GRAMMY winner and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer Mike Reid chats about his remarkable musical life.

PART ONE
Scott and Paul talk about the sports games and so much more

PART TWO
Our in depth conversation with Mike Reid

ABOUT MIKE REID

Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer Mike Reid has written twelve #1 country songs and has had his work recorded by Bonnie Raitt, Anita Baker, Bette Midler, Prince, George Michael, Nancy Wilson, Etta James, Kenny Rogers, Ann Murray, Wynonna Judd, Alabama, Joe Cocker, Tanya Tucker, Willie Nelson, Collin Raye and Tim McGraw. He is perhaps best known for co-writing the modern-day standard “I Can’t Make You Love Me” with Allen Shamblin.

Launching his music career as a staff songwriter for country star Ronnie Milsap’s publishing company, Reid penned Milsap hits such as “Stranger in My House,” which won a Grammy for Best Country Song” and “Lost in the Fifties Tonight,” which was named ASCAP’s Country Song of the Year. As an artist, Mike signed with Columbia Records and scored a #1 hit with the self-penned “Walk on Faith.”

Others who’ve recorded Reid’s songs include Tammy Wynette, Rita Coolidge, Don Williams, Billy Dean, Josh Turner, Shelby Lynne, The Judds, George Jones, and Shania Twain. A true Renaissance man, Reid went on to compose theatrical and operatic works, winning a Richard Rodgers Development Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters for 1997's The Ballad of Little Jo. His most recent project is a collaborative album with Joe Henry called Life and Time.

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We're celebrating our 10th anniversary all year by digging in the vaults to re-present classic episodes with fresh commentary. Today, we're revisiting our 2020 conversation with Elvis Costello.

ABOUT ELVIS COSTELLO

Released between 1977 and 1979, Elvis Costello’s first three albums—My Aim is True, This Year’s Model, and Armed Forces—were all included in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. That early period of his recording career yielded now-classic singles such as “Alison,” “Watching the Detectives,” “Pump it Up,” “Radio Radio,” “Oliver’s Army,” “Accidents Will Happen,” and others.

Though he established his career as a rock artist and reached commercial heights in the US with the pop hit “Everyday I Write the Book,” Costello’s more than thirty studio albums cover a breathtaking range of stylistic ground, from Almost Blue, his early 1980s album of country covers, to The Juliet Letters, his 1993 collaboration with The Brodsky Quartet, to North, an album of ballads partially inspired by his wife Diana Krall that topped Billboard’s Jazz chart in 2003, to Il Sogno, his first full-length orchestral work, which was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, and topped Billboard’s classical chart in 2004, to Wise Up Ghost, a 2013 collaboration with Questlove and The Roots. In between, he’s continued to release albums both solo and with his bands The Attractions, The Imposters, and The Sugarcanes.

Always an adventurous collaborator, Costello entered into a fruitful songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney that yielded more than a dozen songs, including Costello’s Top 10 single “Veronica” and McCartney’s “My Brave Face.” He went on to release entire collaborative albums with Richard Harvey, Burt Bacharach, Allen Toussaint, and others. He has written lyrics for compositions by Charles Mingus, Billy Strayhorn and Oscar Peterson, as well as musical settings for lyrics by Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. His songs have been covered by a range of artists including George Jones, Chet Baker, Dusty Springfield, and Solomon Burke.

Costello has been nominated for fourteen Grammy awards, two of which he won, as well as an Academy Award for co-writing “The Scarlet Tide” with T-Bone Burnett for the film Cold Mountain. He has received two Ivor Novello awards for Songwriting, the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement in Songwriting award, and the ASCAP Founder’s Award, which was presented by Burt Bacharach. He was inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and was named one of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time by Rolling Stone magazine. His genre-stretching new album, Hey Clockface, was recorded in Helsinki and Paris, and was released on October 30.

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Grammy-winning producer and singer-songwriter Joe Henry gives us insight into his multi-faceted career

PART ONE
Paul and Scott chat about their music-themed road trip and say R.I.P. to MTV.

PART TWO
Our in-depth conversation with Joe Henry

ABOUT JOE HENRY
Joe Henry is a singer-songwriter who became a record producer as a protege of T Bone Burnett. He went on to win Grammy awards for his work with Solomon Burke, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, and Bonnie Raitt. Additionally, he produced the final albums of the late Allen Toussaint, who credited Henry for ushering him out of retirement. Henry’s contribution to American music remains somewhat enigmatic. Joe’s own records often feature adventurous contributions by instrumentalists, such as one of only two cameos Ornette Coleman ever made with a singer, while his song “Stop” was reworked into Madonna’s hit pop single, “Don’t Tell Me.” The long list of artists Joe has produced includes Ani DiFranco, Aimee Mann, Bettye LaVette, Elvis Costello, Rodney Crowell, Aaron Neville, Hayes Carll, Joan Baez, The Milk Carton Kids, Rhiannon Giddens, and many others. As a songwriter he has collaborated with Rosanne Cash, Jakob Dylan, Loudon Wainwright III, Billy Bragg, Madonna, and many more, while releasing 17 studio albums as an artist. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Americana Music Honors & Awards in 2025. Joe’s most recent album is Life and Time, a collaborative project with fellow songwriter Mike Reid.

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