Caropop

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.

No one mixes fury and vulnerability, ferocious energy and pop smarts like Bob Mould. His 15th solo album, Here We Go Crazy, comes out March 7, and he remains at the peak of his powers. Here he reflects on his tremendous, sometimes turbulent career, starting with his attending Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., meeting Grant Hart at Cheapo Records and launching the trailblazing punk trio Hüsker Dü. Why have the Twin Cities punched above their weight musically? Given his triumphs with Hüsker Dü, Sugar and the lineup on his most recent six albums, what does he like about playing in trios? How did “bright melody, dark story” become such a potent combination? How does he enjoy performing solo vs. with a band? Did he always envision Here We Go Crazy as a three-act song cycle? And what’s his strategy to address what’s happening in the world now?

Mike Mills of R.E.M. and the Baseball Project and a new supergroup with Darius Rucker is here, and we’ve got questions: How did R.E.M. come to share all songwriting credits, and why did Mills initially object? What impact did the albums’ producers have? Given the bandmates’ senses of humor, why wouldn’t R.E.M. smile in photographs? Had R.E.M. decided to call it quits before it made Collapse into Now? What songs did Michael Stipe transform in surprising ways when he added lyrics and vocals? Did Stipe complete every song handed to him by Mills, Peter Buck and/or Bill Berry, and if not, would they consider going back to any of them? Have the Michael Shannon/Jason Narducy R.E.M.-celebrating live shows given Mills new perspective on any of those songs or made him want to play them again with his old bandmates? Why hasn’t Mills been driven to make a solo album? And what happened when Mills joined Bruce Springsteen on stage? (Photo by Cass Bird.)

Part 2 of our conversation with guitarist-songwriter-singer-storyteller Dave Alvin begins with him discussing musical biopics and the one that put him off the genre for good. (Hint: He was in it.) Has he seen A Complete Unknown? How did he wind up actually recording with Bob Dylan? Will any of these recordings ever come out? Alvin also revisits his early songwriting efforts, including the first song he ever wrote and “Marie Marie,” which he wrote for the Blasters and became an international hit for Welsh rocker Shakin’ Stevens. More recently, Alvin had to overcome neuropathy from his chemotherapy treatments to resume playing guitar. How much of his focus now is on being a musician, as opposed to writing songs? What’s next? And what was it like when he left the Blasters and realized that not all bands fight? (Photo by Leslie Campbell.)

Dave Alvin has had such an epic career that we’re going to need two episodes to fit it all in. Much of Part 1 spotlights Alvin’s values as a musician. As he tells it, the Blasters, the revved-up L.A. roots-rock band for which he was the main songwriter/guitarist, had lots of rules. The Third Mind, his current psychedelic improvisatory band, has few. Why does the latter appeal to him now? How did seeing Jimi Hendrix twice inspire him? What were his stints in the Knitters and X like? When Alvin emerged on the other side of cancer treatments, why was restarting the Third Mind his top priority? How is what they’re doing the opposite of “choreographed modern music”? At a time when, Alvin says, “most pop music is a Broadway show,” why is it important to be a little out of control? (Photo by Steven Dewall.)

Do you know the tragic story of Badfinger? Behind such life-affirming songs as “No Matter What,” “Day After Day” and “Baby Blue” and the much-covered power ballad “Without You” lay a dark tale in which Badfinger’s manager defrauded the band and left them destitute. Bob Jackson played keyboards and guitar in the last Badfinger lineup that featured Pete Ham, the honey-voiced singer-songwriter behind most of those hits. This lineup recorded the album Head First in late 1974, but Warner Bros. refused to release it amid the manager’s financial misconduct. Ham took his own life months later. Bassist-singer-songwriter Tom Evans would take his own life in 1983. A rough mix of Head First finally came out in 2000, but Jackson, the last surviving member of the lineup that recorded it, marked its 50th anniversary by locating the original multi-tracks and releasing what he considers the definitive version. Jackson recounts his fraught yet creatively productive time with Badfinger, his chilling final visit with Ham, and how bringing the music of Head First to the world became his raison d'etre.

Nora O’Connor is a super collaborator, someone who loves singing harmonies and makes everyone sound good. She’s a member of the Chicago all-star group the Flat Five and a formidable singer-songwriter in her own right, as her 2022 solo album, My Heart, her first in 18 years, reminded us. Here she reflects on her life as “a music worker,” including what she’s learned from performing with such artists as the Decemberists, Iron & Wine, Mavis Staples, Andrew Bird, the New Pornographers and Neko Case. How has she has balanced her career and family life—and would a male performer have faced similar challenges? What ambitions does she have for herself and the Flat Five? What's the secret behind the alchemy she creates with frequent collaborator/Flat Five bandmate Kelly Hogan? And what role has the Chicago club the Hideout played in her musical life?