Join me for this great conversation with singer-songwriter Bob Hillman. We chat about why reading is so important and why having a core song critique group can be the single most important thing! Bob shares a song he rewrote three times - changing it from being about an altercation in a Target parking lot to a love song about the night he met his wife. Bob also shares about some unexpected silver linings that have surfaced as a result of the pandemic.

Bob Hillman, a San Francisco singer/songwriter, is well into the second act of a career that began in the late 1990s in New York City, where he fell in with Jack Hardy’s long-running songwriting group, which met every Monday night in Greenwich Village to eat pasta and share new songs. Bob’s career flourished in the early 00s, then survived ten years of “real jobs,” and resumed in 2016. Bob’s most recent full-length album, Some of Us Are Free, Some of Us Are Lost, was released in April 2019. Bob has toured extensively with Suzanne Vega playing venues like the Fillmore Auditorium and Bowery Ballroom. Most recently, Bob wrote and recorded Inside & Terrified, a five-song EP written during and about the COVID-19 lockdown.

In today's conversation with singer-songwriter Jonatha Brooke, we talk about how songs can evolve over time in terms of production, meaning, feel etc. (she even plays us an example!) We also chat about the "rules" of musical theater songwriting, Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan, Taio Cruz and giving yourself song assignments! Join us for this uplifting conversation where Jonatha shares a little about her new album The Sweetwater Sessions as well as her revelations around songwriting, life and building community online.

Jonatha Brooke has co-written songs with Katy Perry and The Courtyard Hounds among others. She's also written for Disney films and numerous television shows including composing/performing the theme song for Dollhouse. In 2014, Brooke debuted her one woman musical and companion album My Mother Has Four Noses at the Duke Theater in New York City. The show ran for three months to rave reviews and was a critic's pick in the New York Times who called it "both funny and wrenching.”Formerly of the New England-based folk-rock duo The Story with Jennifer Kimball, Jonatha Brooke has been writing songs, making records, and touring since the early 90's. After four major label releases, she started her own independent label in 1999 and has since released nine more albums including her most recent The Sweetwater Sessions.

If you like today's episode, check out my conversation a few years back with Jonatha in Episode 6. In it, we talk about using songwriting as a survival tool in hard times, leaving some mystery in your lyrics and what you can learn about singing and melody writing from the way you speak.

Will Dailey is an acclaimed independent recording and performing artist. His sound has been described as having a rich vintage vibe while having a firm appreciation of AM rock, pop and big hooks leading famed Rock journalist Dan Aquilante to call him “the real deal”. Will has shared the stage and studio with Eddie Vedder, T Bone Burnett, Tanya Donelly, Willie Nelson, Roger McGuinn, G Love, Ryan Bingham and Kay Hanley.

Dailey's album, National Throat, has been met with stellar reviews, over 8 million spins on Spotify, top 20 on Billboard Heat Seeker chart and won Album of the Year in the Boston Music Awards, New England Music Awards and Improper Bostonian Magazine.

In our conversation, Will talks about:

• Learning the rules of the craft and then breaking them
• Why everything (including good songwriting) is pattern and pattern upset
• How playing with other people brings out different parts of yourself and
• Having respect for your listener

Tony Lucca was raised in a very large musical family in Detroit, home to Motown. In 1995, following a four-season run as a cast member on The All New Mickey Mouse Club alongside fellow future hit making heavyweights Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears, Lucca relocated to Los Angeles where he dove into doing the Hollywood shuffle/auditioning actor thing before deciding to ditch acting in favor of pursuing his true passion.

Since 1997, he has released over 20 studio albums, EPs and live records.

His album Canyon Songs is a touching 10-track tip of the cap to the legendary Laurel Canyon sound immortalized by master musicians including Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne.

Tony Lucca has acted on popular shows such as Parenthood, The Tonight Show, Last Call with Carson Daly, the Aaron Spelling-produced Malibu Shores, as well as small roles in some independent features. He earned third place on Season 2 of The Voice (which led to a recording contract with Adam Levine’s 222 Records, as well as high profile stints on tour with the likes of Maroon 5, Kelly Clarkson and Sara Bareilles).

In our conversation from 2017, Tony shares about:

• Losing his passion for acting and gaining it for songwriting
• Why collaborating can lead to your best songs
• A Daily Dose of the Beatles and
• Have an Artist Narrative

Jen Lee is the director and producer of two feature-length documentaries: Bright Lights (2016) and Indie Kindred (2013). A GrandSLAM storytelling champion, Lee's autobiographical stories have been featured on the Peabody Award-winning Moth Radio Hour. Her resources for artists and makers worldwide include The 10 Letters Project and Movies for Makers.

In our conversation from 2017, Jen talks about:

• Uncovering memories of what you love
• How making things is a way to finding peace
• Re-working your paradigm around how creative work gets done
• The more time and effort equation does NOT EQUAL BETTER WORK (it gets thin, not rich and deep)

Melissa Ferrick was an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music, the Artistic Director of the Performing Songwriter Division for Berklee’s Five Week Program, and holds an Ed. M at Harvard University Graduate School of Education with a concentration in Arts in Education and management of nonprofit organizations.

Signed to Atlantic Records in 1992 at the age of 21, after opening up for Morrissey in the US and UK, she released her debut and sophomore albums on Atlantic before moving on to Independent label W.A.R. Records between 1996-1999. In 2000 Ms. Ferrick launched her nationally distributed independent record label Right On Records; her publishing catalog is represented worldwide by Raleigh Music Group. Melissa has released 17 albums over the last 24 years.

Regarded in the industry and by her peers as one of the most prolific and hardworking artists in the business, Ferrick still tours regularly playing throughout North America. She has shared the stage with Morrissey, Marc Cohn, Paul Westerberg, John Hiatt, Joan Armatrading, Weezer, Tegan and Sara, G-Love & Special Sauce, Bob Dylan, Dan Bern, Ani DiFranco, k.d. Lang, Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, and many others.

In our conversation from 2017, Melissa shares:

• Why she does not have a daily creative practice (Why she can't "will it" to happen)
• How writing short stories led to writing songs
• Why judging can keep us locked away
• Keeping the door open to our songs

Mona Tavakoli is a Los Angeles-based drummer, singer and performer who believes in making music that unites, elevates and connects.

While Mona is equally comfortable performing as a drummer and a percussionist, she is especially known for adapting the cajón to unexpected genres such as rock and pop. She began playing the Peruvian percussion instrument as a college student taking a flamenco dance class. She’s since designed a signature instrument called The MT Box. She began her professional musical career in 1999 at UCLA as a founding member of Raining Jane, an all-female rock band.

Raining Jane co-wrote and recorded YES! (Atlantic Records) with Jason Mraz. Mona and Mraz have been collaborating for nearly a decade. They've performed as a duo on The Today Show, The David Letterman Show, Ellen and many others. Mona has also performed as a percussionist on A&E's Private Sessions with Pat Benatar and Spyder Giraldo. She has been the featured percussionist with the Pasadena muse/ique orchestra (led by maestra Rachel Worby), and played with musicians such as Andy Grammer, Colbie Caillat, Keaton Simons, Lindsay Mac, Lucy Schwartz, Natalia Zukerman, Sara Bareilles, Tristan Prettyman and Willy Porter.

Mona is a co-founder and co-director of the Rock n’ Roll Camp For Girls Los Angeles and also has traveled to Africa on behalf of the U.S. State Department as a cultural diplomat. When she’s not banging on drums or corralling day campers, she's listening to Pema Chodron audiobooks or making creative collages.

In our conversation from 2017, Mona shares about:

• Gentle leadership
• Co-writing with Jason Mraz & her band Raining Jane
• Why it's more important to be interested than interesting and
• How one person can change your whole life