Best of 2015: Musoscribe Interviews

To date, I’ve had the honor and pleasure of conducting more than 250 interviews. This year alone I did nearly fifty. And while it’s risky to pick favorites – I can honestly say that I’ve enjoyed every single one – a few stand out from the rest. Here are five of ’em.

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Anton Barbeau
I’d been a fan of his work for years, but somehow had never gotten round to scheduling an interview with the Sacramento-born Anton Barbeau. But as plans firmed up for a trip to Europe with my wife and son, I saw a perfect opportunity to sit down with Ant on his adopted home turf: the Kreuzberg neighborhood of Berlin. His album Magic Act (set for release in 2016) is one of the focuses of the interview, but we discussed a great deal more than that over coffee.

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Shuggie Otis
He was a child prodigy who worked with his dad (the great bandleader Johnny Otis), Al Kooper, Frank Zappa, and others. But he faded way after a string of amazing (if idiosyncratic) albums. Unlike, say, his contemporary Sly Stone, Shuggie Otis is back in a big way. Shuggie doesn’t grant many interviews, so this one was quite a score for me. The feature originally appeared as a cover story in Stomp and Stammer magazine, with photos that my wife and I took when we saw Shuggie in concert.

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Karl Wallinger
I like to tell the story about the time Karl Walinger and his group World Party forced my car off the road. In 2015, I got the chance to interview him, not to mention to see him live onstage for the third time.

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David Torn
Torn eschews the term avant garde when describing his music, but there’s no denying its spontaneity and experimental nature. I chatted with him ahead of his 2015 house concert, an intimate gathering like few others.

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Les McCann
This one took some doing, but thanks to a mutual friend who gave me the home phone number of the soul-jazz great, I enjoyed one of the most enjoyable (and important) interviews of my career to date. Les McCann is funny, candid, inspirational, and one helluva musician.

I look forward to 2016’s interviews; I’ve already lined up a few that I’m bursting to tell you about. But…not just yet.