He spent 38 years pitching Nashville's legends. Almost none of them knew he wrote songs too.

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Lance Cowan spent close to four decades as a Nashville publicist for Joe Ely, Guy Clark, and Nanci Griffith, and kept his own songwriting so quiet that most of his clients never knew about it. Now he is three albums into a late chapter, with a new record, The Air That You Breathe, out this summer. He tells Jason English about the night Janis Ian pulled him into a co-write, the morning he stopped going to the church he grew up in, and the two-word piece of advice Joe Ely gave him about a hostile critic. The episode closes, like every one, with Jason's question about what Lance is most curious about. So what makes a man who pitched everyone else finally bet on himself?

🎵 Lance Cowan's latest: The Air That You Breathe (2026)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Staying curious, and three chords and the truth
2:40 The Air That You Breathe
4:27 From journalism to Nashville PR
5:11 Setting the bar at Dylan and Jackson Browne
6:56 Writing the emotional truth
10:31 The encouragement that kept him going
13:32 Keeping his songs separate from his clients
16:50 The writers he still represents
18:18 Co-writing "When He Was Here" with Janis Ian
25:20 A crisis of faith
27:50 The morning he stopped going to church
30:14 Joe Ely and "bake him a pie"
36:00 Writing "William Cooper Smith"
41:45 Suno, and where he draws the AI line
44:37 60 Seconds of Curiosity

📊 FREE REPORT: What 573 fans and artists told us about streaming, AI, and where the money in music actually goes. Get the State of Music survey summary free → curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, what I'm learning running this show, and one curiosity prompt every issue → Subscribe here

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

One of American roots music's most singular voices, caught in a season of not knowing.

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Abe Partridge has lived three lives to get here: ten years preaching, ten in the military, and ten writing songs that don't sound like anyone else's. Jason caught up with him at the 30A Songwriters Festival in a season of new beginnings, with a new album called Pilgrim Song finished since June and no clear way to put it out. They get into the economics of making honest music, why he's never played a cover, and a faith he describes as waxing and waning like the ocean. He talks about a vow he made in the desert, the only churches he still attends, and where he wants to be as an artist. What happens to your peace when experience starts to weather away what you were once certain of?

🎵 Abe Partridge's new album: Pilgrim Song (finished 2025, not yet released)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome
2:32 Why 30A, and a season of new beginnings
4:21 Three lives: preacher, soldier, songwriter
5:10 Making a living just above the poverty line
7:27 A new album, finished and waiting
7:49 Who really makes the money in music
9:06 Certainty, ambiguity, and raising kids in faith
12:43 A vow made in the desert
13:26 "If you could put God in a language, it would be a very little God"
14:13 Pilgrim Song, and writing in silence
15:56 "Fake It Till You Make It," and never playing covers
19:06 Where he wants to be as an artist
19:47 60 Seconds of Curiosity
22:48 The serpent-handling churches
25:54 Live Performance: "Western Stars"

📊 FREE REPORT: The State of Music in the Age of AI & Streaming → curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity, the stories behind the episodes → curiousgoldfish.com

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH

Curious Goldfish is a music podcast about more than music. Host Jason English sits down with singer-songwriters and bands across Americana, folk, roots, and country for honest conversations about the craft, the business, and the life behind the music. Inspired by Ted Lasso: be curious, not judgmental.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

He ran a Fortune 500 company and hid that he was a musician; He tells me why he returned to his first love.

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George Barrett spent years as the CEO of Cardinal Health, a company of about 50,000 people, and for a long time almost no one he worked with knew he was a musician. He worried it would make him look less serious, or like he was showing off, so he stopped performing in public for decades. Then a chance encounter with Roger Daltrey pulled him back toward the stage, and the music came out into the open. Now he has two albums out, Not Alone (2023) and Rearrange Things (2025), and he is building toward small tours. What makes someone hide the thing they love most, and what does it take to finally let it back in?

🎵 George Barrett's latest: Rearrange Things (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 A CEO With Something Left to Say
1:00 Welcome to Curious Goldfish
2:22 Meeting George, and What He Wants to Be Known For
3:34 Running Cardinal Health: Burden or Privilege
6:00 Leading Through AI and Ambiguity
9:16 The Optimism Blind Spot and Authenticity
11:59 How Much of Life Is Music Now
15:39 Why He Stopped Performing in Public
18:05 Sitting In With Roger Daltrey
22:21 Were You Writing All Those Years?
23:46 Greenwich Village, Saying Yes, and Imposter Syndrome
26:11 The Stories Behind Not Alone and Rearrange Things
29:44 What He Loves Most, and Getting Back on Stage
33:56 Street Cred and Respecting Working Musicians
37:27 60 Seconds of Curiosity

📊 FREE REPORT: The State of Music in the Age of AI and Streaming. State of Music summary

📬 NEWSLETTER: Get the stories behind the episodes. Subscribe free

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

She never sang a note in college. Now Shooter Jennings produces her.

Get the stories behind the episodes -> Subscribe to Chords of Curiosity

Alicia Blue went to college to be a poet and had never played an instrument. She learned to sing from an aging soul singer in Hollywood, played her first paying gig in Thai at a restaurant, and got fired after three shows. Now she is on Thirty Tigers, produced by Shooter Jennings, out on the road opening for Charley Crockett, and releasing an album called Country Desire. She talks with Jason English about identity, the childhood memory behind her song "Incognito," and why she refuses to spend a second worrying about AI. How does someone with no plan and no training end up this sure of who she is?

🎵 Alicia Blue's latest: Country Desire (2026)

Chapters corrected against the accurate timestamps. Still a draft, number 145 and date untouched.

Updated Alicia Blue chapter map (no live performance; ends on the goodbye):

0:00 Cold Open

1:03 Welcome

3:06 The Album: Country Desire

5:49 On the Road with Charley Crockett

7:38 "That's What People Call the Real Deal"

8:54 Staying Authentic in the Age of AI

10:27 Lessons from Lucinda Williams

11:56 Who Is the Alicia Blue Superfan?

14:16 Country Music and the New America

16:33 A Mexican American Voice in Country

19:41 Learning to Sing on the Streets of Hollywood

23:49 The Story Behind "Incognito"

27:02 Where She Is, and What's Next

29:17 Shooter Jennings and Thirty Tigers

33:05 60 Seconds of Curiosity

📊 FREE REPORT: What 573 fans and artists told us about streaming, AI, and where the money in music actually goes. Get the State of Music survey summary free -> curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, what I'm learning running this show, and one curiosity prompt every issue -> Subscribe here

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

A founding E Street Band bassist, fifty-five years in, still says he's no maestro.

Get the stories behind the episodes -> https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/?modal=signup

Garry Tallent came off a long run touring with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, then sat down in a makeshift Nashville studio for a conversation Jason English had waited a year to share. He is a founding member of the E Street Band and a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, and he still calls himself no maestro. They get into fifty-five years on the low end, the twenty years he spent producing Americana records in Nashville, and why a rock and roll band was never a democracy. The episode closes on the curiosity question, then a live performance of "Adelaine" with Mike Delevante, the friend who first introduced the two. Garry's answer to that last question is not the one you would expect from a lifer in rock and roll.

🎵 Garry plays on Mike Delevante's September Days (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold open: "It's not a democracy"
0:45 Welcome and intro
3:19 A Nashville "fishbowl," fresh off Europe
4:55 Playing Anfield with Paul McCartney
6:15 Cameos, tuba, and his influences
8:12 The many hats: live, session, producing
10:10 Why songwriting is the hardest part
10:59 The best job in the world
11:33 The role that still gives him a kick
13:09 "It's not a democracy"
13:47 A second act in Nashville, and Americana
18:02 Fifty-five years, and "I'm no maestro"
20:46 The Sphere, and Born to Run in the garage
23:45 60 Seconds of Curiosity
26:05 Live Performance: "Adelaine" with Mike Delevante

📊 FREE REPORT: What 573 fans and artists told us about streaming, AI, and where the money in music actually goes. Get the State of Music survey summary free -> https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, what I'm learning running this show, and one curiosity prompt every issue -> https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/?modal=signup

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

She wrote her funniest song while crying in a grocery store. A songwriter with a PhD in breakups.

Get the stories behind the episodes → Subscribe to Chords of Curiosity

Anna May got the breakup text on her way into a Los Angeles grocery store, and instead of falling apart she decided the moment was a song. She calls herself a PhD in Breakup Songs, writes them long enough to break the three-minute rule, and left school at fifteen to protect the part of her that needed to write. From under the redwoods in Northern California, she talks with Jason English about her new song "Crying at Erewhon," why she keeps stepping away from social media, and what an artist owes the algorithm. It leaves you wondering what it costs to guard your creativity when the whole world is built to interrupt it.

🎵 Anna May's latest single: "Crying at Erewhon"

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Calling in from under the redwoods
0:53 Seven homes, and where home is now
2:20 How New Orleans and the Bay shaped her songs
3:19 "Fireflies and Buffalo" and a PhD in breakup songs
6:02 Why her songs run long
7:40 Leaving school at 15: the emotional greenhouse
11:00 Social media, creativity, and AI
14:18 What the survey says about your best fans
15:42 "The Show" and the makeup industry
19:44 "Crying at Erewhon"
22:29 60 Seconds of Curiosity

📊 FREE REPORT: What 573 fans and artists told us about streaming, AI, and where the money in music actually goes. Get the State of Music survey summary free → State of Music summary

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, what I'm learning running this show, and one curiosity prompt every issue → Subscribe

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

Seventeen records in, she is not sure the eighteenth is worth making.

Get the stories behind the episodes → Subscribe to Chords of Curiosity

Michelle Malone got signed to Arista out of Atlanta in the late '80s, got told to be more like Joan Jett, and left. She has been independent ever since, roughly a decade before independent was a plan anybody bragged about. Jason caught her at the 30A Songwriters Festival in January, a few days after a fifteen-minute showcase in New York with the cover band she started for fun during lockdown, which now gets more attention than her own catalog. She talks about pulling most of her music off Spotify, whether a new record still adds up financially, and the drawing and painting she picked up two years ago that finally quiets her brain down. When the math on making albums stops working, what does a songwriter make instead?

🎵 Michelle Malone's latest: Southern Comfort (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome & Back at 30A
1:16 Why Songwriters Festivals Still Matter
2:19 Fifteen Minutes in New York
7:05 Three Bands at Once
8:24 Southern Comfort
8:51 Georgia Roots Back to the 1700s
11:02 The Cost of Writing About Your Family
11:20 Does Making an Album Still Add Up?
14:04 Independent Before It Was a Strategy
15:10 Pulling the Catalog Off Spotify
16:34 Painting, and a Quieter Brain
20:00 Where She Is, Where She Wants to Be
21:51 The House Concert for Two People
22:19 Lilith Fair, 1997
25:25 Mentors, and Passing It On
27:54 60 Seconds of Curiosity: What the Rest of It Looks Like

📊 FREE REPORT: I surveyed 573 people on where music is headed in the age of AI and streaming. Get the free summary: curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity is where the stories behind the episodes live. Subscribe here.

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
Curious Goldfish is a music podcast about more than music. Host Jason English sits down with singer-songwriters and bands across Americana, folk, roots, and country to talk about the craft, the business, and the life underneath the songs. Inspired by Ted Lasso: be curious, not judgmental.
New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

Rhett Miller got the lifetime achievement award. He almost dreaded the speech.

Get the stories behind the episodes → Subscribe to Chords of Curiosity

Rhett Miller has fronted the Old 97's for 33 years with the same four guys, and last fall they took home a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Ryman with an introduction written by Rosanne Cash. Jason caught up with him at the 30A Songwriters Festival, a few months after the award and just after his ninth solo album, A Lifetime of Riding by Night, came together in a way he never planned. He talks about cutting his vocals a week before surgery and letting his bandmate finish the record while he recovered in silence, about the advice that turned a lifelong people pleaser around, and about the morning clarity that came with getting sober. What does a 55-year-old elder statesman still want, when the award is already on the shelf?

🎵 Rhett Miller's latest: A Lifetime of Riding by Night (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Welcome & Cold Open
3:22 Back at the 30A Songwriters Festival
4:32 The Lifetime Achievement Award & Rosanne Cash
8:02 Writing the Speech: Sign to a Major Label in the '90s
11:49 Why He Still Makes the Wheels Off Podcast
14:57 The Best Advice: Your Superpower Is Saying No
18:54 Cutting a Record with Waylon Jennings
23:34 Waylon, Buddy Holly, and Being Human
25:55 The New Album: A Lifetime of Riding by Night
28:12 The Vocal Surgery That Reshaped the Record
32:38 What Makes a Song Magic: Kristofferson & Brandi Carlile
36:00 On Producers and Production
40:02 Where He Is, Where He Wants to Be
42:03 Choosing Sobriety
46:53 60 Seconds of Curiosity: Ted Lasso & What's Next
51:41 Live Performance: "Come As You Are"

📊 FREE REPORT: I surveyed 573 people on where music is headed in the age of AI and streaming. Get the free summary: curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity is where the stories behind the episodes live. Subscribe here.

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
Curious Goldfish is a music podcast about more than music. Host Jason English sits down with singer-songwriters and bands across Americana, folk, roots, and country to talk about the craft, the business, and the life underneath the songs. Inspired by Ted Lasso: be curious, not judgmental.
New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

They turned down the record deals their families begged them to sign. Twenty years later, still here.

Get the stories behind the episodes -> https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/?modal=signup

Dwight Ritscher and Nicole Nelson are a married duo from Burlington, Vermont, twenty years into an independent career they built by refusing to pick a lane. They came up in the blues and roots clubs of New York and New England, moved through jazz and country and punk, and brought their fans along for all of it. Their new album, Day or Night, produced by Joel Hamilton, started as roughly 163 songs and ended as twelve. The chorus of one of those twelve arrived in a dream Nicole had the night her grandmother died, and she tells that story here in full. We also get into how a married band keeps its fights off the stage, the real economics of steering what Nicole calls a very small boat, and why, after two decades, she still calls herself a beginner.

🎵 Dwight + Nicole's latest: Day or Night (2026)

⏱️ CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold Open: "It's Impossible Not to Have a Spark"
1:00 Welcome to Curious Goldfish
2:55 Burlington, Vermont, and a New Album
4:41 Married, In a Band, and Still Speaking
6:22 "No Weird Business": Leaving the Fight Offstage
12:44 The Origin Story and the First Spark
15:45 The Small Boat: The Math of Twenty Years Independent
18:20 Social Media, Superfans, and Who Actually Shows Up
24:19 Turning Down the Record Contracts
26:10 The Eras: Blues, Jazz, Country, Punk, Roots
29:03 Working with Producer Joel Hamilton
30:54 163 Songs Down to Twelve
32:38 "Beautiful": The Chorus That Came in a Dream
37:22 "One Morning" and Watching the World Come Apart
42:05 Still a Beginner After Twenty Years
44:51 Grammys, SNL, and What Dwight Actually Wants
48:21 Nicole on The Voice
51:38 60 Seconds of Curiosity

📊 FREE REPORT: What 573 fans and artists told us about streaming, AI, and where the money in music actually goes. Get the State of Music survey summary free -> https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, what I'm learning running this show, and one curiosity prompt every issue -> https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/?modal=signup

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH

A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast

He wrote a song about loss. Months later, his brother died. The song already knew.

Get the stories behind the episodes -> https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/?modal=signup

Chris Trapper grew up the sixth of six kids in Buffalo, got his identity from a fifth-grade school musical, and has spent thirty years making a career out of what his father told him to chase. At the 30A Songwriters Festival in January, host Jason English sits down with the Boston-based singer-songwriter for a conversation that covers mailbox money, sync licensing, a duet with Pat Benatar, and the album opener he wrote months before his brother died. Watching Sparks Fly By is his twelfth record, and "Campfire Symphony," its first track, is the one that made him understand he had been grieving before the loss arrived. The question the conversation leaves open: what does it take to keep going when the thing that saved you is the same thing everyone told you not to count on?

🎵 Chris Trapper's latest: Watching Sparks Fly By (2025)

⏱️ CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold Open
1:02 Welcome to Curious Goldfish
3:32 First Time at 30A Songwriters Festival
8:00 Watching Sparks Fly By and Sync Licensing
14:30 The Call From His Father
17:00 No Backup Plan
19:48 Touring With Pat Benatar
21:57 Stuttering and the Stage
25:12 Losing a Brother to Addiction
29:02 Writing "Keg on My Coffin"
31:00 Twelve Albums and What's Next
34:23 60 Seconds of Curiosity
36:00 Live Performance: "Toast to Us" / "Campfire Symphony"

📊 FREE REPORT: What 573 fans and artists told us about streaming, AI, and where the money in music actually goes. Get the State of Music survey summary free -> https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/state-of-music-summary-signup

📬 NEWSLETTER: Chords of Curiosity goes deeper on every episode. The moments that didn't make the clips, what I'm learning running this show, and one curiosity prompt every issue -> https://www.curiousgoldfish.com/?modal=signup

ABOUT CURIOUS GOLDFISH
A music podcast about more than music. Inspired by Ted Lasso. I talk with singer-songwriters and bands in Americana, folk, roots, and country about the lives behind the songs: resilience, faith, marriage, the business of music, and what keeps an artist going. Every episode ends with the same question about curiosity, and no two answers are alike.

New episodes every other week.

🌐 curiousgoldfish.com 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts 📸 @curiousgoldfishpodcast