The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast

Jerusalem Peace Builders Students visit the Bridgeport, CT area and discuss their trip and community engagement activities with Dr. Danna Kurtin.

Speed the Plough, a New Jersey rock group from the Hoboken/Maxwell's scene that produced The Feelies and Yo La Tengo, has a serendipitous encounter with an Italian harpsichord professor. And the result is beautiful music. 

Harry Freedman, based in England, has previously explored the Jewish roots of Leonard Cohen, but here he takes on Bob Dylan, who was wont to deny those roots--at least early on in his career. 

Tessa Souter is a jazz singer, originally from England but living in New York, who likes ambitious projects. And adapting and writing lyrics for the music of Erik Satie (who died 100 years ago in 2025) is just the latest one. 

Astroforge is going after rare metals like platinum on near-Earth asteroids, hitching rides on the Falcon 9 and other rockets. 

Richard Cortez, from Florida originally, had a circuitous route to his role as an emerging jazz singer in New York. He was a confessional Americana singer with messages for his community, did sex work, and stripped in some of the same gay bars where he now performs his beautiful jazz music. 

Brad Kolodner is an acclaimed clawhammer banjo player who performs with the chart-topping Irish, Old-Time, bluegrass fusion quartet Charm City Junction. He’s recorded four albums of Old-Time and original music with his father Ken under the name Ken & Brad Kolodner including their latest Billboard-charting release Stony Run (2020). His new album of solo gourd banjo music is called Old Growth . 

Jim Kweskin founded the legendary 1960s Jim Kweskin Jug Band with Fritz Richmond, Geoff Muldaur, Maria Muldaur, Mel Lyman and Bruno Wolfe. During the five years they were together, they successfully transformed the sounds of pre-World War II rural music into a springboard for their good-humored performances. And Kweskin is still at it, with a new album called Doing Things Right, out from Jalopy Re...

Preston Lauterbach is the author of the book Before Elvis: The African-American Musicians Who Made the King, a book that examines the careers of Big Mama Thornton, Little Junior Parker (author of "Mystery Train"), Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup and both Calvin and Phineas Newborn, Jr. He talks to WPKN about how Elvis absorbed their music and stage moves, and sometimes even acknowledged their help. 

Mark Weinstein's new book is Restoring Our Sanity Online: A Revolutionary Social Framework, published by Wiley. Here, he dissects Web 1, until 2001, Web 2--our current state of "Surveillance Capitalism" with dominance by Facebook and Google--and the hopefully more enlightened and less privacy-invading states of Web 3 and Web 4. 

A subtle and exquisite jazz vocalist, Stacey Kent has long had a love affair with the music of Brazil, and especially that of Antonio Carlos Jobim. On April 12 she joins with Danilo Caymmi (long a member of Jobim's band) for a tribute to bossa nova's greatest composer. 

Colin Newman of Wire fame and Malka Spigel of Githead first recorded their electronic music as Immersion for the Oscillating album in 1994. They're set to play the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee on March 27. Here they talk to Jim Motavalli from Little Rock, Arkansas. 

Derek and Hannah Jeter were interviewed in upstate New York on the set of a commercial they were making for the Jeep Grand Wagoneer Obsidian Edition. They talked about family, and cars. 

Phoebe White is an accomplished yodeler, and demonstrates her skills in this WPKN interview. Her album is Cowgirl's Deligh t, and it includes appearances from Riders in the Sky and Suzy Bogguss. Six of the 10 tunes are her own. White could be said to part of the movement that includes Rhiannon Giddens and is not only reclaiming the African-American heritage in country music, but blazing her own pa...

Miss Tess, one of our most talented roots singers, songwriters and multi-instrumentalists, has just put out Cher Rêve , an album dedicated to exploring Louisiana's southern Acadiana region and in specific the "magical" city of Lafayette, home of the Blackpot Festival (about music and food). Instead of the Big Easy, Lafayette is the sleepy "Little Easier."

The Irish singer Karan Casey's most recent album is Nine Apples of Gold. She tours regularly in the US, where Irish music has a huge audience. Casey was a member of the popular band Solas, and is a founder of Fairpl é , which works to achieve fairness and gender balance for female performers in Irish traditional music. 

The Syrian-born master clarinet player is now based in Brooklyn, and making his hard-to-characterize music--a meld of jazz, Middle Eastern and classical influences--with the CityBand. His latest album was recorded live in Berlin. 

The Chatham Rabbits, Austin and Sarah McCombie, live on a working farm in rural North Carolina. Their original songs reflect their dedication to the land, and to each other. Be Real With Me is their latest album, evenly split between her songs and his songs. 

Jim White is an outsider Americana artist, who uses country music as a jumping off point to explore the psyche in ways that sometimes recall the author Cormac McCarthy. He found a kindred spirit in Trey Blake, an autistic poet he met while on tour in England. He encouraged her singing, and the resulting songs (realized initially by a member of Stereolab) are memorable and deeply probing. This was...

One of the most admired guitarists in jazz, Bill Frisell has never recognized boundaries and his music--while always remaining jazz--reflects his deep study of Americana and country music's roots. He spoke in advance of a 2024 gig in Fairfield, CT. 

Tenor saxophonist Nicole Glover is currently dividing her time between the all-female Artemis band, a new ensemble from bassist Christian McBride, Ursa Major, and her solo projects--sometimes a trio without a net. She's a fully committed player, and here she talks about coming up on the Portland, OR scene and making the all-important move to NYC.

David Amram is a true musical omnivore, with deep roots in jazz (bringing the French horn into the mix), classical and folk music. He virtually invented jazz poetry with Jack Kerouac in the 1950s, worked with Leonard Bernstein and composed symphonic works, and was a friend of Rambling Jack Elliot and Woody Guthrie. Here, at 94, he talks about the musical lessons he's learned.  

Robert Rubin is the author Vanishing Point Forever, the ultimate and exhaustive take on the filming and meaning of the semi-existential 1970s road movie Vanishing Point. Who was Barry Newman? Listen and find out. 

Krissie Nagy is a major new new discovery in jazz singing, making the Great American Songbook come alive with verve and panache. Her self-titled album as Krissie and the Kranks is out now.

Seafarers specializes in highly literate, gorgeous pop music that's hard to slot into an easy category.