Songfacts Podcast

Of the many tear-inducing moments on This Is Us, one of the most powerful comes on the 2017 "Memphis" episode under the song "We Can Always Come Back To This," used in a scene where the cancer-stricken William is comforted by his son. Chris Pierce co-wrote that song, drawing inspiration from the death of his father. Pierce has made a name for himself as a singer and songwriter who can pack a music...

Coming to us from their practice studio in Brooklyn, NYC, Brian Hubbert (lead vocals, slide guitar, bass) and Andrew Oakley (drums, vocals) make up the rock duo A Shadow of Jaguar. Having first formed in Boulder, CO, the duo has since relocated to Brooklyn full time where they have been growing as performers and songwriters. Their latest release, Different Brain, dropped in early 2020 and they hav...

With the help of a handful of my fellow podcast hosts over at Pantheon, we bring you this holiday songs special. Covering a wide range of your not so typical, but nonetheless, very festive songs, the Pantheon crew covers a lot of ground in everyone's own unique style. Each participating host sent me a short tidbit about a song that is near and dear to them with some fun facts sprinkled in to educa...

There is a metaphysical side of music we rarely hear about. Consider the question: Will music survive if humans die out? The Brothers Koren - Isaac and Thorald - call this "musical cosmology."  The idea, which Isaac first explored at Northeastern University, is that we all have a unique way of hearing music (eardrums are as unique as fingerprints), and by understanding how we process it, we can un...

Ray Benson is the leader of the legendary Americana band Asleep At The Wheel. He has won multiple Grammys and collaborated with artists from all over the musical landscape, including Willie Nelson and The Chicks. At the end of October, Ray and Asleep At The Wheel were honored by Austin City Limits with an hour-long special showcasing many of the band's memorable performances on that stage. In this...

Andrea Stolpe is a creative consultant who became a staff songwriter in Nashville in 1998. She has a degree from Boston's Berklee College of Music and has penned songs for Faith Hill, Julianne Hough and many others. Andrea has also written several books on the subject, including Popular Lyric Writing and Beginning Songwriting. In this episode of the Songfacts Podcast, we call on her expertise to e...

"Best Day of My Life" is a song we're sure you've heard. It was written and recorded by American Authors: Zac Barnett (vocals), James Shelley (guitar), Dave Rublin (bass), and Matthew Sanchez (drums). Today we bring you a wonderful conversation with Dave, who also does a lot of the production in the band. We go over the band's beginnings at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, find out how thei...

She'll stack a cappella harmonies and sing about just maybe being in love with her best friend. There's nothing conventional about Maude Latour, so it's not surprising she learned music through an unconventional method. When she was in Hong Kong, the world-traveling Latour studied the Suzuki Method, an immersive program where she learned how to listen to music before learning how to read it. LaTou...

Before the Sex Pistols, there was The Damned, but as Rat Scabies (Chris Millar) points out, the pioneers get the arrows, the settlers get the gold. Scabies formed The Damned in 1976 with guitarist Brian James, bass player Captain Sensible, and lead singer Dave Vanian. Their first album, released in 1977, is the punk landmark Damned Damned Damned, which as Scabies explains, took them from opening a...

Christopher Pappas comes from a musical family in Auburn, New Hampshire. After getting a taste of local celebrity by opening for his dad's band in his early teens, he knew that finding a career in performing was what he wanted to do. After establishing the act Elle Belle in 2013, he released a handful of records, always expanding on his never-ending search for new sounds. On November 13, 2020, he'...

Eric Senich has been enamored with Van Halen since Christmas Eve 1988, when he found his brother's 5150 cassette. "When I listened to that, I was like, Wow this makes me feel something special. And so I played it right through, turned it over, and played it again. It was at that point I became a fan of rock and roll music." Eric hosts the DISCovery podcast, where he breaks down albums, artists and...

Ehab Omran is already making plans for when he blows out his voice. Right now, he can hit otherworldly notes as frontman for South Of Eden, a rock band (like, a real, unhyphenated rock in the tradition of Guns N' Roses) from Columbus, Ohio. But when he can't sing in that whistle register anymore? "If I end up sounding like Johnny Cash, then it is what it is."   Previously known as Black Coffee, So...

The Suzy Bogguss story starts in the small town of Aledo, Illinois, where she grew up listening to her dad's Merle Haggard 8-tracks. In 1985, she got a big break when she sang at Silver Dollar City, a Nashville amusement park that Dolly Parton turned into Dollywood the next year. With Parton's endorsement, she became a featured performer at the park and earned a record deal. Bogguss is more of a s...

Born and raised in a Christian family in New York City, Amanda Brown was influenced mostly by gospel music until her time at the highly prestigious LaGuardia Arts High School. After a brief stint at Howard University, she decided to pursue music full time and soon found herself on tour singing backup for Alicia Keys. Three years on the road and she was ready to pave her own path. Singing in late-n...

From her time improvising at UC Berkeley, to traveling the world performing and finding her voice as a songwriter, Monique DeBose has an incredible story to share. A polymath with degrees in Spiritual Psychology and Mathematics, she earned acclaim for her one-woman show Mulatto Math: Summing Up the Race Equation in America and is a prominent speaker who has done TED Talks. DeBose has made her mark...

From the moon landing to the Stonewall riots, to Woodstock and Altamont, 1969 gave the world incredible highs and pivotal lows. Through it all, the most famous band in the world, The Beatles, struggled to keep it together while also putting together some of their most treasured music. In his book And in the End: The Last Days of The Beatles, author Ken McNab details this historic year for the Fab...

What makes a song great? Kirk Hamilton is the guy to ask. A few years ago, a friend asked him to use his vast musical knowledge to explain why Toto's "Africa" is so special, which led Kirk down a path to his Strong Songs podcast, where he deconstructs songs in glorious detail; he's covered tunes by Michael Jackson, Fleetwood Mac, and even the Hamilton musical. We had the opportunity to speak with...

Simon Milliman, or "Urban Jack" as he is currently known on stage, is challenging himself to write 12 albums in 12 months. As you can imagine, this doesn't leave time for revision - it's kind of like free writing, but with music. In this episode of the Songfacts Podcast, he explains how he's planning to pull it off... with no filler! Simon is a fixture on the music scene in Portland, Oregon, where...

Bekah Marie Knott talks about growing up in the South and how music touches every part of her life. From her early days singing in church, to a memorable concert that struck a chord and paved the way for a life of music, Bekah Marie is the story of thousands. A vocal teacher who is playing in a couple different bands around Georgia, she isn't afraid to talk about her battles with mental health and...

In 2007, Eric Victorino's band Strata toured with Sonny Moore, who later became Skrillex. Victorino could feel the musical tides shifting away from the rock band model and toward the kind of electronic music generated by DJs or virtual acts. Teaming up with Giovanni Giusti, whom he met online, Eric formed The Limousines and scored in 2010 with "Internet Killed The Video Star," a song portending th...

Misty Boyce is a singer-songwriter who hails from New Mexico. After spending seven years working her tail off in New York City, she now calls LA home and has found her place in the music industry of the West Coast. Besides being a prolific solo artist, Misty has also toured with acts such as Lord Huron and Ingrid Michaelson, not to mention a stint doing the halftime show for the NCAA basketball to...

Introduction to the Songfacts Podcast. https://www.songfacts.com/ https://www.facebook.com/songfacts https://twitter.com/Songfacts http://pantheonpodcasts.com/ https://twitter.com/pantheonpods Hosted and Edited by Corey O’Flanagan https://twitter.com/ofe1818 https://www.instagram.com/coreyofe/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices