Three Song Stories

Eric King s a senior interpretive naturalist with the Miami-Dade County Parks, Recreation, and Open Spaces Department. He manages and conducts nature-based education at Castellow Hammock Nature Center & Preserve in Redland Eric is also an avid butterfly and vegetable gardener as well as an eclectic musician who writes and produces everything from folk to cinematic music - and he’s currently in...

Paula Poundstone is well-known to NPR listeners - especially those who tend to tune in on the weekends to catch Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me , on which she’s a regular and beloved panelist. Beyond Wait Wait, Paula is a legendary stand-up comedian, author, actress & voice actor, interviewer, and commentator. She was introduced to the world at large in the late 1980s through a series of hour-long HBO...

Daniel Donlan was born in Narragansett, Rhode Island but his family moved to southwest Florida when he was just five so pretty much considers himself a Florida man. He graduated from FGCU in 2021 and then taught high school algebra (where he was in charge of his students’ DND club) for two years before deciding that was enough of that -- he now works at Gartner in Fort Myers.  See omnystudio.com/l...

It's time for another throwback to the songs our musician guests played for us.  Bulletproof Heart by Dan Navarro (Ep 309) Lucky to Find Love Again by Tim McGeary (Ep. 323) Hills by Coyote Island from the Sugarshack Sessions (Ep. 311) Preston Rumbaugh Maggie Campbell Blues (Ep. 314) Favorite Things by DAVE!Ja! Vu! (Ep. 326) Buzzcut by Charlie Pace (Ep. 327) The Ballad of Cilantro by Dan Navarro (E...

This week, we're featuring 3 clips from the podcast hosted by our audio producer, Jared Gonzalez - The RAZZLE DAZZLE Show. First up, a look back at Guitar Hero, then an with renowned music composer and writer, Adam Gubman, and finally, THE DELTA QUEST, their monthly D&D campaign! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Laura Kiniry (no relation by the way) is a freelance journalist specializing in travel, food, and culture. Laura has gone on numerous adventures including a six-month solo journey across Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand - she spent a summer working in Montana's Glacier National Park, and has visited all seven continents.  Laura’s work can be found in publications including Smithsonian Magazine...

Lauren Robie co-founded Hope Eternal Gardens in Punta Gorda with her husband Chris Alonso. It’s a licensed natural burial cemetery with planting forests and meadows where people can celebrate loved ones in a park-like setting. The dream of creating Hope began with the last wish of Lauren’s mother-in-law, and she and her husband have kept that promise and brought her dream into reality. See omnystu...

Jessica Lindsey is System Director for Performance Excellence at Lee Health (the largest public health system in Southwest Florida). She has her master's in healthcare administration but has held all sorts of roles with Lee Health over the years. Jessica also serves as treasurer on the SWFL Inc. Board of Directors and is an Advisory Board Fellow.   Beyond her professional roles, Jessica volunteers...

JP Soars is a Boca Raton-based multi-instrumentalist who’s been releasing his music with his powerhouse trio The Red Hots since 2008, when he released his debut album Back Of My Mind. JP has won the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge in 2009 and the prestigious Albert King guitar award. In 2012, he was named a Blues Music Award Nominee for Best Contemporary Male Blues Artist, and in...

Casey Kalmenson is a Los Angeles-based singer, writer, and producer who makes music under the moniker Little Monarch. She’s also an integral member of Gracie Abrams' band and played a pivotal role in the highly acclaimed Taylor Swift The Era's Tour in 2023, showcasing her exceptional talent on a global stage. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Vivian Howard is the chef at the center of A Chef’s Life , which ran on PBS from 2013 to 2018 - and 2020’s Somewhere South. Vivian won a Peabody, Emmy, and James Beard award for A Chef’s Life . She also runs three restaurants: Lenoir and Handy & Hot in Charleston, South Carolina, and The Kitchen Bar at Chef & the Farmer in Kinston, NC. Vivian is author of two books, Deep Run Roots: Stories...

Kelsie Watts is a singer-songwriter based in Nashville. Raised in a musical family, she went on to study opera, vocal performance, and commercial music. Following her collaboration with AJ McLean from the Backstreet Boys and her appearance on The Voice, she released original songs in 2021 and 2022.  When not writing and performing, Kelsie is a mental health advocate, working with organizations lik...

Jay Allison is host and producer of The Moth Radio Hour,  host, curator, and producer of This I Believe on NPR, and creator/producer of hundreds of documentaries, essays, and special series for national and international broadcast. Jay has won virtually every major industry award for his productions and collaborations, including six Peabodys.  He was also the 1996 recipient of the Corporation for...

Tara Lynn Rye is a musical artist and filmmaker from New Jersey who calls southwest Florida home these days. She spent time in New York City and Los Angeles honing her craft in film - she directed, produced, shot, and edited short films, documentaries and episodics. Tara’s played shows with her band at Rockwood Music Hall, the Peppermint Club, and the legendary Viper Room. She released her song “G...

Mitchell Austin is the Urban Design Manager at the City of Punta Gorda, where he is responsible for long range planning and capital projects planning and design. Since arriving on August 16, 2004 (three days after  Hurricane Charley devastated Punta Gorda), Mitchell has focused on the art and science of urban place-making in Punta Gorda. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Courtney McNeil is museum director and chief curator at the Baker Museum at Artis—Naples. She’s an award-winning curator, art historian, and museum leader with more than two decades of museum and gallery experience. Prior to joining Artis—Naples, Courtney served 15 years in the curatorial department of Telfair Museums in Savannah, ultimately holding the title of chief curator and deputy director f...

Missy Balsam is a yoga teacher, singer-songwriter and recording artist. Missy began teaching yoga in 2007, after spending her 20s and 30s in a stressful, high-level sales and marketing career in New York City and Los Angeles. Missy began her music career by blending elements of alternative rock with Sanskrit mantras from the yogic tradition called kirtan. Her 2016 debut studio album REVEALED was c...

Chuck Garfien is an Anchor and Reporter for NBC Sports-Chicago - he hosts White Sox Pre and Post-Game Live with Ozzie Guillén, Frank Thomas, and other former White Sox players. He also writes for nbcsportschicago.com and hosts the White Sox Talk Podcast. Chuck basically gets to live and breathe Chicago White Sox for a living. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sean Dunnigan is Owner of Ollie's Pub in Cape Coral, FL, a punk venue located on Cape Coral Pkwy. Ollie’s was one of the few venues in Southwest Florida that hosted live, original rock, metal, punk, and experimental concerts and events.  Following a challenging 2020 and weathering the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, Ollie's, unfortunately, had to make the difficult decision to close its doors in April...

CLAY is a Los Angeles-based alt-pop musical artist who has amassed more than 45 million streams across her platforms, and just wrapped up her “Waiting for God in the Garden” tour, which was her first full headlining run across the U.S. with performances in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago, New York, Nashville, Denver, and San Francisco. She joined us from her home in LA See omnystudio.com/listener fo...

Ken Wells is vice president and general manager of Cabbage Key. His family has owned Cabbage Key since 1976. As a young boy he collected and sold shells to visitors out of a cardboard stand along Cabbage Key’s shoreline. In October of 2023, Ken was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer at the age 44. He turned to making music as an emotional outlet amid the physical and emotional battles that ove...

Dr. Chaerin Kim is a multi-instrumentalist (she actually plays 10 instruments) who currently teaches piano and harp at University of Massachusetts Boston. She’s also a conductor and composer who has released 146 songs on 7 albums, and she’s scored more than 100 versions of her original song “Rendezvous” which began as a piano piece but has now been produced in  80 different languages. Dr. Kim was...

Charlie Pace is a Southwest Florida singer-songwriter who's been performing since she was 7 years old. She released first her single at the age of 14, and a few months out of high school, Charlie became a backup vocalist for the nationally-touring Pink Floyd Tribute band, Floyd Nation. She performs original and cover music under her own name, as well as original punk music with her side band CAAM....

Dave McMahan (known best by his stage name Dave! Ja! Vu! is a prominent name in SWFL's local music scene, taking the stage as a one-man acoustic guitar and harmonica playing folk punk band. Fueled by DIY punk energy, Dave records all of his own albums and handmakes his merch, down to the artwork inserts and clothing.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. April Lynn James (AKA The PhDiva) is a classically trained soprano with a PhD from Harvard. Her “delightfully readable” book, The Tenth Muse: How Maria Antonia Advanced the Pastoral Opera debuted at #1, and is an international best-seller. During her doctoral studies did she begin her holistic wellness journey in earnest, in order to heal from stress induced weight gain, depression, and tendon...