Soul Sisters

Lena Hall is about as straight-up rock-n-roll as we've ever had on Soul Sisters, which is perhaps surprising considering she's mostly known for being a Tony-winning Broadway musical actress. But just listen to her belt "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" at the end of this episode and there will be no room left for doubt that Hall is the type of performer who can do anything - anything - she sets her sights on.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For this episode of Soul Sisters, we banished St. Lucia frontman Jean-Philip Grobler to the control booth so we could grill Patti Beranek on how their marriage both informs and challenges their musical partnership. "He is the main guy and I'm the sous chef, the support," Beranek says humbly, after admitting that "fights happen for sure. Don't ever ask Jean and myself about a cocktail shaker."  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Soul Sisters was graced with a true legend this episode, when prolific folk songstress Judy Collins stopped by the Chord Club to talk about her new album Silver Skies Blue, out June 3, and to share her vast perspective on a career that has spanned five decades and more hits than we could ever cover in an hour - not that it stopped us from trying.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When Sarah Versprille met fellow musician Daniel Hindman during freshman orientation of college, she knew she wanted to be a singer but had been battling “horrible stage fright for so long.” The two became friends, bandmates and eventually romantic partners, a fact that isn’t widely publicized about their enchanting indie band Pure Bathing Culture (though anyone who registers the incredible artistic chemistry between the two shouldn’t be too surprised.) We got the full download from Versprille about how that all came about on this episode of Soul Sisters, recorded at NYC’s Chord Club, when the Portland-based band was in town for a show at Webster Hall.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Since their 2010 debut album Pickin' Up the Pieces, Fitz and the Tantrums has been steadily evolving away from the soul revival sound they overlapped with into one that is decidedly their own, which their hot new dance single "HandClap" can attest to. Noelle Scaggs, who serves as the powerhouse co-vocalist in the band to Michael "Fitz" Fitzpatrick, joined Soul Sisters to describe that evolution from the inside, as the band gears up to release their third, self-titled album.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

"If you want to win the lottery you gotta buy a lottery ticket." This kind of sage advice flows easily out of Maggie Rose, who, though still in her 20's, has seen more than her share of ups and downs as a singer/songwriter who refuses to let the music industry package her as just another pretty voice.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

"It took me a while before I didn't feel like I was doing live band karaoke to the San Fermin band," singer Charlene Kaye tells Soul Sisters about what it was like joining the beloved indie band after their self-titled first album was already making waves.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

"It happens! You have a lot of big personalities!" Megan Hilty insists about some of the stranger-than-fiction plot lines in Smash, the NBC Broadway drama that made her a household name, even though she was already well established within the real-life world the show depicted.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It's hard to predict what someone will recognize Rumer Willis for exactly: as the winner of last season's Dancing With the Stars, or her starring role in Chicago on Broadway; for acting on the CW reboot of Beverly Hills 90210, or her current performances in L.A.'s The Unauthorized Musical Parody of The Devil Wears Prada. (Or, yes, as the oft-photographed daughter of her fairly well-known parents, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore.)  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Joss Stone remembers her exact words when Damian Marley told her, five years ago, that she should record a reggae album. "Everyone will be so mad with me if I do that!" she said - and sure enough, she was right.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Soul Sisters was thrilled to welcome Golden Globe-winner and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend creator Rachel Bloom into the Chord Club for a brief respite from awards campaigning ("If you want an Emmy, you campaign. So we're doing that. Give us an Emmy," she deadpanned) to chat about this phenomenal first year she's had as musical showrunner and slyly feminist firebrand.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

"I never really wrote songs until I got my heart broken, and then I sat by the piano and I started playing some chords," Jessica Maros tells us in this episode of Soul Sisters in which the singer/songwriter (and half of the desert rock duo Escondido) tells us how, as the daughter of Slovakian immigrants growing up in Vancouver, she came to hold such a formidable place in the Nashville music scene.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Legendary Broadway star Chita Rivera tells us what it was like starring in the original Broadway production of West Side Story and shares her secret to remaining such a vivacious performer almost sixty years later!  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Leyla McCalla was playing music on a street corner in New Orleans when the manager of the Carolina Chocolate Drops approached her about joining their band. "Within a few months I’m in Nashville at Buddy Miller’s studio recording on Leaving Eden, which was their second Grammy-nominated album," she recalls, still in disbelief, on this episode of Soul Sisters recorded at NYC's Chord Club.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Many would be shocked to learn that the red hot sax player in Stephen Colbert's house band is only 23 years old - though Grace Kelly's list of accomplishments is already enough to rival many a veteran.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

"Maybe I just have had enough," says Bethany Cosentino, frontwoman of the California band Best Coast and all-around feminist badass to anyone who's been paying attention to women's issues in the music industry this past year.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

"One of my favorite things about music is that you can exist as a relatively introverted, quiet, reserved person and then you can hear music or play music and totally step outside of yourself, and all of your inhibitions fall to the wayside," Sleigh Bells singer Alexis Krauss tells us about her experience fronting a band that has defined the modern "noise pop" genre.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We’ve long known that Ana Gasteyer is great at playing musicians – but many would be surprised to know that the former Saturday Night Live star is a pretty damn good one herself.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When Joan Osborne became an overnight sensation with her ubiquitous hit “One of Us” in 1995, no one was less prepared than her. “On the one hand I was really excited to get that kind of recognition,” she says on this episode of Soul Sisters, while admitting that “it was also really difficult just personally” with strangers following her down the street after recognizing her from the song’s music video that played in heavy MTV rotation.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the Magic Hour is the name of bluegrass darling Aoife O'Donovan's new album, and also an apt description of what it felt like chatting with her on this episode of Soul Sisters. Well-known as leading vocalist in the band Crooked Still and her part in the Grammy-winning Goat Rodeo Sessions album, O'Donovan is now thriving in a solo career that finds her harnessing her immense musical talents that first revealed themselves when she knew, at the age of five, that she wanted to be a musician.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.