Caropop

Song-ranking articles can be annoying clickbait, but those written by longtime journalist Bill Wyman are endlessly provocative, entertaining and informative, with individual entries becoming deep-diving, mind-opening essays. For Vulture, Wyman ranked every song by the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Led Zeppelin, the Clash and Pink Floyd, as well as every Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee. Now Wyman has added Nirvana and the Eagles songs to the mix and compiled it all in Bill Wyman’s Rock & Roll Lists. Here we bat around his ridiculous choice for the Beatles’ worst song; dissect how publishing royalties muddied the Pink Floyd waters; disc...

After making widely loved music as a solo artist and, beforehand, with 10,000 Maniacs, Natalie Merchant is focusing on children with her latest project, Cabinet of Wonder. Spurred by her work with Head Start preschoolers in upstate New York, Merchant set Mother Goose verses to music and collaborated with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chicago Children’s Theatre to bring the recordings and videos to life. In this wide-ranging conversation, Merchant speaks of the allure and legend of Mother Goose; describes why working with children is bringing her more joy than pursuing another solo project; and reflects on jo...

Susan Orlean has a brilliant talent for crafting compelling narratives from idiosyncratic topics that have piqued her interest: orchid poachers in Florida for The Orchid Thief, a movie star dog for Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend and the Los Angeles Central Library for The Library Book, among others. Last year she shifted the focus to herself for a revealing, inspirational memoir, Joyride, that celebrates pursuing one’s curiosity into odd corners. Here Orlean, who preceded me at the Boston Phoenix by a few years, discusses when she knows a topic has reached critical mass to become a...

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Laura Benanti is a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical star who noticed some things while looking back on her life and career. She has channeled these observations—about being a perpetual people-pleaser and evolving from The Sound of Music-starring ingenue to a fortysomething singer, actor and mother—into a one-woman comedy-musical show Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares (which plays at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Aug. 6-9). Here she talks about how she created the material and co-wrote the songs, how different cities and audiences affect her performances, whether she grew up preferring singer-songwriters or musical soundtracks, how she connected with Stephen Colber...

Michael Hampton earned the nickname Kidd Funkadelic as the hotshot guitarist who at age 17 joined the Funkadelic/Parliament universe after wowing P-Funk leader George Clinton with his rendition of Eddie Hazel’s epic “Maggot Brain” solo. Hampton eventually made “Maggot Brain” his own and turned in much more head-spinning guitar work, including on Funkadelic’s relentlessly funky “(Not Just) Knee Deep.” Hampton takes us along for the concurrent run of classic 1970s Parliament and Funkadelic albums, such as Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome and One Nation Under a Groove. When he entered the studio, did he know which band's session it was...

Urge Overkill appeared to be riding high after the critical triumph of its 1993 album, Saturation, and the prominent appearance of its Neil Diamond cover, “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon,” in Pulp Fiction in 1994. But by the time the alt-rock trio reunited with producers the Butcher Bros. to record the follow-up album, expectations and circumstances had changed. As singer-songwriter-guitarists Nash Kato and Eddie “King” Roeser recall here in stark detail, the two of them were in different places personally and musically, drummer Blackie Onassis was fighting his own demons, and an unhealthy environment developed around the Butcher Bros.’ new studio o...

Jason and the Scorchers (née Jason and the Nashville Scorchers) were cowpunk trailblazers before anyone was talking about alt-country or Americana. Frontman/songwriter Jason Ringenberg and his bandmates, including fiery guitarist Warner Hodges, infused country music with punk energy to thrilling effect. After EMI America signed the band and added its high-octane cover of Bob Dylan’s “Absolutely Sweet Marie” to its 1983 EP, Fervor, hopes were high. The first album, Lost & Found, generated rave reviews, yet when it came time to make the follow-up, the band had reached a pivot point. To mark the 40th anniversary of that second...

Glenn Morrow owned and ran Bar/None Records for decades, signing acts such as They Might Be Giants, Yo La Tengo, Freedy Johnston, Alex Chilton, Ezra Furman and the Feelies. Morrow previously was a writer/editor at the influential punk/new wave magazine New York Rocker, and he fronted bands: “a” was the first to play at the late, great Maxwell’s in Hoboken; the Individuals boosted the power-pop scene; Rage To Live was Bar/None’s first signee; and Glenn Morrow’s Cry for Help, his current group, is about to release Our Final Album Vol. 1. Morrow reflects on his int...

In Pt. 2 of this lively, insightful conversation with Liberty DeVitto’, Billy Joel’s longtime drummer revisits the challenge of drumming in the synth-driven 1980s; the making of Joel’s albums The Bridge, Storm Front and River of Dreams; the creation of the smash single “We Didn’t Start the Fire”; the reason DeVitto plays on only one River of Dreams song; and his irate fax that wound up on that last album’s control room wall. DeVitto also addresses his high-profile split from Joel and subsequent lawsuit against the singer-songwriter. How did they reconcile, with Joel writing the foreword to DeVitto’s m...

Hired when Billy Joel wanted “a New York-style drummer,” Liberty DeVitto laid down indelible parts for the singer-songwriter-pianist’s music from 1976’s Turnstiles onward. In part one of a lively two-part conversation, this big-talent, big-personality drummer takes us from his early years, when his and Joel’s teenage bands crossed paths, through their shared success with The Stranger, 52nd Street, Glass Houses, The Nylon Curtain and An Innocent Man. Which Joel song does DeVitto call “the hardest to play and be happy about it”? How did Joel introduce and develop songs with the band? What impact did producer Phil Ramone’s arriv...

Rachel Lichtman grew up listening to 1970s AM radio and watching local TV—a world of soothing music, tacky ads, eye-grabbing graphics and reruns galore. A keen-eyed and -eared graphic artist, comedian and filmmaker, Lichtman evokes the humor and beauty of that era in Programme 4, her would-be-station-turned-film she is touring alongside live musical/comedy performances. Based in fictional Golden Sands, Programme 4 presents opening credit sequences for TV shows that should have been (The William Joel Show, A Man Named Brady, Brooker) plus ads, short films and killer jokes revolving around harpsichords, the Rhodes electric piano and steamy brown coffee. Ai...

Swamp Dogg turns 84 on July 12, making him 24 days younger than Paul McCartney, yet he’s still on the rise. He’s been gaining new fans through the 2024 documentary Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted; his 31st album, Swamp Dogg Contemplates the Afterlife, is out June 19; and then there’s his cookbook, If You Can Kill It, I Can Cook It. Formerly known as Jerry Williams and Little Jerry Williams, Swamp Dogg is an all-time talent and character. The cover of his 1971 album Rat On! is hall-of-fame worthy itself, but he also has written, performed and/or produced about 2,000 songs while...

Singer-songwriter Ike Reilly has been reaching critical mass. He shared a microphone with Bruce Springsteen in January, has gained new fans with the 2024 documentary Don’t Turn Your Back on Friday Night (as well as his SiriusXM show), and is wowing more listeners than ever with his longtime band the Ike Reilly Assassination. He has made music his family business, with his three sons performing with him while his oldest son, Shane, is featured on his new album, Blind and Surrounded, out June 12. Reilly’s sharply observed songs can rouse you and/or break your heart, and he’s quite...

To mark the 60th anniversary of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, Interscope-Capitol has released a limited-edition Definitive Sound Series One Step version of this landmark album. Tom “Grover” Biery, who oversaw the project, tells of its unusual sourcing, which involves the 1972 master of Pet Sounds that was released as part of a double LP with the then-new Beach Boys album Carl and the Passions “So Tough.” Why was that 1972 Pet Sounds so revered, and how did it come to be used here instead of the original 1966 mono master? How does this DSS version differ from the mono/stereo Pet Sounds tha...

Bill Million’s percussive strumming propels the Crazy Rhythms of the Feelies, who are playing their only two 2026 shows—and perhaps their final shows ever—May 22 and 23 in Jersey City, New Jersey. As the band marks its 50th anniversary, Million reflects on his songwriting partnership and dueling guitar sounds with lead singer/guitarist Glenn Mercer. How did Mercer and he decide which guitars to play, and did Million always see himself as a rhythm guy? Did they know the Feelies would return, even with a different lineup, during the six-year period between Crazy Rhythms and The Good Earth? What was Mi...

Part 2 of this splendid conversation with XTC guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Dave Gregory picks up with the band’s ill-fated 1982 trip to the U.S. and the end of its touring days. How did he deal with the financial ramifications? Was it necessary for XTC to stop touring to reach its subsequent creative heights? Was the studio Gregory’s happy place, or did he long to be back on stage? How did he balance virtuosity vs. trying to play the perfect part for each song? Which XTC songs did he most regret not being able to play live? Could he still play...

We’re so happy to welcome back to Caropop one of our favorite musicians, XTC guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Dave Gregory. The occasion is the Record Store Day release—and upcoming CD—of XTC’s fast, furious performance on Live Boots: Emerald City, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, 17th April 1981. In Pt. 1 of this two-parter, Gregory discusses why the band played everything at such breakneck speed and whether he admires or regrets that approach now; what he thinks of the “bootleg” sound quality; how XTC approached concerts differently in the U.S. and U.K.; whether XTC might have lasted longer as a live band...

Joe Segal, who would have turned 100 on April 24, recorded 8- to-10,000 shows at his own Jazz Showcase and other Chicago clubs. In 2011, “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman began visiting Segal and exploring his vast archive. Joe Segal died in 2020, but Feldman continued to work with Segal’s son, current Jazz Showcase owner Wayne Segal, and on Record Store Day, live-at-the-Jazz-Showcase albums were released from Joe Henderson, Ahmad Jamal, Yusef Lateef and Mal Waldron, plus an earlier Segal-recorded performance from Terry Callier. Feldman here describes the archive, the tapes’ condition (reel-to-reel? cassettes?), the recordings’ quality and why a digital step was used to pr...

Brendan Hunt, a.k.a. Coach Beard on Ted Lasso, is back in his hometown of Chicago to open a one-man show at Steppenwolf Theatre: The Movement You Need. The title comes from “Hey Jude,” and Hunt’s subject is how his mother and he bonded over the Beatles amid more troublesome aspects of their relationship. Here we bat around the Beatles and their appeal to parents and kids, all while so little current music sounds like them. Hunt also discusses the motivation and process of creating a one-man show, with Broadway in his sights. This emotionally loaded gig, with i...

It's time to get the record store perspective on Record Store Day (April 18) from Tim Peterson, owner of Squeezebox Books & Music in Evanston, Ill. That’s where I line up each RSD morning, so I visited Peterson to hear him explain how it all works. How does he determine which and how many records to order? Does he usually get what he wants? Is it worse to over- or under-order? Do the first-in-line customers tend to be flippers or just big fans? When Taylor Swift has an RSD offering, does that boost other sales? Which of this year’s rele...

Chef Rick Bayless worked in his parents’ Oklahoma City BBQ restaurant before he found his passion exploring Mexico’s regional foods. When he and his wife Deann opened Chicago’s game-changing Frontera Grill in March 1987, he wowed the ever-packed dining rooms with complexly flavored Mexican dishes featuring hard-to-source ingredients. The chef pushed the boundaries of fine dining two years later by opening Topolobampo, which, like Frontera Grill, would win the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Restaurant award, with Bayless previously named Outstanding Chef. Topolobampo became a favorite date spot for Barack and Michelle Obama, who invited Bayless to prepare a White...

More than a half century after co-founding the classic power-pop band Shoes, guitarist-singer-songwriter Gary Klebe is releasing his first solo album, Out Loud, though he was reluctant to do so. He explains why here and digs into Shoes’ unlikely, inspiring career—how he and brothers Jeff and John Murphy (a previous Caropop guest) formed the band in Zion, Ill., before any of them could play instruments. Little did they know that all three would become masters of crafting and singing perfect guitar-pop songs—and would release their first acclaimed album before they’d played a live gig. What went right an...

Ronnie Barnett was a rock journalist in Houston when he met Kim Shattuck, then bassist for the Los Angeles band the Pandoras, and their fates intertwined. Soon Barnett was living in L.A. and playing bass in the Muffs, Shattuck’s new pop-punk band in which she played guitar and applied her impassioned vocals to her tight, tuneful songs. The band had a strong three-album run with Warner Bros., though its most famous song became its punked-up cover of Kim Wilde’s “Kids in America” that played over the opening credits of 1995’s Clueless yet never was released as a single...

Vince Wilburn Jr. was growing up on Chicago’s South Side when his mother would get him all dressed up because his Uncle Miles Davis was coming to town. Sometimes they'd see the brilliant trumpeter perform, including at the tiny Plugged Nickel club in Old Town. By the 1980s, Wilburn was playing drums in Davis’ band and helping produce his albums. Wilburn now performs in Miles Electric Band (MEB) and co-manages Davis' estate, which is overseeing the Miles Davis 100 campaign to mark his uncle's 100th birthday. One major release is The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965, a 10-LP/eigh...

Len Kasper is starting his sixth season as the Chicago White Sox’s radio play-by-play announcer after 16 years as the Cubs’ TV play-by-play guy, but he’s got another passion: playing bass and writing songs for his band Sonic45. This Chicago all-star five-piece, which features recent Caropop guest Dag Juhlin on guitar, made its debut performance after my 2019 “Talking in Space” conversation with Kasper. Since then, the band, which has had a name change that he explains, has released two albums: Space and Time (2021) and SuperSonic (2024). The sound is muscular and swirling while Kasper’s lyrics are vulnerable and revealing. K...

Any author would dream of the kind of acclaim and attention that Christine Sneed has received, including a front-page Sunday New York Times Book Review rave of her 2013 novel Little Known Facts. The accolades continued for subsequent novels and short-story collections, yet getting her work published has become harder than ever. Sneed launched a Substack called Bookish that offers tips, reflections, interviews, agent lists and more to fellow writers and interested readers. Here she addresses: How much energy does she spend writing vs. trying to get her work out into the world? Does a writer need a so-called platform...

Musicians are said to have a lifetime to create their first album and six months to make the follow-up. That was literally the case with Graham Parker, whose landmark debut album, Howlin’ Wind, came out in April 1976, followed that October by the acclaimed Heat Treatment. Parker, the subject of Jay Nachman’s excellent new book Graham Parker’s Howlin’ Wind, tells his fascinating origin story here. He worked in factories and at a gas station, tried on almost every ‘60s/’70s musical style and wrote, wrote and wrote. How many songs had he written before he came up with one that mad...

Michael Blair had much training in percussion, including a degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, by the time he pulled out the marimba, congas, drums and other instruments for Tom Waits’ landmark 1985 album Rain Dogs. As was the case with recent Caropop guest Mark Ribot, Rain Dogs propelled Blair to more work with Waits (including the album and Steppenwolf Theatre performances of Franks Wild Years) and projects with Elvis Costello and producers T Bone Burnett and Hal Willner. That’s Blair delivering the “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” riff on marimba on Costello’s cover of the song and pla...

I saw bassist Victor Krummenacher, one of my favorite music people, perform twice within three weeks last fall: with Camper Van Beethoven to end perhaps their last-ever tour in Washington, D.C.; and with the Third Mind, the improvisatory band also featuring Dave Alvin, in Milwaukee. Both shows were fantastic. Now Krummenacher has a new album, the cinematic Block Out the Sun, and is reflecting on the inevitable artistic collision between one’s personal life and what’s happening in the outside world. He also discusses an upcoming album collaboration between most of the Third Mind and former Fairport Conv...

I first saw and interviewed Dag Juhlin more than 30 years ago when he was singing, writing and playing guitar with the power-pop trio the Slugs. He’s had many musical lives since then, including playing in Poi Dog Pondering’s expansive Chicago lineup, performing deep-cut covers in Expo’76 and Courtesy Patrol, supporting Len Kasper’s songwriting in Sonic45 and singing and writing songs with his latest trio, Sunshine Boys. He’s also about to hit the road with Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy and Friends to mark the 40th anniversary of R.E.M.’s Lifes Rich Pageant. He talks about all th...

I first noticed Marc Ribot’s slinky, spiky guitar playing as “Jockey Full of Bourbon,” from Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs, slithered over the opening of Jim Jarmusch’s Down By Law. Rain Dogs was a breakthrough for Ribot, who previously had played in Brother Jack McDuff’s soul-jazz band, backed Wilson Pickett and Solomon Burke, and been a member of the Lounge Lizards. More Waits collaborations followed, as did work with Elvis Costello, Sam Phillips, McCoy Tyner, Yoko Ono, Robert Plant and Allison Krauss, Elton John and Leon Russell, and many others. Here Ribot reflects on his robust studio-musician and solo car...

In our annual check-in with renowned mastering engineer Kevin Gray, he reflects on a very busy 2025 that included his Rhino High Fidelity versions of Fleetwood Mac and Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks’ long-out-of-print Buckingham Nicks. How did Gray and fellow mastering engineer Chris Bellman feel about Rhino releasing separate versions of Buckingham Nicks mastered by each of them? Gray also discusses the Rhino High Fidelity John Coltrane: 1960-1964 Mono box, for which he revisited some albums he’d previously mastered in stereo. Gray's RHF version of T. Rex’s Electric Warrior followed the label’s reel-to-reel tape release of that alb...

Mitch Easter and Don Dixon, accomplished producers and performers on their own, came together to produce one of rock’s greatest debut albums, R.E.M.’s Murmur. That 1983 classic plus the preceding, Easter-produced EP, Chronic Town, have gotten the all-analog, One Step treatment in a numbered, limited-edition vinyl release from Interscope-Capitol’s Definitive Sound Series. We reunited Easter and Dixon to discuss the making of Murmur plus the follow-up they produced, Reckoning. What did they each bring to the process? Why does one of them consider Murmur to be the Dark Side of the Moon of the New Wave e...

Robyn Hitchcock turned 14 in 1967, the year that blew his musical mind open. This English boarding school student and future singer-songwriter-musician already looked to Bob Dylan for the meaning of life when along came the psychedelic train powered by the Beatles, the Syd Barrett-led Pink Floyd, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Kinks, the Incredible String Band and much more. Hitchcock reflects on his awakening with a vivid memoir, 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left, and a mostly acoustic, mostly covers album, 1967: Vacations in the Past. Here we bat around perhaps the most creatively explosive year in the...

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Many of us first heard Wesley Stace on the 1990 album Here Comes the Groom that he recorded as John Wesley Harding, the name taken from Bob Dylan’s stripped-down late-1967 album that itself misspelled a Texas outlaw’s name. The English singer-songwriter has enjoyed a robust folk-rock career as Harding but also has written four acclaimed novels under his own name and began recording albums without the pseudonym in 2013. Still, he recently performed as John Wesley Harding at a Wild Honey Foundation tribute concert to Warren Zevon and on his own tour. Here he discusses where Harding ends and Stac...

Dave Specter didn’t pick up a guitar till his late teens, yet in his 20s he was Son Seals’ rhythm guitarist for two years, and soon he was a bandleader himself. Specter grew up amid Chicago’s blues scene and became one of its great players and ambassadors. Here he recalls the glory days of Chicago’s blues clubs and the varying vibes. He recounts the evolution of his sound and his progression of guitars. He explains how he creates a solo and why, after years of playing mostly instrumentals with the occasional guest vocalist, he began singing. He tells...

Running a boutique audiophile label is not easy, as Shane Buettner has learned in the 10 years since he founded Intervention Records. There are licensing agreements to be negotiated, artists to please, mastering engineers and pressing plants to be engaged, vinyl formulation and cover design to be arranged, plus marketplace changes and ever-increasing competition to be navigated. The label’s first release was Stealer’s Wheel’s debut, with standout pressings featuring Joe Jackson, Judee Sill, Matthew Sweet, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Peter Frampton, Everclear and others to follow. With so many labels jumping into the audiophile pool, has licensing record...

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