Tag: podcast

The String – Del McCoury, Jim Lauderdale and IBMA 2019

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Del McCoury is a bluegrass hall of famer and repeat host of the International Bluegrass Music Association Awards. Jim Lauderdale is a beloved Nashville songwriter whose wide range of projects and songs includes Grammy Awards in bluegrass. Their personalities are as big as their resumes, so they’ll make memorable co-hosts of the 2019 IBMA Awards in Raleigh.


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In a joint interview in front of a live audience, Jim and Del talk about the World of Bluegrass and their past and potential future as banjo players. You never know what might happen. Also in the hour, the next wave of the genre with Bluegrass Ramble showcase artist Jaelee Roberts. The 18-year-old is a new voice and songwriter who’s being welcomed by leading musicians into her first steps as a recording artist. IBMA’s World of Bluegrass runs Sept. 24-28 in Raleigh, NC.

The Show On The Road – Paul Cauthen

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week, host Z. Lupetin speaks with booming country gospel trickster Paul Cauthen.

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Z. and Paul met up in Nashville after his weird and whacked-out Big Velvet revue, which nearly got shut down for a brawl that occurred on stage at the end. Paul has a way of harnessing his own madness into a dangerous and intoxicating sonic brew that needs to be in your ear holes right now. Start with this episode, and then move on to Paul’s recent release, Room 41.

The Shift List – Ashleigh Shanti (Benne on Eagle) – Asheville, N.C.

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week, our guest is Ashleigh Shanti, Chef de Cuisine of Benne on Eagle in Asheville, North Carolina.

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Benne on Eagle is located on Eagle Street in a historic Asheville neighborhood called The Block. Shanti describes Benne on Eagle’s fare as Appalachian soul food. She works closely with Chef John Fleer, who’s best known around Asheville for his acclaimed restaurant Rhubarb and its sister cafe/bakery, The Rhu. The menu at Benne on Eagle pays homage to the rich African American culinary traditions that once thrived in The Block, as well as honoring Shanti’s own history as a Southern, African American woman.

The restaurant opened in late 2018, and it’s captured the attention of numerous media outlets, landing an Shanti-centered feature in the New York Times as one of the 16 black chefs changing food in America. Benne on Eagle has also been listed on Bon Appetit’s the Hot 10: America’s Best New Restaurants 2019.

Now 29 years old, Shanti traveled across the US on a six-month sabbatical before landing in Asheville after being tapped by John Fleer, and as that story in the Times reported, she decided that her next step as a chef needed to fulfill a critical desire to “[cook] food that celebrated her heritage as a black woman from the South and rebuffed assumptions about what that food could be.”

And if she wasn’t running the kitchen at Benne On Eagle or didn’t have any culinary skills, Ashleigh professes that being a rapper would be her dream job. She even writes a bit here and there, like the time Chef Carla Hall stopped by the restaurant for a visit and Ashleigh presented an original rap in her honor.

Ashleigh Shanti’s Shift List
A Tribe Called Quest – “Check The Rhime”
Nina Simone – “My Baby Just Cares For Me”
Megan Thee Stalion – “Big Drank”
Wynton Marsalis – “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South”
ODESZA – “Late Night”
Kendrick Lamar – “DNA”
Lauren Hill – “Doo Wop (That Thing)”
The Neptunes – “Frontin’ (Feat. Jay Z)”

Heading to Asheville, NC? Reserve a Table at Benne On Eagle here.

The Show On The Road – Matt the Electrician

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week, Matt the Electrician — a kind-hearted songwriter and cunning craftsman of smile-inducing folk songs that retain the one thing we might need most in our jackknifed new century: hope.

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While the artist not known as Matt Sever may still be able to fix the sparking wires behind your walls with his nimble bear hands, he found a line of work even more daring, dangerous, and financially precarious. What did he set his sights on back in the 1990s? Being a roving folk singer.

Matt’s been at this a while, he looks more like your cool tatted shop teacher than the next big arena money maker for the major labels. So, letting the people who have put him up in their houses and cooked him a warm meal on the road support the music their own way? It’s kind of beautiful. In fact, his sturdy fanbase just lovingly funded his next record, for which he’ll be working with a producer for the very first time, and that producer is none other than Tucker Martine. He’ll be heading up to Tucker’s studio in Portland, Oregon to start the project in October.

The String – Aubrie Sellers and Brian Wright

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

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 – Leslie Stevens

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

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.

The String – Kendell Marvel plus Aaron Lee Tasjan

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

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.

The Shift List – AL’s Place, San Francisco

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

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

The String – Amy Speace plus Marty Stuart

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

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 – Molly Tuttle and Episode 100 Highlights

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

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.