This week, we bring back an old friend of the show, Fort Worth-based trickster singer/multi-instrumentalist Robert Ellis. We last spoke in 2018 while we were were both criss-crossing the Netherlands. Then he was in full character as the Texas Piano Man, jumping across the stage between keyboards and guitars with cheeky ear worms like “Topo Chico” and searing Harry Neilsen-esque ballads like “Fucking Crazy,” whipping appreciative crowds into a frenzy. After a long pandemic hiatus, he’s back without his lion tamer white tux, stripping things way back to bring us an achingly intimate trance-lullaby of a new record called 'Yesterday’s News.' With no jaunty piano to speak of, the new LP uses his tender nylon string guitar and voice as the main storytellers (with upright bass and assorted hand percussion lifting up the songs saturated in delicious tape hiss), diving into the delirium and beauty of being a dad, a husband and an artist who maybe has finally let go of his ravenous ambitions to find a sort of uneasy peace. As a fellow sleep-deprived songwriter dad myself, the quiet rage and bleary-eyed hope in “Close Your Eyes,” about the long nights spent with a newborn, hit very close to home. Ditto the opener “Gene,” which could be seen as both a moonlit conversation with his young son, but also a fantasy talk with his younger self who maybe didn’t have enough encouragement to just be his oddball self and live his truth. How does he put himself to sleep these days, you ask? He listens to old 'X-Files' episodes… in audio form. While many things have changed since our first episode with Robert (he now owns and runs a bar-music-venue-studio and is touring much less) his mischievous streak remains (you’ll hear his cackle of laugh pop the mic many times) making us wonder if the lovely title track to 'Yesterday’s News' is both a clear signal of defeat (the relentless capitalist album cycle push is so last century!) and a quiet reminder that Ellis still has so many sharp stories to tell. And this time, you’ll have to lean in close to hear them. He will be making some appearances at listening rooms and jazz clubs this summer, and I for one am really looking forward to seeing and hearing this new side of Robert’s shapeshifting songwriting in person. 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 dive into the revelatory first solo record from rising Louisiana-born roots-soul singer-songwriter Durand Jones. 'Wait Til I Get Over' is years in the making. While nearly giving up on his dream to be a singer several times, Jones was diligently collecting songs about his upbringing living in his father’s trailer in the tiny Mississippi River town of Hillaryville, his grandmother giving him the confidence to sing (and also dragging him to church), escaping broken relationships and infidelity, his yearning for a connection to a higher power, and how betting on the music and himself was a jubilant radical act that just may be finally paying off. The lush strings and almost Broadway-ready power of his voice on the opener “Gerri Marie” harken back to a time when artists like Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin were creating cutting edge pop and soul music that could at once get you to hit the streets to protest injustice and woo your new love with total abandon. Most folks may know Jones as one of the co-lead singers with falsetto-master (and drummer) Adam Frazer of the Bloomington, IN-based throwback "sweet soul” group Durand Jones & The Indications, a project he began out of graduate school (he also plays the saxophone) at The University of Indiana. Starting with their hard-hitting 2018 self-titled record and the follow ups 'American Love Call' (2019) and 'Private Space' (2021), they became a coveted national act and AAA radio favorite, with this writer seeing their biggest show yet, last summer at the Hollywood Bowl in LA. You would be forgiven if you thought the club-ready romantic earworm “Witchoo” dropped in 1971 not in the height of the pandemic - but the unrestrained Chaka Khan-esque vibes are hard to deny. As I told Jones, that tune got me through a very hard time. While Jones admits he likes to play a certain version of himself on stage - flamboyant outfits and soaring vocal runs are what keep audiences coming back - at home, he’s a much more introspective character who is a big fan of journaling. It’s the quieter, more vulnerable sides of his story (being queer in the Deep South for one,) and the complicated figures like “Sadie" (not her real name) that he renders in full cinematic detail that point to a powerful solo career ahead if he wants it. 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 Nashville to speak to one of the preeminent and most prolific singer-songwriters of our time, Courtney Marie Andrews. Born in Arizona, Andrews first started singing at Phoenix-area karaoke bars with her mom before setting out to see the country in Greyhound busses as a teenager, finding a place in bands like Jimmy Eat World with her signature high-aching voice and talent on guitar and piano. Writing in fiery spurts (she mentions on the taping that thirty new songs emerged just last month), Andrews has put out eight records and counting, beginning with 2008’s 'Urban Myths' and culminating in 2022’s lush and cautiously hopeful 'Loose Future.' “These Are The Good Old Days” finds her trying to be present in a world of relentless distraction and hidden pain – and while the chord changes and harmonies harken back to 1950s girl group vibes, there is always a searching, aching energy roiling underneath. If you feel like you missed out seeing touchstone genre-defying singers like Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris in their 1970s roots-pop primes, fear not: it can be argued that Andrews is leading the newest wave of honey-voiced performers who just happen to be writing the most honest, heart-stopping work in the expanding Americana universe. Many first heard her with the acclaimed, gorgeously direct 'Honest Life' in 2016 which helped develop her following, especially in Europe, and the mournful and cathartic 'Old Flowers' which earned her a 2020 Grammy nomination for Best Americana Album. We all go through painful breakups and have to learn how to process the fallout. But what Andrews can do with the thorny moments most of us would want to forget, may be her superpower. “I’m not used to feeling good,” Courtney Marie Andrews sings with a weary smile on “Change My Mind” towards the finale of 'Loose Future.' And yet, as she penned many of these timeless tunes in a small cabin on Cape Cod during the height of the lockdowns, sometimes realizing that you can be happy after all is that big first step that can get your future to start opening up. 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 talk with genre-leaping singer-songwriter Devon Gilfillian who is back with a remarkable new LP, 'Love You Anyway.' Shapeshifting between danceable southern soul, hip-hop, silky R&B, and AM gold rock n roll, the record isn’t afraid to confront the thorny politics of voting rights and wrongful incarceration while still celebrating a newly revolutionary Black joy. Raised in Philadelphia and now based in Nashville, Gilfillian was so inspired by socially-conscious soul icons like Marvin Gaye that he used his time in the darkness of 2020 to release two albums: first the fiery 'Black Hole Rainbow' which became a critical hit, and then a new take on 'What’s Going On,' which raised funds for low-income communities of color, and provided resources and education around the democratic process. Taking a cue from the lush production of 1970’s Stax and Motown, the new LP leads with the joyous “All I Really Wanna Do,” inviting us onto a cosmic journey of discovery and continues with the playful, sultry "Brown Sugar Queen," a Prince x Anderson Paak super-sized jam that features rising Swedish pop star Janice. 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 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