Lost Notes: Groupies

As a supplement to our episode on John Fahey, we share a conversation between Jessica Hopper and Carla Green about artist legacies in the era of cancel culture and #MeToo.

John Fahey’s guitar playing influenced the sound of the American underground for generations. But how does that legacy change when you hear from three of the women who knew him best?

The rock band Fanny ruled the Sunset Strip in the 1970s, and they were supposed to be the next big thing. They explain the price women pay for being ahead of their time.

Synth pioneer Suzanne Ciani used an esoteric instrument to design some of the most well-known commercial sounds of the 20th century.

Poet and author Hanif Abdurraqib's letter to Cat Power about how her album The Greatest worked its way into his life.

The Freeze were an early American punk band. Now, 40 years later, two members reckon with the lyrics they wrote as teenagers.

On this season of Lost Notes, the music journalist and author Jessica Hopper is looking at artist legacies. How do they hold up? How do they change over time? Learn how decades on a song can find new meaning, something different than when it was written. Find out what happens when we apply our 2019 politics to 1974’s songs. And hear from pioneering women who have been written out of music&rs...

The strange story of the postwar pop standard "Nature Boy" and its enigmatic creator, eden ahbez.

Legendary DJ/crate-digger Cut Chemist professes his love for Cymande’s 1972 self-titled debut.

A global pop icon appears in a most unexpected place in this story from Pod Planet’s Clive Desmond.

We resurface a story from Falling Tree Productions that takes a look at the empowering flip-side of pop fandom.

In the wake of the swinging ‘60s, a young woman named Aisha Ali travels to North Africa in search of her roots. There, she single-handedly documents hours and hours of music and film from Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt ... much of it still unheard.

In 1989 McDonald’s ran the biggest flexi-disc promotion ever, sending out 80 million discs (playing the “Menu Song”) as inserts in newspapers all over the country. A very special copy of this record was almost burned to heat a family home in Galax, Virginia. Instead, it ended up winning the homeowner a million dollars.

One of the most unlistenable bands of the ‘60s became a cult favorite decades later, gaining praise from the likes of Frank Zappa, Kurt Cobain and Sonic Youth. But did the Wiggin sisters from Fremont, New Hampshire even want to be in a band in the first place? The New Yorker’s Susan Orlean recounts her reporting on the band’s strange trip to unexpected fame.

When Johnny Cash played his iconic concert at Folsom Prison he covered the song of one very talented inmate. Johnny pulled some strings, plucked Glen Sherley from prison and brought him out on the road. Did this turn of fortune wind up helping or hurting the formerly unknown songwriter?

The boys in New Edition were basketball fans from Boston - Celtics country. So what happened when they hung out with the L.A. Lakers in a music video during the height of the 1980s Celtics/Lakers rivalry?

In this intimate radio portrait of one of music’s most legendary eccentric geniuses, writer Kristine McKenna offers you a visceral experience of what it was like to be friends with Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart).

An FBI Investigation, an engagement ring, wine coolers...  the surprising story behind the ubiquitous anthem that every teenager bangs out on their first guitar.

Pirate radio station WBAD in New York was a beloved source for fans of underground, unsanitized hip-hop in the 1990s, but how high could this illegal operation fly while also staying under the radar?

Hear a preview of Lost Notes, an anthology of some of the greatest music stories never truly told. Top journalists present stand-alone audio documentaries that highlight music’s head, heart and beat, with host Solomon Georgio as your guide.