Caropop

There’s much more to the fiercely intelligent, multitalented singer-songwriter-keyboardist Patrice Rushen than “Forget Me Nots,” though that song, with its get-up-and-dance groove and Rushen’s sweet vocals, is undeniable. Not only was it a Grammy-nominated hit in 1982, but it served as the basis for Will Smith’s “Men in Black” (amid a tense negotiation) and in 2021 became a viral TikTok dance sens...

As guitarist for the impossibly funky New Orleans band the Meters, Leo Nocentelli wrote an array of indelible riffs and songs; you’ve likely heard “Cissy Strut” in movies, TV promos and hip-hop samples, and “People Say,” from the great 1974 album Rejuvenation , is another of many classics. He also played on high-profile releases as a teenage session musician in New Orleans and later, with and with...

The first time I saw Jane Lynch, she was playing Carol Brady on stage in Chicago in Real Live Brady Bunch , but you’re more likely to know her from Glee or The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel or Hollywood Game Night or The 40 Year Old Virgin or Best in Show or Funny Gir l on Broadway or…the list goes on. She’s a quick-witted improviser, a hard-working performer, a five-time Emmy winner and, as you’ll hear,...

ZZ Ward has a powerful, soulful voice, a great ear for hooks and an old-school blues-rock sensibility fused with hip-hop rhythms, all playing out on a spaghetti-western landscape. Her third album, Dirty Shine , comes out Sept. 8 and is her first as a mother as well as an independent artist after two albums ( Til the Casket Drops and The Storm ) with Disney’s Hollywood label. Her DIY approach certa...

Johnny Hickman has provided “bonehead guitar riffs,” memorable songs and a spark-plug energy to Cracker since the band debuted more than 30 years ago. Hickman and primary singer-songwriter David Lowery already were friends from Redlands, Calif., when Lowery called him after the implosion of his band Camper Van Beethoven. The ever-lively Hickman digs into the bounty of riffs, hooks and wit that wen...

You may know Sally Potter as the groundbreaking English director of such films as Orlando , The Tango Lesson and Yes , but now she also is a recording artist. At age 73 Potter has released her first solo album, Pink Bikini , writing, singing and playing keyboards. The songs look back on her teenage years in 1960s London, when she was discovering her own sexuality, wrestling with shame, rebelling a...

Michael Shannon is an Oscar-, Tony- and Emmy-nominated actor who, the night before this conversation, sang R.E.M. songs at the Chicago club Metro. He’s multitalented, thoughtful and fearless, with a commitment to Chicago theater that doesn't wane no matter how high his profile rises. In this probing, good-humored on-stage conversation at the club Space, Shannon couldn’t discuss his prominent film...

Los Lobos was doing its label a favor when it played on what turned out to be a big album: Paul Simon’s Graceland . Why did the band wind up feeling burned? Los Lobos sax/keyboard player Steve Berlin explains. Happier times arrived as Los Lobos hit No. 1 with its cover of Richie Valens’ “La Bamba.” How did they capitalize on their newfound popularity? What was so strange about the recording proces...

Saxophonist/keyboard player/producer Steve Berlin played with the Blasters before joining Los Lobos, and he noticed a stark contrast between how those two L.A. bands operated. He stuck with Los Lobos and still plays with them 40 years later. A call-‘em-as-he-sees-‘em storyteller, Berlin recounts a crazy Gregg Allman experience, an ordeal with a bad-decisions-prone producer, and his first experienc...

Booker T. and the M.G.’s were an all-time great band on their own and while playing with such Stax acts as Sam & Dave, Eddie Floyd, Albert King and Otis Redding. Guitarist Steve Cropper, who made every note count, produced many of Redding's sessions and co-wrote such hits as “Mr. Pitiful” and the landmark “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.” After Redding died in a plane crash in late 1967, Cro...

It's no wonder that Peter Zaremba was the star of the recent Lenny Kaye-hosted Nuggets all-star concert in Los Angeles: He has been keeping ‘60s psychedelic garage rock alive for decades through his energetic work with the Fleshtones as well as his DJ gig as the Psychedelic Count on Little Steven’s Underground Garage. (You also may remember him as host of the 1980s MTV show I.R.S. Records presents...

With Mike Peters belting out anthemic songs such as “Sixty Eight Guns” and “Spirit of ’76,” the Alarm could rouse an audience no matter the size—and it often was big. “Rain in the Summertime” and “Sold Me Down the River” boosted this Welsh band’s U.S. popularity before Peters broke up the group in 1991 and re-started it years later. In the meantime he was diagnosed with leukemia, and he wrote much...

When you want to add joy and beauty to your life, listen to the Roches. There’s magic in these three sisters’ harmonies and good humor and heartbreak in their songs. They are Maggie and Terre and Suzzy, the last of whom is the little sister age-wise, the middle sister voice-wise and the glue personality-wise. Speaking from her New York home, Suzzy Roche reflects on the wonders and challenges of si...

The Los Angeles-based Love had one of the rock’s great first-three-album progressions, culminating in the 1967 masterwork Forever Changes , before leader Arthur Lee started over with an entirely new band. Johnny Echols, Love’s lead guitarist for that classic stretch, had known the enigmatic Lee since they were kids in Memphis who relocated to L.A.,, where Echols played with Billy Preston and backe...

The Urge Overkill singer/songwriter/bassist/guitarist spoke with Caropop on the 30th anniversary of the swaggering Chicago alt-rock band’s breakthrough album, Saturation (and before the death of powerhouse drummer Blackie Onassis). Leaving behind Chicago’s Touch & Go label (and prompting some hard feelings), Urge signed with Geffen, the label of Nirvana, with whom Urge was touring when that ba...

Even if you don’t recognize his name, you should know the music Dave Robinson has brought into the world. As co-founder of Britain’s Stiff Records, Robinson signed (and in some cases managed) Elvis Costello (whom he also helped rename), Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, Ian Dury, the Damned, the Pogues, Kirsty MacColl, Tracey Ullman and Madness (whose videos he directed). When Island Records bought Stiff a...

Few bands have maintained such consistent vision, quality and stability as Cowboy Junkies. The same people who made the 1986 debut album Whites Off Earth Now!! and the recorded-around-one-mic breakthrough The Trinity Session (1988) also made their new album, Such Ferocious Beauty . Throughout, Michael Timmins has been the primary songwriter and plays quietly roaring guitar leads while his sister M...

In this change-of-pace Caropop episode, we're hanging out in the green room with singer-songwriter Robbie Fulks before his recent concert at the club Space in Evanston. He and his ace quartet will be highlighting songs from his acclaimed new album, Bluegrass Vacation, but first...does he have any pre-show rituals? Does he still change his guitar strings before each show? What's his philosophy in w...

Inventive Devo guitarist Bob Mothersbaugh belongs to one of the band’s two sets of brothers and one set of Bobs. His older brother is Mark Mothersbaugh, and he was Bob 1 to the late Bob Casale’s Bob 2, Gerald Casale’s younger brother. Although Devo became known for synths, its debut was a piledriving guitar album with Bob 1’s playing up front. Bob 1 also sang the “Secret Agent Man” cover, co-wrote...

After his on-the-rise cult band Camper Van Beethoven imploded, singer-songwriter David Lowery formed Cracker, which delivered smart, tuneful, sharp-witted Americana through songs such as “Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now),” “Low” and “Get Off This.” Lowery has continued performing with Cracker and the re-formed Camper, but his most recent works have been autobiographical solo albums, including...

Multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter Ivan Neville has carved out an impressive career of his own, and he has memories: of being a 7-year-old when his father, Aaron Neville, hit No. 2 with “Tell It Like It Is”; of his Uncles Art and then Cyril playing in the quintessential New Orleans funk band the Meters; and of Art, Cyril, Aaron and Charles Neville forming the Neville Brothers. Ivan played in...

Lenny Kaye has secured his place in rock history as the Patti Smith Group’s longtime guitarist, but he also helped define rock history with one of the most influential compilation albums of all time: Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era 1965–1968 . To create that 1972 double album, Kaye pulled together a largely obscure collection psychedelic and garage-rock songs that made a...

In the second half of this free-flowing conversation with producer Brad Wood, he digs into the recording of Whip-Smart , Liz Phair’s follow-up to her groundbreaking debut album Exile in Guyville , and the subsequent tour that never happened—and he tells of his more limited involvement on her third album, whitechocolatespaceegg . He reflects on what went right with Veruca’s Salt’s debut album, Amer...

Brad Wood was a trained jazz saxophonist who didn’t like how rock music was sounding in the late ’80s, so he became a producer in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. At Idful Music, which has a cool origin story, Wood tried to capture the true sound of such bands as Freakwater, Trenchmouth and his own Shrimp Boat. Then he was knocked out by Liz Phair’s songs, and he and she co-produced Exile in Gu...

Singer-songwriter Michael McDermott is in a good place now, but what he went through to get there could fill a book and did. His early ‘90s emergence was met with hype, acclaim and public praise from author Stephen King, but his sales figures disappointed, and he spiraled into addiction and self-destruction, even as he kept creating new music. Both lead characters of the poker movie Rounders were...