Steve Martin | Tim O'Brien |Sarah Jarosz| and more!

I was looking at Steve Martin's website and in "The Martin Mirror", his "electric newspaper" he writes "Breaking News: Steve Martin's Tour Rider Leaked". A tour rider, if you don't know, is the part of an artist contract that stipulates all of the details of what an artist expects at an appearance. Because of the specificity and sometimes excessive requirements, tour riders are ripe for this kind of treatment. Under "Buffet" "Tray of Iceberg Lettuce. Important Note: Iceberg must come from Scandinavia, Canada or Russian Arctic. Artists do not like taste of Antarctic Icebergs." And this "Artist Relations: Venue must have Bela Fleck on speed dial, in case Steve's feeling lazy". Funny guy, Steve Martin. His humor is on display in everything he does and his banjo playing is such a joyful addition to what he offers us.

Steve Martin is appearing tonight at The International Tennis Hall Of Fame in Newport, RI to kick off the Newport Folk Festival. Tim O'Brien and Sarah Jarosz open. We'll see you there and all weekend in Newport! If you can't make it to the festival, join us online at www.mvyradio.com. Listen to mvy today at 12:20 and at 9 ET for a musical preview of the festival.

Tom Tom Club on mvyradio Summer of 2003

Tina Weymouth, Chris Franz and their son Kid Ginseng came to the mvyradio studio in July, 2003 for an interview before a gig at the Atlantic Connection in Oak Bluffs. They talked about Talking Heads, The Ramones, radio and Jaws. Check out the conversation today at 12:30 as I celebrate 25 years at mvy.

Listen to the entire interview

What's New/Essential mvy Today

Just opened the mvyradio mail and put the new Ferraby Lionheart in the CD player- love the first track "Holdin' Me Back" and will send it out on the air and web today on What's New For Lunch at 12:20. I'll also play some Carlos Santana to celebrate his birthday on mvyradio's Essential mvy. www.mvyradio.com

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers| Mojo

There's something so appealing about Tom Petty. You can just tell he's a great guy -honest and dependable. This may be complete projection, and if it's not true and he's a jerk, so be it. I will just live in my little Tom Petty love bubble.

The solid-as-a-rock, "I trust this guy" vibe is an important element to his music making and songwriting, and it is in full effect on "Mojo", the new Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album. His mojo, his magic, is his relatability

You believe that what he writes about happens or could happen to someone. Simple stories about everyday life and everyday feelings. The songs roll by like the countryside outside of a car window on a long cross-country drive. There are real people living lives of joy and struggle in these towns, in these songs. The musical landscape of the record is familiar, but Tom and the Heartbreakers are definitely cutting a new path. Favorite songs "Let Yourself Go", "Jefferson Jericho Blues" and "Something Good Coming". I'll play several songs tonight on Uncharted Waters on mvyradio at 9PM ET (replay on Sunday at 9PM ET).

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Bettye Lavette | Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook

The only thing better than hearing Bettye LaVette sing on her new CD "Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook" is seeing the "satisfied n' tickled, too" expression on her face on the album cover. "The Great Lady of Soul" seems to be full of joy and a sense of accomplishment as this CD, one of the most nuanced and deeply delivered albums of song interpretations ever, makes it way out to the world.

Bettye's unwavering commitment to every song resonates like the truest love and her life experience seems to be crystallized in every note. She takes it seriously, this stepping out with The Beatles, Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd and Elton John, and her success is due in great part to her not being daunted by the task and taking fearless leaps. R&B, Blues, and Soul influenced British rockers and now it comes full circle with the one of soul music's greats bringing it home.

Robert Plant has invited her to join him on his tour in late July.

Listen tonight to mvyradio's Uncharted Waters at 9 PM ET (repeated Sunday at 9PM) as I feature a few tracks from the CD. www.mvyradio.com

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The Tallest Man On Earth | The Wild Hunt

So much of what we experience about another person is their presence. Presence --a great word for what it is that captures us about someone. Their ability to be be present, at ease, claim the space, or not. There are a lot of ways to make a lasting impression and often there's a certain je ne sais quoi, literally a "I don't know that" quality.

I can identify much of what impresses me about singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson, a.k.a. The Tallest Man On Earth on his new CD "The Wild Hunt". His confidence, his simple, potent guitar playing, his incisive lyrics. But what is most striking to me is his ability to command the energy of the album from start to finish. The way he carries the flow feels a little like a magic trick, and after each listen, I found myself captivated again. Maybe it's just his confidence, but it seems like more than that. Je ne sais quoi...

I'll feature some tracks from "The Wild Hunt" tonight on mvyradio's Uncharted Waters at 9PM ET. www.mvyradio.com

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Martin Sexton | Sugarcoating

There's so much to love about Martin Sexton's music. Perfection, vulnerability, spontaneity, joy, questioning, wonder. But the top note, the deepest experience, is connection. He opens himself to the stirrings of his heart and to the intimate artistic process of bringing his life to music, and we're invited in. Such a gift!

"Sugarcoating" is Martin's new CD, his ninth. Beautifully realized songs with great players bringing each one home. Guitarist Duke Levine, one of Boston's finest, plays a key role, as does another Boston legend, producer, musician, songwriter Crit Harmon, who co-produced the album with Martin and co-wrote one of the songs. Dan MacKenzie co-wrote 10 of the 13 songs. Dave Mattucks is on drums and minnow bucket. I experienced the minnow bucket first hand when Dave played with Martin in a Louisville hotel suite for one of Martin's many mvyradio on-air appearances, the one where Martin so loved the guitar we had rented from a local music store, that he bought it.

Martin does the bulk of the back-up vocal work using his unique "character" approach --"cowboy vocals" on "Sugarcoating", a poignant take on post 9/11 America and "choir vocals" on "Always Got Away", a stunning song about impermanence, lessons learned anew, and love that lasts. The sequencing is perfect, giving the record a wonderful flow. So much skill, restraint and hard-won musical prowess. This is a watershed record for Martin Sexton.

I'll feature a few tracks from "Sugarcoating" tonight on mvyradio's Uncharted Waters at 9 PM ET on www.mvyradio.com


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Trombone Shorty | Backatown

Supafunkrock. That's how Troy 'Trombone Shorty' Andrews describes his music. If anybody deserves a new word to characterize his music, it's Trombone Shorty. Along with his band Orleans Avenue, made up in part of childhood friends, he is creating an original sound born out of the musical traditions of his hometown of New Orleans. Andrews grew up in the Treme in the 6th Ward, the oldest black neighborhood in the U.S., and the fun music and dancing he experienced as a kid, and the showmanship he developed as a street performer, is the basis of his no holds barred approach.

Lenny Kravitz, Marc Broussard and Allen Touissant contribute, and Ryan Montbleau co-wrote two of the songs on the CD. Kravitz took a chance on an 18 year old Troy Andrews (he's now 24) and brought him out on tour with him in 2004. "Playing with that band was like Kobe Bryant going straight from high school to the pros," Andrews' sister told him. The experience of playing with Kravitz was pivotal, with Andrews having to learn "20 years of music" and watching Kravitz hold huge audiences in the palm of his hand.

"I'm his biggest fan," says jazz legend Wynton Marsalis. Add me to the long (second) line!

Trombone Shorty is the featured artist on mvyradio's new music show, Uncharted Waters at 9PM ET. http://www.mvyradio.com/

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Janiva Magness | The Devil Is an Angel Too

Janiva Magness does just what you want her to do on her new CD "The Devil Is An Angel Too", her second outing on Alligator Records. She gives us more proof that she is one of the best recording artists and entertainers working today.

Her live shows are electric. Janiva won the 2009 Blues Music Awards for B.B. King Entertainer of The Year and Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year. She has been able to bring that excitement and energy to the new record, just as she did with 2008's "What Love Can Make You Do". Passionate, throaty, up-close-and-personal vocals, inspired song choices and great backing players. She reaches inside every song, finds the heart and then delivers a world of hurt, or a world of joy.

I'm going to feature several tracks from the album on mvyradio's Uncharted Waters tonight at 9 PM ET on http://www,mvyradio.com/ Talk to you then!

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Jeff Beck | Emotion and Commotion

If an artist is lucky enough to have a long career, the musical world that he or she creates over the years can be vast, ever evolving and revealing. Who would have guessed that monster, master guitarist Jeff Beck would name "Over The Rainbow" as one of his favorite songs? But then again, given his penchant for inspired interpretations of a beautifully eclectic assortment of songs, it's absolutely no surprise.

In the liner notes to his new album "Emotion and Commotion", Beck calls the song, that became Judy Garland's signature, one of the most beautiful ever written and says "I finally figured out what it is about Judy Garland's voice that gets straight to you; her vibrato is unsteady. Anyone else with an unsteady vibrato would make you cringe, but not her." No surprise, either that he notices and understands what it is about an instrument and an artist that gets to you.

Beck seems to simply love sound, and voices in particular, and all of the possibilities that present themselves when musicians gather to play. Joss Stone, Imelda May and Olivia Safe all provide guest vocals and Beck includes two Jeff Buckley songs because of being "amazed" by "the beauty of the way he sounded." The orchestration by Peter Murray is stunning and the perfect setting for Beck's guitar.

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Patty Larkin | 25

It really wasn't planned at all, that Patty Larkin's celebration of her twenty-five years of making records, would be so comprehensive, so expansive and so poignant. But that's what happened.

Patty's "25" is a collection of her songs, re-visited by her and re-fashioned by the personal crafting of twenty-five musicians that Patty has admired and worked with over the course of her career. She recorded the songs, unplugged and sent them out, and they came back, surprising musical gifts in every package.

The record is dedicated to her mother, Mary Jeanne, a painter and Patty's biggest fan, who passed away last September. Two weeks after her mother died, Patty started work on the record and she says that the emotions she was feeling opened her up "to the moment" and a raw and sometimes more mature vocal sound emerged.

The project has re-united her with many old musical friends like David Wilcox, Jonatha Brooke, Chris Smither and John Gorka. She is playing out on tour with many of them and will be at The Regent Theater in Arlington this Saturday, April 24Th with Birdsong at Morning.

Today on The Lunch Hour (about 12:15 PM ET) on www.mvyradio.com, I feature part of a conversation with Patty and give away some tickets to Saturday's Arlington show. Full interview with Patty will be posted later today in the mvyradio Archives.

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Angus and Julia Stone | Down The Way

Musical partnership is the bedrock of music making and no matter what the relationship of the partners, the sound of the bond has traveled far and deep by the time it reaches our ears.

Australian sister-brother team Angus and Julia Stone have just released their second full album "Down The Way" and I find myself thinking about the sibling aspect of their association because all I know about it is what is revealed in the songs. It's an aural entree into a connection that only the two can begin to understand.

A gentle feel and a quiet, sweet wondering keeps on throughout. The record has a long-ago tint; the sepia photos (of their family? other families?) inside the liner notes add to this. Self-produced, recorded in different locations all over the world, a perfectly realized album.

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