Caropop

Joe Harley oversees some of the best jazz vinyl rereleases around as producer of Blue Note’s acclaimed Tone Poet series. Harley picks the titles, and, as he did with the much-coveted Music Matters se…

Producer Joe Boyd (Pink Floyd, Fairport Convention/Richard Thompson, R.E.M.) has written a massive, highly entertaining, illuminating book about world music called And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, the…

No one mixes fury and vulnerability, ferocious energy and pop smarts like Bob Mould. His 15th solo album, Here We Go Crazy, comes out March 7, and he remains at the peak of his powers. Here he reflec…

Mike Mills of R.E.M. and the Baseball Project and a new supergroup with Darius Rucker is here, and we’ve got questions: How did R.E.M. come to share all songwriting credits, and why did Mills initial…

Part 2 of our conversation with guitarist-songwriter-singer-storyteller Dave Alvin begins with him discussing musical biopics and the one that put him off the genre for good. (Hint: He was in it.) Ha…

Dave Alvin has had such an epic career that we’re going to need two episodes to fit it all in. Much of Part 1 spotlights Alvin’s values as a musician. As he tells it, the Blasters, the revved-up L.A.…

Do you know the tragic story of Badfinger? Behind such life-affirming songs as “No Matter What,” “Day After Day” and “Baby Blue” and the much-covered power ballad “Without You” lay a dark tale in whi…

Nora O’Connor is a super collaborator, someone who loves singing harmonies and makes everyone sound good. She’s a member of the Chicago all-star group the Flat Five and a formidable singer-songwriter…

Macie Stewart, half of the Chicago-based duo Finom, is one of those musicians who can do almost anything. She’s a classical pianist and violinist who wrote her first piece for an orchestra at age 11 …

Michael Jerome had been drumming in a post-industrial metal band when he auditioned for Richard Thompson in 1999, little knowing he would be this brilliant guitarist's percussive foil for the next 25…

It's time for our fourth annual check-in with masterful mastering engineer Kevin Gray as he comes off yet another crazy-busy year. What new did he and Doors engineer/producer Bruce Botnick think they…

Redd Kross, a band overdue for massive appreciation, is having a moment. There’s a new page-turner of a memoir, Now You’re One of Us, co-written by brother bandmates Jeff and Steven McDonald with Dan…

Beatles author Bruce Spizer wrote the liner notes for the new vinyl box The Beatles U.S. 1964 Albums in Mono, and here he digs into the history of these reconfigured U.S. Capitol albums, from Meet th…

Steve Conte became lead guitarist in one legendary band, the New York Dolls, and co-wrote half of his latest album, The Concrete Jangle, with the main singer-songwriter of another one: Andy Partridge…

Don Was may be an accomplished performer and producer, as covered in Pt. l, but he’s also got quite the day job: president of Blue Note Records. How did this rock-funk musician become the top executi…

His ‘80s band Was (Not Was) scored a top 10 hit, “Walk the Dinosaur,” but Don Was has had an even greater impact on the music world as a producer. In 1989 he produced two big comebacks: Bonnie Raitt’…

Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you so much for listening to Caropop since our launch in the fall of 2021. We’re now 157 episodes and more than three years in, and we can’t wait to share more great conver…

Graham Gouldman already had written classic ‘60s hits—including the Yardbirds’ “For Your Love” and “Heart Full of Soul,” the Hollies’ “Bus Stop” and “Look Through Any Window” and Herman’s Hermits’ “N…

“It felt like I just stepped into a rodeo, and they shut the gate behind me.” That’s how Grant Achatz describes his first day of working in the kitchen of Charlie Trotter’s, then considered one of th…

Susan Cowsill was the kid sister of the family band the Cowsills, and she made an indelible impression singing “and spaghetti’d!” on the Cowsills’ 1968 hit version of “Hair.” Jump to the 1990s, and s…