The World Cafe

Singer-songwriter Caroline Rose grew up in Vermont the daughter of two artists, so it was never a far stretch to imagine she would become a performer herself. What is a little surprising is the grit in this young woman's performance. Turns out her mother is from the South, and there were many trips and exposures to Southern culture along the way. She started writing songs in her early teens hasn't stopped since, and most of her debut full-length, America Religious, was conceived on the road. It's a tough-sounding record from an artist to watch.

Not long after the New Albany, Indiana band formed in November, 2011, they found themselves sharing the stage with the likes of The Drive-By Truckers and The Lumineers.

Citizen Cope, aka Clarence Greenwood will perform an intimate solo acoustic performance at The Newport Music Hall on Sunday, September 15th!  Doors open at 7PM.

On her latest album, The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, singer Neko Case lays her heart — and her healthy sense of humor — bare. It's a deeply personal record that, among other things, offers intimate, sometimes wry meditations on the recent loss of both of her parents and a grandmother. NPR Music's Stephen Thompson and I spoke with Neko Case about the music, and shared questions from listeners, in this interview that we originally webcast live on Aug. 29.

The story of Sylvester Stewart — we call him Sly Stone — is that of a great urban engineer who launched out of the Bay Area in 1967 with a series of bridge-making hits: fusing rock to rhythm and blues, bringing jazz and funk into the mainstream with a band that was black and white, male and female. The story takes a weird corner and ends (or at least peaks) with some chattery scary masterpieces, isolated midnight moanings, fear and dread as universal in the '70s as love had been a few years before.

If Bob Dylan's long career as a genius of the American spirit has taught us anything, it's that one fan's trash is another one's treasure. "I never looked at songs as 'good' or 'bad,' only different kinds of good ones," he once said. Dylan's music, from the magpie folk of his early years to the historically conscious balladry of his current albums, has always reminded us that our legacy includes not just ennobling beauty, but also minstrelsy, dirty blues, sentimental sappiness and rama-lama-ding-dong.

It's human nature to romanticize a specific time and place in the past — a moment when everything felt just right, or opportunities were laid out like a banquet. For Okkervil River's Will Sheff, it's been impossible to let go of Meriden, N.H., circa 1986: That tiny town is where he spent his childhood (he turned 10 that summer) and where his parents taught at an area boarding school.

We recorded this interview with blues guitarist and singer Buddy Guy the day after he turned 77 — and he turned up early for our 9 a.m. start.

In this edition of Latin Roots, we look at the music of Colombia's Caribbean coast. Our guest, Beat Latino host Catalina Maria Johnson, selected some older music from Petrona Martinez and her family, as well as a more modern example from Lido Pimienta, who is part of the large Colombian population based in Toronto. Pimienta uses traditional elements in her music, yet records on her laptop.

The wonderful half-garage, half-glam band Smith Westerns recently released its third album, Soft Will. In this installment of World Cafe, the group's members tell us that a lot of the record was written as a reaction to returning home to Chicago after touring for five years during their late teens and twenties. And, of course, they perform some of their songs live in the studio.

Chicago's Smith Westerns are David Dye's guests tonight on World Cafe.

Sarah Lee Guthrie is the granddaughter of Woody Guthrie, while Johnny Irion is the grand-nephew of author John Steinbeck. Since marrying in 1999, Guthrie and Irion have released five albums together, including this year's Wassaic Way.

The duo recorded its latest LP with help from Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Pat Sansone in the band's loft. In this edition of World Cafe, Guthrie and Irion perform songs from Wassaic Way and chat with host David Dye about Wilco's many connections to the Guthrie family.

Husband and wife folk duo Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion return with their fifth collaboration Wassaic Way.

When Venezuelan producer Andres Ponce met Honduran singer Sofy Encanto in Miami, musical sparks flew. What began as a recording project became a full-fledged band that draws from a range of influences, including tropical, funk, electronic and hip-hop.

Real, the group's first album, has it all, with songs in both English and Spanish. After playing around Miami for a couple of years, Elastic Bond signed with the influential Nacional label, which put out the band's debut earlier this summer.

Urban, tropical, funky and electronic. Elastic Bond's approach is best described as tropical soul.

This week's World Cafe: Next artist is the Kansas band Moreland & Arbuckle, whose members play blues-drenched roots-rock. On their fifth album, 7 Cities, they've adopted the loose theme of the explorer Coronado's search for the seven cities of gold — which, not so coincidentally, took the conquistador right into their home territory.

Singer-Songwriter Willy Mason will be joining us Live From Studio A during The Global Village. 

Heartbreak has long resided at the center of Tracyanne Campbell's songs for Camera Obscura. Remember, she's the one who wrote a song responding to Lloyd Cole's "Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken?" — naturally, it's titled "Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken."

Mikal Cronin's second solo album, MCII, contains more of his delightful, frequently dazzling, guitar-drenched pop-rock. Originally from Southern California, Cronin wrote his first record in response to making the post-college move to San Francisco. The new album is more about what happened when he got there and started playing in Ty Segall's band.

On this episode of World Cafe, Cronin sits down to chat with host David Dye and play a few songs with his band live in the studio.

American musician and songwriter Mikal Cronin delivers what he calls "aggressive pop" on MC II, his second solo record.