pplpod

pplpod

pplpod is a podcast about people, places and lots of other stuff. Each episode takes a deep dive into the lives, choices, and legacies of fascinating figures from history, culture, music, and beyond. From icons who shaped entire generations to hidden stories that deserve the spotlight, pplpod brings you closer to the people behind the headlines and the legends. Thoughtful, engaging, and story-driven, pplpod explores what makes these lives extraordinary—and what we can learn from them today.

  1. 1 day ago

    Labrador Retriever: From Newfoundland Fishing Dogs to Modern-Day Heroes

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! In this episode of pplpod, we explore the remarkable history of the Labrador Retriever, one of the world's most beloved and versatile dog breeds. Its story begins not in Labrador, but along the rugged coast of Newfoundland, where the St. John's Water Dog worked alongside fishermen retrieving nets, ropes, and fish from the freezing North Atlantic. During the 19th century, British aristocrats recognized these dogs' extraordinary swimming abilities, endurance, and trainability. Through selective breeding, they developed the modern Labrador Retriever, an exceptional hunting companion distinguished by its water-resistant double coat, powerful otter tail, and gentle retrieving instinct known as a soft mouth. The episode follows the Labrador's transformation from working retriever into an indispensable military, law enforcement, and assistance dog. We examine the genetics behind black, yellow, and chocolate coats, the differences between field-bred and show-bred Labradors, and the extraordinary capabilities of their sense of smell. From Zanjeer's explosives detection work in Mumbai to Lucky and Flo's efforts against counterfeit DVDs, we discover how these dogs have served in remarkably different roles. We also explore the achievements of service dogs such as Endal, Sully, Salty, and Roselle, whose intelligence, training, and loyalty made a profound difference in human lives. Finally, we examine the health challenges associated with selective breeding, including joint disorders, inherited diseases, obesity, and genetic variations affecting appetite. The Labrador's story reveals how centuries of human decisions shaped an extraordinary working animal and raises important questions about preserving its health and well-being in modern life. In this episode we cover... The Labrador's origins in Newfoundland, the St. John's Water Dog, 19th-century fishing communities, and the breed's development through British aristocratic breeding programsThe Labrador's distinctive anatomy, waterproof double coat, otter tail, soft mouth, coat color genetics, and differences between field-bred and show-bred dogsMilitary and police service, extraordinary scent detection abilities, and notable working dogs including Zanjeer, Lucky, Flo, Sarbi, Sadie, and SashaGuide and assistance dog training, the achievements of Endal and Sully, and the lifesaving actions of Salty and Roselle during the September 11 attacksLabrador health and longevity, hip and elbow dysplasia, inherited eye diseases, exercise-induced collapse, appetite-related genetics, and the responsibilities of modern ownershipSource credit: Research for this episode included transcript materials and supporting historical sources accessed November 4, 2026. Content is summarized and adapted for commentary and educational use.

  2. 2 days ago

    Discovering Ireland: A Journey Through History, Culture, and the Wild Atlantic Way

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! In this episode of pplpod, we explore Ireland through the philosophy of slow travel: go slower, do less, and notice more. From the towering Cliffs of Moher and the ancient stone forts of the Aran Islands to the extraordinary limestone terrain of the Burren, we discover a country shaped by geology, centuries of history, and enduring cultural traditions. Our journey continues through Dingle, the Ring of Kerry, Killarney National Park, and Cork, examining the natural beauty, local food, music, and historical landmarks that make each destination distinctive. Along the way, we explore the challenges of navigating Ireland's narrow coastal roads, the engineering behind ancient fortifications, and the remarkable stories preserved in castles, monasteries, and maritime communities. The episode also examines Ireland's complicated political history, including the Williamite War, British administration at Dublin Castle, and the events surrounding the 1981 Northern Ireland hunger strike. We discuss the competing political perspectives, the prison protests, Bobby Sands' election to Parliament, and the lasting consequences of the conflict. Beyond these historical struggles, we discover the traditions that continue to define Irish life, from communal pub music sessions and the influence of the Chieftains to traditional dishes such as coddle, boxty, colcannon, and Irish stew. Whether exploring the maritime history of Cobh, visiting Phoenix Park, discovering Irish whiskey traditions, or searching for a castle to inherit, this journey offers a deeper appreciation of Ireland's extraordinary connection between place, history, and culture. In this episode we cover... The philosophy of slow travel, the Cliffs of Moher, Aran Islands, Dún Aonghasa, the Burren, and Ireland's distinctive geology and ancient monumentsDingle's music and culinary traditions, the Ring of Kerry, Killarney National Park, Skellig Michael, and the challenges of navigating narrow coastal roadsCork's cultural identity, the English Market, Cobh's connection to the Titanic and Lusitania, Spike Island, and Ireland's extensive collection of historic castlesThe Williamite War, Dublin Castle, the Troubles, the 1981 hunger strike, Bobby Sands, and the historical tradition of fasting as a form of protestPhoenix Park, Irish whiskey, traditional pub music, the Chieftains, regional foods, Irish languages, literature, and the importance of cultural preservationSource credit: Research for this episode included transcript materials and supporting historical sources accessed November 3, 2026. Content is summarized and adapted for commentary and educational use.

  3. 3 days ago

    Willie Hutch: An Overnight I'll Be There Lyric and The Mack's Soundtrack

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! William McKinley Hutchins was born in Los Angeles in December 1944 and raised in Dallas, where he sang in the teenage choral group the Ambassadors and graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in 1962. As Willie Hutch he began recording in 1964 on the Soul City label, then returned to Los Angeles, where he wrote and arranged for the 5th Dimension. In 1969 he signed with RCA and released Soul Portrait and Season for Love. Motown producer Hal Davis then called him late one night needing lyrics for a Jackson 5 song. Hutch wrote them overnight, the group recorded them the next morning, and the song became I'll Be There. Berry Gordy signed him as a staff writer, arranger, producer and musician, and he worked with Michael Jackson, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and Marvin Gaye. In 1973 he released the solo album Fully Exposed and the soundtrack to The Mack, followed by the 1974 Foxy Brown score, setting funk and layered vocals to Blaxploitation films. He moved to Norman Whitfield's Whitfield Records in 1977, returned to Motown in 1982 with the club hit In and Out, and contributed to The Last Dragon in 1985. The Mack soundtrack included Brother's Gonna Work It Out and Slick.He released at least six Motown albums in the mid-1970s, and Love Power reached No. 41 on the Hot 100 in 1975.His Last Dragon songs were Keep On Jammin' and The Glow.Manager Anthony Voigt remembered him as kind, giving and considerate.He returned to Dallas by 1994 and died there in September 2005 at 60, and his nephews include Cold 187um of Above the Law and Kokane.

  4. 3 days ago

    Songs in the Key of Life: Stevie Wonder's Ghana Plan and a $13 Million Deal

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! In early 1975, at 24 and after Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale, Stevie Wonder was planning a farewell concert and a move to Ghana to work with children with disabilities, driven by frustration with the U.S. government and social inequality. On August 5, 1975, he called off the move. With Arista and Epic circling, he signed a seven-year, seven-album Motown deal with $13 million up front, bonuses, a 20 percent royalty, total artistic control and ownership of his publishing, the largest recording contract to that point. He then spent a year making the album, first called Let's See Life the Way It Is, mainly at Crystal Sound in Hollywood, plus the Record Plant in Los Angeles and Sausalito and six weeks at New York's Hit Factory, with about 130 people involved. Released in September 1976 as Songs in the Key of Life, a double LP with a bonus four-song EP, it became the first album by an American artist to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and held the top spot for 14 weeks. Wonder missed the 1977 Grammys while in Nigeria, and a failed satellite link left Andy Williams asking, "Stevie, can you see us?" Bassist Nathan Watts got home at 3 a.m. and was called straight back to work on the bass line for I Wish.Wonder sang upbeat leads into an Electro-Voice RE20, and Motown staff wore shirts reading "We're almost finished."Gary Byrd co-wrote Village Ghetto Land and Black Man, and brother Calvin Hardaway co-wrote Have a Talk With God.Paul Simon thanked Wonder at the 1976 Grammys for not releasing an album that year.Will Smith reworked I Wish and Coolio turned Pastime Paradise into Gangsta's Paradise, and the episode says a 2026 anniversary tour and an EP of four 1976 outtakes followed.

  5. 3 days ago

    Super Freak's Afterlife: Alonzo Miller's Edit, Beat Freaks and Nicki Minaj

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Super Freak was recorded in winter 1980 and early 1981 for Rick James' fifth album, Street Songs, at the Record Plant in Sausalito and Motown's Hitsville studio in Hollywood. The episode says James set out to make a pragmatic crossover hit that white audiences would dance to. Oscar Alston played the bass line, Daniel LeMelle of the Stone City Band took the tenor sax solo, and Taborah Johnson and the Temptations, including James' idol Melvin Franklin, sang backing vocals. Los Angeles DJ Alonzo Miller toned down the raw, improvised lyrics so radio would play the song and earned a co-writing credit. The single topped the Billboard dance chart, reached No. 3 on the soul chart and No. 16 on the Hot 100, and went gold in the U.S. and Canada and platinum in the UK and New Zealand. Its 1982 Grammy nomination came for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. In 2006 the Dutch group Beat Freaks released Just Super Freak, built from a sample replay by Mark Summers in Barcelona, and it reached No. 7 in the UK. Alston's syncopated bass riff has since anchored hits across four decades. The song reached No. 2 in Belgium and the Netherlands.MC Hammer built U Can't Touch This on the riff in 1990.Jay-Z sampled it on Kingdom Come in 2006, and the Black Eyed Peas used it on Vida Loca in 2020.Nicki Minaj, who appeared on a Big Sean remix built on Hammer's sample, scored Super Freaky Girl in 2022.Rolling Stone moved the song from No. 477 in 2004 to No. 153 in 2021 on its 500 greatest songs list.

  6. 3 days ago

    What's Going On: Obie Benson's Berkeley Bus Ride and a Smuggled 1971 Single

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! What's Going On began in May 1969, when the Four Tops' Renaldo "Obie" Benson watched the Bloody Thursday clash at People's Park in Berkeley, California, from the group's tour bus. Troubled that the country sent young people to war while armed authorities attacked them at home, he wrote the song with Al Cleveland. The Four Tops rejected it as too controversial, and Marvin Gaye at first thought it suited the Originals before taking it on and adding his own lyrics. Gaye was carrying guilt about singing romantic pop after the 1965 Watts riots, his brother Frankie's three years in Vietnam, and the death of a cousin in the military. Berry Gordy dismissed the idea, so Gaye produced the track himself at Hitsville USA in June 1970, using the Funk Brothers and outside players in a loose, smoke-filled session. Gordy hated the finished record's jazz feel and scat singing and refused to release it, and Gaye went on strike. In January 1971 executives Harry Balk and Barney Ales pressed 100,000 copies without Gordy's knowledge and sent them to radio. The run sold out within days and became Motown's fastest-selling single to that point, and Gordy then demanded a full album by the end of March. Eli Fontaine's opening alto sax line was a warm-up that Gaye kept as the take.James Jamerson, drunk on Metaxa, played the bass part lying flat on his back on the studio floor.Engineer Ken Sands accidentally played two vocal takes at once, and Gaye kept the layered effect.Detroit Lions players were brought in to chat in the background, giving the track its party atmosphere.Later versions included Cyndi Lauper's 1987 cover, charity records for the 1989 Armenian earthquake and Rwanda in 1994, and a 2001 all-star version that aided 9/11 relief.

  7. 3 days ago

    Dreamgirls 2006: Whitney's Lost Deal, 783 Effie Auditions and an Oscar Snub

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! The 2006 film of Dreamgirls spent 25 years in development. David Geffen, who co-financed the 1981 Broadway show that won six Tony Awards, guarded the rights to protect director Michael Bennett, who died in 1987. A late-1980s deal with Whitney Houston as Deena collapsed when she wanted Effie's showstoppers, including And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going. In the late 1990s Warner Bros. planned a version with Lauryn Hill as Deena and Kelly Price as Effie, then dropped it after the Frankie Lymon film Why Do Fools Fall in Love flopped. After Chicago's success, its screenwriter Bill Condon won Geffen over. Jamie Foxx turned down Curtis Taylor Jr. over salary, then took less once Eddie Murphy and Beyonce, who had to screen test, were cast. Condon auditioned 783 women for Effie and chose American Idol alum Jennifer Hudson over Fantasia Barrino. Beyonce dropped 20 pounds on a liquid diet while Hudson gained 20, and Condon held private sessions telling Hudson to arrive late and act out to find Effie's resentment. The film, budgeted at about $75 million to $80 million, grossed over $155 million and drew eight Oscar nominations, the most that year, without a Best Picture or Best Director nod. Filming And I Am Telling You took four days instead of one, as Hudson sang live until her voice gave out.Album covers for the fictional Dreams copied real Supremes records, and a prop Martin Luther King Jr. LP matched a 1963 Motown release.Smokey Robinson objected to Curtis's payola and mob-loan story as a slur on Berry Gordy.DreamWorks and Paramount publicly apologized to Gordy and Motown alumni about a week before the Oscars.Hudson won Best Supporting Actress in her film debut, while Murphy lost Best Supporting Actor to Alan Arkin.

  8. 3 days ago

    Eddie Holland: A Top 30 Hit With Jamie, Then the Pen Behind 143 Hits

    Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Edward James Holland Jr. was born in Detroit in October 1939. In 1958 he sang You, You, You, You, You for Mercury Records, a track Berry Gordy co-wrote and produced, and when Gordy launched Motown in 1959 Holland was among its first artists. His 1961 single Jamie reached the U.S. top 30 and No. 6 on the R&B chart, followed by the 1962 album Eddie Holland. Just as his career was taking off, he found he disliked performing and the spotlight, and he gave up singing to focus on writing. With his younger brother Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier he formed Holland-Dozier-Holland, with Brian and Dozier handling music and production and Eddie writing the lyrics for Martha and the Vandellas, the Supremes, the Four Tops and the Isley Brothers. At Motown he received songwriting credit but no producer credit, which the episode ties to the label's assembly-line division of roles. In 1968 the trio left Motown to found Invictus Records and Hot Wax Records, where Eddie finally shared production credits. Eddie wrote or co-wrote 143 U.S. chart hits and another 80 in the UK.With Norman Whitfield he wrote the lyrics for Too Many Fish in the Sea and Beauty Is Only Skin Deep.Holland-Dozier-Holland entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 with the Ahmet Ertegun Award for non-performers.In 2009 he wrote songs for a stage musical of The First Wives Club.His 2019 memoir with Brian and Dave Thompson, Come and Get These Memories, came amid court cases over taxes, loans and publishing in 1985, 1988, 1996, 2017 and 2020.

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About

pplpod is a podcast about people, places and lots of other stuff. Each episode takes a deep dive into the lives, choices, and legacies of fascinating figures from history, culture, music, and beyond. From icons who shaped entire generations to hidden stories that deserve the spotlight, pplpod brings you closer to the people behind the headlines and the legends. Thoughtful, engaging, and story-driven, pplpod explores what makes these lives extraordinary—and what we can learn from them today.

Information

  • Creator
    pplpod
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    2k
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © pplpod
  • Show Website
    pplpod

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