Brian Wright has lived and made music in Texas, Los Angeles and Nashville, where he’s been a guitar-slinging sideman and the co-founder of Cafe Rooster Records. His next opus is the sonically experimental Lapse of Luxury.
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Aubrie Sellers grew up around the country music business in Nashville but took her time finding her own vision as an artist and writer. We talk about the run-up to her second album, Far From Home.
The Show On The Road is back with cosmic California country singer-songwriter, Leslie Stevens.
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Host Z. Lupetin speaks with the deeply intuitive songwriter and cosmic country singer. On her much-awaited solo album, Sinner, Stevens has been creating viscerally vulnerable songs that, with her shimmering voice, seem to ache right through the speakers.
Kendell Marvel, native of rural southern Illinois, is a veteran professional Music Row songwriter whose work has been recorded by Gary Allan, George Strait, Lee Ann Womack, Chris Stapleton and others.
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He’s fought for country music values inside the system, even as it’s often let him down. He also put his performing and band-leading dreams on hold for years while raising a family. Now he’s back, leading a periodic pop-up honky tonk at the Exit/In and writing new albums. Coming in October, Solid Gold Sounds, recorded at and for Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Records. It’s a 70s tinged classic country album that’s good for the soul. Also, a catch up with Aaron Lee Tasjan, who’s just released an entirely new version of his 2018 album called Karma For Cheap Reincarnated.
Jenn Dowdy, Music Director at AL’s Place in San Francisco, tells us how to create the perfect playlist for any kind of shift.
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This is a special episode, because of all the restaurants featured on this little podcast, AL’s Place is the only one that has a Musical Director. It’s just one reason that this intimate neighborhood restaurant in the Mission District stands out amongst the plethora of dining options and Michelin establishments dotted around the Bay Area.
AL’s place is the vision of Chef / Owner Aaron London – he being the AL that the restaurant is named after (initals A.L), but almost five years in, with a Michelin Star under its belt, and many other accolades to its name — including the title of Bon Appetit’s New Restaurant of the Year in 2015 — AL’s Place is a true team effort.
The space only has 46 seats and finding an empty one is rare, so a shift requires everyone to be on their A-game the entire time.
While Chef Aaron London’s seasonal, ingredient-driven menu highlighting Northern California produce is the foundation, the service, vibe, and music are essential elements to the dining experience.
Jenn Dowdy started as a server at AL’s and after a few months of getting to know the space intimately, she asked AL’s GM Kimberly Litchfield if she could take over the restaurant’s playlist. The role of Musical Director, previously held by a part time staff member, was bestowed upon her.
22 public playlists later, with many more waiting in the wings, Dowdy weaves together 7-8 hour playlists that are highly curated for AL’s, never repeating a song, and compensating for the turns that happen throughout a night’s service.
Jenn Dowdy’s Shift List
BANKS – Bedroom Wall
Cashmere Cat – Miss You
DRAMA – Forever’s Gone
St. Beauty – Holographic Lover
Frank Ocean – Swim Good
ABRA – Pull Up
Erykah Badu – Didn’t Cha Know
Jill Scott – It’s Love
Beyoncé – Partition
Rae Sremmurd – Guatemala
Masego & Tiffany Gouche – Queen Tings
SZA (Feat. Travis Scott) – Love Gallore
Nitty Scott – Pxssy Powah!
Frank Ocean – Nikes
Rihanna – Sex With Me
6LACK – East Atlanta Love Letter
Robyn – Stars 4-Ever
Mobb Deep – Shook Ones, Pt II
Songwriter Amy Speace was entirely absorbed in theater, studying to be a Shakespearian actress in NYC. Then some fates and muses intervened and she began leaning into folk music.
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Before long she was recruited and mentored by the great Judy Collins, cultivating a voice that stands out even in the crowded songwriter scene of today. Now in Nashville, her story took another turn recently when she had her first child, a son, at age 50. Her complex observations about the world and herself pour out of the speakers on her newest, Me And The Ghost of Charlemagne. Also, a short phoner with Marty Stuart teasing the new mega-documentary Country Music by Ken Burns.
The String turns 100 Episodes old with a focus on Molly Tuttle, one of the most celebrated and dynamic young artists in Americana music, a singer/songwriter who has negotiated the bridge from bluegrass to mainstream popular music with amazing grace.
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Molly Tuttle is a two-time IBMA Guitar Player of the Year as well as a winner of prizes at Folk Alliance and Americana. But more significantly, her debut album When You’re Ready has launched her to appearances at the Grand Ole Opry, Telluride Bluegrass Festival and many other marquee stages. Also in the hour, we listen back to a few highlight moments from three years of The String, including Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn, Bobby Rush, Gretchen Peters and The Secret Sisters.
Rum purveyor and exotic cocktail expert Martin Cate talks about the exotic soundtrack that plays every night at his world-class Tiki bar in San Francisco, Smuggler’s Cove.
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So, if you haven’t noticed, Tiki is having a major rennaissance all across the US, and it’s due in no small part to Martin Cate’s elevation and dedication to the form. As he likes to put it, “Tiki is a multidisciplinary genre. It’s not just about the cocktails, it’s about creating an atmosphere. All of the elements need to come together seamlessly, and when something is missing or discordant, it takes you out of the experience.”
And central to this experience in any Tiki bar worth its salt is the music. As he writes in his award-winning Smuggler’s Cove book, along with exotica and other lounge music, the Tiki sound incorporates hapa haole, which is traditional Hawaiian music with lyrics sung in English, as well as the sounds of surf music. As Martin will explain in this episode, these sounds were actually countercultural to the greatest generation that made Tiki explode in its first wave of popularity back in the 1960s.
Be sure to visit one of his bars next time you find yourself in San Francisco (Smuggler’s Cove, owner), Portland (Hale Pele, co-owner), San Diego (False Idol, co-owner), or Chicago (Lost Lake, partner).
Martin’s Shift List
Ixtahuele – “Colors of Hawaii”
John Kameaaloha Almeida – “Lei Hinahina”
Les Baxter – “Quiet Village”
Martin Denny – “Quiet Village”
Toots & The Maytals – “Sweet and Dandy”
Harry Belafonte – “Matilda”
João Gilberto – “‘S Wonderful”
The Ventures – “Diamonds”
Sweet Hollywaiians – “Hula Girl”
The Tikiyaki Orchestra – “Theme For Jetsetters”
The Evil Genius Orchestra – “The Imperial March”
Johnny Aloha – “Gangsta’s Paradise”
Glenn Frey – “Smuggler’s Blues”
The Crazed Mugs – “Smuggler’s Cove”
Charley Crockett has a story that’s difficult to imagine playing out in the 21st century – he’s hoboed around the country, lost loved ones, scuffled with the law, played on the streets for a decade.
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And recently he endured open-heart surgery. At 35, he’s lived several of our lifetimes. And the thing is, he’s poured it all into his remarkable country blues, and he’s finally getting the renown he deserves. It’s what roots music is all about. Get ready for his September 20th release of The Valley with this conversation, which took place backstage, hours before his Grand Ole Opry debut in the WSM Room. Also in the hour, Nashville’s Lillie Mae is back on the program to discuss making her second album for Third Man Records at Studio A with super-producer Dave Cobb. It’s part of a longer conversation that will be posted soon by our friends at WMOT.org.
This week Z. speaks with Dylan LeBlanc, the lithe Louisiana-born roots ‘n’ roller who has one of those once-in-a-generation, ghostly-lilting voices that doesn’t seem of this time or place.
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His newest record Renegade, produced by Dave Cobb, makes it clear LeBlanc has grown up a lot in the last few years. It’s a big, snarling, cinematic, banger of a record; part spaghetti-western dust storm, and part hook-filled, ’60s AM radio sunshine.
This is our last episode of the summer season, so have a listen with a cold drink under the sun, and let Dylan’s voice transport you. Where? It’s up to you.
This week, we revisit one of our favorite conversations from Season 1 of the Shift List, Mr. Itamar Srulovich from Honey & Co over in London.
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The Israeli born chef co-founded Honey & Co with his wife, Sarit Packer, a cozy spot located in London’s once sleepy Fitzrovia neigborhood that serves homey Middle Eastern fair directly across the street from their amazing food shop, market, and culinary boutique Honey & Spice.
Following in the footsteps of their UK colleague and cookbook author Yotam Ottolenghi, of whom they both worked for prior to starting Honey & Co, Itamar and Sarit have released a handful of Honey & Co cookbooks over in the UK, and they just finished a whirwind tour of the US to promote the release of their Honey & Co at Home cookbook just last month. Feel free to head on over to Amazon now if you’d like to peak inside the front cover and maybe even purchase yourself a copy…
They visited cities and chefs all over the country to help promote the book, which presents their simple and delicious Middle Eastern dishes that are easy to make at home, and they stopped through Los Angeles to do a takeover of Sqrl, Jessica Koslow’s venerable breakfast and lunch spot which kind of feels like a version of Honey & Co in California.
Itamar excitedly talked to The Shift List about the role that music plays at Honey & Co last August, and we ended up recording this on two stools in a pseudo storage room in the working cellar underneath their Honey & Spice shop.
Theme Song: Jamie Drake – “Wonder”
