Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to Ed Eckstein, son of smooth as silk singer & bandleader Billy Eckstein. Our chat with Ed was funny, educational, occasionally jaw dropping and always engaging. Now, before we even started our chat with Ed, upon his agreeing to be a part of the podcast, we got a list of topics from Ed that he thought we might want to discuss. Effectively, he sent us a cheat sheet that they didn't get to on his appearance on the Questlove Supreme podcast prior to our chat. Who were we to say no? There were like 60 totally engaging topics Ed had written out and we get to some of them here.

Jazz fans and pop fans will know Billy Eckstein for his deep baritone voice that singers of the era loved and the ladies swooned for. Sinatra was a fan and a friend. As was Ella and a host of others. Dapper, good looking, classy, entrepreneurial and courageous, we discuss with Ed all of those qualities his father had that made him a star. It also made him a target as you will hear, surrounding an article in Life Magazine that exposed America's racists past that frankly, doesn't seem too far removed from where we are today.

We also talk to Ed about his own career as a journalist and music executive who recounts his obsessive love of rock music, his time working for the one and only Q, Quincy Jones and some of the most insane and jaw dropping interviews he conducted with the likes of Issac Hayes. We also get into his years as his father's helper before he went on stage at Jewish and Italian resorts in the 1960s and as Nabil Ayers said in a 2020 New York Times piece, what it "was like to be the first black person to be let in — to be allowed by the predominantly white music industry to helm one of its largest entities,"when he was the president of Mercury Records.

This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story.

Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast we are talking to Katherine Kramer, daughter of producer/director Stanley Kramer. Our chat with Katherine or Kat was both edifying and easy as we had familial connections and we learned a few things in the process. Such as? Well how about what famous actress was she named after, where in the Western United States did her family move to once they left Hollywood and what films made her father a bankable director while he was still producing.

We also spoke about some of his films, many of them 'message' films such as Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, Judgement at Nuremberg, The Defiant Ones and a small, off-beat comedy called It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World which co-starred Edie Adams, our host's Josh Mills's mother. In all, Stanley Kramer's films garnered 80 Academy Awards and starred everyone from Spencer Tracy to Sidney Pointier, Marlon Brando and so many, many more.

Kat talked to us about her work as well – in terms of both her charity events and her film festivals, her one woman show about Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, her creepy house growing up, The Kennedy Assassination and much more. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story. Kat Kramer's is coming right up!

Today on another encore episode of the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are speaking to musician Matt Axton about his larger-than-life actor, musician, spokesman and songwriter dad, Hoyt Axton. Now if you grew up in the eighties, you would know Hoyt from Gremlins. If you grew up in the 70s, you'd know him as the songwriter to the smash hit "Joy To The World" made popular by Three Dog Night and in the sixties perhaps the hit show Bonanza. As Matt explains to us, his dad was many things to many people, a shit kicking psychedelic cowboy, a Busch beer pitchman and even Mogwai's dad. Everyone could relate to Hoyt.

We also talk about the fact that Matt is a third generation musician, as his grandmother was known as the Queen of Nashville. Mae Boren Axton, was a well-known songwriter of more than 200 songs including – get this – "Heartbreak Hotel". Now that's some serious lineage. To know that your grandmother introduced Elvis Presley to his manager, Colonel Tom Parker is just a bit of a mind fuck.

Our conversation with Matt was both melancholy and prideful. Matt was fiercely proud of his dad's legacy in country music and in film and television but he also let us know that for reasons you will hear, he has almost nothing of his father's possessions but his own memories. But he's not bitter. In fact, he's got a terrific outlook and draws on his dad's legacy to push him in his own career. Matt loves the one nighters, the travel, the live music and the recording. After all, it's in his blood. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and everyone has a story.