JPR Live Sessions

Authenticity is an important element in Americana. From hitchhiking and hopping trains to get around the country – busking in New York, New Orleans and Austin – to battling personal demons, health concerns and trouble with the law -- Charley Crockett has earned that distinction.

Charley stopped by before his show at the Historic Ashland Armory in Ashland. Hear his conversation with Danielle Kelly and a few of his tunes in a solo acoustic performance.

Singer/songwriter Max Gomez is from Taos, New Mexico. He received critical acclaim upon the release of his debut album Rule The World (2013, New West Records), and his subsequent EP, Me and Joe (2017, Brigadoon Records), contained a freshly minted classic, “Make It Me,” which gained over two million listeners on Spotify alone.

And as a budding performer, Max apprenticed in the rarefied musical micro-climate of northern New Mexico, where troubadours like Michael Martin Murphey and Ray Wylie Hubbard helped foster a Western folk sound both cosmic and cowboy. Gomez has assumed stewardship of that lineage by producing the Red River Folk Festival, a boutique event held annually in late September in the musical mountain village of Red River, New Mexico.

Garrett Dutton, better known as G Love, has been blending hill country blues with hip hop, a sound he helped pioneer, since the beginning of his career in the '90s. He is currently touring in support of his new album Philadelphia Mississippi, featuring a who's who of emerging artists and veterans of both genres.

He took time off his tour to sit down and share some tunes with us. Hear him talk about putting together the new album, working on his last release - the Grammy nominated The Juice - produced by Keb Mo', food, NFTs and his goal of helping the next generation keep old school music alive.

Southern Oregon's The Brothers Reed just released their 5th studio album, The Wheres and the Whatnots. They've been touring intensively over the last few years including a busy schedule this Summer with shows all over the region.

Hear their conversation with JPR's Danielle Kelly and what they call "familial folk" on some live tracks recorded at JPR's Steve Nelson Performance Studio on the campus of Southern Oregon University.

They are performing with a full band this Friday, July 15 at Fry Family Farm in Medford at 7PM. Tickets and information are available at ashlandfolkcollective.com.

Fellow Pynins are Dani Aubert and Ian George, a folk duo from Ashland, Oregon. They have been traveling, building tiny houses and exploring historic folk music together for several years. They just released Lady Mondegreen, an album of old folk songs passed down for generations. The title, based on a creative mishearing of songs, plays a role in how they came to learn them. Hear how they got into folk music and the stories behind these songs in our JPR Live Session. Thanks to Danielle Kelly and Jon Griffin for production and engineering.

Alice DiMicele has been making music in the State of Jefferson for several decades. She has just released her 16th full length album, Every Seed We Plant. The new collection was conceived and created by Alice and other musicians from Southern Oregon and deals with subjects near and dear to the hearts of the residents of the region.

She sat down with Open Air host Danielle Kelly for a discussion and played some tunes off her Every Seed We Plant.

Check out her website https://www.alicedimicele.com/ to purchase the new release and find information on her upcoming live performances.

It's unusual for a band's debut album to find the kind of success that alt-J experienced with An Awesome Wave in 2012. They won the UK's famed Mercury Prize on their first attempt. Since then, the band has released three additional albums over the decade that has helmed cement the trio as a leader and innovator in the indie rock space.

They spoke about the process of growing older and managing the relationships without and outside of the band, the excitement of getting back out on the road, and what it's like to be hugely popular and critically acclaimed, despite Unger-Hamilton telling Rolling Stone that "99 people out of 100 don't know who we are."

Under Hamilton (keys, bass, vocals) and Joe Newman (guitars, vocals) joined us for some special pared-down arrangements of tunes from their newest release called The Dream, as well as a tune found on that memorable debut - "Tesselate."

With an album in the can, Houndmouth was ready to head out on the road, playing shows around the country, burning in new songs and new arrangements in front of crowd built over over the previous 10 years. It was an audience on the rise, growing rapidly following the explosion of their tune "Sedona," which found the band playing late night tv to national audiences, and playing the major festival circuit.

And then the pandemic happened.

Now, more than two years later, Houndmouth is back on the road. Their new album Good For You harkens back to the sound that Matt Myers, Shane Cody, and Zak Appleby (with former member Katie Toupin) started crafting a decade ago.

Myers joined us for a solo session live in the JPR studio, and spoke about how most of the tunes for this new record came together and were recorded in a location that has become the official Houndmouth "clubhouse" outside of Louisville.

When Ben Abraham last visited us, he was in a serious relationship with a woman who could have easily been the future Mrs. But an unexpected encounter led to a lengthy re-visitation of his sexuality, and of the spirituality that had been a major component of Abraham's life. The ensuing developments (a veritable bomb went off his his personal life) led to a clearer realization of who he is.

Much of that turmoil and reinvention finds its way into Abraham's brilliant new album called Friendly Fire (Atlantic Records). Throughout the songs, Abraham pairs his incredibly nuanced voice with poignant songs that touch on interpersonal connections, self reflection, and how we as individuals navigate life as singular entities among a larger collective.

Abraham gave us a very special preview of songs from his album in our stellar session.

Despite an early dash of pop success with a number of songs including the international hit "I Wonder Why" in 1991, for the last twenty years, most of Curtis Stigers' output has been more in the vein of jazz music and great American standards.

Considering his background, that affinity doesn't come as a surprise. As a kid, Stigers played clarinet and saxophone, and whenlegendary jazz pianist Gene Harris retired to Boise, Idaho and started hosting a weekly jam session, Stigers sat in and started absorbing everything he could.

It was actually Harris who encouraged Stigers to sing, and to make a go of it as a singer and songwriter. Soon after, Stigers moved to New York to follow his dream. His Arista Records debut, which featured his rich voice and soulful combination rock and pop, reached multi-platinum sales.

But Stigers wasn't interested in creating that type of music. So after a follow-up in 1995, Stigers ended up signing with Concord Records, and began a now twenty-year chapter of making jazz-leaning albums.

On This Life, Stigers takes a look back at home favorite songs from years gone by - some his own, some covers.