Caropop

Soul jazz organist Ronnie Foster works as a solo artist but also played on Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life (“Summer Soft”), George Benson’s Breezin’ and albums by the Jacksons, Robert Flack, Grant Green and others. His first album, the scorching Two Headed Freap , came out in 1972 on Blue Note Records and was just remastered by Kevin Gray. Fifty years later he’s got a new Blue Note album,...

Peter Holsapple is the dB’s sole-singer songwriter when the band finally lands a U.S. record deal, but the excellent Like This is undercut by issues with the mix and distribution. Recording and releasing The Sound of Music is a fraught experience as well, and when the dB’s finally split, Holsapple accepts an offer to tour and then to record with R.E.M. He plays on R.E.M.’s breakthrough single (“Lo...

You may have seen Peter Holsapple playing live with R.E.M. or Hootie and the Blowfish, but you should know his own music. He co-led and then led the dB's, writing and singing such smart, tuneful songs as "Black and White," "Big Brown Eyes," "Living a Lie," "Neverland," "Amplifier" and "Love Is for Lovers." He also has played in the Continental Drifters, made three excellent duo albums with Chris S...

Spoon's Jim Eno doesn’t appear to be doing anything fancy when he drums, yet his deceptively groovy playing makes you want to move. He and frontman Britt Daniel, the two remaining original members, keep Spoon sounding unmistakably like Spoon amid the band's constant growth, changes and innovations. Much of the band’s guitar-heavy latest album, Lucifer on the Sofa , was recorded at Eno’s Austin, Te...

In audiophile communities it’s common to read raves about “the Bellman Cut” of an album because if Chris Bellman mastered it, it probably sounds great. One 2021 Record Store Day release even came with a sticker boasting “a killer lacquer cut by Chris Bellman.” How did he go from working on disco-era dance tracks to having the original masters of the first five Van Halen albums land on his desk? Wh...

The continuation of our conversation with the Devo co-leader goes deeper and darker into the band's history and our ominous cultural landscape. What caused Devo to split the first time, and why does Gerald Casale feel like he must do the heavy lifting now? What does he think of Mark Mothersbaugh's movie-scoring career? What was his experience directing videos by Cars, Rush and Foo Fighters? What a...

Devo’s Gerald Casale helped conceive the concept of “de-evolution,” but even he didn’t think things would get so bad. He’s also not happy about that Rock and Roll Hall of Fame snub, and he has frustrations with band co-leader Mark Mothersbaugh. Devo’s striking visuals and presentation, often conceived by Casale, may lead some to overlook this groundbreaking band’s power. We dig into the music here...

Filmmaker Judd Apatow listens to other people as much as he projects his own voice. His new documentary, George Carlin’s American Dream (HBO, HBO Max) , is a complex, intimate portrait of one of the most impactful comedians ever. His new book, Sicker in the Head: More Conversations about Life and Comedy , finds him sharing tales of pandemic life, depression and expression with creative people incl...

Delvon Lamarr can play almost every instrument but one, but he’s happiest behind his Hammond organ powering soul-jazz instrumentals that suggest what might happen if Booker T. and the MG’s met the Meters on a rocket into the 21st Century. The Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio makes hot, groovy music with seemingly telepathic interplay. Why does Lamarr prefer the trio format, even if it requires him to play...

Chef Sarah Stegner is not only one of the most talented chefs in the Chicago area but also among the most impactful. A two-time James Beard Award-winner, she scaled fine dining’s heights at the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton in Chicago, then decided she’d rather share with more people her vision of how ingredients and guests should be treated, so she opened Prairie Grass Café. She also co-founded...

Jeff Murphy makes brilliant power pop with his brother John and their friend Gary Klebe in the band Shoes. They began by recording at home in Zion, Ill., released indelible songs (“Tomorrow Night,” "Your Imagination") and albums ( Present Tense , Tongue Twister ) for Elektra and went into heavy rotation on MTV when the channel debuted in 1981. Then they discovered they were better off recording an...

Chris Stamey played with Mitch Easter and Alex Chilton before forming the dB’s and producing Pylon and other bands, but he has created a formidable body of his own work. His songwriting and arranging have grown in sophistication and skill, and he has written an illuminating memoir, A Spy in the House of Loud: New York Songs and Stories, that immerses us in his artistic development amid that city’s...

Justin Roberts is a first-rate songwriter who happens to make music for kids. His songs are intuitive, funny and catchy, and four of his albums are Grammy nominated, including 2020’s Wild Life , the first he wrote after becoming a parent himself. Talking in his sunny living room, he digs into the craft of songwriting and the business of releasing his own music. How does he distinguish between song...

Nashville-based mastering engineer Ryan Smith works on high-profile vinyl releases such as recent albums by Adele and Taylor Swift, but he’s become renowned for the fantastic-sounding reissues he has mastered. As a member of the Vinyl Me, Please record club, I have become happily familiar with the phrase “AAA Lacquers Cut From The Original Analog Tapes by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound.” In this ill...

Drummer Terry Chambers was the motor that powered XTC through its first five albums before frontman Andy Partridge broke down and abruptly ended the band’s touring days. Chambers left soon afterward, moved to Australia and was away from music for three decades—in part trying to pay off the massive debt from that cancelled tour. Yet recently he moved back to Swindon, England, and teamed with XTC so...

Whether you consider him country, bluegrass, folk or rock, Robbie Fulks is one of our greatest songwriters and an awfully talented guitarist and singer as well. He can be satirical and biting but also can pierce your heart, as the penetrating character studies on his albums Gone Away Backward and the Grammy-nominated Upland Stories have done. Having long lived in Chicago, Robbie moved to Los Angel...

Some songs you enjoy in the background while others take up residence in your bones. Sam Phillips’ music is in the latter category. She was Christian pop artist Leslie Phillips until she outgrew those constraints and, as Sam, began releasing such transcendent songs as “Holding On to the Earth” and “I Need Love” and wonderful albums such as the spirited The Indescribable Wow, the tour de force Mart...

Colin Blunstone has one of the sweetest, most distinct voices in rock, yet his band, the Zombies, has a bizarre history. It broke through with “She’s Not There” and “Tell Her No,” then went three years before the release of its second album, the masterful Odessey and Oracle . By then the Zombies had split, and when “Time of the Season” became a hit almost a year later, fake versions of the band, i...

He’s been known as Miami Steve, Little Steven and Steve/Steven/Stevie Van Zandt. He’s been Bruce Springsteen’s and Tony Soprano’s No. 2 guy, the artistic force behind Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, the leader of his own Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul and the star of Netflix’s Lilyhammer . He united rockers and rappers to battle South African apartheid with “Sun City,” oversees thr...

The Mekons, the Waco Brothers, Four Lost Souls, the Pine Valley Cosmonauts—those are just some of Jon Langford’s bands, and he’s an accomplished visual artist to boot. Since moving to Chicago from England almost 30 years ago, Langford has become one of the city’s greatest assets, and during the pandemic he has performed constantly in support of small clubs and other good causes. He recalls the inf...

When singer-songwriter Alex Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens played their first Big Star concert in almost 20 years in 1993, Stephens said it was the first time the band had performed before a paying audience that actually knew their songs. This soulful Memphis power-pop group’s initial three albums— #1 Record , Radio City and Third/Sister Lovers —barely were heard upon release but now stand as a...

If you pay close attention to the vinyl world, you know the name of Kevin Gray. He’s been mastering recordings since the early 1970s, and his name is on some of the best-sounding reissues being released, including albums by Blue Note jazz artists, Aretha Franklin, T-Rex, the Kinks, John Prine and a much-sought-after version of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon . What distinguishes his work fr...

Camper Van Beethoven bassist Victor Krummenacher is a standout player in a standout band that was peaking when it imploded. This former Wired art director has a journalist’s eye for detail as he recalls how this inventive group sprung from a shambling Southern California scene, covered miles of stylistic ground, recorded songs such as “Take the Skinheads Bowling” and "Pictures of Matchstick Men” (...

Amy Landecker is a working actor of many talents. She was Sarah Pfefferman on the Emmy-winning series Transparent , plays detective Nancy Costello on the Showtime series Your Honor and made an indelible impression as the heavy-lidded Mrs. Samsky in the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man . She has done tons of voiceover work and is skilled in “Primitive Sound Emanation”—an extremely loud monkey screech Y...

In Part 2 of our Caropop conversation, we dive into the most famous album that Steve Albini produced, Nirvana’s In Utero . Which version does he consider to be definitive? Why does he think the controversy over his mixes, with the two singles remixed by Scott Litt, was overblown and reflects a misunderstanding of how musicians think? How did he feel about creating a new In Utero mix with the survi...