CooperTalk

Vonda Shepard talks with Steve Cooper. Vonda is best known for her work on Ally McBeal. She was the “Greek Chorus” for Ally’s emotions and thoughts. There were often cover tunes from the 50’s, 60’s and earlier back, but David E. Kelley (the show's creator) would always interweave her original songs throughout the five years of Ally McBeal. She sold over twelve million albums, has won two Golden Globes, two Emmy Awards, two Screen Actor’s Guild awards and recorded nine solo albums. She also holds the Billboard prize for selling the most TV soundtracks in history.  

John Cafferty talks with Steve Cooper. John is best known for his work with John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band who began their career in 1972 and achieved mainstream success in the 1980s with the Eddie & The Cruisers - Motion Picture Soundtrack.  The hit single On the Dark Side held the Number-One position on the Billboard Rock charts and the MTV video charts for five consecutive weeks.  The album sold over 3 million copies and was certified triple Platinum by the RIAA. The title track from the group's 1985 follow-up album Tough All Over became their second Number-One single on the Billboard Rock charts and the song C-I-T-Y reached the Billboard Top 20.  John's solo track Hearts on Fire was featured in the Sylvester Stallone film Rocky IV and he received his second double Platinum soundtrack award.  Over the years John has placed 35 songs in major motion pictures. 

Kenny Wayne Shepherd is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter.  He has released several studio albums and experienced significant commercial success as a blues artist.   From 1995 on, he took seven singles into the Top 10, and holds the record for the longest-running album on the Billboard Blues Charts with Trouble Is... In 1996, he began a longtime collaboration with vocalist Noah Hunt, who provided the vocals for Shepherd's signature song, Blue on Black. He has been nominated for five Grammy Awards and has received two Billboard Music Awards, two Blues Music Awards and two Orville H. Gibson Awards.

Steve Cooper talks with actor Scott Schwartz. Scott is best known for his role as Flick in A Christmas Story and A Christmas Story Christmas and for co-starring with Jackie Gleason and Richard Pryor in The Toy. He's also in appeared in TV shows and movies such as Kidco, A Time to Live, Raiders of the Living Dead, 21 Jump Street and The Comeback Kids.

Rita Rudner is a house-filling favorite in Las Vegas since she opened as one of the hottest tickets in town in June 2000. Over the course of a multi-year run she sold almost two million tickets, grossed over a hundred million dollars and become the longest-running solo female comedy show in the history of Las Vegas. She was named Las Vegas’s Comedian of The Year nine years in a row and in 2006 received The Nevada Ballet’s Woman of the Year Award. In October 2017 she was given the Casino Entertainment Legend Award. Her first solo HBO special, Rita Rudner’s One Night Stand, was nominated for several awards, as was her eponymous English BBC television show that later appeared in the USA on A&E. Her two one-hour specials for HBO, Born to Be Mild and Married Without Children, were ratings standouts and she performed all over the country, filling Carnegie Hall in New York three times. In 2008 Rita Rudner: Live From Las Vegas was PBS’s first ever stand-up comedy special. She has written five books; her bestselling non-fiction titles, Naked Beneath My Clothes, Rita Rudner’s Guide to Men and I Still Have It…I Just Can’t Remember Where I Put It, plus the novels Tickled Pink and Turning the Tables. and recently completed her autobiography, My Life in Dog Years.

Steve Cooper talks with actor Deirdre Lovejoy. Deirdre is best known for her roles as Rhonda Pearlman on HBO's iconic series The Wire and Cynthia Panabaker on The Blacklist. Some of her other TV and film credits include Law & Order: SVU, Big Dogs, Raising Dion, Trollville, The Good Fight, NCIS: New Orleans, I Am Elizabeth Smart, Bull, Elementary, Shameless, American Gothic, Thirsty, Orange Is the New Black, Girls, American Horror Story, Bad Teacher, Bones, The Stepfather and Criminal Minds. She has also appeared in four Broadway productions including Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy starring Tom Hanks. 

Steve Cooper talks with author/model/television personality/actress Karen Duffy. Duff burst onto the scene as a VJ for MTV. She went on to have roles in films including Dumb and Dumber and Blank Check, working as a correspondent for the Michael Moore television shows TV Nation and The Awful Truth, and being a Revlon Charlie Girl as well as the face for Almay Cosmetics. In 1995 she was diagnosed with sarcoidosis and since then has written three popular books and recently was one of the producers on the movie The Greatest Beer Run Ever. 

Steve Cooper talks with Joe Lynn Turner. Joe is best known for being lead singer of Rainbow from 1980-1984 and for his solo career. With Rainbow his vocals powered the seminal Difficult to Cure in 1981, going gold in the UK, France, and Japan in addition to cracking the Top 50 of the Billboard Top 200 and Top 3 on the UK Top Albums Chart. A year later, he ignited their Straight Between the Eyes, which spawned the Hot 100 hit “Stone Cold.” During 1988, a Polygram VP wanted him to extend his writing and singing skills to collaborate with legendary shred virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen for his project Rising Force. Their album, Odyssey, scaled the Top 40 of the Top 200. Not long after, he reteamed with Blackmore for Deep Purple’s Slaves and Masters [1990], reaching gold status in Switzerland and Japan. In addition, he has co-written for and appeared on classics such as Mick Jones’s Mick Jones, Riot’s The Privilege of Power and Lita Ford’s Dangerous Curves, to name a few. Not to mention, he lent his background vocals to Michael Bolton’s double-platinum The Hunger, Cher’s platinum Cher, Billy Joel’s Storm Front [1989], and many more.

Steve Cooper talks with musician Klaus Flouride. Klaus is best known as the bassist and backing vocalist of punk rock legends Dead Kennedys. DK was one of the defining punk bands during their initial run. From 1978-1986 they recorded four albums and then broke up. In 2001 they reformed without original lead singer Jello Biafra and have continued to tour across the USA and Europe.

Steve Cooper talks with actor Rose Abdoo. Rose can currently be seen as Josefina on the HBO series Hacks and Selma on Hulu's Reboot. She is best known for her roles as Gypsy on The Gilmore Girls and as Senorita Rodriguez in That's So Raven. She has co-starred or been recurring on various series like Bless This Mess, Johnny Bago, Malcolm in the Middle, Bunheads, The Comeback, Shameless, Parenthood, The Grinder, Veep and Scandal and has guests starred on countless shows such as Ghosts, United States of Al, Better Things,  Mike & Molly, Major Crimes, The Odd Couple, Castle, Grey's Anatomy, Baby Daddy, Dr. Ken, Psych, The Mentalist, The Millers, Curb Your Enthusiasm and many, many more. She has also been seen on the big screen in movies including Legally Blondes, My Best Friend's Wedding, U.S. Marshals, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Good Night, and Good Luck.