Caropop

Called "the Wizard of Vinyl" by the New York Times, Chad Kassem has devoted his professional life to the cause of great-sounding records. In addition to running Acoustic Sounds, a go-to mail-order company for audiophile albums and equipment, the outspoken Kassem oversees the specialty label Analogue Productions, the Mastering Lab, Quality Record Pressings (QRP) and other related businesses, all based in Salina, Kansas. In this freewheeling conversation, Kassem discusses how Analogue Productions has been able to obtain and execute such projects as the Atlantic 75 Series and Steely Dan UHQR releases. He previews upcoming releases from Jethro Tull, Robert Flack and Bob Marley and the Wailers. And he gets into the joys of early recordings, the evils of compression, the market manipulations of record labels, his take on the One Step controversy and the reason a CD has never made him cry.

With mid-‘60s hits such as “Jenny Take a Ride!” and “Devil with a Blue Dress On,” Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels all but created the rock ‘n’ soul rave-up, and he became the musical godfather of the so-called blue-collar rockers including Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp. In this career-spanning conversation conducted from his Michigan home, the 80-year-old Ryder reflects on the impact that he and Detroit had on each other, the genesis of those early hits, the assist he gave the Who and Cream, the insulting question he fielded from the British press, his reasons for stepping away from the rock ‘n’ roll life in the early '70s, his resurgence in Europe and his continued work into 2025 with a new album, With Love, produced by fellow Detroiter (and previous Caropop guest) Don Was. There’s also a priceless Prince story. (Photo by Alejandro Saldana.)

How does a label execute ambitious rerelease campaigns for its key artists, in this case Yes and Talking Heads? We talk with Rhino A&R directors Jason Jones and Steve Woolard about the Super Deluxe Editions, Record Store Day releases and other archival packages they have been assembling for these two bands. Woolard also oversaw Yes rereleases more than 20 years ago—how have the band’s audience and their expectations changed since then? Why does the Yes Close to the Edge box mix CDs, a Blu-ray and an LP while the Talking Heads: 77 box is all vinyl? Where are Jones and Woolard finding the treasure trove of live recordings from both bands? Which band members do they work with? Are Tales from Topographic Oceans and More Songs About Buildings and Food the next to get the Super Deluxe treatment, with the later albums to follow?

As this episode kicks off, Kevin Godley and his longtime songwriting and creative partner, Lol Creme, have just left 10cc, so instead of being part of hits such as “The Things We Do for Love,” the duo continues pushing their artistic boundaries as Godley & Creme. Godley describes how he and Creme collaborated on music and, eventually, videos—for themselves and, among others, Herbie Hancock (“Rockit”), the Police (“Every Breath You Take”) and George Harrison (“When We Was Fab”). He recounts work on the groundbreaking video for Godley & Creme’s biggest hit, 1985’s “Cry,” which uses a pre-CGI version of morphing to merge one face into another, as Michael Jackson would do with more technology years later. Godley also tells of the end of his partnership with Creme, the current state of relationships among the four original 10cc members and where his creative drive is taking him next.

“If we did something that was too drab, too normal, too obvious, we'd say, ‘Nah, let's give it a kick in the ass.’” That’s how Kevin Godley describes the approach of his former band, 10cc, and his drive for creativity and art has not abated. Godley was 10cc’s angelic-voiced drummer who would go on to make inventive music and groundbreaking videos with Godley & Creme. In Pt. 1 of this illuminating conversation, Godley explains how Lol Creme, Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart and he—all strong songwriters and singers—formed 10cc near Manchester, England, and figured out who would do what. They stretched out on such Godley-Creme songs as “Somewhere in Hollywood” and "Une Nuit a Paris" (which perhaps inspired Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”), but the popularity of “I’m Not in Love” had unintended consequences. What was it about the new song that Stewart and Gouldman played for Godley and Creme that blew apart the songwriting teams for good?

Omnivore Recordings co-founder and four-time Gramny-winning producer Cheryl Pawelski has figured out how to do what she loves for a living. She went from obsessing about music in Milwaukee to having great adventures in the "floater pool" at Capitol Records in Los Angeles. With stints at Rhino and Concord as well, she oversaw ambitious reissues by, among others, the Band, Big Star, the Smithereens, the Beach Boys, Pat Benatar, Nina Simone and the Miles Davis Quintet. Her long association with Wilco has included deluxe boxes for Summerteeth, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (which won a Grammy) and, earlier this year, A Ghost Is Born. She won another Grammy for the 2023 7-CD set Written In Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos. She recounts it all with the passion of a fan, even as she deals with the challenges of running a record label and the recent loss of her Altadena home in the Southern California wildfires. (Photo by Greg Allen.)

Rhino Records has 47—yes, 47—releases coming out on Record Store Day (April 12), but that’s not all that’s been keeping Rhino Senior A&R Director Patrick Milligan busy. The Rhino High Fidelity series, which he oversees, has taken off, with recent Doors and Black Sabbath releases selling out quickly. He also launched the less expensive, still-all-analog Rhino Reserve series with albums from Allen Toussaint and Eddie Hazel. How does the label choose the titles for each series? How did it come up with 47 RSD releases, including live sets from Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Talking Heads, Yes and the Grateful Dead? Why on earth is one of these releases a 12-inch picture-disc single of “We Built This City”? Is it better to press too many of an album or too few? Is the vinyl market still on the rise, or has it plateaued? Milligan bats around these questions and more.

Over the past year, Peter Holsapple has toured with the reunited dB’s and enjoyed the overdue U.S. vinyl releases of their classic first two albums; seen the release of a book, compilation album and tribute album dedicated to his other band, the Continental Drifters; and, most important, recorded a terrific new solo album. The Face of 68 offers an abundance of Holsapple’s smart, melodic pop-rock songwriting with some extra grit behind it. In this freewheeling conversation, he discusses looking back, pushing forward, adjusting expectations, having music in your head all the time, and maybe or maybe not being the kind of record-obsessive guy he sings about. Talking with Holsapple is like getting together with an old friend with whom you share many musical passions, and he offers up obscure yet mind-blowing rock trivia tidbits as well as deep insights into his own songwriting and hilarious tales. (Photo by Bill Reaves)

Joe Harley oversees some of the best jazz vinyl rereleases around as producer of Blue Note’s acclaimed Tone Poet series. Harley picks the titles, and, as he did with the much-coveted Music Matters series, he preps each release with ace mastering engineer (and recurring Caropop guest) Kevin Gray. Here Harley reflects on how he went from growing up (and playing drums) in Nebraska to preparing audiophile versions of albums he loves. What criteria does he use in choosing the Tone Poet albums? How do he and Gray work together? Has the mastering process changed given that more listeners own high-end audio systems now? How do Harley and Gray evoke such three-dimensional soundstages? How did he get the nickname the Tone Poet? And does he still get excited the first time he hears an original master tape of one of these classic recordings?

Producer Joe Boyd (Pink Floyd, Fairport Convention/Richard Thompson, R.E.M.) has written a massive, highly entertaining, illuminating book about world music called And the Roots of Rhythm Remain, the title a lyric from Paul Simon’s Graceland song “Under African Skies.” That album is a jumping-off point for Boyd’s explorations of music from around the globe, with stops in Jamaica, Cuba, Brazil, India, Russia and Eastern Europe as well as the southern U.S. Here Boyd tackles such questions as: How important is cultural cross-pollination to music’s growth? Where’s the line between proper and improper cultural appropriation? What roles have oppression and religion played in great music? Boyd, who was stage manager at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival as Bob Dylan went electric, also weighs in on A Complete Unknown: what was true, what was false and what may have been false but felt true. And he has a few words about R.E.M.