Listening Lyrics

In this hour we listen to some past one-hit (or more) wonders, and learn what happened to the singers and writers.

Check out the playlist. It is amazing how some of these songs became part of our musical heritage.

Anton Barbeau is an American psychedelic singer-songwriter and producer from Sacramento.

Barbeau is known for combining surreal lyrics with pop melodies and has been described as being in the songwriting tradition of Robyn Hitchcock, Syd Barrett, XTC, and The Beatles. His first CD, The Horse's Tongue, a collection of songs that had appeared on a number of self-released cassettes, won Sacramento's SAMMIE Award for Album of the Year in 1994.

Since then he has released more than twenty albums, a number of singles and EPs, several anthologies, and collaborations with many other artists.

Anton is joined in the studio with his wife Julia. 

Guillaume Pastoor joins us this week to share with us his "affair" with the music genre bossa nova. Guillaume carefully selected songs to show us how different singers around the world interpet the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Jacob Johnson and Henry Humphrey of Cowboys After Dark share their thoughts on how music is a language that is universally understood. These two gifted musicians can also articulate what they mean using the common language we know as English.

Jacob and Henry treated us by playing a couple of songs live on the air. Jacob allowed Listening Lyrics to debut "Fungus Funk," an original song from an upcoming rap/funk album aimed at communicating science (especially ecology) to middle- and high-school students and the general public.

The Big Poppies keep transitioning themselves into an extremely talented and tight band. Members Max Van Dyke and Julian Dean, who occasionally perform as a duo, talk about both the band and themselves as a duo in this episode of Listening Lyrics. During the show they share a cut from an upcoming album. I was blown away by it.

Listen for a glimpse into the sound of the Big Poppies.