The Show On The Road with Z. Lupetin

Many artists have those sliding door moments - being at the right place at the right time with just the right amount of talent, style and looks to make it out of having to work a “real job." Growing up in New York and then Paris where a young Madeleine began singing on the street, harnessing her deeply warm and eerily timeless voice (close your eyes and you might hear Billie Holiday) she went from being let go selling newspapers and toiling as a Applebees hostess in Nashville to creating beloved major-label jazz pop albums like Dreamland and Careless Love (one of my all time favorite albums) where she expertly sang out-of-box covers in English from singing poets and kindred spirits like Leonard Cohen and also jazzy French favorites that got her in front of millions of listeners around the world. 

Slowly Peyroux began inserting personal and often politically powerful originals as her profile grew - leading to her new protest-forward all-original LP Let’s Walk. While she was a staple of the early 2000s jazz pop best-sellers alongside Nora Jones and Diana Krall, the new record finally unleashes Peyroux’s full creative potential: there’s playful bluesy bops like “Showman Dan” which feels like a cheeky Jim Croce hit - and darkly prophetic songs like “Nothing Personal” which takes a clear-eyed view of sexual assault as a weapon of war. She’s not holding back and her intuitive band, always a highlight, matches her intensity at every point.

Much like her genre-defying albums, a conversation with Madeleine goes in many directions - she’s got a lot on her mind, she has a lot of ideas and having lived much of her creative life in both America and France, she has a unique double perspective about what music and culture can do for our well-being and how governments and its citizens can support music more.

It’s not fair to say every song that roots songwriting master John Moreland puts into the world is tinged with sadness and a palpable gravity. And yet, whether or not you’re seeing his big presence in person or hearing his deep and tender voice that can somehow cut through any loud bar like a laser to the heart - fans have been coming back to join Moreland in processing whatever grief they may be going through for a decade. His newest Visitor captures our unique American windswept loneliness in a way that only he can. 

A song like “Gentle Violence” off the new LP is everything John does best - kernels of Prine-approved lyrics that seem to stick to your ears like tiny knives, reminding us that he always prefers to tour and write alone, processing pain with silence as his forever companion. And while he’s happily married now (his wife joins him on the road as his tour manager), in 2022 Moreland almost checked out and didn’t come back - stepping away from playing and displaying himself hundreds of days a year for people to sing along to cathartic heartbreakers like “You Don’t Care Enough For Me To Cry” that have become Americana hits - for a chance to recharge and clear his brain from the internet’s growing shadows. 

The time away was tough but worth it - Visitor has a renewed clear-eyed power that shines in songs like the opener “The Future Is Coming Fast” - maybe it shows remnants of his punk-rock origins too. Most country-roots artists don’t have the cajones to talk about climate change or addiction or grief but for Moreland who grew up idolizing Steve Earle - there is freedom and joy in mining the darkness. People come to Moreland’s hushed concerts to feel something - and listening to Visitor makes me grateful that Moreland is here to help us cope with whatever we happen to be feeling right about now.

This week we bring you an intimate talk with rising Cuban roots-pop singer-songwriter Daymé Arocena. Known for her honey-voiced records that honor Cuba’s joyous folk and jazz traditions, her newest Alkemi’ takes a sonic leap into the powerful pop and suave R&B music that she admired as a girl - Sade, Whitney Houston and even Beyoncé - while also paying homage to her grandmother’s lifelong practice of Santeria. 

Born to a musical family in Havana where she shared a two bedroom house with twenty-one extended family members (her mother and grandmother sang locally and dad owned a night club), she was accepted into a prestigious music conservatory at age ten and has been off to the races since, co-founding and the all-female Cuban-Canadian jazz collective Maqueque in 2014, which toured internationally and earned a GRAMMY nomination and releasing four solo albums. Cubaphonia from 2017 is a favorite of this listener. 

Like many artists caught in Cuba’s long history of repression and poverty - she was forced to leave the island to protect the safety of her husband, a photojournalist whose coworkers had been imprisoned. Canada was their only option at the time due to travel restrictions, but after three years living there, the pandemic pushed her to look for a new home again. 

She was advised to contact Grammy-winning producer Eduardo Cabra, better known as Visitante Calle 13, he invited her to come to Puerto Rico to spend a few days in his house - and a new album and a new home base was found. Sometimes you just need that island energy to make you feel whole again.

Listen to the deeply spiritual (yet still catchy as hell) “American Boy” - about her finding her happiness and power even without the love of her life being by her side. For someone who grew up as a dark-skinned girl feeling invisible, what’s clear is Daymé wants to be seen and understood more than ever before.

John Oates has been at this for a while. Ever since his family moved from New York to a small town outside of Philly in the early 1950s, he has been feverishly creating American roots music, blues, rock n roll and unabashed pop. After teaming up with his Temple college mate Daryl Hall at the dawn of the 1970s - Oates co-created a mind-melting run of funky rock-pop hits that still play on constant radio rotation: 21 albums, ten of them number one records which sold over 80 million units. It’s not a shock to see that Hall & Oates are technically the most successful duo in modern music history. 

But Oates' half a dozen solo records are quite underrated (look to the stripped back Arkansas to see what I mean ), and with the new LP Reunion dropping this week, we see him sonically rejuvenated, leaning into his love of early 20th century acoustic music and how his family history formed who he is today. 

For this listener and songwriter - getting to dive into how “Maneater”, “She’s Gone”, “You Make My Dreams” was quite a thrill, but I was also moved at how generous Oates was towards the young artists he gets to work with (Sierra Hull for one) and how he has reacted to the fractious relationship with his former co-creator Daryl Hall with a sense of zen, even as the tabloids spin yarns of their many years in the making “breakup”. 

While playing arenas may be in his past, Oates is excited to play intimate shows telling the humble stories on Reunion like “This Field Is Mine” which he teamed up with beloved mandolinist Sam Bush. 

What if you said the darkest thing you ever thought…or actually sang it out loud in a packed room of cheerful many-tattooed like-minded fans? You might find yourself at an Amigo The Devil concert - an experience that longtime self-professed “murder-folk” master Danny Kiranos has dutifully worked on for a decade and a half - bringing the banjo and acoustic guitar into a world once only populated by hardcore or death metal listeners. 

Murder ballads were first documented in 1840s Scandinavia, England, Ireland and Scotland - but what Amigo The Devil has done with a squirmy, personal new LP Yours Until The War Is Over is to take them to a new level - probing with his deft fingerpicking and at turns tender and then ferocious vocals - his own sicknesses, his own dark family secrets and our national plunge into addiction, murder and hate. And yet, it’s still fun to listen to? Quite a balancing act.

Why does it feel so good to shout “I Hope Your Husband Dies!” in a packed auditorium - or to discover our own “Cannibal Within”? There must a reason why true crime podcasts and novels and horror films continue to obsesses us. Danny takes these obsessions a step further of course - he collects skulls, serial killer art, letters from jail from men who have done the unspeakable…and yet, after hearing him talk on his songwriting process, you see he is among the most thoughtful and underrated writers and performers on the road today. 

To see the whole uncut nearly two hour talk - go to the Show On The Road Youtube channel!

This week we dive into the many lives and evolving music of much-respected singer and troubadour Peter One. Coming from humble beginnings in his native Ivory Coast, One became a folk hero for creating a new type of African roots music that was the backdrop for Nelson Mandela’s fight against apartheid and gained him a following around the globe. 

His partnership with longtime friend Jess Sah Bi created the 1985 classic (and newly reissued) Our Garden Needs Its Flowers and at their height, saw them playing stadiums across West Africa. The two mates from Abidjan were equally inspired by Ivorian village songs as Simon and Garfunkel, Dolly Parton and American soul titans like Otis Redding - creating a unique fusion while singing in French, English and Gouro (a Mande language). Escaping the unrest of his home country where he was a history teacher, One finally came to the United States and worked as a nurse for years before diving back into his original passion for music. 

At the age of 67, last year One put out his heralded return LP Come Back To Me on Verve Forecast, featuring the golden-voiced harmonies and Ivorian country-folk songs he does best, with new forays into blues, French love songs and more - featuring his old partner Jess Sah Bi and new collaborators like Allison Russell. Co-produced by Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, John Prine) with contributions from members of Wilco and Calexico, the record shows that even as he nears seventy, One is only just getting started. Last year he even made his debut at the Grand Ole’ Opry. 

We’re back for season six with a special conversation with a true blues and world music legend, Taj Mahal. Touring in his seventh decade behind nearly fifty albums and counting (including fourteen Grammy nominations) we dive into his new LP Swingin’ Live At The Church In Tulsa, how he toured with the Rolling Stones Rock n Roll Circus in the 1970s, and how classics like “Statesboro Blues” from his iconic 1968 self-titled record inspired groups like the Allman Brothers to bring the blues to a new generation of listeners.

Born Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr to a renown jazz arranger and gospel singer, Taj Mahal is one of the first mainstream artists to champion world music - sharing his passion for the music of Mali, Jamaica and especially Hawaii with his rowdy audiences around the world.

Remember when Easy Listening became the Smooth Jazz section of pop and rock n’ roll? But maybe we could use things a little easier these days. In the second part of my epic talk with Bahamas from his cozy cottage in Nova Scotia - we lean into embracing that softer side of ourselves as songwriters, fathers and edgy citizens just trying to make sense of a changing world. Afie Jervanen isn't shy about it: he would LOVE his records to be in the Easy Listening section of your local record store.

While Afie’s newest record Bootcut may seem like a warm country-tinted collection that you can safely put on in the background at a dinner party with everyone wearing turtlenecks and sweatpants - underneath, there are needles and shards of memory glass sticking up through the softness. Look no further than “Sports Car” maybe about his absent father who would have preferred a fast muscle car to a new kid in the house - or “Gone Girl Gone” the banger of the LP which takes a squinting look at what that crazy (but exciting) ex is up to now (yes he references Only Fans). Wonder how that one went over at his Opry debut a few months back?

Feel free to dive into the first part of our conversation to jump into more songs from Bootcut or stay right here as Afie and I discuss how travel, social media and the tricky financial realities of being a touring musician and dad mess with our sense of self as partners, fathers and creators - and how the music can always be there like a magic potion - no matter who you choose to be in the future. 

What’s the first thing you think about a mustachioed songwriter who enjoys rocking wind-breaker sweat suits and lives and creates on the edge of icy Nova Scotia? That he’s going to write maybe the best old-school Nashville country record of the year, of course. 

Maybe the warm, slightly humorous diversion is right in his tropical name. But with his newest LP Bootcut, beloved Canadian singer-songwriter and ace guitarist Afie Jurvanen AKA Bahamas might have thrown some long-time listeners (like this podcaster) for a loop by channeling his inner Alan Jackson and George Strait, but in a nice, warm way. I’ll admit I was concerned at first. Must everyone go country? Sliding steel guitars, twangy solos, his signature low-drawl and gorgeous lady-led harmonies? You bet. But it feels serenely natural on him. And yes, Bahamas did make his Opry debut a few months back so he is fully diving in and it shows.

In this first part of our dive into Bootcut and beyond - we hear how Bahamas brings his daughters into his songwriting, how he’s had to let go of his younger “hunk” guitarist roots and how he’s connected being a songwriter and a quirky online “content-creator” into his art. In these fractious times, especially as the seasons get darkest - maybe we all need a new LP that doesn’t try and reinvent every sonic wheel or show off with shredding guitar histrionics (he used to tour with Feist) and rapid-fire poetic gymnastics. Is Bootcut like a warm hug reaching out from your car speakers? Maybe. 

Try listening to the heartfelt, soft opener “Just A Song” and the yearning piano-ballad closer “Nothing Blows My Mind” - to hear how he’s trying to be at peace with the chaos and mystery of being a father, a son and a citizen who is just doing his damn best. With his second time here on our show, it’s easy to hear how comfortable Afie has gotten in his skin. Thankfully, his music has never been better. 

Putting on a new record can feel like an instant sonic vacation for your mind - or maybe it’s the best type of time travel? This week we take a trip to the teaming clubs of Bogotá and Cali Colombia (or shall we say, Colombia came to a movie studio conference room here in LA) to talk to multi-lingual lead singer Catalina García who for the last fourteen years has led adored jazzy roots-pop icons Monsieur Periné along with master instrumentalist Santiago Prieto. 

It’s heady times for the band: their newest LP Bolero Apocalíptico was just crowned best alternative music album at the Latin Grammys and I was able to catch up with Catalina the night before her performance at Disney Hall with the LA Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel. While her infectious laugh and the band’s often nostalgic and cheerful sounds may lean one way - listen closer and the new LP dives into some serious subjects that hit close to home for Catalina - like the desperation of climate change, government sponsored violence and poverty. 

Harnessing her love of cumbia, swing, bossa nova, and folk styles from across Latin American, Catalina 

sings in Spanish, French, Portuguese and English depending on the mood and with her work in Monsieur Periné, she’s been able to collaborate with some of the brightest lights in Latin music such as Ana Tijoux, Vanesa Martin, Vicente Garcia and more. Take a listen to “Cumbia Valiante” featuring Tijoux which touches on the massive protests against corruption that she and her family have participated in in her native Colombia. 

While the world was shut down over the pandemic - an unexpected surprise happened for the band. An older jazzy song of theirs "Nuestra Canción” (a fan favorite) from their 2015 record Caja De Música somehow became a Tik-Tok sensation, rising to the top of the music chart and was then streamed over 150 million times. If you’re in a bad mood? Put that one on ASAP. 

Indeed, the group rarely comes to California - but when asked about her favorite all time show - Garcia mentions playing at sunset at the Santa Monica pier many years before. Truly the amount of travel she and her bandmates have undertaken across three continents is staggering - and there are many more stories to come.