Musician's Spotlight John Floridis

When Duane Betts and Devon Allman decided to join musical forces, the collective heft of their last names served as an additional member of the Allman-Betts Band. Their dads, Dickie Betts and Gregg Allman, had co-founded the Allman Brothers Band.Duane Betts joins John Floridis by phone for a conversation about the band's most recent release, Bless Your Heart. The seven-piece thinks of this album as their "bonfire," built for the summer of 2020 and beyond. It's a double album follow-up to their 2019 debut, fueled by road-forged camaraderie and musical intensity, reflecting the individual and collective experiences of seven musicians, all of them drawing inspiration from the band’s symbolic hometown - a place Devon Allman calls “the United States of Americana.”

Faced with a guest's musical CV longer than his own arm, the wise radio host takes a tag-team approach to conversing with in-demand drummer, composer, bandleader, producer and teacher Clarence Penn. In this edition of Musician's Spotlight, John Floridis and Montana drummer and percussionist Ed Stalling hold radio rhythm-camp with the versatile, highly respected, chops-rich Penn.

How does Shawn Colvin stay busy during a pandemic? By pairing her own hits with classics of the silver screen. In Live From These Four Walls you’ll hear a solo acoustic reinterpretation of her 1992 album, Fat City, and a second album of movie songs like “Edelweiss,” “Beyond Thunderdome,” “To Sir With Love” and “Everybody’s Talking.”

In 2020, singer Falu Shah, bassist Yasushi Nakamura, drummer Clarence Penn and guitarist & vocalist Clay Ross teamed up to form American Patchwork Quartet. They're on a mission to reclaim the immigrant soul of American roots music, interpreting timeless songs through a 21st century lens.It's not an accident that the four members of the group, each with a thriving solo career, came together to start reinterpreting American roots music. The quartet's goal is purposeful: to unleash music's magic to help counteract pervasive prejudices around immigration and race. American Patchwork Quartet consists of an eleventh-generation classical Hindustani musician, a drumming protégée of the late Ellis Marsalis, a first-call Issei jazz bassist, and a co-founder of Ranky Tanky, a Grammy-winning group inspired by the Gullah musical culture of the Carolina coast.

You might know pianist, bandleader, composer and podcaster Chad Lawson for his interpretations of Chopin and Bach, or his jazzy reimagining of the Wizard of Oz, or his years leading The Chad Lawson trio. Maybe you've heard his compositions for the podcasts "Lore" and "Unobscured," or his solo piano albums.

Is there such a thing as “Nordic Americana?” Host John Floridis has discovered at least one example: the songwriting team of Danish singer, Mette Kirkegaard and legendary Montana songwriter, Kostas Lazarides. Their collaboration forms the backbone of Kirkegaard's most recent recording, “Simple Matters.”