The String – Producers Rick Clark and Neilson Hubbard

Recording producers are often the best people to speak with to gain extra insight into what makes some music more effective than others. And that’s what we do this episode with two Nashville leaders with very different stories.


LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS

Rick Clark came of age in Memphis and moved to Nashville in the 90s. He’s been a DJ, a compilation curator and a music supervisor for film and TV. He’s also getting back into songwriting and recording his own music. Neilson Hubbard is a key player in the modern Nashville music scene, with albums to his credit by Mary Gauthier, Gretchen Peters, Nora Jane Struthers and Matthew Perryman Jones. His own band of late is called the Orphan Brigade.

The String – Caleb Caudle

Caleb Caudle grew up in rural North Carolina outside of Winston-Salem, captivated by music far beyond what his school peers cared about — English punk, folk, and Bob Dylan among them.


LISTEN: APPLE MUSIC

Since entering the music industry fray as a singer/songwriter in the mid-2000s, Caudle has released seven studio albums, with a brand new one available now. Better Hurry Up was cut in 2019, just days after he and his wife moved to Nashville. A crack band set up shop at the Cash Cabin in Hendersonville, TN, surrounded by the spirit of Johnny and June. Great things resulted. Also in the hour, bass playing sideman turned impressive singer/songwriter, Adam Chaffins.


Photo Credit: Bret Scheinfeld

The Show On The Road – JD McPherson

JD McPherson joins host Z. Lupetin for the final episode of The Show On The Road’s 2019 season.


LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • MP3

Oklahoma-born JD McPherson makes his own brand of high intellect, dance party-ready, Sun Studios-style rock ‘n’ roll. Last year he may have recorded one of the greatest original Christmas albums of the modern era with Socks.

While McPherson probably never dreamed he would become a new rock ‘n’ roll king of Christmas, Socks may be his most impressive feat yet. If you’re deeply suspicious of the capitalistic caterwauling of most modern holiday music on the airwaves (except you, Mariah!) you’ll still fall in love with JD’s sarcastic and sweet collection of holiday originals. The album deftly dives into lesser discussed Christmas subjects like broken expectations, inter-family angst, holiday horniness, and hilariously, the myth of why Santa must be grossly overweight to satisfy us fairy tale-loving kids. Give Socks a spin as you rock around the Christmas tree or the Hanukkah bush, or even better — keep it playing all year long.

 

The Show On The Road – Lucy Rose

As host Z. Lupetin travels across the UK this month, we bring you Lucy Rose – a talented singer/songwriter who grew up in the same lyrically fertile plain as Shakespeare. She has made albums filled with twisty tales of sharp-tongued, black-hearted people searching for redemption, and navigating the rough rivers of supernatural sorrow that refuse to let us go as we grow up.

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • MP3

On her newest No Words Left, Rose has gone back to her roots a bit, forsaking the glossy Brit-pop direction toward which some of the powers-that-be wanted to push her, peeling back her sound to reveal just the thorny, pure fruit inside. The result is intense. Interlocking singing conversations in the tone of a toothy, hushed scream, she questions our relationships with ourselves — and maybe even God — to find who we really are behind the suffocating velvet gauze of our multiple social media personalities.