We're celebrating our 10th anniversary all year by digging in the vaults to re-present classic episodes with fresh commentary. Today, we're revisiting our 2021 conversation with Ani DiFranco.

ABOUT ANI DIFRANCO
Singer, songwriter, musician, producer, poet, author, spoken-word artist, activist and entrepreneur Ani DiFranco has released more than 20 independent studio albums on her own label, Righteous Babe Records. Though often classified as “alternative folk,” DiFranco’s musical influences span a range of genres. After relentless touring, she reached a wide commercial audience in the late 1990s and early 2000s with albums such as Little Plastic Castle, Up Up Up Up Up Up, Revelling/Reckoning, Evolve, Educated Guess, and the gold-certified live album Living in Clip. The Grammy winner and nine-time nominee achieved her sole Top 40 hit as a songwriter when Alana Davis covered the DiFranco classic “32 Flavors” in 1997.

The prolific and critically-acclaimed performer developed her own uniquely percussive guitar style and has collaborated with a range of artists, including Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, Bruce Cockburn, Pete Seeger, Utah Phillips, Maceo Parker, and Prince. In addition to releasing her own music, her label has issued recordings by Sara Lee, Andrew Bird, Nona Hendryx, and others.

Ani was one of the first musicians to receive the Woman of Courage Award from the National Organization for Women, and was honored with both the Woody Guthrie Award and the Southern Center For Human Rights’ Human Rights Award. Her memoir, No Walls and the Recurring Dream, was released in 2019 by Viking Books. At the time we spoke with her, the New Orleans-based DiFranco’s 2021 album, Revolutionary Love, was just about to be released.

Lumineers front man and two-time Grammy nominee Wesley Schultz goes deep on his passion for songwriting.

PART ONE:
Paul and Scott tell the harrowing tale of the Wesley Schultz interview that almost didn't happen. Plus, do you have a question for Patty Griffin, Dave Mason, or Mary Chapin Carpenter? Share it with us and you just might hear your name on an upcoming episode!

PART TWO:
Our in-depth conversation with Wesley Schultz.

ABOUT WESLEY SCHULTZ
Wesley Schultz is best known as the co-founder, lead singer, and guitarist for The Lumineers. Founded in 2005, their blend of alternative rock, Americana, and electrifying live performances has earned them a dedicated following. Over the course of five studio albums, the band has achieved 24 #1 hits across multiple radio formats, earned over 6 billion streams, sold more than 1.5 million albums in the US, and built a Spotify following of 22 million monthly listeners.

Their accolades include two GRAMMY® nominations, five Billboard Music Awards nods, an American Music Award nomination, and an iHeartRadio MMVA win for their #1 hit “Stubborn Love.” Aside from all that, Wesley Schultz is, fundamentally, a songwriter. The Lumineers’ most recent album is called Automatic.

We're celebrating our 10th anniversary all year by digging in the vaults to re-present classic episodes with fresh commentary. Today, we're revisiting our 2017 conversation with Jimmy Webb.

ABOUT JIMMY WEBB

Jimmy Webb emerged as a superstar songwriter and arranger in 1967 when two of his songs – The 5th Dimension’s “Up, Up and Away” and Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” - were among the five nominees for the Grammy’s Song of the Year award. He went on to write a string of major hits for Campbell, including “Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston,” "Where’s the Playground Susie,” “Honey Come Back,” and many others. Additionally, he penned “MacArthur Park,” which was a hit for a diverse range of artists, including Richard Harris, Waylon Jennings, Tony Bennett, Andy Williams, and Donna Summer; “The Worst That Could Happen,” which was a Top 5 hit for The Brooklyn Bridge; “Didn’t We,” which was recorded by Thelma Houston, Frank Sinatra, Diana Ross, and Barbra Streisand; “All I Know,” which became a Top 10 hit for Art Garfunkel; “The Moon’s a Harsh Mistress,” which has been recorded by Joe Cocker, Judy Collins, Linda Ronstadt, and Josh Groban; and “If These Walls Could Speak,” which was recorded by Glen Campbell, Amy Grant, Nanci Griffith, and Shawn Colvin.

Others who’ve covered material from the Jimmy Webb songbook include Diana Ross, Dusty Springfield, Nina Simone, The Four Tops, Roberta Flack, The Temptations, The Association, Tom Jones, Dionne Warwick, Cass Elliot, Harry Nilsson, Nancy Wilson, Cher, Bob Dylan, The Everly Brothers, Nick Cave, John Denver, Kenny Rogers, Sheena Easton, David Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Michael Feinstein, R.E.M., Aimee Mann, America, Aretha Franklin, Isaac Hayes, Peggy Lee, Bette Midler, James Taylor, Carrie Underwood, Dwight Yoakam, and The Highwaymen (consisting of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson), who took Jimmy’s song “Highwayman” to #1, earning him a Grammy for Country Song of the Year.

As an artist, he has released more than a dozen albums. One of the most celebrated songwriters on the planet, Jimmy is the only individual to win Grammy awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Great American Songbook Hall of Fame. Additionally, he has received ASCAP’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the Influential Songwriter Award from the National Music Publishers Association, and the Academy of Country Music’s prestigious Poets Award. In 2015 he was named among Rolling Stone magazine’s 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. Jimmy’s memoir, The Cake and the Rain, details his formative years and early career through 1973. It’s available now from St. Martin’s Press.