SUNDAY SUPPER
Sundays 4-6 pm on 90.7.FM/wfuv.org and archived at wfuv.org
The Sunday Supper - formerly the Sunday Breakfast - is our way to bring a little spice into your weekends, with the singers and songwriters you know and love plus a good dose of up-and-coming artist surprises, with John Platt, who's been the host of the show since 1997.
In its new one-hour format, it retains many of the features it’s had for years. There may be a set saluting an artist’s birthday, such as Bob Dylan, Norah Jones, Richard Thompson, or James Taylor, and there are usually mentions of concert appearances in the New York area for the coming week. John is known for putting together sets around a theme and makes a commitment to play a handful of songs of Compassion and Commitment to appeal to our better selves.
S0me shows also include an in-studio interview and live performance. Guests have ranged from icons like Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Linda Ronstadt, Graham Nash, and Judy Collins, to WFUV mainstays like Dar Williams, Bruce Cockburn, and Eliza Gilkyson, to emerging artists like Kirsten Maxwell, the Brother Brothers, and Phoebe Hunt. With his gentle probing John helps us to know more about the music - and who the artists are as people.
"My goal," John says of his musical mission at WFUV, "is to strike a balance between old favorites and newcomers who need to be heard and to help listeners stay connected to the rich music scene in New York."
CURRENT SHOWS
With all the hoopla about Bob Dylan and A Complete Unknown, it's ironic that Monday marks the 50th anniversary of his milestone album, Blood on the Tracks. "Sunday Supper" celebrates with an extended medley of covers, all by women, including Joan Osborne, Joan Baez, Madeleine Peyroux, Mary Lee's Corvette, and more.
This week's "Sunday Supper" toasts two of America's premier songwriters: Steve Earle, the outspoken product of Texas and Tennessee, who spent many fruitful years living in New York City, turning 70; and Ellis Paul, a Maine native who burst out of the fertile Boston music scene before settling in Virginia, hitting the Big 6-0.
For what it's worth, the New Year brings a bunch of major birthdays which "Sunday Supper" feels duty-bound to celebrate.
SELECTED ARCHIVES
For five decades Jimmy Webb's songs have been part of the soundtrack of our lives. On his latest CD, "Still Within the Sound of My Voice," he revisits some of his classics (along with some lesser-known gems) in duets with folks like Lyle Lovett, Joe Cocker, Crosby & Nash, and Brian Wilson. Jimmy paid a return visit to the Sunday Breakfast to perform a couple songs from the CD and to share thoughts about his collaborations, as well as the medical struggles his friends and colleagues have faced.
He wrote some of the biggest California country-rock hits of the '70s, and now J.D. Souther has released a few of them on a sparsely-produced new album called Natural History.
I was thrilled and honored to have Bobby bring a band of amazing musicians into Studio A to perform songs from the CD and also talk with me about his father's influence, his onetime desire to be a monk(!), the power of music as a healing force, and "Don't Worry, Be Happy" as words to live by.
'Black Cadillac' may be her most recent CD, but tonight Rosanne Cash joins John Platt in Studio A for a conversation that ranges far beyond the album, into music, writing, family, parenting, and more.