Guitarist Nels Cline has been thinking about Lovers for most of his adult life. First imagined in the early 1980s as a darker, more bruised meditation on romance, Lovers slowly evolved as Cline evolved himself. When the album finally emerged in 2016 after 30 years of gestation on Blue Note Records, it had become something far more expansive and inviting—a sweeping meditation on intimacy, vulnerability, and emotional truth. On this episode, journalist Natalie Weiner joins Cline and trumpeter-arranger Michael Leonhart to reflect on the long road to Lovers: a project built from unlikely but complementary dualities—lush orchestration and jazz improvisation, American Songbook standards alongside music by Annette Peacock, Jimmy Giuffre, The Ambitious Lovers, and even Sonic Youth.

Along the way, they discuss the musicians who shaped Cline’s musical language, from Jim Hall to Marc Ribot, and the surprising touchstones that helped unify the work. Cline and Leonhart talk about bringing the music to the stage, joined by the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra—for a one-of-a-kind performance at Big Ears 2026.