The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast

Popular music critic Richie Unterberger has written books on the Who, on the history of folk-rock music, and now a second book on the Velvet Underground. Do What You Fear Most: The History of the Velvet Underground is an 800-page dive into the legacy of this influential and transgressive New York band. 

As some listeners might know I host a show on free-form, listener-supported radio station WPKN, where I currently serve as program director. Visit us at wpkn.org. Imagine my surprise, then, when I encountered a passage in Tom Perrotta's novel The Wishbones that was, unmistakably, about WPKN. A character hosts a show on "this great listener-supported station" in Bridgeport, Connecticut. That's us! I called Perrotta and the result is this interview, mostly about music. Perrotta is the author of Election and Little Children, both made into feature films, and The Leftovers and Mrs. Fletcher, both now mini series. He's...

Denny Zeitlin is a highly regarded jazz pianist--signed by John Hammond, and Thelonious Monk sang his praises in a Blindfold Test--who is also a clinical professor psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. In this wide-ranging interview, he talks about his dual roles, going back to the 1960s. Zeitlin is a pioneer in electro-acoustic music, and wrote the music for the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He might have done more movies, but his schedule was too busy.
 

Hartford, Connecticut-based bassist Nat Reeves is best known for backing legends such as saxophonists Jackie McLean, Kenny Garrett, Benny Golson and Pharoah Sanders, but he's also been (with McLean as his mentor) a longtime professor of jazz studies at the University of Hartford's Hartt School, His own recordings are State of Emergency, Blue Ridge and Now In Time. 

Reeves has worked and recorded with saxophonists, George Coleman and Eric Alexander, trumpeters Eddie Henderson and Roy Hargrove, trombonist Steve Davis, pianists Harold Mabern, George Cables, David Hazeltine and Rick Germanson, and drummers, Jimmy Cobb, Art Taylor and Jeff “Tai...

Tu Le of Sino Auto Insights lived in China from 2009 to 2022, and is one of the more insightful voices analyzing the car industry there from an American perspective. It's a view we don't get because Chinese cars are invisible in the U.S. (though all around us in Canada and Mexico). China sells more cars than the U.S. and the European Union combined. 

Automotive analyst Ray Shefska of CarEdge spent decades at dealerships learning the tricks of the trade, and here he reveals some of the nastier ones--such as bogus destination fees and fake certification charges. He also explains why there aren't any $20,000 cars--it's not just inflation, but manufacturer greed. They want us to buy the top models with all the bells and whistles. 

Neyla Pekarek was a Lumineer for eight years as cellist and vocalist of the folk-rock group, but says her roots are in theater, and she's glad to be back in that world with a new musical (her second) called The Queen of Magic. It's about the celebrated 19th century magician Adelaide Hermann, a contemporary of Harry Houdini who helped reshape the magic world. An EP of songs from the musical has been released. 

Stevie Holland is an American jazz vocalist, writer and lyricist who's played major concert halls, jazz clubs and cabaret rooms, in addition to performing in theater. The youngest of seven children, Stevie grew up in a music-filled, Norwegian-Italian household in Westchester County, New York. Her father was a tenor sax-playing commercial artist and avid jazz record collector, and her mother was a church soloist who performed in recitals and operas.

Holland's most recent album is Talk to Your Tomatoes, released in late 2025. The album combines pop, jazz and Great American Songbook classics, as well as original songs...

David Helvarg, a longtime environmental activist and journalist, is the founder and president of the marine conservation group Blue Frontier Campaign. He is the author most recently of Forest of the Sea: The Remarkable Life and Imperiled Future of Kelp (Island Press). In a matter of decades, a spectacular cold-water paradise thirty million years in the making is succumbing to warming oceans. Kelp forests are largely out of sight, hidden under the ocean’s surface, yet they are one of Earth’s most wondrous and underappreciated marine habitats.

Why do people cite religious objections to getting vaccinated? Where do these passionate beliefs, with no foundation in science, come from? Dr. Kira Ganga-Keiffer, a professor at Fairfield University, is a scholar of health and society, American religion, and history with a Ph.D. from Boston University). Her first book is Unvaccinated Under God: Religion and Vaccine Hesitancy in Modern America (Princeton University Press, May 2026).

At this very moment, a tiny number of Silicon Valley leaders are making risky decisions that will have a huge impact on the rest of the eight billion people on this planet. They don't mean to cause harm, but their new creations often bring dire unintended consequences: destructive psychological, social, economic, and political results. We call these "side effects," but they're often more powerful than the intended ones. That's the premise of the new book, The Frankenstein Fix: Why Big Tech Goes Astray and What We Can Do About It. Cohen is a writing professor at Pratt Institute and...

 Roxanne Khamsi talks to Jim Motavalli about the profound implications of recent cell research. She is an author, speaker and contributing writer for The Atlantic. Her first book, Beyond Inheritance (Riverhead Books, 2026), reveals how we mutate genetically every day of our lives and how the DNA changes that accumulate within us can profoundly affect our health. She has reported extensively on the intersection of genetics and medicine for more than two decades. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Economist, Popular Science, The Atlantic, Scientific American, Slate, Nature, New York magazine, WIRED magazine a...

Terri Thal (third from right in the photo) was married to Dave Van Ronk (at far right), managed Bob Dylan (second from right) and was a friend of Dylan's then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo (second from left). She has written about that time in her book My Greenwich Village: Dave, Bob and Me. We talked about those times, about her close friend Patrick Sky (not as well remembered as Van Ronk) and about the politics of the era. Dylan said of Terri in his book Chronicles, "Van Ronk’s wife, Terri, definitely not a minor character, took care of Dave’s book...

John Sayles is a prolific filmmaker who, since The Return of the Secaucus Seven in 1980, hasn't been afraid to take on big political themes. In 17 films and eight novels (as well as short-story collections and screenplays) he looks at a specific moment in the historical record from multiple perspectives. Sayles' latest work is Crucible, a closely observed historical novel that looks at the Ford Motor Company from the introduction of the Model A to the postwar period. It includes the fight for unionization (and union busters), the boss' anti-Semitism, the immigrants' experience, and Fordlandia, the ill-fated attempt to grow...

Robbie Fulks is a native North Carolinian who has bluegrass and country as a default position, but also revels in many other musical styles. A stint at Columbia University in New York probably helped broaden his world view, but there's something of an auto didact about him, too. Music came naturally, as his father played guitar and his aunt banjo, which he started playing at age six. Skipping ahead,  In 1987, he joined The Special Consensus Bluegrass Band, where he showcased his unique guitar flatpicking style. In the early 1990s he performed in the musical Woody Guthrie's American Song. Fulks w...

Murieann Bradley is a 19-year-old acoustic guitarist/singer from Ireland who specializes in the fingerpicking styles of the 1920s, 30s and 40s, citing influences such as Mississippi John Hurt, Reverend Gary Davis, and Elizabeth Cotten. She learned to play largely from her father, a blues enthusiast. After a breakout performance on the BBC's Jools' Annual Hootenanny in 2023, she has toured the world, including a performance at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee on March 28. Her debut album, I Kept These Old Blues, was released on Tompkins Square Records and later reached the top ten of the UK Albums...

Melanie D.G. Kaplan talks to Jim Motavalli about her book Lab Dog: A Beagle and his Human Investigate the Surprising World of Animal Research. She explores the ethics and future of animal experimentation through the story of her rescued beagle, Hammy.

Jim Motavalli talked to Sam Beam, a/k/a Iron & Wine, a master of brilliant, hushed Americana music and a collaborator par excellence (particularly with amazing women). In the interview, we talk about Beam's work with Fiona Apple, Jesca Hoop, I'm With Her and others, and also about his new album Hen's Teeth (2026). 

Alex Manos says he's the country's number one buyer of classic cars. He buys European and American cars nationwide, and would love to talk about buying your old vehicle. 

 Two Crows for Comfort is a Canadian folk and Americana duo based out of Manitoba, composed of Erin Corbin and Cory Sulyma. Known for their rich harmonies and poignant storytelling, they have been a full-time touring act since early 2020, living on the road in an 18-foot camper with their rescue dog, Elliot. They talked to Jim Motavalli for WPKN

British jazz singer Emily Masser is only 21, but shows a mature command of her art, inspired by her saxophonist father, Dean Masser. Pianist Horace Silver wrote the beautiful "Song For My Father," but Masser made a whole album called Songs With my Father (with dad playing his horn). 

John Gennari's profusely illustrated book The Jazz Barn (Brandeis University Press) traces the history of a short-lived but vital institution in the history of music. Music Inn, in Lenox, Massachusetts near Tanglewood, took jazz seriously and brought musicians to a bucolic setting for teaching, concerts and building bridges to what eventually became the classical-jazz fusion known as Third Stream. With many photographs by Holocaust survivor Clemens Kalischer.

Encountered recently at the Scandinavian Club in Fairfield, Connecticut, Sweden's Frander combines roots in traditional Swedish folk with an ear to progressive rock--but all with acoustic instruments. 

 Iowa-based Americana duo, Weary Ramblers bring years of experience to the stage with award-winning songwriting and chemistry. Chad Elliott (Woody Guthrie Song Contest & Kerrville Finalist) and Kathryn Severing Fox (DownBeat winner & international touring artist) showcase multi-instrumental performances with tight harmonies and great storytelling. Fox has played, toured or recorded with George Benson, The Beach Boys, The Eagles, Pharrell Williams, Gloria Estefan, Natalie Cole, Osmond Brothers, Gloria Gaynor, Chick Corea, Bobby McFerrin, Kenny Loggins, The Marley Family, Mark O’Connor, Ryan Montbleau, Seth Walker, Ben Sollee, Edgar Meyer and Joshua Bell. Chad Elliott, known as "Iowa's Renaissance Man," has written 2,000 son...

Eric O'Neill, a former FBI agent who led the capture of notorious spy-for-Russia Robert Hanssen, is the author Spies, Lies, and Cybercrime. It's focus: teaching readers how to defend against digital threats like hackers and scammers, blending thrilling anecdotes with practical advice. The book details tactics used by adversaries and provides actionable steps (Prepare, Assess, Investigate, Decide) for personal digital safety. 

Americana singer-songwriter Gann Brewer doesn't seek the shiny neo-retro town malls where the selfie slick hipsters air their spanking new tattoos but rather, it's the half spaces, the unremarkable edges of town, where he finds those nuggets of truth--or at least enough gas to get to the next town. From the liner notes to Brewer's fourth album, Highway Lullaby, under discussion with Jim Motavalli on this podcast. 

Bryce Edwards is a musician and cabaret artist reviving traditional jazz and popular music from the early 20th century. A vaudevillian troubadour, Edwards is a unique vocalist that takes equal cues from the crooners and soft singers of the late 1920s and early 30s and from the bombastic voices of the acoustic phonograph era, as well as an instrumentalist who plays banjo, ukulele, tenor guitar, and mandolin in the modernistic jazz idiom. Leading a hot combination featuring the talents of extraordinary jazzman Scott Ricketts (cornet) and Grammy award winner Conal Fowkes (piano, upright bass), Edwards revels in the idiosyncrasies...

Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sam Amidon comes from a New England family deeply involved in old-time music, and he remains devoted to that form--but fused with just about everything else, including jazz and avant-garde music. Amidon, who began playing fiddle at age 3, has recorded in Iceland collaborated with artists as diverse as drummer Milford Graves and guitarist Bill Frisell. As a sideman, he's appeared on albums by Tune-Yards, The Blind Boys of Alabama, The National, and many more. In talking to WPKN December 8, 2025 the talk was about his latest album, Salt River, which contains a take on Ornette Coleman's "...

This broadcast features the first half hour of an interview with Nate Soares, executive director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), conducted by Alice Horrigan and Jim Motavalli on October 16, 2025 and aired on WPKN-FM. The conversation explores the safety limits of current AI engineering and the broader implications for humanity’s future. For the full hour, watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/u-22jwE4GZU . Also, read Alice Horrigan’s accompanying book review in The Berkshire Edge: “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: When the AI Engineers Are in Over Their Heads”

S.G. Goodman lives in rural Kentucky farm country, and grew up attending church three times a week, with limited exposure to secular music. That experience colors her deeply grounded (in place and time) new album, Planting by the Signs. Fellow Kentuckian Bonnie Prince Billy is featured in this richly evocative collection. 

George Pelecanos is the author of 20 crime novels, and a regular writing collaborator with David Simon on projects, including The Wire and Treme. Pelecanos' books ofteh catch Washington, D.C.'s denizens at the moment they hover between a life of crime and straight society. They are moral tales, as well as fast-paced thrillers. 

Maria Muldaur discusses her storied career and new album, One Hour Mama: The Blues of Victoria Spivey, released on July 11th, 2025, on Nola Blue Records. The album is a tribute to the legendary blues singer Victoria Spivey, who was a mentor to Muldaur. It features collaborations with Taj Mahal, Elvin Bishop, and Tuba Skinny. 

Jerusalem Peace Builders Students visit the Bridgeport, CT area and discuss their trip and community engagement activities with Dr. Danna Kurtin.

Speed the Plough, a New Jersey rock group from the Hoboken/Maxwell's scene that produced The Feelies and Yo La Tengo, has a serendipitous encounter with an Italian harpsichord professor. And the result is beautiful music. 

Harry Freedman, based in England, has previously explored the Jewish roots of Leonard Cohen, but here he takes on Bob Dylan, who was wont to deny those roots--at least early on in his career. 

Tessa Souter is a jazz singer, originally from England but living in New York, who likes ambitious projects. And adapting and writing lyrics for the music of Erik Satie (who died 100 years ago in 2025) is just the latest one. 

Astroforge is going after rare metals like platinum on near-Earth asteroids, hitching rides on the Falcon 9 and other rockets. 

Richard Cortez, from Florida originally, had a circuitous route to his role as an emerging jazz singer in New York. He was a confessional Americana singer with messages for his community, did sex work, and stripped in some of the same gay bars where he now performs his beautiful jazz music. 

Brad Kolodner is an acclaimed clawhammer banjo player who performs with the chart-topping Irish, Old-Time, bluegrass fusion quartet Charm City Junction. He’s recorded four albums of Old-Time and original music with his father Ken under the name Ken & Brad Kolodner including their latest Billboard-charting release Stony Run (2020). His new album of solo gourd banjo music is called Old Growth. 

Jim Kweskin founded the legendary 1960s Jim Kweskin Jug Band with Fritz Richmond, Geoff Muldaur, Maria Muldaur, Mel Lyman and Bruno Wolfe. During the five years they were together, they successfully transformed the sounds of pre-World War II rural music into a springboard for their good-humored performances. And Kweskin is still at it, with a new album called Doing Things Right, out from Jalopy Records on April 25, 2025.