Today’s Podcast Recommendation is Songwriter (Stories and Answer Songs) by Ben Arthur.
I featured Ben this past week as a musician but he’s also a podcaster…and author, but that’s another story (see what I did there?).
I downloaded a few episodes over the last few months and listened to them, but I think I listened distractedly because I didn’t get out of it what I did this time around. I really spent some time with it yesterday using headphones (important) and really paying attention. The concept is that he matches up an author with a singer-songwriter. So, the author reads a piece of their work and then the musician performs a song they wrote based on that story.
I listened to the Joyce Carol Oates episodes and her stories are heartbreaking! I’ve never read anything by her and now I am so intrigued.
One episode also features musicians Jennifer Marks who is a friend of Collected Sounds from back in the day. It was great to hear her again. I also never knew I actually liked banjo music until I heard Tony Trishka. Wow. All three of the above are on Episode 11.
Some of my other favorite episodes:
Ethan Lipton and Sara Jaffee (6)
Ben Sollee and James Lindsey (12)