In fact, online, there is NPR Music. Last week, NPR's World Cafe hit the twenty year mark. The WXPN produced program is a daily (Monday through Friday) show featuring interviews and performances with musical artists. David Dye has been the host since the show began.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary, Friday's broadcast featured rebroadcasts of interviews with singer-songwriters Joni Mitchell, Carole King and Jackson Browne as well as genre mascot James Taylor.
"They're going to have, they're going to have to pay me," Browne said wasting his time and everyone else's. Money, is that what it's really about, Jackson?
In the 2008 interview, he was presenting himself as someone who objected to candidates -- specifically Republican candidates in one state -- using his music for campaign commercials. It really brought up just how disappointing Jackson has become.
He went from "gimmie money!" -- semi-understandable if a song is used in a commercial on radio, TV or the web -- to "Don't use my song at rallies!" as 2008 progressed. And we don't support the latter. This site supports independent and third party candidates and it's a short slide from "No Republicans can use my music at rallies!" to "Only Democrats can use my music at rallies!"
It's also true that Jackson may kid himself but he did have Republican listeners. His clutch-the-pearls, girlish whine probably ran most off but we know of a few who were former Marines and had agreed with Jackson on geo-political issues.
As he talked about global warming and nuclear plants, we were reminded that he did recently do a weak effort to raise attention about nuclear energy and its dangers -- but who's pushing for nuclear plants? Barack Obama. Still waiting for Jackie Browne to find his spine there. And who's ignored global warming in his entire term thus far? Again, Barack. What say you, Jackie?
Browne's contributions to the singer-songwriter canon include "Ready Or Not" (raised in the interview and a song Jackson is embarrassed by, though he didn't note that in the interview, it's the one song of his that he wishes he'd never recorded), "Running On Empty," "Lawyers In Love," "Tender Is The Night," "In The Shape Of A Heart," "Anything Can Happen," "That Girl Could Sing," "The Pretender," "Here Come Those Tears Again," "Late For The Sky," "Doctor My Eyes," "Rock Me On The Water," "Song For Adam," and "Somebody's Baby."
Carole King, an environmentalist as well, sticks to musical issues in her 2002 interview. Asked about starting out as a songwriter, Carole King explained, "I wanted to be the person whose name people would know so that if I wanted to I could go backstage and meet these people, I could, because they'd know my names as a songwriter. But I didn't want to be the one out there trying to win over audiences and do the whole thing. And, interestingly enough, I got my goal. I wanted to be able to talk to anyone, call up Eric Clapton and say, 'Hey, will you come and play on my City Streets album?' And he did. But I inadvertently became an artist and I'm still, in my own mind, I'm still a singer -- I mean, I'm still a songwriter, first. And when I am a singer, I love it, I enjoy it. But that's one of the reasons I don't do a lot of it -- because I don't ever want to burn out on it. If I don't love being up on that stage, I shouldn't be there. And, so far, I always do."
Carole's first charted recording as a singer was with 1962's "It Might As Well Rain Until September" (co-written with Gerry Goffin, top thirty US, top ten UK). She emerged as one of the country's most loved singers with her 1971 album Tapestry. Hits she has had had as a singer include "It's Too Late," "Only Love Is Real," "I Feel The Earth Move," "Now and Forever," "One Fine Day," "Been To Canaan," "Brother, Brother," "Jazzman," "Corazon," "Hard Rock Cafe," "Nightingale," "Sweet Seasons" and "So Far Away" (all written or co-written by Carole). Songs she wrote or co-wrote that others had hits with include "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "Pleasant Valley Sunday," "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," "The Loco-motion," "Don't Bring Me Down," "No Easy Way Down," "Up On The Roof," "Goin' Back," "Go Away Little Girl," "Hey Girl" and "I'm Into Something Good."
James Taylor, of course, had his only number one hit with a cover of Carole King's "You've Got A Friend." Taylor is also famous for having been married to singer-songwriter Carly Simon and for his vanity being skewered in songs such as former lover Joni Mitchell "dreaming of the pleasure I'm going to have watching your hairline recede, my vain darling" (Joni's "Just Like This Train"). Carly is one of the landmark singer-songwriters and her honors include an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and Grammys. Hits she wrote and recorded include "You're So Vain," "Haven't Got Time For The Pain," "The Right Thing To Do," "Coming Around Again," "Jesse," "Anticipation," "Let The River Run," "You Belong To Me," "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of," "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," "Give Me All Night," "Better Not Tell Her," "Legend In Your Own Time," "Holding Me Tonight" and "All I Want Is You."
With Carly, James co-wrote two memorable songs: "Terra Nova" and "Forever My Love." With Carly, he had a top 5 hit with a cover of Charles & Inez Fox's "Mockingbird" and a top 40 hit with a cover of the Everly Brothers' "Devoted To You." On his own, along with his hit cover of "You've Got A Friend," he charted in the top ten with other remakes including Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You" and Jimmy Jones' "Handy Man." By 1979, his modern day Pat Boone act of vanilla soul had grown tired and his cover of the Drifters' "Up On The Roof" only made it to number 28.* The closet thing he'd ever have to a hit again was his 1985 cover of Buddy Holly's "Everyday" which made it to 61.
Fittingly, World Cafe caught up with the highly derivative Taylor in 2008 when he released his twelve track album Covers, quickly followed by his seven track album Other Covers.
James Taylor, of course, had his only number one hit with a cover of Carole King's "You've Got A Friend." Taylor is also famous for having been married to singer-songwriter Carly Simon and for his vanity being skewered in songs such as former lover Joni Mitchell "dreaming of the pleasure I'm going to have watching your hairline recede, my vain darling" (Joni's "Just Like This Train"). Carly is one of the landmark singer-songwriters and her honors include an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and Grammys. Hits she wrote and recorded include "You're So Vain," "Haven't Got Time For The Pain," "The Right Thing To Do," "Coming Around Again," "Jesse," "Anticipation," "Let The River Run," "You Belong To Me," "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of," "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," "Give Me All Night," "Better Not Tell Her," "Legend In Your Own Time," "Holding Me Tonight" and "All I Want Is You."
With Carly, James co-wrote two memorable songs: "Terra Nova" and "Forever My Love." With Carly, he had a top 5 hit with a cover of Charles & Inez Fox's "Mockingbird" and a top 40 hit with a cover of the Everly Brothers' "Devoted To You." On his own, along with his hit cover of "You've Got A Friend," he charted in the top ten with other remakes including Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You" and Jimmy Jones' "Handy Man." By 1979, his modern day Pat Boone act of vanilla soul had grown tired and his cover of the Drifters' "Up On The Roof" only made it to number 28.* The closet thing he'd ever have to a hit again was his 1985 cover of Buddy Holly's "Everyday" which made it to 61.
Fittingly, World Cafe caught up with the highly derivative Taylor in 2008 when he released his twelve track album Covers, quickly followed by his seven track album Other Covers.
David Dye: In terms of the material, have your tastes changed over the years since you were younger?
James Taylor: Uh, no, no, they haven't. I-I-I think I was formed, uhm, uh, by about by the age of twenty. I was probably kind of formed musically.
He probably was, indeed.
From gadfly to artist, Dye wrapped things up with a 1994 interview of Joni Mitchell.
From gadfly to artist, Dye wrapped things up with a 1994 interview of Joni Mitchell.
David Dye: Probably one of your biggest influences on a lot of people has been your guitar sound and your tunings. I was wondering, on your first album, you were using your tunings, when did you first discover what you could do?
Joni Mitchell: Almost immediately when I began to write my own music. I had polio and my left hand is a bit impaired. I was never going to develop the facility to get at the chords that I heard in my head. There were -- there were tunings floating around that came out of the Black blues tradition -- mostly open major chords -- and there was D modal which is, you know, the drop D and people knew of those. And, of course, there was a Hawaiian slack key tradition but that hadn't really leaked into folk music at that point. So it was Eric Andersen who showed me open G, I think, and Tom Rush played in open C. I collected quite a few of them. I think Buffy St. Marie had a couple of her own. I just started tuning the guitar to the chords that I liked.
Joni's hit the US single charts with "Help Me," "Big Yellow Taxi," "You Turn Me On I'm A Radio" and "Free Man In Paris," "Good Friends" and "In France They Kiss On The Main Street." Covers of her songs that have been hits include "Both Sides Now," "This Flight Tonight" and "Chelsea Morning." She's also the singer-songwriter with the most recognized classic albums in her canon: Blue, Court & Spark, Ladies of the Canyon, Hejira, The Hissing Sound of Summer Lawns, Turbulent Indigo, For The Roses and we would add Dog Eat Dog, Night Ride Home and Shine.
It's an interesting, enlightening and entertaining 46 minutes and 22 second broadcast. And that's true of most World Cafe broadcasts. If your local NPR outlet doesn't carry the program, you can stream it online.
It's an interesting, enlightening and entertaining 46 minutes and 22 second broadcast. And that's true of most World Cafe broadcasts. If your local NPR outlet doesn't carry the program, you can stream it online.
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*Ty note, October 24, 2011: C.I. asked me this morning to check and make sure the article said "Up On The Roof" made it to 28. I forgot and was reading e-mails when I got to reader Leslie who wrote that she thought the song made it to number 28. Leslie and C.I. are correct. I have corrected it so it no longer reads "22" which was wrong.
