John Myers



Cautious Clay makes magnetic and cool R&B that features his honeyed voice and his skills on the saxophone. The first instrument he picked up as a kid was the flute, all thanks to a case of mistaken instrument identity that involves the movie Aladdin.

Dried animal bones, thrift store cutlery, gas cans, baby shoes and yes, a suitcase. Matt Lorenz, who records as The Suitcase Junket, has turned all these found objects and more into a one-man band setup unlike anything we've ever seen.

These guests represent the definition of a family band. Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks formed Tedeschi Trucks Band after they got married and had kids. They curated this collective of some of the finest musicians around who have been living together on tour for long enough that they count as relatives.


When Lucie Silvas first visited Nashville after a decade of navigating the music industry on her own in the United Kingdom, her first reaction was: "I feel like someone is playing trick on me or something". Lucie couldn't believe the tight-knit community of supportive songwriters she found, and what she intended as a short stay turned into her new home.

What do you think of when you think of a Piano bar? Is it Billy Joel's "Piano Man?" There's always been something that made me slightly uncomfortable about the piano man, and don't even get me started on dueling pianos. But my guest, Robert Ellis, who dressed in an all-white tuxedo for the occasion, has an answer.

It's one thing to meet someone who's talented, but it's a trip to meet someone like Northern Ireland's Naomi Hamilton, who makes music (and art) as Jealous of the Birds. Naomi has a knack for slicing up genres and making music that sounds homemade and tiny, but also explosive and bombastic. She studied English and creative writing at Queens University Belfast and uses her love of language to great effect when crafting songs for the band.

Maggie Rogers is having a moment. Her debut full-length album, Heard It in a Past Life, came out in January. She's been crushing late-night TV performances, including Saturday Night Live and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. And good luck getting tickets to her North American shows: She's sold out all over the place.

The rules of musical gravity don't apply for the spirited saxophonist, composer and producer Kamasi Washington. Washington's roots are in jazz, but he can turn his saxophone into a soaring bird or a spaceship, a howling wolf or a karate kick.

We're thrilled to have Gary Clark Jr. on World Cafe today. Gary is a guitar prodigy from Austin who showed so much promise that the mayor held a ceremony to declare "Gary Clark Jr. Day" when he was still in high school.

Mavis Staples is one of America's defining voices of freedom and peace.

Her family's gospel group, The Staples Singers, led by her father Roebuck "Pops" Staples, marched with Dr. Martin Luther King and wrote songs like "Freedom Highway" and "Why Am I Treated So Bad" that provided part of the soundtrack of America's civil rights movement.

With her absolutely singular cadence and cool, Macy Gray poses a question on the opening track to her latest album, Ruby: "And I pray every night that my dreams come true/ Will I finally be happy if they do?"

The realm of dreams and the fulfillment they do or don't bring has been familiar to Gray since her debut album, On How Life Is, came out in 1999 with the song "I Try." It made her an instant megastar and Grammy winner. At the time, Gray was a single mother of three young kids.

Music may not see color, but the music industry certainly does. Until the systemic and overt biases that undermine our celebration of the contributions of black artists can be eradicated, we appreciate Black History Month as an opportunity to lay the groundwork for conversations we should be having and actions we should be taking year-round.

We first introduced listeners to Julia Jacklin when World Cafe's original host, David Dye, met up with her in Australia for our Sense of Place visit back in 2016. Now, Julia's returning the favor, joining us in the U.S. to share a sneak peek of her forthcoming record, Crushing, due out Feb. 22. The album is personal, intimate and beautiful.


For this session, we took a trip out to Colorado to spend time with Gregory Alan Isakov. OK, not a real trip, but a radio trip.

Gregory was born in South Africa and raised in Philadelphia but now lives on his own farm in Colorado. That's where he made his latest album, Evening Machines, from inside a barn. His process includes writing snippets of ideas on colored Post-it Notes and putting them up on the walls.

Nothing, and, by extension, founder and band leader Dominic Palermo, has been called the unluckiest band in the world. There was the time when Palermo, rising star in the Philadelphia hardcore scene, stabbed someone during a fight one night and ended up in prison. There was the time, after he got out, when he was jumped after a show and nearly died.

Weren't we just here? Not that I'm complaining! David Crosby is one of my favorite people to talk to.

Crosby is in his late 70s and has released four albums in the past five years. What makes this current creative streak so inspiring and so puzzling to me is that none of these albums feels like a musical case of Déjà Croz. He's not making the same album over again. He's stretching sounds in ways that seem to surprise and delight even Crosby himself.

Mike Farris is unflinchingly optimistic. You can read it on his Twitter, hear it in his music and feel it in conversation when you talk with him. He can even have a laugh about the name of the band he played in during his 20s while signed to Atlantic Records, The Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies.

As a gay, left-wing woman living in the South, Indigo Girls' Amy Ray says she's in love with a place that doesn't always love her back. But she draws creative fuel from the differences of opinion and expresses gratitude for the village that's helped Ray and her partner raise their child in rural Georgia. On her latest solo album, Holler, Ray calls out the difference between Southern pride and Southern hate and imagines what Jesus might have thought of a border wall.

Hope you brought your volume knob. J Mascis co-founded Dinosaur Jr. and over the past decade, the band sounded just as vital as when it debuted in 1984. Mascis has also been just as prolific when it comes to his own solo albums. He's recorded three records in the last seven years as a place to showcase some of the quieter (yet still loud) songs.

The band Lawrence is led by two siblings, Clyde and Gracie Lawrence. The New York City-raised pair started the band, now an eight-piece group, with a love of pop and soul music. They've had artistic talents for a while: Elder brother Clyde scored his first songwriting credit at the age of 6 for the movie Miss Congeniality and Gracie's pursuing an acting career.

Johnny Marr has a lot of accolades. From co-founding The Smiths to playing alongside folks like The Pretenders and Talking Heads, from invigorating Modest Mouse in the aughts to a successful solo career, Marr has earned himself a legion of devoted fans.

One day, you're touring in a rock band in your 20s, and then, all of a sudden, the checkout guy at Trader Joe's calls you "sir."

"Let's start a beef, you guys." Lucy Dacus, Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker erupt into laughter before they can fully flesh out a fake feud that might satisfy the "supergroup" designation some have assigned their collaboration. This exchange typifies what makes the trio's debut EP as boygenius so special.

Today, we're traveling back 50 years to 1968 Memphis, Tenn. to take a peek inside one of the most influential recording studios, Stax Records. Co-founded by brother and sister Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, Stax was home to the likes of Otis Redding, the Staples Singers, Booker T.

On the night Jeff Tweedy was set to visit the Free Library of Philadelphia to talk about his new memoir, Let's Go (So We Can Get Back), in front of an audience of fans, the first snow storm of the season had caught the city off guard. Traffic was gnarly and Tweedy was genuinely concerned.

Kurt Vile's song "Loading Zones" is in my head. It's a song about Kurt's adventures driving around Philadelphia. In particular, I've been thinking the last few minutes, wherein he repeats this line over and over: "I park for free."I parked for free. Until I didn't.

Singer, songwriter and guitarist Doyle Bramhall II is a musicians' musician.