PODCAST

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast

WPKN, Jim Motavalli

Jim Motavalli of WPKN features interviews new and archival - artists, movers, shakers, and more.

music music interviews

All Episodes

29:20

If They Build Super-Intelligent AI, Will We All Die?

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/10/24

This broadcast features the first half hour of an interview with Nate Soares, executive director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), conducted by Alice Horrigan and Jim Motavalli on October 16, 2025 and aired on WPKN-FM. The conversation explores the safety limits of current AI engineering and the broader implications for humanity’s future. For the full hour, watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/u-22jwE4GZU . Also, read Alice Horrigan’s accompanying book review in

28:28

S.G. Goodman's Music: Grounded in Kentucky

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/10/15

S.G. Goodman lives in rural Kentucky farm country, and grew up attending church three times a week, with limited exposure to secular music. That experience colors her deeply grounded (in place and time) new album, Planting by the Signs. Fellow Kentuckian Bonnie Prince Billy is featured in this richly evocative collection.

30:59

Crime Writer and TV Producer George Pelecanos

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/09/02

George Pelecanos is the author of 20 crime novels, and a regular writing collaborator with David Simon on projects, including The Wire and Treme. Pelecanos' books ofteh catch Washington, D.C.'s denizens at the moment they hover between a life of crime and straight society. They are moral tales, as well as fast-paced thrillers.

37:22

Maria Muldaur

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/07/30

Maria Muldaur discusses her storied career and new album, One Hour Mama: The Blues of Victoria Spivey, released on July 11th, 2025, on Nola Blue Records. The album is a tribute to the legendary blues singer Victoria Spivey, who was a mentor to Muldaur. It features collaborations with Taj Mahal, Elvin Bishop, and Tuba Skinny.

15:36

Jerusalem Peace Builders Students with Dr. Danna Kurtin

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/07/30

Jerusalem Peace Builders Students visit the Bridgeport, CT area and discuss their trip and community engagement activities with Dr. Danna Kurtin.

20:01

Speed the Plough...Rock with Harpsichord!

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/06/16

Speed the Plough, a New Jersey rock group from the Hoboken/Maxwell's scene that produced The Feelies and Yo La Tengo, has a serendipitous encounter with an Italian harpsichord professor. And the result is beautiful music.

15:00

Harry Freedman: Bob Dylan's Jewish Roots

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/06/13

Harry Freedman, based in England, has previously explored the Jewish roots of Leonard Cohen, but here he takes on Bob Dylan, who was wont to deny those roots--at least early on in his career.

13:42

Tessa Souter: The Jazz Singer Takes on Erik Satie

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/06/13

Tessa Souter is a jazz singer, originally from England but living in New York, who likes ambitious projects. And adapting and writing lyrics for the music of Erik Satie (who died 100 years ago in 2025) is just the latest one.

15:42

Asteroid Mining: Matt Gialich and Astroforge Make it...

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/06/13

Astroforge is going after rare metals like platinum on near-Earth asteroids, hitching rides on the Falcon 9 and other rockets.

21:08

Richard Cortez: Jazz Singer for the LGTBQ...

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/06/13

Richard Cortez, from Florida originally, had a circuitous route to his role as an emerging jazz singer in New York. He was a confessional Americana singer with messages for his community, did sex work, and stripped in some of the same gay bars where he now performs his beautiful jazz music.

25:59

Brad Kolodner: Secrets of the Gourd Banjo

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/05/26

Brad Kolodner is an acclaimed clawhammer banjo player who performs with the chart-topping Irish, Old-Time, bluegrass fusion quartet Charm City Junction. He’s recorded four albums of Old-Time and original music with his father Ken under the name Ken & Brad Kolodner including their latest Billboard-charting release Stony Run (2020). His new album of solo gourd banjo music is called Old Growth.

27:49

Jim Kweskin: Living the Jug Band Life

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/05/26

Jim Kweskin founded the legendary 1960s Jim Kweskin Jug Band with Fritz Richmond, Geoff Muldaur, Maria Muldaur, Mel Lyman and Bruno Wolfe. During the five years they were together, they successfully transformed the sounds of pre-World War II rural music into a springboard for their good-humored performances. And Kweskin is still at it, with a new album called Doing Things Right, out from Jalopy Records on April 25, 2025.

25:57

Before Elvis: Preston Lauterbach Talks About the...

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/05/26

Preston Lauterbach is the author of the book Before Elvis: The African-American Musicians Who Made the King, a book that examines the careers of Big Mama Thornton, Little Junior Parker (author of "Mystery Train"), Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup and both Calvin and Phineas Newborn, Jr. He talks to WPKN about how Elvis absorbed their music and stage moves, and sometimes even acknowledged their help.

18:08

Mark Weinstein: Restoring Our Sanity Online

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/03/19

Mark Weinstein's new book is Restoring Our Sanity Online: A Revolutionary Social Framework, published by Wiley. Here, he dissects Web 1, until 2001, Web 2--our current state of "Surveillance Capitalism" with dominance by Facebook and Google--and the hopefully more enlightened and less privacy-invading states of Web 3 and Web 4.

20:58

Jazz Singer Stacey Kent Takes on an All-Jobim Program

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/03/19

A subtle and exquisite jazz vocalist, Stacey Kent has long had a love affair with the music of Brazil, and especially that of Antonio Carlos Jobim. On April 12 she joins with Danilo Caymmi (long a member of Jobim's band) for a tribute to bossa nova's greatest composer.

21:11

Colin Newman (ex-Wire) and Malka Spigel (ex-Githead)...

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/03/18

Colin Newman of Wire fame and Malka Spigel of Githead first recorded their electronic music as Immersion for the Oscillating album in 1994. They're set to play the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee on March 27. Here they talk to Jim Motavalli from Little Rock, Arkansas.

30:17

Derek and Hannah Jeter Talk Family--and Cars

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/02/26

Derek and Hannah Jeter were interviewed in upstate New York on the set of a commercial they were making for the Jeep Grand Wagoneer Obsidian Edition. They talked about family, and cars.

10:53

Phoebe White: African-American Country Yodeler

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/02/26

Phoebe White is an accomplished yodeler, and demonstrates her skills in this WPKN interview. Her album is Cowgirl's Delight, and it includes appearances from Riders in the Sky and Suzy Bogguss. Six of the 10 tunes are her own. White could be said to part of the movement that includes Rhiannon Giddens and is not only reclaiming the African-American heritage in country music, but blazing her own path in forming its future.

18:06

Roots Music Exemplar Miss Tess in Louisiana

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/02/26

Miss Tess, one of our most talented roots singers, songwriters and multi-instrumentalists, has just put out Cher Rêve, an album dedicated to exploring Louisiana's southern Acadiana region and in specific the "magical" city of Lafayette, home of the Blackpot Festival (about music and food). Instead of the Big Easy, Lafayette is the sleepy "Little Easier."

21:11

Irish Singer Karan Casey's World View

The Jim Motavalli Interview Podcast ·

2025/02/26

The Irish singer Karan Casey's most recent album is Nine Apples of Gold. She tours regularly in the US, where Irish music has a huge audience. Casey was a member of the popular band Solas, and is a founder of Fairplé, which works to achieve fairness and gender balance for female performers in Irish traditional music.

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