Soundcheck

Jake Bugg holds the distinction of the being the youngest male artist in U.K. chart history to land a debut album at the No. 1 spot. He's a bit older now (like, by a year) but the swagger and the keen eye that gave his first album such power is still very much intact. From growing up on a housing estate in Nottingham, England, to sharing the stage with The Stone Roses, Oasis' Noel Gallagher, and The Rolling Stones, it's hard to imagine that there's anything left to conquer. Not for lack of trying, of course. Bugg's second record, Shangri La, is named after producer Rick Rubin's studio in Malibu where the songs were recorded, and it features another batch of cheeky, observant songs steeped folk, rockabilly, and even skiffle.  Hear Jake Bugg play a solo acoustic set of some of his latest tunes in the Soundcheck studio.   Set List: "Slumville Sunrise" "Me & You" "Song About Love"

If we had our druthers, Soundcheck would present outstanding music programming 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Unfortunately, John Schaefer refuses to stay in his cage. However, there are several public radio stations dedicated to great music all of the time. One our favorites is Minnesota Public Radio’s The Current, which showcases some of the best music not heard on commercial radio. Mark Wheat, one of the hosts at The Current, runs down a few of his favorite new songs in this Pick Three.  Mark Wheat's Pick Three:   Bill Callahan, "The Sing" from Dream River (2013)     St. Vincent, "Birth in Reverse" from St. Vincent (out Feb. 24)     Courtney Barnett, "Avant Gardener" from The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas (2013)  

New Orleans' Hurray For The Riff Raff is the band of Alynda Lee Segarra -- a singer-songwriter with a powerful voice that channels the raw bluesy side of country and folk music. Segurra is originally from the Bronx, but after leaving home at 17 and traveling the country aboard freight trains, she eventually settled on New Orleans. It was there she became entrenched in the vibrant music scene, first playing washboard in a group called Dead Man’s Street Orchestra, and later forming Hurray For The Riff Raff as a vehicle for her lean and explosive punk-infused folk songs.  Following its fantastic 2012 album Look Out Mama, Hurray For The Riff Raff put out a Kickstarter-funded recording of covers and originals, My Dearest Darkest Neighbor, and toured heavily, including a performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 2013. The band is now poised to release another album in February, called Small Town Heroes.  Watch a stripped-down version of Hurray For The Riff Raff -- featuring Segarra and Yosi Perlstein on fiddle -- as they preview new songs from the band's forthcoming record in the Soundhcheck studio.     For more photos, visit Soundcheck's Tumblr page. Set List: "Blue Ridge Mountain" "Small Town Heroes" "The Body Electric"

Before the world convenes next month in Sochi, Russia for the 2014 Winter Olympics, now's as good a time as any take a listen to what’s happening in Russia musically -- from cheesy romantic hits to hardcore punk protest songs to an aging pop star’s anthem for the national hockey team.  In a conversation with Soundcheck host John Schaefer, UCLA professor David MacFadyen -- editor of the music site Far From Moscow -- offers up a survey of the contemporary Russian music scene.  Watch a video for “Shaybu Shaybu” by Russian pop diva Irina Allegrova. The song is a rallying cry for Russia’s national hockey team in advance of the upcoming winter Olympics in Sochi. Its music video features some of Russia’s most famous hockey players.   On Sochi's music scene:  It's the most famous holiday resort in Russia... it's only about 300,000 people. So the one music scene it does have is really seasonal. A lot of the big stars from Moscow, when people take their vacation and head south, then the music follows. When it comes to the younger generations, it's pretty much online.  On Ishome, the young DJ who's based in Sochi:  She represents on what is going on in that part of the world... she's a very good representative of what's going on in terms of web-based music.... In terms of the way that the web helps young Russian musicians get around the problems of geography, she's a really good example.    On protest music in Putin's Russia:  If we're talking about protest music, everything is dictated by where it happens. If you're operating online, pretty much anything goes. The government has long been of the opinion that no one's really going to pay much attention. If we're talking about degrees of censorship, they're relatively low online.... If you move into newspapers, the restrictions are greater. And then if you move onto TV, then it's a totally different universe.    On the Russian pop charts: After the end of the Soviet Union through the '90s, there was obviously this knee-jerk rush toward everything Western. But gradually domestic material started to play catch up, and if you look at the artists who make the most money touring now, or if you look at Russia's iTunes... the most popular genre is something called "chanson." It's a very slow, melancholy, middle-aged type of song that involves a lot of themes such as tricky marriage, prison terms, and other reasons to be generally sort of sad and grumpy.    On Russian pop star Dima Bilan:  His great claim to fame is that he won the Eurovision Song Contest... it's traditionally a competition in which all the countries of Europe and surrounding nations take part. Each country sends one singer, and they all get one shot to present one song. It produced ABBA, most famously. But since then, it's pretty hard to think of another winner of the Eurovision song contest winner who made a lifelong international career out of it. Bilan is probably the best known young male pop singer in Russia, and at the moment he's probably best known because he just finished a season of The Voice -- it was syndicated around the world, and Bilan was one of the four judges. 

Matana Roberts grew up in Chicago hearing stories about her family, from its roots in Louisiana and Mississippi, to the Great Migration north early in the 20th century. These stories and her love of history have become the basis for her recent works, the ambitious COIN COIN project. With 2011's COIN CON Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres, the jazz saxophonist and composer delved into history of "free people of color" in the early United States and her own family's long and widespread American tale. It was a free-flowing 12-part cycle that paired Roberts' jazz background with Chicago experimentation, traditional spirituals, and post rock.  With her eagerly anticipated follow-up, COIN COIN Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile, Roberts continues to explore those themes, but for this iteration, Roberts composed music specifically for her sextet. The album was recorded in late 2012, following several years of road-testing the piece with the same lineup: Shoko Nagai (piano), Jason Palmer (trumpet), Thomson Kneeland (bass), Tomas Fujiwara (drums), and operatic tenor, Jeremiah Abiah. While Chapter One was comprised of individual pieces, Roberts considers Chapter Two an uninterrupted album-length work where each structured section sprawls into the next through inspired fluid improvisation in the vein of John Coltrane and Albert Ayler. It's a decidedly potent and substantive work from an always surprising artist. Accompanied by a slightly smaller quartet (Nagai, Fujiwara, and Abiah), hear Roberts perform selections from the record in the Soundcheck studio.   This segment originally aired on Oct. 4, 2013. Set List: "Invocation" "Amma Jerusalem School" "Benediction"

Duke Ellington was a towering figure in American music, but even those closest to him said he was a hard man to know. In his new critically-acclaimed biography Duke: A Life Of Duke Ellington, cultural critic and writer Terry Teachout says that Ellington was brilliant but undisciplined, prolific but prone to taking credit for the work of his sidemen. "Duke Ellington's a genius, the key composer in the history of jazz," explains Teachout. "And the greatest tribute you can pay to a great man is to tell the truth about him -- the wonderful things, the terrible things  -- is to be completely honest." This segment originally aired on Oct. 18, 2013.

While Amy Tan is best known for her literary achievements with books The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife, the acclaimed author actually has some ties to music as well: she's written an opera libretto and performs as "lead rhythm dominatrix" in the literary garage band The Rock Bottom Remainders. In an interview with Soundcheck host John Schaefer, Tan talks about her latest book, The Valley Of Amazement, and about the obsession that started her on her journey writing about the world of Shanghai courtesans in the early 1900's. Entertainment was part of the art of a courtesan, explains Tan. "I imagine that a courtesan should have known about ten songs really well and performed them dramatically," she says, "but my character, of course, she's going to become more popular so she knows songs of the season and tragic songs, songs of love." Plus, she shares three of her favorite songs to listen to when writing. This segment originally aired on Nov. 13, 2013. Amy Tan's Pick Three "Wong Chia Chi's Theme," from Lust, Caution soundtrack Rachmaninov Piano Concerto 3, performed by Yefim Bronfman and The Philharmonia "These Boots Were Made for Walkin'," performed by Nancy Sinatra

When it comes to portable digital audio, we're in a pretty good place -- we have phones that can play music, as well as iPods and tablets. But when it comes to home audio systems that play digital audio, things seem to have come to a bit of a standstill. Yes, there are individual wired docks that play music, and high-end solutions like wireless speaker systems from Sonos are available. But there aren't many mid-market options that can wirelessly stream audio from devices and play that audio throughout our homes. Until now. At least, that's according to Evolver.fm editor Eliot Van Buskirk, who has proclaimed that 2014 could be the year that the home audio war "gets real." We'll ask him what he means and who's going to be jumping into the fray. 

Phil and Don Everly rode the top of the charts for much of the late 1950's and early ‘60s. With Phil’s passing Jan. 3 at age 74, the music world paused to reflect on the duo’s look, their notorious breakup and later reunion, and of course their sound. On songs like “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” “Cathy’s Clown” and “Let It Be Me,” the Everly Brothers could be moving, eerie and subtle. So subtle, in fact that it can be easy to underestimate the impact the siblings had on multiple generations of rock, folk and pop musicians. Their influence is particularly powerful because many of their young fans would later become influential in their own right, says Craig Havighurst, co-host and blogger for the syndicated Americana radio program and webcast Music City Roots. Those (once) young fans included The Beatles, The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, and Simon & Garfunkel. The Everlys “sort of codified a kind of singing that would stand for intimacy and really reach people with its purity and its phrasing,” says Havighurst.   We asked Havighurst to name five favorite artists whose music bears the stamp of The Everly Brothers. Here’s what he picked:    Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, "Love Hurts" from Grievous Angel (1974)   Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, "I Want To Sing That Rock & Roll" from Time (The Revelator) (2001)   The Gibson Brothers, "I'm Dying For Someone To Live For" from They Call It Music (2013)   Norah Jones and Billie Joe Armstrong, "Kentucky" from Foreverly (2013)     The Milk Carton Kids, "Snake Eyes" from The Ash & Clay (2013)      

Mutual Benefit is the stage name of songwriter Jordan Lee and a rotating group of collaborators. Lee is an Ohio native, who has spent time in Austin, Boston, and now Brooklyn, and the light touch at the heart of Mutual Benefit derives from Lee's restless travels across the country. Lee spent several years releasing compositions via cassette, refining his sound away from the limelight, until his most recent effort garnered such enthusiastic attention that it was ushered to a full release.  Hear Mutual Benefit play songs from the resulting 2013 record, Love's Crushing Diamond.    For more photos, visit Soundcheck's Tumblr page. Set List: "Advanced Falconry" "Auburn Epitaphs" "Strong Swimmer"

If you look back on 2013, not a single black artist scored a No. 1 single. Not J. Cole, Jay Z, Beyonce, or even Kanye West. 2013 marked the first-ever year since Billboard began charting Top 40 songs in 1958 that zero black artists made their way to the top of the singles chart. The top spot on the Hot 100 -- today's version of the singles chart -- was dominated by white acts throughout the past year. Perhaps even more intriguing is the fact that white artists even sat atop the R&B and Hip-Hop Songs chart for 44 out of 52 weeks of 2013. Compare this to ten years ago, when every No. 1 Hot 100 single was performed by an artist of color.  And in a final interesting twist, there are no living black artists being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 -- although Clarence Clemons will be inducted posthumously as part of the E Street Band. That's only happened once before in Rock Hall history.  To try and understand how and why 2013 was so unprecedented, Soundcheck host John Schaefer talks to pop chart analyst and writer Chris Molanphy, as well as author and commentator for The Daily Beast and The Root, Keli Goff.  Read Chris Molanphy's piece for Slate discussing black artists, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Hot 100 in 2013. Interview Highlights Chris Molanphy, on technical changes to the charts that partially account for crowding out of black artists: What's happened is, whether it's radio, whether it's iTunes -- there's now a lot of data feeding into the Hot 100.... The charts of ten years ago when Outkast was No. 1 -- iTunes was not a factor in the charts yet because it was brand new. There was no YouTube -- it literally didn't exist -- and so this great feedback loop we used to have where we had crossover from the R&B charts to the pop charts has kind of gotten swamped.  Keli Goff, on marketing white acts and black acts: It almost reminds me of the '50s and '60s when you had a lot of music that was being made by white artists and being popularized by them but it was coming from black artists. It's much easier to sell a Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, an Eminem, a Justin Timberlake, to mainstream audiences than it is to sell a Jay Z. It is still a preferred feeling in mainstream pop culture that if we can find an attractive white act to do it, why not?   Macklemore & Ryan Lewis held down the top spot on the Hot 100 for six weeks and on the Hip-Hop/R&B Songs chart for 14 weeks in 2013:   Goff, on representation in music: You know what, if someone's talking about how downtrodden they are and that's what they're rapping about, I'd like to not know that the person is actually a white guy that went to a prep school. Molanphy on Nile Rodgers of Chic being "the Susan Lucci of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominations" with eight nominations and still no induction: If ever there were a year! He put out a "For Your Consideration" ad: He played the best guitar riff on any pop song of the year on "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk and if not this year, then when?  

Last week, news broke that rapper Rick Ross is suing the pop group LMFAO over a lyric in their 2011 hit song “Party Rock Anthem.” The lyric in question is “Every day I’m shufflin’,” which Ross claims rips off his 2006 song “Hustlin’” -- in which he repeatedly sings the line “Every day I’m hustlin’." Jonathan Reichman --  the man we refer to as "The Copy Cat" -- an intellectual property attorney from the firm Kenyon and Kenyon LLP, helps explain the issue and whether Ross has much of a case -- and why he waited so long to bring out the legal guns.     

Vocalist Angélique Kidjo, known as Africa's "premier diva," has earned international acclaim for her global mix of jazz, Afropop, and soul. The singer got her start at age 6 in the West African country of Benin, but after her debut, Pretty, Kidjo was forced to flee to Paris in 1983 due to political strife. It was there where Kidjo devoted herself to being an independent artist and studying jazz. Since then, she has gone on to an illustrious, Grammy-winning music career, collaborating with a wide array of artists -- from Carlos Santana and Herbie Hancock to Peter Gabriel and more. Kidjo is returning with her latest album, Eve, a joyful collection of songs celebrating African womanhood, and showcasing Kidjo performing in a variety of native Beninese languages, including Fon, Yoruba, Goun, and Mina. And for Eve, Kidjo gathers another impressive lineup of collaborators -- guitarist Lionel Loueke, drummer Steve Jordan, bassist Christian McBride and Senegalese percussionist Magatte Sow -- and guests like Dr. John, Vampire Weekend's Rostamm Btmanglij, The Kronos Quartet and the Orchestra Philharmonique du Luxumbourg. Hear Kidjo and her band perform songs from the new album (out Jan. 28) in the Soundcheck studio and discuss her upcoming autobiography, Spirit Rising: My Life, My Music.     Set List: "Kulumbu" "Awolele" "Blewu"

The Great Flood of 1927 was a landmark moment in American history, and in music history. The flooding of the Mississippi River left a trail of loss and damage through at least ten states, but when the waters receded, the flood’s impact remained. Among the results of the Great Flood: the way we now build levees and control waterways; the political movement of African-Americans from the Republican to the Democratic Party; the physical movement of African-Americans up the Mississippi to Kansas City, then Chicago, and beyond; and the resulting collision of Southern blues with the first electric guitars, which would eventually lead to rock 'n' roll.     Musicians began responding to the Great Flood while it was actually happening. And almost nine decades later, artists are still responding to this event, including filmmaker Bill Morrison and guitarist-composer Bill Frisell -- they’ve collaborated on the new documentary The Great Flood. Morrison’s films are usually inventive, phantasmagorical affairs, built on decaying silent film stock; here he bases his work on archival documentary footage from 1927, and Frisell provides a score that’s full of his eclectic take on Americana, jazz, and contemporary music. The result is a meditation on the American landscape, on loss, and on consequences -- whether intended or not. In the conversation above, Morrison talks about his film and shares some songs new and old inspired by the flood. But below, we've got even more songs about the event -- and so we present our Damp Dozen: Twelve Great Songs About The Great Flood.     The Great Flood opens a one-week run at NY’s IFC Center on Wednesday, Jan. 8. Twelve Great Songs About The Great Flood Bill Frisell’s score for The Great Flood now joins a long and pretty damn righteous list of songs inspired by the historic event. Here's even more:   Bessie Smith, "Backwater Blues" The great blues singer actually recorded this before the Mississippi flooded. Filmmaker Bill Morrison explains that the months leading up the Great Flood featured a series of smaller, precursor floods, and this one is about the Cumberland River flood of late 1926. But it arrived on the scene at exactly the right time and is a harrowing depiction of the flood’s impact.        Barbecue Bob, "Mississippi Heavy Water Blues”  Actually recorded here in New York in 1927 while the flooding was going on back home in Mississippi, this is the blues as reportage. It sold crisply, and inspired Barbecue Bob to release a followup the next year called “Mississippi Low Levee Blues.”       Charlie Patton, “High Water Everywhere, Parts 1 and 2”  The legendary bluesman recorded a two-part song that takes us on a survey of the flood’s devastation, but also provides a different kind of survey -- of blues rhythms and licks.  It also inspired this next effort.      Bob Dylan, “High Water (For Charlie Patton)”  From his album Love And Theft, this is a loving tribute (and perhaps a bit of musical theft) to Charlie Patton’s song from 80 years earlier.      Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy, “When the Levee Breaks”  The original version of the song most associated with the Great Flood. This wife-and-husband team would provide the inspiration for one of Led Zeppelin’s greatest hits. Led Zeppelin – “When the Levee Breaks”  This extended, stomping version of the song became the theme music for Air America’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina, and got a second life on the radio in the wake of that 2005 disaster.   Yat-Kha, “When The Levee Breaks”  Just for fun, check out this Tuvan band’s version of the song, featuring the impossibly deep and overtone-rich voice of Albert Kuvezin. He doesn’t quite nail the English language but his voice is just amazing.       Terence Blanchard, “Ghost of 1927”  From his album A Tale Of God’s Will: Requiem For Katrina this is another song that draws connections between the 1927 flood and Hurricane Katrina.        Big Bill Broonzy, “Southern Flood Blues”  Recorded in the 60s by the v

Bill De Blasio was sworn in as the 109th mayor of New York City last week. Among those wondering what this new mayor’s tenure will bring is the New York arts community – a group that, in general, did pretty well under former mayor Michael Bloomberg. We talk with Wall Street Journal arts reporter Jennifer Maloney about the capital spending projects that define Bloomberg's arts legacy -- and about what could be ahead for New York arts institutions, big and small.  Interview Highlights:  On former mayor Bloomberg's arts legacy within New York City:  [Mayor] Bloomberg oversaw more than $2 billion of capital spending on construction projects and renovation projects that transformed the buildings -- the physical footprint -- of arts institutions across the city. Nearly every major arts institution in New York was touched in some way.  On what we know about Mayor De Blasio's commitment to the arts in New York City:  As a councilman, he allocated funding to a number of cultural organizations, both in Brooklyn where he represented his district, and outside of Brooklyn. And most of that money was focusing on arts education. And that's a clear indication of where his heart is. One thing he has committed is to implement arts instruction in every school across the city within four years.... Under Giuliani, arts money was earmarked specifically for arts instruction in schools. Bloomberg changed that, and he gave principals the discretion to use it however they liked. So that meant that you didn't have arts in every school. If the principal wanted to spend it on extra math tutors, he or she could.  On "Culture Shed," the planned West Side arts project that former mayor Bloomberg helped fund:  This is going to be another signature part of Bloomberg's legacy. This is a new arts institution that was incubated by the Bloomberg administration -- really conceived by them -- to be the cultural centerpiece of the Hudson Yards development over the rail yards at the West Side of Manhattan. This would be a flexible exhibition space called Culture Shed that is still being planned. The Bloomberg administration formed a new non-profit and former Mayor Bloomberg appointed people to run this new non-profit. And he controversially allocated a lot of city funding to help build this thing when it does get built. Over the summer he was criticized for allocating $50 million in city capital funds, and then right before he left office, he gave it another $25 million.  On how and where money will be spent on the arts under Mayor De Blasio: Mayor De Blasio, during his campaign, wouldn't say exactly [how much money he would be allocating for arts institutions.].... He wouldn't commit to spending as much as former mayor Bloomberg did. He did say that he wants to support smaller and grassroots cultural organizations more, and that was one of the milder criticisms of former mayor Bloomberg, that not enough money went to smaller organizations -- although over the years they did shift money from the bigger ones to the smaller ones.