Music Makers and Soul Shakers with Steve Dawson

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Ep. 138 - John Leventhal Feb 01, 2023

Show notes

John Leventhal is a multiple Grammy Award-winning producer, guitarist and songwriter who has been steering the ship on many albums and musical projects over the last 40 years. John first came onto most people’s radar when he produced Shawn Colvin’s successful debut album “Steady On”. They collaborated again in 1996 on “A Few Small Repairs” which was a smash hit. Coming up in the New York live music scene, John also worked with Jim Lauderdale in those years and produced Jim’s debut as well. A late bloomer to music and the electric guitar, John has developed a subtle yet complex and unmistakeable sound that has kept him working as a live musician and producer for artists like William Bell, Marc Cohn, Sara Jarosz, and Rodney Crowell. Leventhal has also produced a slew of successful and acclaimed albums with his wife of many years, Rosanne Cash. As a songwriter, he’s penned songs for Tedeschi Trucks, Vince Gill, George Strait, Patty Loveless, and many more. John has (finally!) made his debut solo album which he is threatening to release sometime this year, called “Rumble Strip”. I’ve heard it, can vouch for its awesomeness, and we talk about it on the show, although you won’t be able to hear it for some months yet! John is a bit elusive - he doesn’t have a website, but watch for the new album, and he’ll be out on tour with Rosanne Cash - you can find info on their dates at www.rosannecash.com

Listen to the accompanying playlist for this episode here, which features the artist’s own music, plus many of the songs that were discussed during the show.

This episode is brought to you by Izotope - check out their amazing recording software at: www.izotope.com

Thanks for your support, and your fearless host, Steve Dawson can be found at:
www.stevedawson.ca

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep. 137 - David Grissom Jan 18, 2023

Show notes

Guitarist and songwriter David Grissom is on the show this week! Anyone who knows anything about the guitar knows Grissom is a monster player, and has been a key element of albums for Joe Ely and John Mellencamp, and then with the band Storyville. But what I wasn’t really aware of was his extensive list of session work he did here in Nashville during the early 2000’s. For a good 10 years or so, Nashville session work was kind of his main thing. He played on huge records for artists like Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride, Lee ann Womack, Montgomery Gentry, Billy Ray Cyrus and Brooks and Dunn. But he also maintained his work on the rootsier side of things, writing for, touring with or playing on records for Buddy Guy, John Mayall, Eliza Gilkyson, Chris Isaak, Rita Coolidge and lots more.

So all this to say we had alot to talk about. I wanted to dig into that session scene in the early 2000’s and see what was going on at that point. We had a great talk about all the aspects of his career, making some of the classic records he was involved in, how he got into music in the first placxe and his current band and regular gigs around Austin, TX. We also get a little nerdy and talk about his signature Paul Reed Smith guitars closer to the end.

You can get all the info on David, his recordings, live albums, and weekly gig at: www.davidgrissom.com

Listen to the accompanying playlist for this episode here, which features the artist’s own music, plus many of the songs that were discussed during the show.

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This episode is brought to you by Izotope - check out their amazing recording software at: www.izotope.com

Thanks for your support, and your fearless host, Steve Dawson can be found at:
www.stevedawson.ca

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep. 136 - Nicki Bluhm Jan 04, 2023

Show notes

Nicki Bluhm joins me on the show this week. I first heard her recent record “Avondale Drive” about 6 months ago and was blown away. She jas an incredible voice and writes really interesting tunes that draw from blues, soul, country and pop music. Nicki has made some killer records aside from Avondale Drive, and also had a really cool band called The Gramblers, which she fronted with her ex-husband and Mother Hips member Tim Bluhm that have a couple releases as well. Nicki is originally from the Bay Area and while she lives in Nashville now, she stays rooted in that scene with regular appearances with Phil Lesh and Friends as well as Little Feat, with whom she has been on tour recently as a featured guest and backup singer. She’s also out touring with her band, and as a duo with her new partner Jesse Wilson, who she made Avondale Drive with during the pandemic. Keep posted with Nicki and all of her upcoming shows and new releases at www.nickibluhm.com

Listen to the accompanying playlist for this episode here, which features the artist’s own music, plus many of the songs that were discussed during the show.

This episode is brought to you by Izotope - check out their amazing recording software at: www.izotope.com

Thanks for your support, and your fearless host, Steve Dawson can be found at:
www.stevedawson.ca

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep. 135 - Happy Holidays and Season 6 Update! Dec 21, 2022

Show notes

Just a quick episode to give you the scoop on how/when the rest of Season 6 will unfold (soon!), and a peek behind the curtain on how some of these episodes come together. And also a call out to see who you’d like to hear on the show on Season 7 - chime in! (use the comments section on this episode, or send me an email or DM.

Thanks for your support, and your fearless host, Steve Dawson can be found at:
www.stevedawson.ca

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep. 134 - Patric Caird Dec 08, 2022

Show notes

On the show this week is the prolific film and TV composer, Patric Caird. I’ve known Pat for a long time, and I’ve worked with him a few times over the years on various scoring projects. He’s had an extremely busy career both as a composer, and earlier on as a music editor for TV shows. His credits include shows like The Dead Zone, The Collector, The Imperfects, The Order, and Outer Limits, not to mention lots of projects for the Hallmark Channel. I got to know him starting about 22 or 23 years ago, and at the time he was scoring an animated series for Comedy Central called “Ed, Edd and Eddy”. That show was insane, both the show itself, but so was the music Pat was writing and recording every week. He moved to LA shortly after that and has been working steadily - composing for film and TV, ever since. Pat is an amazing musician, mostly a sax player, and he came up through the Canadian live music scene as a jazz player and then became a touring musician with The Powder Blues. I thought it would be cool to hear about how the film composing side of things works and I’m sure you’ll enjoy hearing about it too! You can find info on Patric and all of his projects at www.patriccaird.com

This episode is brought to you by Izotope - check out their amazing recording software at: www.izotope.com

Thanks for your support, and your fearless host, Steve Dawson can be found at:
www.stevedawson.ca

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep. 133 - Bryan Sutton Nov 16, 2022

Show notes

Bryan Sutton, one of my absolute favorite bluegrass guitar players is on the show this week. I first heard of Bryan years ago when I was on a serious bluegrass binge (It occasionally continues to this day!). Around that time, Ricky Skaggs made a return to bluegrass and released his “Bluegrass Rules!” album. His band was called Kentucky Thunder and it was mostly youngsters with just unbelievable chops and feel. The guitar player in that band was Bryan Sutton, and I’ve been following his career ever since. He continued to crop up on credits for albums that I’d hear and I got a chance to see him at various festivals over the years. He always blew me away with his tone, feel and the way he was taking flatpicking in some exciting new directions. Bryan has now clearly become the top acoustic player in the Nashville session scene and gets most of the calls to fill that role in this town on all the big records made here. I wanted to talk to him about how he approaches sessions, the specialty of just being an acoustic player in the studio, and how his path led to being where he is now - the top call in Nashville, as well as being out on the road with Bela Fleck for his My Bluegrass Heart project. Bryan’s credits include records for Carrie Underwood, Eric Church, Lyle Lovett, Dierks Bentley, Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton - you get the picture. But at the heart oif it, he’s a monster flatpicker who has been the IBMA guitarist of the year 9 times. He teaches through an online course as well, and he put out a really cool solo album called “The More I Learn” a few years back. You can get info on all this stuff and check out his tour dates at bryansutton.com

Listen to the accompanying playlist for this episode here, which features the artist’s own music, plus many of the songs that were discussed during the show.

This episode is brought to you by Izotope - check out their amazing recording software at: www.izotope.com

Thanks for your support, and your fearless host, Steve Dawson can be found at:
www.stevedawson.ca

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep. 132 - Mick Flannery Nov 02, 2022

Show notes

Mick Flannery is on the show this week. Mick is an amazing songwriter, well known and loved in his native Ireland, but has also made alot of in-roads in recent years into the US and Canada. This conversation came about very organically, after we met at the Edmonton folk festival this past summer, and it was a real pleasure getting to speak with Mick about his music and writing and recording process. He was touring behind his latest album called “In The Game” which is a collaboration with another singer-songwriter form Ireland, Susan O’Neill. It’s really intense, beautiful, layered music, and they really brought it to life with their performance. Mick is a multi-platinum selling artist, with 8 releases out to his name, and I suppose is most well known in Ireland, but that is changing. His debut album “Evening Train” has been turned into a musical that debuted in 2019, with more performances on the horizon. He performs around Ireland, the UK, Europe, and Canada and the US fairly regularly, so please check out the latest news and tour dates at: mickflannery.com

Listen to the accompanying playlist for this episode here, which features the artist’s own music, plus many of the songs that were discussed during the show.

This episode is brought to you by Izotope - check out their amazing recording software at: www.izotope.com

Thanks for your support, and your fearless host, Steve Dawson can be found at:
www.stevedawson.ca

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep. 131 - Stanton Moore Oct 19, 2022

Show notes

This week on this show I have Stanton Moore, one of the great drummers to emerge from the New Orleans music scene in the 90’s and early 2000’s with his band Galactic, and he has become an absolute force of nature - performing, touring, recording, teaching, making cool stuff for drums, and being an ambassador for New Orleans music worldwide.

Stanton has been one of the most respected drummers in contemporary music for a long time now, since he emerged as afounding member of Galactic, who I was lucky enough to see way back in the early 2000’s as they started to tour all over the place. They took funk, jazz, traditional New Orleans music and put a modern spin on it with killer grooves and amazing sounding records. Aside from Galactic, Stanton has another killer band called Garage a Trois with Skerik and Charlie Hunter - they’ve been an ongoing thing now for many years as well. He’s always heavily involved in the New orleans Jazz and Heritage fest, and plays around the city regularly. When we spoke for this episode, he was heading out with Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz. A busy fellow, indeed!

Stanton is also heavily into drum and cymbal design, which we talk about a bit, and is a master educator as well, which you’ll definitely get a sense of in our talk.

So to keep all this strauight, here’s some links. For all things Stanton Moore, go to stantonmoore.com

for his teaching world, check out stantonmooredrumacademmy.com

Listen to the accompanying playlist for this episode here, which features the artist’s own music, plus many of the songs that were discussed during the show.

This episode is brought to you by Izotope - check out their amazing recording software at: www.izotope.com

Thanks for your support, and your fearless host, Steve Dawson can be found at:
www.stevedawson.ca

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep. 130 - Audley Freed Oct 05, 2022

Show notes

My guest this week is a killer guitar player and songwriter, known for his work with his band Cry of Love, and being a sideman to the Black Crowes, Dixie Chicks, Sheryl Crow and many others - Audley Freed.

Audley is a master of groove and tone, and his undeniably cool approach to playing rock n roll guitar has landed him some amazing gigs over the last 3 decades. He started out in North Carolina playing in cover bands, and eventually got an original project going that got signed, and had some pretty serious success for a young band - Cry Of Love. Their album “Brother” is still regarded as a benchmark for great rock guitar playing. Eventually, Audley focussed his time and efforts on becoming a sideman, and he’s been steadily working ever since. He’s had long-standing stints with many great bands, including The Black Crowes, Jimmy Page, Joe Perry, The Dixie Chicks, Chris Robinson, played on tons of great records, and has had a remarkable career for such a humble person. He doesn’t have a website, or much presence on socials, but you can see him these days wherever Sheryl Crow is playing, and I highly recommend catching her and her band if you can.

Listen to the accompanying playlist for this episode here, which features the artist’s own music, plus many of the songs that were discussed during the show.

This episode is brought to you by Izotope - check out their amazing recording software at: www.izotope.com

Thanks for your support, and your fearless host, Steve Dawson can be found at:
www.stevedawson.ca

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ep. 129 - Sierra Hull Sep 21, 2022

Show notes

This week on the show is the great mandolin player, singer and songwriter Sierra Hull. Sierra is a monster player, and while she’s still really young, she’s been making records of her own for over 15 years now. The latest one, called “25 Trips” came out right around the pandemic, so her touring was curtailed for a while, but she’s back at it now in full force, playing with her band and also with Cory Wong and Bela Fleck, being a major part of Bela’s “My Bluegrass Heart” album and shows earlier this year. I was really interested in talking to her about that because I can’t imagine how crazy that must be to be sitting in a room full of your heros that you grew up listening to and learning from and suddenly they’re your peers and you’re right in the mix with all of them. In the bluegrass world, that project doesn’t get any heavier - Jerry Douglas, Bryan Sutton, Sam Bush, Chris Thile, Noam Pikelny, Stuart Duncan, Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle - they’re all involved, and it’s a great album. Sierra has made some great solo albums with Allison Krauss and Bela Fleck producing, and on the latest one, “25 Trips”, she’s co-producing with a killer engineer named Shani Gandhi. It’s definitely rooted in bluegrass, but steps out into some more experimental territory as well with some innovative sounds and production ideas. The crew on this album includes Justin Moses, Viktor Krauss, Bryan Sutton, Paul Franklin, Jano Rix and lots more. So we got to talk about how she approaches making music, and all about how she prepares as a side-person for some of the heavy gigs she’s involved in these days.

Sierra is constantly out on tour and you can keep up with what she’s doing and where to see her at: sierrahull.com

Listen to the accompanying playlist for this episode here, which features the artist’s own music, plus many of the songs that were discussed during the show.

This episode is brought to you by Izotope - check out their amazing recording software at: www.izotope.com

Thanks for your support, and your fearless host, Steve Dawson can be found at:
www.stevedawson.ca

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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