Tell You What! the Podcast tell you what studios

Abe Partridge is a talented songwriter/musician, visual artist, podcast star, former preacher, Air Force veteran, and so on. Hear Abe tell his own long and winding story; it is a fascinating tale told with honesty, incredible insight, and good humor. This conversation was one of my favorites of all time. Check out all things Abe at abepartridge.com including his latest record, Love in the Dark, and the excellent podcast Alabama Astronaut.

Willy Tea Taylor is a gifted songwriter: a storyteller, a truth teller. His recent record, The Great Western Hangover, features an all-star cast of musicians who bring rock and roll energy to Willy’s superbly crafted songs.

Willy sat down with us at Tell You What! Studios for a wide ranging, highly entertaining, and insightful conversation. We hear about Willy’s early years writing poetry and fronting high school rock bands, then learning mandolin and banjo on a winding and adventurous path that eventually led Willy to his instrument of destiny: the four-string tenor guitar.

Willy discusses how important connecting with people is to him, how music done right can be physically healing, and the unorthodox ways he comes up with his songs.

Also covered: heroic doses of LSD, dashboard percussion, barstool wisdom, taxidermy.

Gabe Lee, Nashville born and raised, joins us to talk about his latest record, the excellent Drink the River. His fourth album, Gabe chose a more stripped down sound, and assembled a killer set of musicians to create beautiful soundscapes for the story songs he wrote. We discuss Gabe's training as a classical pianist and his resulting love affair with melody, and how he thinks about perspective in his writing. Also covered: avoiding an Ed Hardy future, and learning the Smoke on the Water riff.

Also: new podcast theme song! Composed and arranged by Shane McLaughlin of Buffalo Rose. Reach out to Shane for more at shanemclaughlinmusic.com

Siri Undlin is the musician who records and performs as Humbird. I sat down with Siri (and a mysterious cat) at the most excellent Mile of Music festival in Appleton Wisconsin. We take a trip through Humbird’s varied song catalog as a way of learning about Siri’s creative journey, which included time spent on a post-grad fellowship studying folklore in northern Europe. Siri tells us about the place of story in her songwriting and her other creative pursuits, working with bad ideas, and how an excruciating decision in the recording studio led to Humbird’s first breakout hit song. Also covered: ice hockey leads to Irish trad music, and how it sucks to pretend.

Jobi Riccio is a Nashville based musician and songwriter. Jobi was born and raised in the mountains of Colorado before heading to Boston and The Berklee College of Music; eventually finding her way to her current musical home of Nashville. Jobi has just released her debut album, Whiplash, on Yep Roc Records. We discuss the origin stories of some of these excellent songs, as well as the winding road story of the album's creation itself. Also covered: Jobi’s adventure at Newport Folk Festival, water glass sounds, and our mutual admiration for Jonathan Richman.

Chris Pierce is an L.A. based musician, singer, and songwriter. He has released a number of solo records, is a part of the duo War and Pierce with Sunny War, the trio Leon Creek, writes songs for television and movies, teaches songwriting and the business of music. I got tired just typing that and I missed a number of his projects. Chris’ latest record, “Let All Who Will” will be released in September; he joins us to talk about his songwriting, his lifelong passion for music, and his thoughts around a few of his excellent and powerful songs.