empty or sometimes full theaters or festivals or saloons of happy or heckling strangers? Or talking to dozens of hard-working bands and songwriters with my mic from Nova Scotia to London, from Minneapolis to New Orleans, or right in the front bar of LA's hallowed Troubadour? How can songs, like short stories, be stitched together to create the novel that is your life? Maybe one can't really sum up a year like 2022 with a few songs. But if you are curious about some of the music that did truly move me or make me smile or got me through, this is it! I truly love these tracks. I will always love them. Are all of these safe for your to blast at work? Probably not! But let's get started. Songs featured in this episode: Anna Moss feat. Rainbow Girls, “Big Dick Energy” The Deslondes, “Five Year Plan” (Ways & Means) Melissa Carper, “Makin' Memories” (Daddy's Country Gold) Seratones, "Good Day" (Love & Algorhythms) Ondara, "An Alien in Minneapolis" (Spanish Villager No. 3) Onda Vaga, "Milagro" Silvana Estrada, "Tristeza" (Marchita) The Heavy Heavy "Sleeping On Grassy Ground" (Life and Life Only) The Cactus Blossoms "Hey Baby" (One Day) Dustbowl Revival "Be (For July)" (Set Me Free) Monica Martin "Go Easy, Kid" Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 and Georgie decamped there during the pandemic. And through the power of imagination (and production wizardry), they somehow mastered the reverb-y sun-soaked harmonies that Laurel Canyon favorites the Mamas and the Papas and the Byrds brought forth during the summer of love, with their breakout EP Life And Life Only (with a wink to Mr. Dylan), issued stateside by ATO Records.  The response to their Woodstock-flavored tracks like “Go Down River” and “All My Dreams,” led by pairing Will's roaring guitar and Georgie's gospel-tinted vocals, has been overwhelming. European tours with label-mates Black Pumas preceded national U.S. TV appearances and their first full run in America. While some could write them off as merely skilled nostalgia-hounds, what Turner has pulled off with his masterful production of Life And Life Only shows an obsessive attention to detail, helping resurrect a sound and, more importantly, a feeling that isn't stuck in the utopian hippie era, but could be the soundtrack to a more hopeful age that we may just be entering now.  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 for the Major League Baseball playoffs and even featuring at Joe Biden's inauguration. But on his own, Quesada has had a remarkably fruitful 2022, first releasing his Spanish-language debut Boleros Psicodélicos with some heavy collaborators, and in November he brought forth Jaguar Sound,  a cinematic instrumental opus that's one part Daptone R&B groove, one part hip-hop sample jam and one part Morricone vintage score mystery.  Growing up on the border town of Laredo, Texas as a MTV-loving, hip-hop and hair-metal obsessed only-child, Quesada discusses how he used the isolation of the pandemic lockdowns (and a pause in his relentless Black Pumas touring) to begin creating the music that had been living in his head for decades, but never had a chance to be heard. Gems like “Noble Metals” feel like a cross-section between an early dreamy Santana cut and something that could be found in a trippy Japanese animation.  A self-professed “studio rat," Quesada teases at the end of the talk that he's only just scratched the surface of what he hopes to create. One can only hope that a Black Pumas reunion with charismatic vocalist Eric Burton is in the cards too.  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 Villager No: 3 is produced by Ondara and Mike Viola (Jenny Lewis, Dan Wilson) with collaborations from Taylor Goldsmith and Griffin Goldsmith of Dawes, Sebastian Steinberg, Tim Kuhl and Jeremy Stacey. While he would still call himself a folk singer like his Minneapolis hero Bob Dylan, Ondara (like Dylan) has gone a bit electric on the new offering, harnessing his massive vocal power with a full band around him. Ondara's immigrant journey is truly one for the storybooks, and while he has dutifully paid homage to American folk protest singers in his previous work, the newest Spanish Villager work shows him really finding his own sound, at once sharply modern and steeped in a dark history he can't wait to mine. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 venues and festivals in the world.  Twenty years in, Simonett is keeping it fresh by letting masters like Tweedy bring his punky minor chord sensibility to the band's warm acoustic camaraderie (bassist Tim Saxhaug, banjo player Dave Carroll, mandolinist Erik Berry, fiddle player Ryan Young, and cellist Eamonn McLain round out the group) with standout songs like “Starting Over” not shying away from the expectations that come from recognition and giving your art to the world - with the brightness of the banjo always leading the way. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 unconventional path to becoming a sought-after songwriter, harmonist and writer in Music City. He toured in New York theatre productions when he was starting out, and ended up in LA. Even today you can hear the drama in his aching harmony-soaked songs like “Lightning Love” off Game Changer. While sales and national recognition haven't always aligned, the “stylistically restless” Lauderdale has played the Opry over 200 times, collaborated on albums with his heroes like the late bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley, written tracks for artists as diverse as George Strait and Elvis Costello, and has accidentally become one of the leading elder-statesman of the Americana movement. What is Americana exactly? Even Jim impishly won't say. But it's that earthy genre-bending sound that has kept his longtime fans coming back for more nearly for decades into his storied run. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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-created by yours truly and Dustbowl Revival (along with Tiny Porch Concerts and the Santa Monica Mountains Fund) that will celebrate the confluence of American roots music by bringing together diverse acts like Grammy-winning folk-blues master Dom Flemons, and notable local Southern California-based acts the Eagle Rock Gospel Singers, string-band Water Tower, Cuban group Yosmel Montejo y La Caliente and singer-songwriter Abby Posner.  Set in the green hills of the Santa Monica Mountains, partial proceeds from the fest will go to restoring historic Paramount Ranch which lost much of its western movie sets during a devastating wildfire.  Few bands of any kind can claim an unbroken lineage from their 1983 start. Phillip "Tuba Phil" Frazier, his brother Keith Frazier and renowned trumpet player Kermit Ruffins formed the group out of Joseph S. Clark Senior High School, located in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans. If you watched the acclaimed HBO series of the same name, you no doubt heard Rebirth as the brassy backdrop to the city as it constantly evolved and survived traumas like Hurricane Katrina. Members of the Frazier family still join the band on tours. Glenn Hall III takes us through the fascinating history of the group, describing notable shows like opening for the Grateful Dead, recording with John Fogerty, kicking off the Grammys, and recently joining the Red Hot Chili Peppers onstage.  Their 2022 single “New Orleans Girl” shows how they never stop experimenting, lending their big sound to a hip-hop mashup featuring Cheeky Blakk and PJ Morton.  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 signature sound leading often-sampled treasures like “Sissy Strut” and “Hey Pocky A-Way” (The Beastie Boys were big fans) - or even his slinky masterful backing of Dr. John's classic Right Place, Wrong Time. But a new generation are learning of Nocentelli from last year's surprise release of his first and only solo record, the acoustic folk-driven Another Side, which was resurrected and marketed by Light In The Attic Records nearly fifty years after Leo first recorded it.  You don't usually put your first record out when you're zooming past your 75th birthday. The story of how Another Side still even exists is quite a yarn (one that Leo goes into great good-humored detail about in the taping) from the master tapes being lost in damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, to a master-copy being found almost impossibly after a storage-unit got foreclosed and the music was traded at a local swap-meet. Hearing him tell it, finding these songs from his younger days, was like finding an essential, lost piece of his soul. The record isn't polished, but the sense of youthful exploration shines through. He's searching for his voice in real time. You wouldn't think a rock-funk maven like Nocentelli would be inspired by songwriters like James Taylor or Elton John - but in many ways, it was the softer, more yearning, poetic side of rock-n-roll in the early 1970s that intrigued him most when he began writing songs like “Thinking Of The Day” in 1972, wondering if his place in the world, his “tomorrow would ever come.” Other standouts like “Riverfront” told the stories he couldn't tell while penning the Meters' funky (but often instrumental) dance anthems. With his Meters mates chugging beside him in the studio, he can tell darker, more personal tales about his hard-working friends, like Aaron Neville (who he grew up with in the 7th Ward) and used to haul bananas off the boats in New Orleans to get by.  Nocentelli has had his shares of ups and downs as a lifer who has rode the tempests of the ever-evolving music industry. It's a “brutal brutal business” he says at one point - and Leo shares that he had to sell some of his favorite guitars to keep going through the years. The song “Getting Nowhere” leans into the sense of helplessness and frustration many talented session players and touring side-men like him went through when royalties and fame and fortune passed them by as others rose to prominence. Some things really haven't changed in fifty years. But only a generational talent like Nocentelli could create sparkling guitar backdrops for artists as diverse as Dr. John, Otis Redding and even Jimmy Buffett, and keep his passion long enough to see new crowds packing houses on tours in 2022. It must be quite the feeling to finally be able to perform his own solo work - a half century after the songs first emerged and were almost lost forever.  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 Chicamacomico dropped earlier this year and focuses on the twin losses of BJ's mother and grandmother - as well as a dark point in his own marriage when he and his wife lost a child. He was already building a room for the little one during the pregnancy when everything changed. While fans have been following the band as a roaring country-tinged rock outfit since they formed in Raleigh around 2006 (the masterful Jason Isbell-produced Burn.Flicker.Die put them on the map right as they thought they would quit), it's with Barham's more poetic, stripped down offerings like 2020's Lamentations and his searing solo work Rockingham that he is breaking new ground. Barham isn't shy about processing his adoration for The Boss as the preeminent living rock-n-roll intellectual king and there are cuts off the new LP like “The Things We Lost Along The Way” that feel like they could have been recorded in that haunted place alongside Nebraska or Darkness on the Edge of Town.  As a new dad myself who just experienced my wife going through a terrifying birth, BJ's songs hit me a little harder these days. I can't think of a country artist today with as big a following from North Carolina to Texas who would center the title track of his record around the unspoken tragedy of a late miscarriage, but Barham pulls it off with a remarkable sensitivity. Like Isbell, Barham notes that his career really began when he got sober and could finally examine the dark corners of his history, his relationships and the fractured history of the south he grew up in. Though hard to say, naming a record about working through deep loss Chicamacomico makes all the sense in the world. It's a real place of course, a life-saving station built in 1874 on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and a beach area where BJ and his wife tried to go to blow off steam and forget their sorrows. Now a proud dad to a little daughter (see the cheerful country banger “Little Things”) Barham has learned that in the end, being a father and husband first doesn't make him less of a hard-working, deep-thinking artist. In fact, it's finding that balance that has allowed him to write the most powerful songs of his career.   Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 homage to roots pop pioneers like the Everly or Louvin Brothers with an acerbic modern twist. But with allies like David Lynch (who inserted them into his rebooted Twin Peaks universe) and Jenny Lewis in their corner (she joins them on the bouncy tear-jerker “Everyday”) there is something a bit more biting under the sweet-as-candy close harmonies and hushed acoustic guitars, Wurlitzer and pedal steel. With a song like “I Could Almost Cry,” you have to dive beneath the aching minor country chords and Hank Williams-adjacent lyrics to find a Beatles Rubber Soul fury roiling underneath. As the soft-spoken mention in this freewheeling talk - what lurks inside many of the songs on One Day isn't just the story of a broken love affair - but maybe of our slowly-breaking country which Jack and Page see out on the road and try and make sense of anew.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 devastating record Rifles & Rosary Beads (co-written with U.S. veterans and their loved-ones) and her new record may be her most surprising and moving collection yet. Dark Enough To See The Stars, which drops June 3rd on Thirty Tigers, is in many ways an unabashed romance album, celebrating, in her own sardonic John Prine-meets-Anthony Bourdain style, how lovely it can be to find true love and creative joy at long last. During the pandemic she began performing a weekly stream with her amor, the talented songwriter Jaimee Harris, called Sundays with Mary - and while Gauthier has now returned to the road, the cathartic weekly song sharing show has continued too. Harris helped write the swoon-worthy traveling song “Amsterdam” on the newest LP.Gauthier's road to stability and creative contentment was a long one. As she gamely explains in this intense conversation, she made the leap to leave the relentless life of being a cook and restaurant owner (and partaker in too many illegal substances) and devoted herself to songwriting after getting arrested at thirty. Was she an instant hit on folk stages in her then base of Boston? Not exactly. In fact, she couldn't step on any stage without shaking. But she kept at it and the stories flowed. Early tours with Prine gave her confidence. Her breakout record Mercy Now (2005) chronicles her technicolor debauched early years with the clear-eyed grace of the newly sober, trying to give forgiveness to her troubled family and to herself for making it through. Being an openly gay songwriter, she took early inspiration from her heroes the Indigo Girls who showed her there was a place for a new kind of empowered songwriting, not just for women, but for anyone who wanted to look deeper into what women are experiencing behind closed doors.If Gauthier has one superpower as a songwriter it's her ability to empathize with everyone around her - even the troubled soldiers who she teamed up with on Rifles & Rosary Beads. We have way more in common with each other than many may think - overcoming trauma is pretty damn universal. Her book Saved By A Song: The Art And Healing Power Of Songwriting is her most powerful collection of stories and may explain best how her art has evolved in the last two decades, plus on the road.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 percussion players in Senegal, Carl Nichols began finding his voice and playing style in the haunting open and minor tunings first heard from bluesmen like Skip James, who he covers in his remarkable self-titled debut collection. Buffalo Nichols, which came in 2021, is a stark departure from what Carl would call the cheery “opinionless beer commercial blues” that has come to dominate the genre. Nichols' work is often sparse and direct - just a man with his guitar and a microphone. The stories told in standout songs like “Another Man” and “Living Hell” don't flinch from comparing how the experience of his elders a hundred years ago in the south may not look much different from men like George Floyd dying on that Minneapolis pavement. Is there catharsis or hope in the songs? Are they a call to action? Maybe that's up to us to decide. Carl will admit that it can be tricky trying play his songs like the searing album opener “Lost And Lonesome” in loud bars where people may just want to have a good time and not dive into the backroad history of racial injustice and institutionalized police violence. Thankfully his writing doesn't hide behind niceties and the recordings aren't veiled by sonic artifice - Nichols speaks directly to the isolation and danger of being a young Black man in America and trying to navigate the unease of bringing his stories to an often mostly white Americana-adjacent audience. Even more upbeat numbers like “Back On Top” call to mind the ominous juke-joint growl of John Lee Hooker, bringing us into dimly lit scenes where even late-night pleasure may have its next-morning consequences. If there's one thing we learned during this taping, it's that Carl doesn't want to just "write songs to make people feel good” - but he does want to tell stories that make the isolated and lost feel less so. Maybe that is the most important function of music truly steeped in the blues tradition: the ability to transform pain into progress. The messages may not be what people always want to hear, but the groundswell rising behind Carl's stark timeless tales is indeed growing. With recent appearances on Late Night with Stephen Colbert, NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts and big time dates like Lollapalooza on the books for the summer, folks will be hearing a lot more from Buffalo Nichols. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 each other from beginning to end. There is a field-recording looseness to some of the songs with sounds of nature and a cinematic string section lifting their effortless harmonies throughout. “Need You” could be about lovers re-finding each other in a dark time, or really it could be about Andy and Kyle themselves, reaching out to connect in every tumultuous season of their lives. Indeed they did mention that they've probably slept in the same bed more times with each other on tour than with their partners at home.While they both grew up in religious families, the act of two men, best friends in so many ways, diving into their fantasies and fears like in the sensuous “Voodoo” for all to hear might be considered a radical act, but they've been making these kinds of confessions in sonic form from the beginning of their songwriting partnership.. Their standout 2013 record Tenboom started popping up in playlists immediately and their now beloved songs have been streamed nearly 100 million times and counting. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 Coachella in resplendent sequined robes, howling like a reincarnation of Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett with a bold brass section behind him, it really almost never happened at all. A decade ago, Paul made a throwback soul EP with his longtime collaborator Jesse Phillips and friends as a last hurrah before signing off from the dispiriting quest of getting folks to pay attention to his songs as he tilted towards his thirties. But then the wheels started turning. Folks started packing their shows at the Bottle Tree Cafe (RIP) in Birmingham. Ben Tanner of fellow rising star southerners Alabama Shakes helped Paul make the more polished and kinetic EP Half The City in 2014, and with just a Bandcamp release to start, it began selling like crazy. Like, more than most pop records; one-hundred, then two-hundred-thousand copies. Late night shows and world tours and TV placements and opening slots for The Rolling Stones beckoned. The press couldn't stop asking: how could a guy like this sing like THAT? Paul was suddenly an unlikely star on the burgeoning Americana circuit. Wells Fargo would have to find another guy. But as Paul discusses throughout our talk, just creating a soul and R&B revival sound was never his plan. He loves losing himself in art museums, exploring Greek myths and diving into deep space travel, and with more daring follow up records Sea Of Noise (2016) and Young Sick Camellia (2018) creating danceable synth-funk bops like “Flow With It (You Got Me)” and “Apollo” - which also have dark underbellies if you listen closely - the group has become much harder to place, in the best way possible.This year's release Alien Coast shows Paul and his crack team of collaborators Jesse Phillips (bass), Browan Lollar (guitar), Kevin Leon (drums), Al Gamble (keyboards), Allen Branstetter (trumpet), Chad Fisher (trombone), and Amari Ansari (saxophone), pushing the envelope even further. The ominous narrator in “Bermejo And The Devil” sets the scene for a dreamy trip into the jagged edges of ancient paintings, intergalactic storms and long lost stories - with quieter standouts like “Popcorn Ceiling” grounding the record in themes much more earthbound - like the feeling of isolation Paul felt after traveling the world from stage to stage and lonely hotel room to hotel room, wringing himself out each night before tireless audiences. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 way. His newest album, Good To Be, was inspired by returning to his neighborhood in LA and rediscovering the community.Born Kevin Roosevelt Moore to parents who migrated from the Deep South, Keb' Mo' shortened his name and began playing in a variety of styles from calypso (he played steel drums) to pop before finding an audience playing guitar in local theater productions, and attracting the attention of Martin Scorsese who featured him in his Blues compilation. His 1994 self-titled debut was a critical and commercial success.  Keb' cuts a dashing figure onstage and has been featured in numerous films and TV shows, appearing in The West Wing, stealing scenes as Howlin' Wolf on CMT's Sun Records, and playing the haunting bluesman Possum in John Sayles' 2007 film Honeydripper. The Obamas brought him to the White House to play, too. As he mentioned in the podcast, it was being in the presence of Michelle that was his favorite memory of that special trip.Keb' Mo' has especially cherished collaborating with some of his musical heroes like Taj Mahal, Rosanne Cash and recently on his upbeat 2022 LP with Darius Rucker on “Good Strong Woman.” Stick around to the end to hear him talk about hanging out with Bill Withers and remaking the classic “Lean On Me.” Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 guitar, clarinet, banjo and singing in English and French - the spotlight finally fell straight on Russell in 2021. With the help of her husband and longtime creative partner JT Nero, she released her visceral debut solo record Outside Child which confronts her traumatic childhood head on. Rarely has an album struck such a nerve in the Americana community, as songs like “4th Day Prayer” use the slippery soul of Al Green's best work and Mahalia Jackson's gospel inspiration to paint in white-knuckled detail how she escaped the abusive home of her stepfather for the graveyards and streets of Montreal. As she tells us in the intense conversation from her home in Tennessee, it was her songwriting hero Brandi Carlisle who went to bat for her (a bold Instagram DM set fate in motion,) helping get her raw, unreleased songs to Fantasy Records. Thankfully, they wanted to take a leap. Even President Obama noticed after the songs began to circulate and he put her ominous radio standout “Nightflyer” on his favorite songs of the year list. The album has since been nominated for three Grammy awards.  While Allison may feel like an “overnight sensation” to those just discovering her on AAA radio, hearing her soaring voice shining on stages from Carnegie Hall, Red Rocks and the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, she's been playing hundreds of shows in small clubs and festivals around the world for twenty-two years and counting. It hasn't been an easy road, as she often had to her young daughter on the trail with her. With a new book deal in the works continuing her story where Outside Child left off, there is much more to come from Russell. A champion for the often forgotten victims of domestic and sexual abuse, listening to Russell speak reminds one more of a fiery community organizer than a singer. Did your host try and convince Russell to run for office? Maybe.Stick around to hear her dive into one of her favorite tracks from the new record, the hopeful clarinet shuffle “Poison Arrow."Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 and festival organizer Drew Holcomb, and a special unearthed episode with macabre folk-punk Amigo The Devil. New episodes return every week.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 initially plan to pursue music -- and scared his large family of teachers and educators by jumping ship from college and traveling wildly instead with just his guitar by his side. Stints seeing the remote villages in Ethiopia and Trinidad as well as backpacking all across his native Canada filled his songwriting inkwell to bursting. He also began building his family (he has four children who often appear in playful videos), and he isn't shy about saying his wife is his muse and number one supporter. His forceful We Made It Through The Fire came in 2017, with the catchy and tender tune “Ole' Sweet Day” being streamed nearly 20 million times since.Becoming a traveler again, this time as a storyteller sharing his ever-growing catalogue (the hooky and politically-charged In Our Time came in 2018) forced AHI to be away from his family for months at a time -- and as the pandemic arrived, his priorities began to shift. Prospect is his most heartfelt and introspective work yet, diving into where he stands as a Black man raising Black boys in a dangerous but increasingly hopeful world. Using booming gospel backing vocals and sweeping church-like reverb behind his warm acoustic guitar and silky voice, a standout like “Coldest Fire” feels like a post-George Floyd reckoning piece as well as a pure poetic pop jam.Stick around to the end of the talk to hear AHI discuss how he would make vegan nachos for Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr. and Dave Chapelle -- and he ends the show with an acoustic rendition of the sexy “Until You.”Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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 Divorced" (like a modern Patsy Cline, Brandy has a knack for nailing a heartbreaker) and she soon found a valuable mentor in Marty Stuart, who helped her make her Opry debut in 2012. While you may just be learning about Clark's stellar solo work which mixes old school and witty new school country with some of the tightest pop hooks in the game, Clark has quietly been co-writing for some of country and rock's leading ladies for years, like Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves, LeAnn Rimes and Sheryl Crow to name a few. But it was with her lyrically masterful, lushly-orchestrated 2020 LP Your Life Is A Record that doors started opening in a whole new way. 2021 saw an extended cut deluxe version drop.In this unearthed conversation (blame a faulty hard-drive), we go through her darkest breakup songs and tastiest kiss-offs and discuss how being a lesbian can alter her perspective in Nashville's Music Row Boys' Club. Don't miss the end of the taping when Brandy discusses teaming up with her songwriting hero Randy Newman on the cheeky tune “Bigger Boat” and she plays an exclusive acoustic performance.This episode of The Show On The Road is brought to you by WYLD Gallery: an Austin, Texas-based art gallery that exclusively features works by Native American artists. Find unique gifts for your loved ones this holiday season and support Indigenous artists at the same time. Pieces at ALL price points are available at wyld.gallery Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy