This week, the show is back in New Orleans for a special talk with Sam Doores, one of the talented founders of well-traveled roots-rockers The Deslondes. We dive into their newest LP 'Ways & Means' and how California-born Sam - who plays various instruments from electric guitar to keys, and sings in seven bands and counting throughout the Crescent City - collected many of its slow-burn soul-adjacent songs like "Five Year Plan" while holed up in a storage unit studio squat, questioning his place as an adult with real responsibilities who also happens to be a soul-searching artist criss-crossing our beautiful (or crumbling) almost-post-pandemic world. Imagine if you will, you walk into a saloon lost somewhere between 1930 and 1975. The band onstage has three distinct lead singers, and the songs feel like hard lived-in tales that could live in a TV western or the soundtrack to 'Boogie Nights,' with vibes that would inspire both Ray Charles and Woody Guthrie, Tom Waits and The Beatles. If you’re confused, good. Algorithms can force music upon you at any time these days and I’ll admit, Spotify wants me to listen to The Deslondes, at all hours. They’re not wrong. If I have one job in this podcast it’s to share the music that lights a fire in me as a fellow songwriter and has me grasping for genre-descriptor straws. I have no idea, clearly, how to describe this band. I will say, songs like “Howl at the Moon” make me feel like I’m somehow still proud to be an American, plying my trade somewhere in the still kind of Wild West. Starting with their charmingly ramshackle and bluesy self-titled debut in 2015, the band, which formed in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, has always made a point to write democratically and spread songs around to their singers. Sam for one, Dan Cutler (bass) for another and notably the always compelling Riley Downing, whose ancient deep drawl sounds like it should be its own character in 'Yellowstone' - and all harmonize gorgeously together. Downing and Doores also both have duo and solo albums which are lovely, but what they create here in The Deslondes - especially in timeless story songs like “South Dakota Wild One” about Riley’s wandering youth - are special in the way accidental supergroups make music that somehow shouldn’t exist. It was a pleasure getting together with Sam for a rare in-person chat just off Frenchmen Street. If there’s one thing I love most about New Orleans, it's that it creates new artists that seem to follow the beat of their own drummer, genres be-damned. Give 'Ways & Means' a spin - it might transport you somewhere you need to go. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, we feature a conversation taped live in New Orleans with Arkansas-born multi-instrumentalist and roots-soul singer Anna Moss, who has criss-crossed the country in recent years with her sonic partner Joel Ludford in their band Handmade Moments. Growing up as a bathroom-singing nerd playing saxophone in the school band, Anna admits that if she could wield any superpower it might be invisibility. Not necessarily the first thing you think of for an openly political, big-voiced folk festival favorite who has made a name for herself sitting in with some of the biggest names in the Americana scene. A recent collaboration with Rainbow Girls bore especially potent fruit - and if you read my Music That Moved Me in 2022 list you’ll see at the very top was Anna’s thorny "Big Dick Energy.” Rarely does a song make you laugh and then dance and then follow with a sucker punch about how unsafe many women feel just taking up space in the world. The video also illustrates the song’s deft twist: how women can gang together to mock and minimize the men who for so long have taken away their agency and power. And yet, the song also makes you want to forget it all and just groove to the sexiest flute solo in recent memory. If this is a foreshadowing of what’s to come with Anna’s solo work, call me quite intrigued. Whether she’s playing crunchy bass clarinet or upright bass, electric or acoustic guitar, or singing with Joel in Handmade Moments or her other jazzy group the Nightshades, Anna is never shy about speaking her mind in her music. Take a listen to Handmade Moments' rapidly rhyming, gorgeously harmonized climate change banger “Hole In The Ocean” which wouldn’t feel out of place in a slam-poetry jam. A song on their forthcoming record End Of The Wars (coming in May) directly confronts Trump’s cult-like status, again not pulling any punches. Want to see an early version of the song played with sax in a cave? Sure you do: https://youtu.be/JkQOCD1NQoo The dangers of the road are not lost on Anna and Joel of course. They were hit head-on during a freak accident on a run in Northern California years back and were lucky to make it out relatively unscathed. She’s trying to keep things a bit mellower these days. It was special talking to Anna in her adopted new home of New Orleans, and the soulful sounds that trickle into her living room on Frenchman Street can be heard throughout the songs she’s working on. Fittingly, a slow burn live track she released, “Slow Down, Kamikaze,” is a great reminder to stop trying to do too much and focus on what actually matters. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, we feature my conversation with beloved folk firebrand Iris Dement. Born the youngest of fourteen to a singing Pentecostal family in Arkansas and raised in California, Dement released her iconic 1992 John Prine-endorsed debut 'Infamous Angel' and has been creating poetic protest records and warm collaborations ever since (garnering two folk Grammy nominations along the way), culminating in her much anticipated and fiery new LP 'Working On A World.' Certain songwriters in the folk field will occasionally speak up about injustice or corruption - but with 'Working On A World,' Dement puts the protest front and center: honoring luminaries like Mahalia Jackson, John Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr. and even The Chicks for giving her hope that putting your principles and life on the line will help bend history towards progress and righteousness. Dement, who is now based in Iowa with her musician and collaborator husband Greg Brown (check out their biting co-write “I’ll Be Your Jesus”), will be the first to say that at times in her wide-ranging career, playing clubs to enraptured but small audiences, she has questioned whether she was doing enough to make a difference. But songs like the epic Dylan-esque take-down “Going Down To Sing in Texas” show that Dement is still at her fired-up best, confronting the Lone Star State's open carry gun laws that put so many at risk, while also spitting in the face of all the wannabe tyrants who shun the very progress she is still hoping to see. In many ways, 'Working On A World' is a hard-won release of pent up energy, created over the course of six years with co-producers Richard Bennett, Jim Rooney and Pieta Brown. While many of her longtime fans are used to her fearless political confrontations - 1996’s seething 'The Way I Should' and its dark anthem “Wasteland of the Free" demand answers from sexual abusers and government war mongers alike - casual listeners may only know Dement from her playful duets with sonic soulmate John Prine, most notably the foul-mouthed love song “In Spite Of Ourselves.” With a little laugh, she says she’s alright with that too. Life is long and the music, no matter the light or the dark, is equally as powerful. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, my talk with self-described folk-country scientist and songwriter Cleve Francis, whose winding fifty year story in music is nearly unparalleled. Few African-American artists had their work heard in the folk boom of the early 1960’s, and while Francis studied to become a heart specialist after leaving the small hamlet of Jennings, Louisiana, the honey-voiced gems he laid down with his guitar in the gorgeous compilation 'Beyond the Willow Tree' are finding devoted new audiences – this podcaster included. After diving into that encyclopedic collection which showcases his songs from 1968-1970, you can see that Francis’s tastes were vast. Sparsely recorded with his beautifully airy yet powerful voice leading the way, he tributes everything from Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement to his loving interpretations of Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, The Beatles and Bob Dylan (his fiery take on “With God On Our Side” is a must-listen). And yet, if you look deeper into his story, you’ll notice that Francis’s real love was for old school country music. In Nashville, the list of major-label Black stars not named Charley Pride was short – and still is. But in the 1990’s, while already a successful cardiologist, Francis took leave of his office in Virginia and jumped on a tour bus to promote his catchy CMT-approved records 'Tourist In Paradise' and 'Walkin’.' Always the trailblazer, he also founded the Black Country Music Association to help find opportunities for up and coming artists who were left out of the Music City limelight. While he did return to his patients and left Nashville to its devices in the late 1990’s, Francis and his work creating what he likes to call “soul-folk” are thankfully being discovered anew via the wizardry of the internet. I was so personally moved by the open-hearted power of his collection 'Beyond the Willow Tree' that I had to find out more, and I’m so glad I did. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, we place a call to a Tennessee front porch to talk to rock-n’-soul trickster and acclaimed singer-songwriter Rayland Baxter. He’s our first returning artist on the show for a good reason. Besides being a personal favorite of host Z. Lupetin since his gorgeous, folky debut 'Feathers and Fishhooks' a decade ago, Z. was able to catch up with Rayland in a Vegas hotel room (where he played through a cigarette pack mini amp) to discuss his deliciously catchy and soulful 2018 record 'Wide Awake' and how growing up around his side-man legend dad Bucky Baxter (pedal steel and guitars for Bob Dylan’s touring band, and countless others) inspired him to make his own playful visions real and to always follow his ear. But while 'Wide Awake' felt accessible as a funky aural high five, his 2022 offering 'If I Were A Butterfly' is a more challenging, experimental work - think Jackson Pollock filmed through a Super 8 camera after a mushroom trip. He uses archival audio going back to his childhood, sings about goats, demons and his forever yearning to find a love that loves him back in a way that doesn’t seem transactional. The result is a fractured but intimately moving portrait. I’ll admit, it took a few listens to warm to 'Butterfly,' but after our latest talk, we can see how the ever-upbeat Baxter was processing some pretty heavy adult stuff on this record - most notably losing his dad and two of his most trusted recording partners to sudden ends. He hence did much of the producing himself, laying down the record in an abandoned rubber band factory. “Graffiti Street” shows Baxter at the height of his unique game writing signature effortless rootsy-rock hooks with a new sense of gravity that never holds the butterfly within him down. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, to kick-start our fifth season we call into an organic vegetable farm in Texas to chat with an upright bassist who also happens to be a former New Orleans ace street performer, and singer and songwriter, who sounds like she might have stepped out of a saloon in 1955 filled with the warm echoes of her heroes Hank Williams and Patsy Cline: Melissa Carper. Is there such thing as a “new nostalgia” movement happening under our noses in the Americana scene? I’m going to say there is, thanks to folks like Melissa. She’s lived several lives as a working music maker in groups like Sad Daddy (“Daddy” being her beloved nickname), Buffalo Gals, and the Carper Family (her folks in Nebraska growing up had a roving band), before collecting her favorite vintage-tinted songs and breaking out with her whip-smart solo debut 'Daddy’s Country Gold' and then 2022’s 'Ramblin’ Soul,' which she penned while working on that vegetable farm with her fiddle player/partner during the height of the pandemic. The latter record is a celebration of the small victories and tiny glories of taking your hard earned art onto the road, while also pausing to reflect on the important folks she lost recently, like her beloved pup. While Melissa gets a good chuckle about being called the “Hillbilly Holiday” with her high lilting voice and silky delivery, it’s the impossible pleasure of hearing the lost music of pre-modern country, jazz and blues fronted by a proudly queer bassist lead-singer that almost seems like science fiction when you look at it deeply. Make “new nostalgia” a new genre! Or throw genre right out the window and just turn modern classics like “Makin’ Memories” (one of my top songs of 2022) up nice and loud, however you listen these days. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome back, friends. Season 5 is here to help launch us into 2023, starting off with the new old-time sounds of the singing upright bassist who everyone calls “daddy,” Melissa Carper. Plus, the return of the rock-n-soul butterfly Rayland Baxter taped on his porch in Tennessee, and also a fascinating talk with Cleve Francis, a singing heart doctor who once rubbed elbows with Garth Brooks and the big boys in the country pantheon, but was recently rediscovered for putting out a transcendent complication of rare Black folk songs from the late 1960s. Recently Z. Lupetin went down to New Orleans and talked to artists in their studios and living rooms and, as the bandleader of Dustbowl Revival, will continue to bring you newly discovered music he found on the trail from coast to coast. New episodes every other Thursday! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How does one try and summarize the soundtrack to my life this year? Indeed, we are in year three (!) of this endless pandemic and I find I am more and more drawn to pure escapism, fantasy and what I might call the “new nostalgia”? Personally, I don’t go more than a few hours in the day (or during sleep at night) without something on, whether it’s playing on my bluetooth speakers around the house, or in headphones as I walk the dog or the toddler around the neighborhood, or in the car rolling to the next spot. As I teeter towards 40, I admit I love old school radio - while driving especially - and while most of the year has felt like a bit of a creative slog, I was thrilled to finally launch my own radio show on actual airwaves which you can listen to on Saturday mornings. And as a new dad, I am not ashamed to say that playlists like morning classical chill or sadgirl piano background are what actually got me through. But what about the songs that moved me? I live for a new song that knocks me out of my reverie: unexpected lyrics, or ripping solos, or funky beats that slap me across the face and make me go, "WHAT. WAS. THAT?" And there are some songs in the list below that surely did that. But does one song sum up a whole year? A year that began with me almost losing my wife to a horrifying rare syndrome while giving birth to our daughter? Of seeing her recover courageously and witnessing my daughter growing like a grinning weed that careens from room to room like a joyful banshee? Or traveling the country playing songs I wrote to sometimes empty or sometimes full theaters or festivals or saloons of happy or heckling strangers? Or talking to dozens of hard-working bands and songwriters with my mic from Nova Scotia to London, from Minneapolis to New Orleans, or right in the front bar of LA’s hallowed Troubadour? How can songs, like short stories, be stitched together to create the novel that is your life? Maybe one can’t really sum up a year like 2022 with a few songs. But if you are curious about some of the music that did truly move me or make me smile or got me through, this is it! I truly love these tracks. I will always love them. Are all of these safe for your to blast at work? Probably not! But let’s get started. Songs featured in this episode: Anna Moss feat. Rainbow Girls, “Big Dick Energy” The Deslondes, “Five Year Plan” ('Ways & Means') Melissa Carper, “Makin’ Memories” ('Daddy's Country Gold') The Seratones, "Good Day" ('Love & Algorhythms') Ondara, "An Alien in Minneapolis" ('Spanish Villager No. 3') Onda Vaga, "Milagro" Silvana Estrada, "Tristeza" (Marchita) The Heavy Heavy "Sleeping On Grassy Ground" (Life and Life Only) The Cactus Blossoms "Hey Baby" (One Day) Dustbowl Revival "Be (For July)" (Set Me Free) Monica Martin "Go Easy, Kid" Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, we cross the pond for a talk with rising British roots-rockers Will Turner and Georgie Fuller, who harness the freewheeling sonic spirit of the sixties with a new Brighton-based band they call The Heavy Heavy. While the British coast isn’t exactly known for its blissed out sunshiny beaches (or as a haven for rock 'n' roll stardom), Will and Georgie decamped there during the pandemic. And through the power of imagination (and production wizardry), they somehow mastered the reverb-y sun-soaked harmonies that Laurel Canyon favorites the Mamas and the Papas and the Byrds brought forth during the summer of love, with their breakout EP 'Life And Life Only' (with a wink to Mr. Dylan), issued stateside by ATO Records. The response to their Woodstock-flavored tracks like “Go Down River” and “All My Dreams,” led by pairing Will’s roaring guitar and Georgie’s gospel-tinted vocals, has been overwhelming. European tours with label-mates Black Pumas preceded national U.S. TV appearances and their first full run in America. While some could write them off as merely skilled nostalgia-hounds, what Turner has pulled off with his masterful production of 'Life And Life Only' shows an obsessive attention to detail, helping resurrect a sound and, more importantly, a feeling that isn’t stuck in the utopian hippie era, but could be the soundtrack to a more hopeful age that we may just be entering now. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, we head down to Austin, Texas where we talk to multi-instrumentalist and renowned producer Adrian Quesada. Many know him as half of ground-breaking deep soul duo Black Pumas, where songs like “Colors” rose up the charts, taking them from tiny Austin clubs to the biggest festivals in the world, garnering Grammy nods, playing as the theme for the Major League Baseball playoffs and even featuring at Joe Biden’s inauguration. But on his own, Quesada has had a remarkably fruitful 2022, first releasing his Spanish-language debut 'Boleros Psicodélicos' with some heavy collaborators, and in November he brought forth 'Jaguar Sound,' a cinematic instrumental opus that’s one part Daptone R&B groove, one part hip-hop sample jam and one part Morricone vintage score mystery. Growing up on the border town of Laredo, Texas as a MTV-loving, hip-hop and hair-metal obsessed only-child, Quesada discusses how he used the isolation of the pandemic lockdowns (and a pause in his relentless Black Pumas touring) to begin creating the music that had been living in his head for decades, but never had a chance to be heard. Gems like “Noble Metals” feel like a cross-section between an early dreamy Santana cut and something that could be found in a trippy Japanese animation. A self-professed “studio rat," Quesada teases at the end of the talk that he’s only just scratched the surface of what he hopes to create. One can only hope that a Black Pumas reunion with charismatic vocalist Eric Burton is in the cards too. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, we talk with Kenyan singer-songwriter Ondara, who came to Minneapolis in search of his voice as a young musician, and found a new creative persona which he now embodies called The Spanish Villager. He has since taken audiences by storm, garnering a Grammy-nomination and now returning with a stunning politically-charged new LP. 'Spanish Villager No: 3' is produced by Ondara and Mike Viola (Jenny Lewis, Dan Wilson) with collaborations from Taylor Goldsmith and Griffin Goldsmith of Dawes, Sebastian Steinberg, Tim Kuhl and Jeremy Stacey. While he would still call himself a folk singer like his Minneapolis hero Bob Dylan, Ondara (like Dylan) has gone a bit electric on the new offering, harnessing his massive vocal power with a full band around him. Ondara’s immigrant journey is truly one for the storybooks, and while he has dutifully paid homage to American folk protest singers in his previous work, the newest 'Spanish Villager' work shows him really finding his own sound, at once sharply modern and steeped in a dark history he can’t wait to mine. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, we call into Minnesota to talk to frontman and lead-songwriter Dave Simonett of the innovative jamgrass pioneers Trampled by Turtles. Celebrating a new record, 'Alpenglow,' produced by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, the six-piece band has gone from storming shaggy local bars in Duluth to playing their famously fast roots-n-roll in the biggest venues and festivals in the world. Twenty years in, Simonett is keeping it fresh by letting masters like Tweedy bring his punky minor chord sensibility to the band’s warm acoustic camaraderie (bassist Tim Saxhaug, banjo player Dave Carroll, mandolinist Erik Berry, fiddle player Ryan Young, and cellist Eamonn McLain round out the group) with standout songs like “Starting Over” not shying away from the expectations that come from recognition and giving your art to the world - with the brightness of the banjo always leading the way. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, we call on an Americana pioneer and a beloved fixture of the Nashville roots-country scene, the always affable Grammy-winner Jim Lauderdale. This year he celebrated the release of his thirty-fifth record 'Game Changer.' Growing up in both North and South Carolina, as a young man Lauderdale fell in love with country music but took an unconventional path to becoming a sought-after songwriter, harmonist and writer in Music City. He toured in New York theatre productions when he was starting out, and ended up in LA. Even today you can hear the drama in his aching harmony-soaked songs like “Lightning Love” off 'Game Changer.' While sales and national recognition haven’t always aligned, the “stylistically restless” Lauderdale has played the Opry over 200 times, collaborated on albums with his heroes like the late bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley, written tracks for artists as diverse as George Strait and Elvis Costello, and has accidentally become one of the leading elder-statesman of the Americana movement. What is Americana exactly? Even Jim impishly won’t say. But it’s that earthy genre-bending sound that has kept his longtime fans coming back for more nearly for decades into his storied run. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, we return to the Crescent City to talk to one of the new leaders of the Grammy-winning Rebirth Brass Band, trumpet player Glenn Hall III who is part of a deep New Orleans musical family. Rebirth will be coming from NOLA to LA to help headline the inaugural Paramount Ranch Sonic Boom on October 15th. It’s a brand new music festival co-created by yours truly and Dustbowl Revival (along with Tiny Porch Concerts and the Santa Monica Mountains Fund) that will celebrate the confluence of American roots music by bringing together diverse acts like Grammy-winning folk-blues master Dom Flemons, and notable local Southern California-based acts the Eagle Rock Gospel Singers, string-band Water Tower, Cuban group Yosmel Montejo y La Caliente and singer-songwriter Abby Posner. Set in the green hills of the Santa Monica Mountains, partial proceeds from the fest will go to restoring historic Paramount Ranch which lost much of its western movie sets during a devastating wildfire. Few bands of any kind can claim an unbroken lineage from their 1983 start. Phillip "Tuba Phil" Frazier, his brother Keith Frazier and renowned trumpet player Kermit Ruffins formed the group out of Joseph S. Clark Senior High School, located in the Tremé neighborhood of New Orleans. If you watched the acclaimed HBO series of the same name, you no doubt heard Rebirth as the brassy backdrop to the city as it constantly evolved and survived traumas like Hurricane Katrina. Members of the Frazier family still join the band on tours. Glenn Hall III takes us through the fascinating history of the group, describing notable shows like opening for the Grateful Dead, recording with John Fogerty, kicking off the Grammys, and recently joining the Red Hot Chili Peppers onstage. Their 2022 single “New Orleans Girl” shows how they never stop experimenting, lending their big sound to a hip-hop mashup featuring Cheeky Blakk and PJ Morton. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, we dial into New Orleans for a fascinating talk with master funk-guitarist and songwriter Leo Nocentelli. Discerning listeners may known him as the chief groove-creator behind the legendary group The Meters with Art Neville on keyboard, George Porter Jr. on bass, Zigaboo Modeliste on drums. There is no mistaking his soulful dagger-sharp signature sound leading often-sampled treasures like “Sissy Strut” and “Hey Pocky A-Way” (The Beastie Boys were big fans) - or even his slinky masterful backing of Dr. John’s classic 'Right Place, Wrong Time.' But a new generation are learning of Nocentelli from last year's surprise release of his first and only solo record, the acoustic folk-driven 'Another Side,' which was resurrected and marketed by Light In The Attic Records nearly fifty years after Leo first recorded it. You don’t usually put your first record out when you’re zooming past your 75th birthday. The story of how 'Another Side' still even exists is quite a yarn (one that Leo goes into great good-humored detail about in the taping) from the master tapes being lost in damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, to a master-copy being found almost impossibly after a storage-unit got foreclosed and the music was traded at a local swap-meet. Hearing him tell it, finding these songs from his younger days, was like finding an essential, lost piece of his soul. The record isn’t polished, but the sense of youthful exploration shines through. He’s searching for his voice in real time. You wouldn’t think a rock-funk maven like Nocentelli would be inspired by songwriters like James Taylor or Elton John - but in many ways, it was the softer, more yearning, poetic side of rock-n-roll in the early 1970s that intrigued him most when he began writing songs like “Thinking Of The Day” in 1972, wondering if his place in the world, his “tomorrow would ever come.” Other standouts like “Riverfront” told the stories he couldn’t tell while penning the Meters' funky (but often instrumental) dance anthems. With his Meters mates chugging beside him in the studio, he can tell darker, more personal tales about his hard-working friends, like Aaron Neville (who he grew up with in the 7th Ward) and used to haul bananas off the boats in New Orleans to get by. Nocentelli has had his shares of ups and downs as a lifer who has rode the tempests of the ever-evolving music industry. It’s a “brutal brutal business” he says at one point - and Leo shares that he had to sell some of his favorite guitars to keep going through the years. The song “Getting Nowhere” leans into the sense of helplessness and frustration many talented session players and touring side-men like him went through when royalties and fame and fortune passed them by as others rose to prominence. Some things really haven’t changed in fifty years. But only a generational talent like Nocentelli could create sparkling guitar backdrops for artists as diverse as Dr. John, Otis Redding and even Jimmy Buffett, and keep his passion long enough to see new crowds packing houses on tours in 2022. It must be quite the feeling to finally be able to perform his own solo work - a half century after the songs first emerged and were almost lost forever. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, we’re back for the fall season with the first face-to-face taping in nearly two years. I was able to catch up with the fearless deep-voiced frontman BJ Barham of North Carolina roots-rock favorites American Aquarium, in the front bar of The Troubadour in LA as his tour was passing through. American Aquarium’s rawly personal new LP 'Chicamacomico' dropped earlier this year and focuses on the twin losses of BJ’s mother and grandmother - as well as a dark point in his own marriage when he and his wife lost a child. He was already building a room for the little one during the pregnancy when everything changed. While fans have been following the band as a roaring country-tinged rock outfit since they formed in Raleigh around 2006 (the masterful Jason Isbell-produced 'Burn.Flicker.Die' put them on the map right as they thought they would quit), it’s with Barham’s more poetic, stripped down offerings like 2020’s 'Lamentations' and his searing solo work 'Rockingham' that he is breaking new ground. Barham isn’t shy about processing his adoration for The Boss as the preeminent living rock-n-roll intellectual king and there are cuts off the new LP like “The Things We Lost Along The Way” that feel like they could have been recorded in that haunted place alongside 'Nebraska' or 'Darkness on the Edge of Town.' As a new dad myself who just experienced my wife going through a terrifying birth, BJ’s songs hit me a little harder these days. I can’t think of a country artist today with as big a following from North Carolina to Texas who would center the title track of his record around the unspoken tragedy of a late miscarriage, but Barham pulls it off with a remarkable sensitivity. Like Isbell, Barham notes that his career really began when he got sober and could finally examine the dark corners of his history, his relationships and the fractured history of the south he grew up in. Though hard to say, naming a record about working through deep loss 'Chicamacomico' makes all the sense in the world. It’s a real place of course, a life-saving station built in 1874 on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and a beach area where BJ and his wife tried to go to blow off steam and forget their sorrows. Now a proud dad to a little daughter (see the cheerful country banger “Little Things”) Barham has learned that in the end, being a father and husband first doesn’t make him less of a hard-working, deep-thinking artist. In fact, it’s finding that balance that has allowed him to write the most powerful songs of his career. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this new episode, maybe we need something soft to counter the hard news many Americans have witnessed this week: so why not dive into the crystalline brother harmonies of Minneapolis duo The Cactus Blossoms, who just put out a lush new record 'One Day?' Sure, you could write off what Jack Torrey and Page Burkum are creating as simply a loving homage to roots pop pioneers like the Everly or Louvin Brothers with an acerbic modern twist. But with allies like David Lynch (who inserted them into his rebooted 'Twin Peaks' universe) and Jenny Lewis in their corner (she joins them on the bouncy tear-jerker “Everyday”) there is something a bit more biting under the sweet-as-candy close harmonies and hushed acoustic guitars, Wurlitzer and pedal steel. With a song like “I Could Almost Cry,” you have to dive beneath the aching minor country chords and Hank Williams-adjacent lyrics to find a Beatles 'Rubber Soul' fury roiling underneath. As the soft-spoken mention in this freewheeling talk - what lurks inside many of the songs on 'One Day' isn’t just the story of a broken love affair - but maybe of our slowly-breaking country which Jack and Page see out on the road and try and make sense of anew. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, the show dials into the Nashville studio of one of the most gifted songwriters and empathic storytellers of her generation: Mary Gauthier. While Mary has become known for her darkly honest tales of overcoming addiction and seeking truth and joy after overcoming her troubled upbringing in Louisiana, she was nominated for a Grammy for her devastating record 'Rifles & Rosary Beads' (co-written with U.S. veterans and their loved-ones) and her new record may be her most surprising and moving collection yet. 'Dark Enough To See The Stars,' which drops June 3rd on Thirty Tigers, is in many ways an unabashed romance album, celebrating, in her own sardonic John Prine-meets-Anthony Bourdain style, how lovely it can be to find true love and creative joy at long last. During the pandemic she began performing a weekly stream with her amor, the talented songwriter Jaimee Harris, called 'Sundays with Mary' - and while Gauthier has now returned to the road, the cathartic weekly song sharing show has continued too. Harris helped write the swoon-worthy traveling song “Amsterdam” on the newest LP. Gauthier’s road to stability and creative contentment was a long one. As she gamely explains in this intense conversation, she made the leap to leave the relentless life of being a cook and restaurant owner (and partaker in too many illegal substances) and devoted herself to songwriting after getting arrested at thirty. Was she an instant hit on folk stages in her then base of Boston? Not exactly. In fact, she couldn’t step on any stage without shaking. But she kept at it and the stories flowed. Early tours with Prine gave her confidence. Her breakout record 'Mercy Now' (2005) chronicles her technicolor debauched early years with the clear-eyed grace of the newly sober, trying to give forgiveness to her troubled family and to herself for making it through. Being an openly gay songwriter, she took early inspiration from her heroes the Indigo Girls who showed her there was a place for a new kind of empowered songwriting, not just for women, but for anyone who wanted to look deeper into what women are experiencing behind closed doors. If Gauthier has one superpower as a songwriter it’s her ability to empathize with everyone around her - even the troubled soldiers who she teamed up with on 'Rifles & Rosary Beads.' We have way more in common with each other than many may think - overcoming trauma is pretty damn universal. Her book 'Saved By A Song: The Art And Healing Power Of Songwriting' is her most powerful collection of stories and may explain best how her art has evolved in the last two decades, plus on the road. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week on the show, we talk to a startling new talent placing a gut-punch into the folk and blues scene, the Milwaukee-raised and now Austin-based singer-songwriter Buffalo Nichols. Growing up learning on his sister’s dreadnought guitar and then traveling widely through West Africa after high school drinking up the sounds of the kora and percussion players in Senegal, Carl Nichols began finding his voice and playing style in the haunting open and minor tunings first heard from bluesmen like Skip James, who he covers in his remarkable self-titled debut collection. 'Buffalo Nichols,' which came in 2021, is a stark departure from what Carl would call the cheery “opinionless beer commercial blues” that has come to dominate the genre. Nichols’ work is often sparse and direct - just a man with his guitar and a microphone. The stories told in standout songs like “Another Man” and “Living Hell” don’t flinch from comparing how the experience of his elders a hundred years ago in the south may not look much different from men like George Floyd dying on that Minneapolis pavement. Is there catharsis or hope in the songs? Are they a call to action? Maybe that’s up to us to decide. Carl will admit that it can be tricky trying play his songs like the searing album opener “Lost And Lonesome” in loud bars where people may just want to have a good time and not dive into the backroad history of racial injustice and institutionalized police violence. Thankfully his writing doesn't hide behind niceties and the recordings aren’t veiled by sonic artifice - Nichols speaks directly to the isolation and danger of being a young Black man in America and trying to navigate the unease of bringing his stories to an often mostly white Americana-adjacent audience. Even more upbeat numbers like “Back On Top” call to mind the ominous juke-joint growl of John Lee Hooker, bringing us into dimly lit scenes where even late-night pleasure may have its next-morning consequences. If there’s one thing we learned during this taping, it’s that Carl doesn’t want to just "write songs to make people feel good” - but he does want to tell stories that make the isolated and lost feel less so. Maybe that is the most important function of music truly steeped in the blues tradition: the ability to transform pain into progress. The messages may not be what people always want to hear, but the groundswell rising behind Carl's stark timeless tales is indeed growing. With recent appearances on 'Late Night with Stephen Colbert,' NPR’s 'Tiny Desk Concerts' and big time dates like Lollapalooza on the books for the summer, folks will be hearing a lot more from Buffalo Nichols. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, The Show On The Road is back with an intimate talk with Texas-born folk pop collaborators Andy Baxter and Kyle Jahnke who for the last decade have toured the USA as symbiotic harmonizers Penny & Sparrow. Their lush 2022 release 'Olly Olly' showcases their unique lifelong friendship and was their first collection where they relied only on each other from beginning to end. There is a field-recording intimacy to some of the songs with sounds of nature and a cinematic string section lifting their effortless harmony. “Need You” could be about lovers re-finding each other in a dark time, or really it could be about Andy and Kyle themselves, reaching out to connect in every tumultuous season of their lives. While they both grew up in religious families, the act of two men, best friends in so many ways, diving into their fantasies and fears like in the sensuous “Voodoo” for all to hear might be considered a radical act, but they’ve been making these kinds of sonic confessions from the beginning. Their standout 2013 record 'Tenboom' began a run where their beloved songs have been streamed nearly 100 million times and counting. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, we bring you a conversation with Birmingham, Alabama’s Paul Janeway, frontman of the storied soul and art-pop experimenters St. Paul & The Broken Bones. While many first learned of Paul as the bespectacled former bank teller and accounting student who went from playing tiny clubs around the south to stalking stages from Red Rocks to Coachella in resplendent sequined robes, howling like a reincarnation of Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett with a bold brass section behind him, it really almost never happened at all. A decade ago, Paul made a throwback soul EP with his longtime collaborator Jesse Phillips and friends as a last hurrah before signing off from the dispiriting quest of getting folks to pay attention to his songs as he tilted towards his thirties. But then the wheels started turning. Folks started packing their shows at the Bottle Tree Cafe (RIP) in Birmingham. Ben Tanner of fellow rising star southerners Alabama Shakes helped Paul make the more polished and kinetic EP 'Half The City' in 2014, and with just a Bandcamp release to start, it began selling like crazy. Like, more than most pop records; one-hundred, then two-hundred-thousand copies. Late night shows and world tours and TV placements and opening slots for The Rolling Stones beckoned. The press couldn’t stop asking: how could a guy like this sing like THAT? Paul was suddenly an unlikely star on the burgeoning Americana circuit. Wells Fargo would have to find another guy. But as Paul discusses throughout our talk, just creating a soul and R&B revival sound was never his plan. He loves losing himself in art museums, exploring Greek myths and diving into deep space travel, and with more daring follow up records 'Sea Of Noise' (2016) and 'Young Sick Camellia' (2018) creating danceable synth-funk bops like “Flow With It (You Got Me)” and “Apollo” - which also have dark underbellies if you listen closely - the group has become much harder to place, in the best way possible. This year’s release 'Alien Coast' shows Paul and his crack team of collaborators Jesse Phillips (bass), Browan Lollar (guitar), Kevin Leon (drums), Al Gamble (keyboards), Allen Branstetter (trumpet), Chad Fisher (trombone), and Amari Ansari (saxophone), pushing the envelope even further. The ominous narrator in “Bermejo And The Devil” sets the scene for a dreamy trip into the jagged edges of ancient paintings, intergalactic storms and long lost stories - with quieter standouts like “Popcorn Ceiling” grounding the record in themes much more earthbound - like the feeling of isolation Paul felt after traveling the world from stage to stage and lonely hotel room to hotel room, wringing himself out each night before tireless audiences. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We’re back! Season 4 is here and we have some very special conversations coming your way. Listen in for a little preview of our upcoming deep dives with Grammy-winners like Keb’ Mo’, newly-risen roots star Allison Russell (nominated twice this year), howling frontman Paul Janeway of soul icons St. Paul and The Broken Bones, longtime folk-pop hero and festival organizer Drew Holcomb, and a special unearthed episode with macabre folk-punk Amigo The Devil. New episodes return every week. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-show-on-the-road-with-z-lupetin1106/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy