Music Inside Out with Gwen Thompkins

This week, we bring you that funky gentleman in the Ninth Ward, Jon Cleary, who  joins us to talk about his native England, his grandmother, the piano back home, his mother's songwriting chops, and a variety of other loves.

The only thing more fun than talking to Shannon Powell is listening to him play. Powell is one of the most charismatic drummers to ever grace a stage. His secret? "I'm happy," Powell tells Music Inside Out. "I was a happy child. I'm a happy spirit."

Harmony, thy name is Pfister!

This week, the Pfister Sisters sing out and occasionally act out during a rollicking hour spent on jazz vocal harmonies.

Mezzo sopranos are often the bad girls of opera — the floozies, the gossips, the witches, the like. So how did a good girl like Givonna Joseph get mixed up with such characters? Turns out, bad girls have the most fun.

Don't miss the Music Inside Out grand slam this week. We're playing some of the best stories, songs, and moments from our first season. Review with us, if you will, our musical guests and hip shakin' moments.

When does a side dish become the main attraction?? When it's as hot and zesty as Shannon Powell on the bandstand. 

Forget "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon." In New Orleans, it's more fun to play three degrees of David Torkanowsky.

As a piano player and band leader, Torkanowsky is equally comfortable pushing the edges of jazz, funk, blues and rhythm and blues. Aside from his solo projects, Torkanowsky has collaborated with so many musical legends — Irma Thomas, Allen Toussaint, Danny Barker, Earl Turbington, Tony DaGradi, George Porter Jr., Zigaboo Modeliste, Dianne Reeves and Errol Garner, among them — that he now enjoys his own legendary patina.

At Music Inside Out, we can't save your soul. But we can help you sponge it clean.

For half a century, New Orleans producer, arranger, and songwriter has given entertainers around the world something to sing about. 

He's written R&B, funk, jazz, rock and country. And he's learned a few things along the way. Toussaint shares his creative insights with Music Inside Out.  Lesson Number One: The artist is king... or queen.