The Third Story with Leo Sidran

Louis Cato is living proof that some people are simply given a gift. Born in Lisbon, Portugal and raised mostly in North Carolina, Louis began playing drums at age 2. By the time he started high scho…

Liberty Devitto says he was lucky to be the right age when The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. He learned to play drums by listening to Ringo Starr’s parts and playing along to records. Why…

Guitarist, bandleader, and label owner Jon Madof talks about how music and spirituality are related, what it means to create your own kind of authenticity, the difference between a job and a mission,…

Singer, songwriter, and illustrator Nadia Ackerman’s journey started in Australia. But early on, she knew she was leaving, and she was pretty sure America was the destination. Although she was alread…

In this, the second of a two part Best of 2017 series, fragments of various episodes are strung together in order to tease out the big ideas, the underlying themes, and the tiny obsessions that have …

I think we can all agree that 2017 was an unusual year. It was intense, confusing, emotional. A little less than a year ago, as I decided to resume another “season” of episodes, I was determined to f…

Laura García Lorca grew up between two worlds. She spent her childhood in New York City, and to this day she considers herself to be a New Yorker. But America was always meant to be a temporary home …

The tradition of American expatriate jazz musicians in Europe goes back a hundred years. What leads musicians to move halfway across the world to a place where they don’t speak the language, hold no …

Ralph Simon is on a relentless quest. That much is certain. His travel itinerary could easily be used in an upper-level high school geography class. Just in the week leading up to our conversation in…

"Art is a byproduct of a life led. Your beautiful, tragic, outrageous life."

Leah Siegel made a commitment to live an artful life, "to be creative, to live inspired." Early on, she found her voice. A…

Theo Katzman is many things. An only child. The youngest of four. An earnest singer songwriter with a deep love of classic rock and a great turn of phrase. A groove machine in one of the most talked …

Jack Stratton has a 20th-century heart and a 21st-century mind. As the leader of the band Vulfpeck, he excites, incites and inspires the YouTube generation to get funky. His video channel is a view i…

The fourth and final episode in the Settling the Underscore series, exploring music for advertising. Finally, after weeks of talking to composers, producers, and editors, we hear from the musicians w…

Imagine walking into a restaurant, ordering a meal, eating the meal, giving the chef a hard time, giving the waiter a little bit of an attitude, and then deciding not to pay for the meal at the end o…

Part of the Settling the Underscore series of episodes that explores music for advertising, this interview with composer Alex Weinstein explores an alternate reality in which the composer works in a …

In this, the second of a series that explores music in commercials, we talk to three freelance commercial composers. These are the often invisible, uncredited creators of music for advertising. How d…

Behind every television commercial, there’s an entire economy dedicated to selecting, providing, creating and sourcing music. What was once considered the “jingle” business has now become one of the …

Jonatha Brooke has been one of my favorite singer songwriters since the first moment I heard her, 25 years ago. Her haunting, unique sound with the band The Story sent me reeling, and in many ways I’…

On this final installment of the Mob Town Tour series, we visit Detroit, Cleveland and Toledo.

In our first Mob Town episode we talked to Irv Williams, who at 98 years old, is still performing every …