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by Scott Catey
Conversations on music, makers, and meaning
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Where is a poem? For poet, drummer, novelist, and performer Rich Ferguson, poetry lives in the breath, the body, and the beat. It moves through voice and gesture, enters into conversation with music and silence, and gathers new meaning from the people and places surrounding it.In this conversation, Rich joins Scott Catey to explore the deep musicality of language and the entwining of music and poetry. He explains how cadence becomes an editing tool, why memorizing a poem is a physical process, and how years of preparation make spontaneity possible. As Rich puts it: if a passage doesn’t sing, it doesn’t belong in the poem.They also discuss the continuing legacy of Beat poetry and its power to awaken attention. At a time when art is increasingly encountered through scrolling, fragments, and disposable moments, what can poetry and other artistic forms do to slow us down and return us to direct experience?Rich describes Poet Film Stage, the multidisciplinary performance series he created with poet, playwright, and director Kathleen Florence. Combining poetry, theater, movement, music, and carefully placed silence, Poet Film Stage transforms a traditional reading into a collective journey. No single poem or performer is the destination; meaning emerges from the relationships among them.The conversation culminates in Rich’s performance of “Live and Die in LA,” a propulsive spoken-word portrait of the city he once fled, but ultimately learned to love. Moving through music, violence, racial history, celebrity, incarceration, reinvention, and the accumulated ghosts of Los Angeles, the poem becomes both love letter and reckoning—a city carried in the blood and breath of the poet. HighlightsAlong the way, Rich and Scott explore:Why Rich considers his voice a musical instrumentHow the Beat tradition continues to reverberate through contemporary poetryPoetry as an antidote to distraction and disposable attentionThe role of movement, gesture, and memory in live performanceHow rhythm helps a writer recognize what belongsThe discipline hidden beneath apparent spontaneityLetting go of beautiful language that does not serve the workHow emotion and imagination can transform autobiography into artThe influence of Los Angeles on Rich’s creative identityWhy poems change when placed in conversation with other poemsCommunity, collaboration, and the making of Beat Not BeatThe artistic partnership between Rich and drummer Butch NortonPerformance Featured in this Episode:Live and Die in L.A., a spoken word poemUsed with permissionAbout Rich FergusonRich Ferguson is a poet, performer, drummer, novelist, and former California Beat Poet Laureate. His books include 8th & Agony, Everything Is Radiant Between the Hates, Somewhere a Playground, and the novel New Jersey Me. He served as lead editor of Beat Not Beat: An Anthology of California Poets Screaming Through the Post-Beat Scene.With Kathleen Florence, Rich created Poet Film Stage, an ensemble performance project bringing poetry into conversation with theater, movement, film, music, and silence. His spoken-word performances and films frequently feature musical collaborators, including drummer Butch Norton, who was also a guest on The Sum of All Wisdom.Explore Rich’s WorkRich Ferguson: http://rich-ferguson.com/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@fuzzydoodahInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/fergiebeat/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rich.ferguson1/Poet Film Stage: https://www.kathleenflorencepoet.com/Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/Chapters00:00 — From New Jersey to the San Francisco poetry scene 04:12 — What is Beat poetry now? 07:51 — Poetry, consciousness, and the struggle for attention 13:31 — Reimagining the poetry reading through Poet Film Stage 18:49 — Movement, silence, and embodied experience 25:45 — “The work lives in my body” 26:33 — The life cycle of a poem 32:58 — Improvisation, preparation, and the illusion of effortlessness 36:16 — Using cadence and musicality as editing tools 38:32</st
Stephen Wade is a renowned banjo player, folklorist, and author. He joins today to discuss his new book, Our Common Life, and explore our shared musical inheritance, American folk culture, creative individuality, and the promises we make to those whose stories we carry.Episode SummaryEvery traditional song contains more than notes and words. It carries the traces of musicians, families, communities, migrations, technologies, institutions, and individual acts of invention. Bob Dylan may have sung about containing multitudes, but Stephen Wade gifts us with his wonderful and humane understanding of the multitudes contained in a tune. In this episode of The Sum of All Wisdom, Scott Catey speaks with renowned banjo player, folklorist, historian, and author Stephen Wade about his new book, Our Common Life: Folk Songs from the Front Porch to the Concert Hall, published by the University of Illinois Press.Stephen describes traditional music as a collection of “common possessions with individual contributions.” A tune may pass through generations, but it never remains unchanged. Each musician catches it, puts their hands on it, and contributes something of their own, sometimes surprisingly.Beginning with Stephen’s childhood in Chicago, the conversation follows the people and encounters that shaped his musical life: sidewalk performer Casey Jones and his trained chicken Mae West; blues musicians Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Big Joe Williams; banjo teachers Fleming Brown and Doc Hopkins; and the musicians, writers, and working people whose lives populate Stephen’s research.Along the way, Stephen traces the African and Caribbean ancestry of the banjo, the meeting of Black and European musical traditions, Chicago’s role as a crossroads for American music, and the relationship between changing instruments, technologies, dances, and communities.But this is also a conversation about the responsibilities of memory. Stephen explains that his work represents “promises made” to people who trusted him with their knowledge and stories. Research, in that sense, becomes more than documentation. It is an ethical act: gratitude, reciprocity, and cultural preservation.Episode HighlightsScott and Stephen discuss:Growing up amid Chicago’s sidewalk culture, churches, record shops, radio stations, and blues clubs Casey Jones, the celebrated Chicago street performer who performed with a chicken named Mae West Hearing Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Big Joe Williams, and Mahalia Jackson as a young person Stephen’s early discovery of guitar, five-string banjo, and American traditional music The differences among five-string, plectrum, tenor, fretless, and gourd banjos How musical styles, social dancing, technology, and instrument design influence one another Stephen’s apprenticeship with Fleming Brown and his relationship with Doc Hopkins Pete Seeger’s influential book How to Play the Five-String BanjoWLS, the National Barn Dance, and Chicago’s place in American broadcasting history The musical lineage connecting Dick Burnett, Doc Hopkins, Fleming Brown, and Stephen Wade The history of “Man of Constant Sorrow” Chicago as both an arrival point and a dissemination point for American music The African and Caribbean origins of the banjo Cultural sharing and cultural distinctiveness in American folk traditions William Sidney Mount’s painting Catching the TuneFolklorist and music librarian Dena Epstein Hilda Polacheck’s transformative childhood experience at Hull House The extraordinary moment Stephen discovered that the historical account he was reading belonged to Dena Epstein’s mother Will Keys, musical self-reliance, and making banjo strings from screen-door wire The relationship between representative musicians and exceptional artists Folklorist and blues researcher Mack McCormick’s idea of “finding the predominances” Uncle Dave Macon and the world contained in “Arcade Blues” Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, and the histories concentrated inside particular places Jack Conroy, Nelson Algren, the Federal Writers’ Project, and American working-class storytelling How Stephen combined banjo playing, tall tales, spoken language, and theatrical performance in Banjo DancingThe moment Stephen discovered that musical virtuosity alone was not enough to hold an audience Why performing reveals what a musician has truly learned What it means to catch a tune and pass it forward Memorable MomentsCommon possessions with individual contributionsOne of the conversation’s centra
What happens when we stop asking whether art is successful—and instead ask how it matters?Singer-songwriter Emma Swift has spent a life listening closely: to records, to other singers, to fragments of language, to the places where songs come from, and especially to Bob Dylan. Her acclaimed Blonde on the Tracks explored Dylan’s songs not as museum pieces to be faithfully reproduced, but as living works to be inhabited, interpreted, and made new.For Emma, learning a Dylan song is almost an intellectual exercise: “Some people do crossword puzzles to exercise their brain. I learn Bob Dylan songs.” It is, she says, a way of getting inside someone else’s mind.That idea opens into a much larger conversation about creativity.Emma and Scott talk about what it means to be an interpreter as well as a songwriter; the singers who taught Emma how to sing; the continuing mystery of Dylan’s work; and why a great song can still “capsize” us decades after it was written. For Emma, interpretation is not imitation. A song can carry traces of Dylan, Marianne Faithfull, Nina Simone, and every artist who has inhabited it before—and still become something new in the hands of the next singer.They also explore Emma’s own creative process: notebooks, overheard phrases, melodies captured on a phone, collaboration, and the gradual transformation of small observations into finished songs.And then there is the increasingly difficult question of how we decide whether any of this has succeeded.Emma thinks visible metrics may be among the worst things to happen to the creative industries. A record, she argues, succeeds first because it sounds good—not because an algorithm, stream count, sales figure, or social-media metric tells us that other people approve of it. Pulling a beloved record from the shelf and settling the needle in the groove is something different: an intentional, intimate encounter between listener and artist. “There’s something kind of sacred in that.”It is an idea at the heart of The Sum of All Wisdom: listening is itself a creative act.Along the way, Emma takes us from Sydney to Nashville, where she arrived in 2012 with two suitcases—one containing clothes and the other, somewhat impractically, filled with records. She came looking for the songwriting world of Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, and Gillian Welch, and found a place where she could begin building a creative life of her own.Ultimately, though, this conversation reaches beyond records, songwriting, or even music.Emma believes creativity is something much more fundamental. It can mean making a song, a garden, a meal, or a piece of clothing. Art can offer refuge from a destructive world—but creativity also gives us another way of participating in it.“We’re all born to be creative people,” Emma says. And perhaps the world would be kinder “if everybody felt entitled to be creative.”HighlightsWhy certain songs “capsize” usBob Dylan and the art of interpretationMarianne Faithfull, Nina Simone, and the lineage of a songWhat singers can learn by inhabiting someone else’s musicEmma’s journey from Sydney to NashvilleGuy Clark and the power of the unadorned songSongwriting through notebooks, overheard language, and collaborationWhy commercial disappointment isn’t necessarily artistic failureThe problem with visible metrics and algorithmic cultureVinyl, ritual, and the intimate experience of listeningWhy creativity belongs to everyoneAbout the ArtistEmma Swift is an Australian-born songwriter, currently residing in Nashville, TN. A gifted singer inspired by Sandy Denny, Joni Mitchell, Marianne Faithfull and a plethora of dead poets, her sound is a blend of classic folk, Americana and indie rock. In August 2020, she released the critically-acclaimed Blonde on the Tracks, a Laurel Canyon inspired reimagining of some of her favorite Bob Dylan tunes on Tiny Ghost Records. The album received Best of 2020 accolades from Rolling Stone, Nashville Scene, No Depression, The Guardian, and more. Her new album The Resurrection Game was released on Tiny Ghost Records on September 12, 2025.Connect with EmmaLinks:Linktree: https://linktr.ee/emmaswiftsings Cover photo by Autumn Dozier, https://www.instagram.com/autumn.dozier/ About the ShowThe Sum of All Wisdom: Conversations on Music, Makers, and Meaning is inspired by two key ideas: · Music IS the sum of all wisdom, and · Music is humanity’s oldest way of knowing ours
What if learning music begins with listening, not learning how to play an instrument or reading notation?Find a sound. Notice it. Find another one. Play with them. Follow your curiosity. Make a mistake. Keep going.For Kalani Das, musician, educator, music therapist, author, and master percussionist, music begins with experience, not rules, notation, or technique.In this episode of The Sum of All Wisdom, Kalani joins me for a wide-ranging exploration of what happens when we stop treating music as something we have to master and begin treating it as something human beings naturally do.Kalani traces his journey from a dyslexic kid struggling with conventional music lessons to drummer, performer, educator, Orff Schulwerk practitioner, music therapist, and facilitator of musical experiences for people of widely different ages and abilities.Along the way, he challenges some remarkably persistent assumptions about learning and creativity.Notation isn't music. Technique isn't a prerequisite for expression. Teachers don't always need to provide answers. And sometimes the most powerful thing a facilitator can do is create a space—and then get out of the way.Kalani also performs twice for us.First, he builds an original piece in real time through live looping, moving among percussion, keyboard, ukulele, bass sounds, and Native American-style flute. The performance leads to one of the episode's most important observations: perfection isn't the point.“Good enough is not only good enough. Good enough is great.”Later, the conversation turns toward silence, attention, technology, and the grounding experience of making sound. Kalani combines drum, drone, flute, and a reading about space for a striking demonstration of what can emerge from simplicity.We also explore Kalani's work in music therapy, including traumatic brain injury and addiction recovery; his discovery of Orff Schulwerk; improvisation and play; the importance of letting learners discover things for themselves; and music's extraordinary capacity to create connection.Ultimately, this is a conversation about permission: permission to play, to experiment, to make mistakes, to listen, and to discover what happens next.As Kalani puts it near the end of our conversation, being musical is “a way that we not only celebrate who we are, but it's how we remember who we are.” And from there, he’s got one more incredible insight that follows. It can also help us “create who we want to be.”Episode Highlights· Why conventional music lessons can sometimes create barriers to music· Beginning with sound and experience rather than notation· What Kalani learned from Orff Schulwerk· Play, experimentation, and the natural ways children learn· Why a teacher can be more powerful as a facilitator· Kalani's live-looping process and multi-instrument studio· Why “good enough is great”· Native American-style flutes and musical accessibility· Music therapy, traumatic brain injury, and addiction recovery· Creating musical experiences that include different abilities· Silence as an invitation to participation· Listening in a distracted, screen-saturated world· Drumming, embodiment, presence, and flow· Why simplicity can be extraordinarily powerful· Music as a way of celebrating, remembering—and creating—ourselvesMusic Featured in this Episode:In-episode demonstration & performanceUsed with permissionAbout the ArtistKalani Das is a musician, percussionist, educator, author, music therapist, and internationally experienced facilitator whose work brings together drumming, improvisation, music education, mindfulness, and community music-making.His teaching emphasizes accessible, human-centered approaches to music: experimentation before perfection, experience before abstraction, and creativity as something available to everyone.Kalani teaches drums and percussion, ukulele, and Native American-style flute, and he shares an extensive library of creative and educational material online. His work includes World Drum Club, Kalani Music, Ukulele Club, and his weekly Tuesday Muse Day livestream, plus courses, community resources, and his book The Way of Music: Creating Sound Connections in Music Therapy.Connect with the ArtistVisit KalaniMusic.com for Kalani's teaching, performances, events, and resources.On YouTube, find World Drum Club for drumming and percussion instruc
Earl Slick has spent more than five decades alongside some of the most consequential artists in rock and roll—David Bowie, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Buddy Guy and many more. And he's not done yet. BOWIE: LIVE ON THE LOCH — NOVEMBER 7–8, 2026 Earl is helping lead Bowie: Live on the Loch, an extraordinary two-day celebration of David Bowie at Cameron House on Loch Lomond, Scotland, in aid of Save the Children. The weekend reunites members of Bowie’s legendary Glastonbury 2000 band—including Earl Slick, Mike Garson, Gail Ann Dorsey, Mark Plati, Sterling Campbell—for a live performance on November 8. The weekend also features rare Bowie footage, the Duffy Archive exhibition, conversations about Bowie’s legacy, and Earl Slick’s Rock ’n’ Roll Guitar Auction, with proceeds supporting Save the Children. Information and tickets: https://www.cameronhouse.co.uk/bowie-live-on-the-loch/For the podcast conversation, though, Slick doesn’t particularly want to talk about being a guitar hero. “I love being a sideman,” he says. “I like to be the guy that supports the guy.” In this episode of The Sum of All Wisdom, Earl joins Dr. Scott Catey—with guitar close at hand—to talk about rhythm, instinct, collaboration, creativity, and what it means to discover what only you can bring to the music. In our conversation, Earl takes us inside his remarkable musical life—from seeing the Beatles and discovering Keith Richards to joining David Bowie for the Diamond Dogs Tour and confronting an intimidating question: Was he supposed to replace Mick Ronson by sounding like Mick Ronson? Bowie’s answer changed everything: “I love what you do. Do what you do.” Earl tells the stories behind his work on Station to Station, including “Stay” and “Golden Years,” and explains why rhythm—not guitar heroics—lies at the center of his playing: “The rhythm to me…it’s the heartbeat.” He also remembers working with John Lennon and Yoko Ono during the Double Fantasy era, and shares the deeply emotional story of performing “Imagine” with Bowie in Hong Kong on the third anniversary of Lennon’s death. Earl remembers fighting back tears—and knowing that if he looked at Bowie, he might not make it through the song. And then there’s Buddy Guy. After playing with Bowie and Lennon and spending decades on some of the world’s biggest stages, Earl says one of the great validations of his musical life came when Buddy Guy invited him to play. The experience left him so exhilarated that he walked around Chicago for two hours the next morning trying to come down from it. Near the end of our conversation, Earl describes that disappearance beautifully. When he’s making art or playing onstage, the noise of everyday life falls away. Thinking stops. “I just become me. Whatever the essence of me is.” And perhaps that’s the larger lesson here: greatness isn’t always about standing at the center. Sometimes it’s about listening closely enough to discover what only you can bring—and putting it in service of something larger.HighlightsDavid Bowie and the creative freedom to “do what you do”John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Double FantasyKeith Richards and the power of rhythm guitarThe making of “Stay” and “Golden Years”Why Earl Slick loves being a sidemanMick Ronson and finding your own musical identitySteve Cropper and the lineage of the great sidemanPlaying with Buddy GuyGuitars, amps, pickups and playing with your fingersVisual art and losing yourself in the creative processWhy the ordinary world disappears when Earl steps onto a stageMusic Featured in this Episode:Slick’s in the moment riffingAll music used with permissionAbout the ArtistEarl Slick is one of rock and roll’s most distinctive and enduring guitarists. Best known for his decades-long collaboration with David Bowie, Slick helped shape landmark recordings including Young Americans and Station to Station and returned to Bowie’s band across multiple eras. He also played with John Lennon and Yoko Ono on Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey, and has worked with artists including Ian Hunter, John Waite, The Cure, and Buddy Guy. Renowned for his muscular, instinctive playing and deep sense of rhythm, Slick proudly embraces the role of sideman: serving the song, supporting the artist, and always bringing something unmistakably his own.Connect with the ArtistLinks:Website: https://earlslick.net/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EarlSlickOfficial Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.c
Episode SummaryFor more than four decades, percussionist, composer, producer, and artist-relations executive Rich Mangicaro has stood alongside some of music's most celebrated performers—including Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, David Crosby, Venice, and many others. But as Rich explains, lasting musical careers aren't built on virtuosity alone. They're built on listening.In this conversation, Rich reflects on learning groove with The Drifters, finding his place in Glenn Frey's band, building instruments with Gon Bops, composing music for film and television, and eventually discovering his own artistic voice after decades as one of Los Angeles' most respected sidemen.Together we explore why percussion is about storytelling rather than timekeeping, what separates great musicians from merely talented ones, how the streaming era has transformed music, and why serving the song often matters more than standing in the spotlight.This is a conversation about rhythm, humility, collaboration, and the quiet discipline of paying attention. Episode Highlights· Growing up with Ringo, jazz, and Afro-Cuban rhythms · Learning groove from The Drifters · Touring with Glenn Frey and Joe Walsh · Why the best percussionists don't play the most notes · Artist relations and designing instruments at Gon Bops · COVID, creativity, and finding a personal compositional voice · Streaming, physical media, and the economics of independent music · Film music, Hans Zimmer, and why movie scores deserve respect · Rick Rubin and listening as creative practice · Why "you can't converse unless you listen"Featured Music:· Amazonia (Travels) · Flattening the Curve (Dialogues) · The Way It Was (A Dream I Had)All music used with permissionMemorable Moments· "My job wasn't to show everybody how good I was."· "You can't converse unless you listen."· "Music is conversation."· "Play what the music calls for."· "Our job is to make people dance."About the ArtistRich Mangicaro is a percussionist, composer, producer, music journalist, and artist-relations specialist whose career spans more than four decades at the highest levels of the music industry. Best known for his fifteen years performing with Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey, Rich has also toured or recorded with artists including Joe Walsh, David Crosby, Michael McDonald, Aaron Neville, Jeff Bridges, The Tubes, James Morrison, Jackson Browne, and the acclaimed vocal group Venice.Away from the stage, Rich has become one of the percussion world's leading voices in artist relations, helping shape instrument design while working closely with generations of influential drummers and percussionists. He currently serves as Artist Relations Manager and Product Specialist for Gon Bops, where he also produces and hosts The Percussion Loft podcast.As a composer, Rich creates immersive instrumental music that blends acoustic percussion, cinematic textures, and melodic storytelling. His three solo albums—Travels (2018), Dialogues (2022), and A Dream I Had (2024)—reflect a lifetime of listening, travel, collaboration, and creative curiosity. In recent years, he has also composed music for television, film, and commercial productions with longtime collaborator Jonathan Clark.Whether performing, composing, producing, designing instruments, or mentoring fellow musicians, Rich approaches every role with the same philosophy expressed in this conversation: the greatest musicians are not those who play the most notes—they are the ones who listen the best.Connect with the ArtistLinks:Website: https://www.richmangicaro.com/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RichMangicaroBandcamp: https://richmangicaro.bandcamp.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/richmangicaromusicandmediaInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/richmangicaroAbout the ShowThe Sum of All Wisdom: Conversations on Music, Makers, and Meaning is inspired by two ideas: · Music IS the sum of all wisdom, and · Music is humanity’s oldest way of knowing ourselves, each other, and the world. The show offers long-form, reflective
Over a career spanning—at this point—more than three decades, Tom Catmull has become one of the remarkable songwriters Montana is known for, not by chasing trends or fame, but by trusting his craft, his songs, and his audience.In this conversation, Tom reflects on recording his latest album Last Resort, building a musical life, and the lessons that come from decades on stages large and small. Along the way he shares why great performances require musicians to "show their guts," how he avoids crossing what he calls the "cheese line," why words behave like colors, and how his songwriting has changed as he's grown older.It's a thoughtful conversation about music, storytelling, authenticity, and what success looks like when connection matters more than celebrity.Highlights· Recording a band honestly· The evolution of a songwriter· Missoula's changing music scene· House concerts and human connection· The "cheese line"· Words as musical material· Performance as intimacy· Why simplicity is difficult· Success beyond fameMusic Featured in this Episode:L.O.L.A. HelloNarrowPuff of SmokeAll music is from the album Tom Catmull's Last Resort, released in December of 2025. All music is used with permissionMemorable Moments· "I hadn't put the sound of this band in a bottle."· "Open your trench coat and show your guts."· That's probably the headline quote.· "People long for connection."· "I always stay behind the cheese line."· "Words are colors."· "I listen as much to the way words sound as what they mean."· "The more money you make, the less fun you're going to have."· "I just want to play good shows."About the ArtistTom Catmull is an acclaimed Americana songwriter, originally from Texas, and now based in Missoula, Montana. His music blends infectious melodies, vivid storytelling, and a deep love of language. Across seven albums and long experience touring and performing, Tom has had a multifaceted life in music: he's shared stages with artists including Robert Earl Keen, Junior Brown, and Asleep at the Wheel; he’s played countless theater, festival, and club shows; he's a para-educator, teaching others how to use music to communicate; and and he's built a career around one simple mission: getting exceptional music to you.Connect with the ArtistLinks:Website: https://tomcatmull.com/Bandcamp: https://tomcatmull2.bandcamp.com/album/tom-catmulls-last-resorthttps://tomcatmull.bandcamp.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tom.catmullInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/tom_catmull_music/Cover phot credit: Dan Bradner Photography: https://www.danbradner.com/ About the ShowThe Sum of All Wisdom: Conversations on Music, Makers, and Meaning is inspired by two ideas: · Music IS the sum of all wisdom, and · Music is humanity’s oldest way of knowing ourselves, each other, and the world. The show offers long-form, reflective conversations with musicians and related professionals who have spent a lifetime honing their craft, and whose work creates meaning, community, and cultural impact. The show prioritizes listening, craft, and the lived experience of making music as a way of making a living.The Sum of All Wisdom is written, produced, and hosted by Dr. Scott Catey. If this conversation resonated, consider sharing it—or carrying something from it into your own listening and creative life. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
What does a lifetime in music actually look like?For singer, songwriter, guitarist, comedian, and raconteur Earl Okin, it begins with a wind-up gramophone at the age of three and unfolds across more than seven decades of listening, performing, writing, and constantly refining the craft.In this conversation, Earl reflects on a remarkable musical journey that has carried him from postwar London to Abbey Road Studios, from touring with Paul McCartney and Wings and Van Morrison to sharing stages with folk, rock, pop, and jazz legends, all while building a career that defies easy categorization.Along the way, he reveals how songs are really written, why Peggy Lee changed the way he hears and performs music, what João Gilberto taught him about bossa nova, and why the greatest artists are often their own harshest critics.Join us for a rewarding conversation about creative persistence, living one step ahead of the cultural curve, how to give your craft the right attention, and what it means to spend a career making, living, and loving music.In this episodeA postwar London childhood spent with a gramophone and collecting 78sDiscovering opera, jazz, and the Great American SongbookRecording at Abbey Road in the shadow of Sgt. PepperTouring the UK with Paul McCartney and WingsLife on the road with Van MorrisonHow songs emerge from instinct, craft, and “finding the gold”Learning bossa nova from the Brazilian mastersPhrasing or virtuosity? What matters most?Perfectionism, practice, and the lifelong pursuit of better performancesThe great musicians aren’t always the famous onesWriting an autobiography through stories rather than chronologyContinuing to compose, tour, perform, and create memorable music into his eighth decadeFeatured MusicIn order:“London Now” “Time”“Yesterday’s Wine”All music used with permission. Memorable Quote“You’re playing, and just a lot of clichés come out of your mouth... then suddenly there’s a little bit of gold. You take it, polish it, and eventually it becomes a song.”About Earl OkinEarl Okin is a British singer-songwriter, guitarist, pianist, arranger, comedian, and broadcaster whose career spans more than sixty years. Blending jazz, bossa nova, classic songwriting, and sharply observed humor, he has toured internationally, appeared on major television programs, shared stages with legendary musicians, and continues to write, record, and perform today.His work reminds us that music is not only a profession or a performance; it is a lifelong practice of listening.Connect with Earl OkinLinks:Earl’s Website: https://www.earlokin.net/ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5NVqliGdTXQoIfOTTzAKxk Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/earl-okin/18143306 Earl’s Podcast: https://earlokin.blogspot.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/earl.okinYouTube: A large number of Earl’s songs and recordings are on YouTube. Here’s a good one to start with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAeKi4Mm0x8&t=65s In addition, a documentary is in the works, you can find a trailer and excerpts at the following links:· Trailer for Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OirbKMmPB3M· Extended Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyMJPsmaLZs· Additional Clip:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilPn_vZc_k8 About the ShowThe Sum of All Wisdom: Conversations on Music, Makers, and Meaning is animated by two ideas: · Music IS the sum of all wisdom, and · Music is humanity’s oldest way of knowing ourselves, each other, and the world. The show offers long-form, reflective conversations with musicians and related professionals who have spent a lifetime honing their craft, and whose work creates meaning, community, and cultural impact. The show prioritizes listening, craft, and the lived experience of making music as a way of making a living.The Sum of All Wisdom is written, produced, and hosted by Dr. Scott Catey. If this conversation resonated, consider sharin
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