Podcasts about songtalk

SongTalk podcast is a series where a song list and the conversations around those songs are the window to learn about the guests of host Becca Dira. This podcast concept began during Becca's internship at WMHT-TV production, and she spoke with Sina Basila Hickey for Hudson Mohawk Magazine about this new podcast and how it provides insight into our personalities.

Becca Dira came to us as an intern with WMHT-TV production. She loves music! And she loves to talk about music. And she's turning those loves into a podcast called "SongTalk."

This week SongTalk welcomed Jeffery Straker a Canadian folk/roots singer-songwriter, who is based in Toronto, Ontario and Regina, Saskatchewan. His piano-based pop musical style has drawn comparisons to Elton John, Neil Young, Rufus Wainwright, and Kris Kristofferson. Straker grew up listening to country music on his parents Saskatchewan grain farm at the same time he …

This week SongTalk welcomed Newfoundland Americana/Folk duo Quote the Raven. Jordan Coaker and Kirsten Rodden-Clarke have been bewitching audiences with haunting harmonies and East-Coast meets Americana songwriting for a decade. Their album Golden Hour (2018) earned multiple nominations including the 2019 ECMA Rising Artist and the award for 2019 MusicNL's Group of the year. After …

This week SongTalk welcomed Pop-rock artist Greg Wyard – a singer-songwriter, guitarist and bass player who has been diligently working at his craft since he was ten years old. Greg moved to Canada from his native England at age 13 and settled in Toronto, earning a reputation as one of its most hardworking solo performers. …

This week SongTalk tried something a little different. We brought in some our favourite songs sung in a different language than English. They say music is the international language so we thought we would put that to the test. Phil, Neel and Mike each presented three songs in a language other than English and we …

Very excited to have the Juno-award winning songwriter, author of an international #1 hit song and the very first MuchMusic VJ join us on SongTalk. Christopher Ward has done all that and more. In our recent interview, Chris talked about his new release Same River Twice, its unique recording process and why he wanted to include his version of his song Black Velvet on the album.…

This week SongTalk resolved the controversy over standardized tuning to 440 hz! Okay maybe we didn’t resolve anything. But we did invite our good friend and frequent guest Matthew Reid to discuss the origins of the standard tuning setting plus the pros and cons of having a standardized tuning set at 440 hz rather than the more “organic” 432 hz.…

This week SongTalk dives into how to best use DAWs or Digital Audio workstations. Home recording is booming and it’s not just because of Covid. Musicians have long been using different software at home to do what used to cost thousands of dollars in a professional recording studio.…

This week SongTalk welcomed John from Tomato Tomato to our virtual studio. They just might be Atlantic Canada’s most entertaining musical duo. The New Brunswick based pair – John and Lisa McLaggan – have built a reputation on a live show that is as much about their on-stage charisma as their musical multi-tasking and vocal excellence.…

This week SongTalk welcomed Brendan and Adrian from The Fugitives to our studio. The Fugitives are a folk collective headed by songwriters Adrian Glynn and Brendan McLeod. They’re joined by banjo player Chris Suen (Viper Central) and violinist Carly Frey (The Coal Porters).…

This week SongTalk welcomed Jay Gordon Wright to our show. Jay a multi-instrumentalist songwriter and performer who has entertained audiences around the world. He is classically trained on violin, and has expanded his musical toolshed to include just about every instrument he can get his hands on.…

This week SongTalk welcomed Mark Cawley to our (virtual) studio. Mark Cawley is a hit songwriter, best selling author, in demand speaker, songwriting coach, and popular blogger. As a songwriter his songs have been on more than 16 million records to date – with a long list of cuts with legendary artists ranging from Tina Turner, Joe Cocker, Chaka Khan, and Diana Ross to Wynonna Judd, Kathy Mattea, Paul Carrack, Billie Piper, Pop Idol winners, and The Spice Girls just to name a few.…

This week SongTalk welcomed Doktor Nomi to our studio. Admittedly Nomi is not a real doctor but he does have a unique and interesting way of creating music. As a topliner and lyricist, Nomi frequently works with other collaborators to create his music.…

This week SongTalk featured a few songs from our listeners. And it was loads of fun. We chose three of our listeners’ songs to take a closer listen to. Stuart Cook – near Manchester, England penned a delightful song inspired by the view from a hill near his home.…

Sign on the Window isn't the Bob Dylan podcast you need, but it's definitely the one that you want! Each week we select a Dylan song at random, live with the song for a week (or two) and then get together to discuss. This week we go meta with 2020 by listening to Dylan's "Eternal Circle." In this episode... Context (3:00) 1991 SongTalk interview (9:00) Versions (12:00) Song Itself (17:00) Does it work in 2020 (38:30) Real Podcast and Playlist (42:00) Recommendations (55:00) Endings (1:10:00) As always, full show notes at our website. You can also follow along with our weekly real-time Spotify playlist – See That My Playlist is Kept Clean – or listen to our dedicated playlist for this episode – and join the conversation on the usual suspects: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. And if you're loving us, consider our Patreon. For as little as one dollar you get early access to every episode we do as soon as they're edited (and a dedicated feed just for you) and exclusive content that'll only ever be on Patreon. Thanks! Next episode: "The wildest cat from Montana passes by in a flash"

This week on SongTalk we look at a simple songwriting technique that may be more complicated than you think – songs with one chord progression. That’s right, no guest this week just the SongTalk team – Phil, Neel and Mike – talking about the ways songs with just one series of chords repeated over and over have become huge hits.…

This week SongTalk welcomed Donna Linklater to our studio. Soprano and composer/songwriter Donna Linklater studied opera with Sylvia Richardson at Brandon University. Toward the end of her studies, she began to focus on new music and was especially taken with the aleatoric music of John Cage which gave her greater freedom of creative expression.…

This week SongTalk welcomed our old friend Blair Packham to our studio. The Toronto-based artist, first gained attention for his work with ’80’s power pop band The Jitters. He is now an acclaimed solo artist and musician. Blair released two strongly-reviewed solo albums before shifting his focus to composing music for TV and films, teaching songwriting at the post-secondary level and in numerous special event workshops, and co-hosting a long-running major market weekly radio show about music (“In the Studio” on the BellMedia talk radio network).…

This week SongTalk welcomed FEATURETTE to our studio. The Toronto-based duo FEATURETTE, formed by singer Lexie Jay and drummer, Jon Fedorsen, makes emotionally-charged, heavy-hitting electro-pop music that has been met with international critical acclaim. After receiving their first full recording grant from FACTOR Canada, the duo released their debut LP CRAVE in October, 2016.…

  This week SongTalk welcomes… Christmas into our studio. For our Xmas Eve show, we all brought in our favourite Christmas songs and had a good chat about what makes them so great. Featuring some classics and some new songs that you may not have heard before.…

This week SongTalk welcomed David McLachlan to our studio. David McLachlan is a prolific songwriter with 7 albums released, one in the can, for release next Aug 2020. Several years ago David ventured to Nashville to record with some stellar A-list players.…

This week, SongTalk welcomed jazz pianist and teacher Steve Koven. Steve is a composer, performer, producer and educator. He has one of the longest standing trios in Canada, performing, touring and recording together for over 26 year. Aside from performing and recording with his trio – Steve Koven Trio – Steve also has other recording projects such as the Koven Collective and Koven & Law as well as Lazersuzan We talked with Steve about: his process for writing how he communicates his song ideas to his bands the touring opportunities available through consulates and embassies where he finds inspiration for his music what improvising can bring to songwriting The Trio    …

This week SongTalk welcomed our pal Matthew Reid to our studio to talk about movie soundtracks. We chose our favourites and talked about why they made the cut and what were the runners up.   We talked about: what are the criteria of soundtracks – are they a collection of songs from other sources, are they custom music made specifically for the film project or is there a grey area in between?…

This week SongTalk welcomed Jeff Alan Greenway to our studio. Greenway is a film composer, singer/songwriter and pianist from Pickering, Ontario. He has written music for film, worked as a session player, orchestrator and arranger, released his own original album “Great Expectations” and wrote the score to the international documentary The Secret Life Of Frogs, which won a Nature award at the Cannes Media and TV festival.…

This week SongTalk welcomed Robert Cross to our studio. Robert Cross was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He started playing guitar at 14, just so he could learn how to write songs. Cross is the singer and guitarist of the original rock band Satin, who released their first album Drop Dead Gorgeous in 2019.…

Earl Okin has done an extensive amount of traveling during his career as a working and touring musician. He is still best known as the only person to have toured with as opening act for Paul McCartney and Wings. It all started when Earl wrote an open letter to the SongTalk mailing list. It was titled, “Tribute to Linda McCartney”.  It was a heartfelt tribute  to Linda, who had recently died of cancer. Later, when I put out a request for essay's for my new website,  Earl must have seen it, because he submitted the letter to and gave me permission to reprint it in the Tales of the Road Warriors section of my fledgling website, Lil Hank’s Guide for Songwriters, which was one of a handful of early online resources for songwriters and musicians in the mid 1990’s. So, in January of 2019, when I first started creating the Tales of the Road Warriors podcast, which gets its name from that section of Li’l Hank’s Guide, I went in the WABAC machine to reread some of the essays - and came across Earl’s Tribute to Linda. This got me to thinking… hmmm, why don’t see if he’s still around and invite him to be a guest on my podcast. So, I searched Google and Facebook for Earl Okin and found out that not only is he still around, he’s just turned 72, fit as a fiddle, still doing concerts AND, he even has his own podcast More Show Notes...

Paul Zollo is an author, journalist, songwriter and photographer. Presently he is the Senior Editor of American Songwriter magazine, and Chief Editor and Photographer for Bluerailroad. A native of Chicago, he’s the author of several books, including Songwriters On Songwriting, Expanded Edition (which has been called “the songwriter’s bible” and features in-depth interviews with more than sixty of the world’s greatest songwriters, including Frank Zappa, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Neil Young, Townes Van Zandt, Laura Nyro, Randy Newman), its sequel, More Songwriters On Songwriting, as well as Conversations with Tom Petty (featuring a full year of discussions between Petty & Zollo), The Schirmer Rhyming Dictionary, Hollywood Remembered (an oral and narrative history of Hollywood), The Beginning Songwriter’s Answer Book (a manual on the art and craft of songwriting), and Sunset & Cahuenga, a novel. He’s currently working on books with Matisyahu, and the legendary photographer Henry Diltz. The recipient of the NAS John Bettis Fellowship Award for service in the songwriting community, Zollo is former editor of SongTalk magazine, and Managing Editor of Performing Songwriter. He has written for numerous publications, including Variety, Billboard, Oxford American, Sing Out!, Grammy Magazine, Playback, Boulevard, Acoustic Guitar and others. The lead singer-songwriter for the LA band The Ghosters for many years, he released one self-titled album with the band, and two solo albums: Orange Avenue (2000), (which features his famous duet with Art Garfunkel on the song “Being In This World”) and Universal Cure (2014), which has a duet with Terre Roche of the Roches called “Maggie.” As a songwriter he’s collaborated with many great writers, including the late Steve Allen, as well as Dan Bern, Severin Browne, Bob Malone, James Coberly Smith and others. With Darryl Purpose, he’s written many songs, including all included on Darryl’s most recent album, Still The Birds. As a photographer, Zollo has photographed many musicians and performers, such as Aimee Mann, Peter Case and Leiber & Stoller, and his photos have been displayed in galleries in L.A. and published in American Songwriter and elsewhere. He is presently at work completing his first book of photos, Angeleno. He produced and hosted events for the Aspen Writer’s Foundation’s Lyrically Speaking Program, and hosts many songwriter tributes such as the annual Bobfest in L.A. a tribute to Bob Dylan. He produced NAS’ Salute To Songwriters for many years, has contributed to NARAS’ Living Histories video project, and for the past 16 years has written about the Best Song nominees for the annual Grammy program book. He also hosts the live web-series “Songwriters On Songwriting Live,” which is filmed and webcast every month from The Songwriting School of Los Angeles, where his guests have included Neil Sedaka, Stephen Bishop, Mike Love, Rumer, Dave Stewart and more.

Paul Zollo is an author, journalist, songwriter and photographer. Presently he is the Senior Editor of American Songwriter magazine, and Chief Editor and Photographer for Bluerailroad. A native of Chicago, he’s the author of several books, including Songwriters On Songwriting, Expanded Edition (which has been called “the songwriter’s bible” and features in-depth interviews with more than sixty of the world’s greatest songwriters, including Frank Zappa, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Neil Young, Townes Van Zandt, Laura Nyro, Randy Newman), its sequel, More Songwriters On Songwriting, as well as Conversations with Tom Petty (featuring a full year of discussions between Petty & Zollo), The Schirmer Rhyming Dictionary, Hollywood Remembered (an oral and narrative history of Hollywood), The Beginning Songwriter’s Answer Book (a manual on the art and craft of songwriting), and Sunset & Cahuenga, a novel. He’s currently working on books with Matisyahu, and the legendary photographer Henry Diltz. The recipient of the NAS John Bettis Fellowship Award for service in the songwriting community, Zollo is former editor of SongTalk magazine, and Managing Editor of Performing Songwriter. He has written for numerous publications, including Variety, Billboard, Oxford American, Sing Out!, Grammy Magazine, Playback, Boulevard, Acoustic Guitar and others. The lead singer-songwriter for the LA band The Ghosters for many years, he released one self-titled album with the band, and two solo albums: Orange Avenue (2000), (which features his famous duet with Art Garfunkel on the song “Being In This World”) and Universal Cure (2014), which has a duet with Terre Roche of the Roches called “Maggie.” As a songwriter he’s collaborated with many great writers, including the late Steve Allen, as well as Dan Bern, Severin Browne, Bob Malone, James Coberly Smith and others. With Darryl Purpose, he’s written many songs, including all included on Darryl’s most recent album, Still The Birds. As a photographer, Zollo has photographed many musicians and performers, such as Aimee Mann, Peter Case and Leiber & Stoller, and his photos have been displayed in galleries in L.A. and published in American Songwriter and elsewhere. He is presently at work completing his first book of photos, Angeleno. He produced and hosted events for the Aspen Writer’s Foundation’s Lyrically Speaking Program, and hosts many songwriter tributes such as the annual Bobfest in L.A. a tribute to Bob Dylan. He produced NAS’ Salute To Songwriters for many years, has contributed to NARAS’ Living Histories video project, and for the past 16 years has written about the Best Song nominees for the annual Grammy program book. He also hosts the live web-series “Songwriters On Songwriting Live,” which is filmed and webcast every month from The Songwriting School of Los Angeles, where his guests have included Neil Sedaka, Stephen Bishop, Mike Love, Rumer, Dave Stewart and more.