Today, Louka Patenaude joins us on Taste the Music. Patenaude is a chameleon of sorts. There’s the singer songwriter, sometimes with a country sound. There’s the bluegrass picker, then there’s the sultry 70s Grant Green sounding Jazz man. There’s the jangly indie pop that emanates from some of Patenaude’s tunes like From In My Tea, and there’s this off-kilter interpretation of Bob Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice, that dutifully transcribes the tune down to a minor scale, while preserving the melody.

A local Madison yokel, Louka Patenaude studied with the famed Richard Davis (RIP) at UW–Madison, who himself was known for being a jazz contemporary of Miles Davis, Eric Dolphy, Joe Henderson, but also for being a pop staple. You hear Davis on Bruce Springsteen’s early albums, Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt. It makes sense, then, that Patenaude plays like one of his heroes, weaving in and out of Madison various musical pockets, to create a space all unto his own. So, grab a root vegetable, get comfy, and Taste the Music.

Today’s episode was written and produced by Me, Mark Griffin. Taste the Music was created by Whitney Mann and myself.

In today’s episode of Taste the Music, our host, Mark Griffin, tells his own story of becoming a writer. Why would anyone do such a thing in the first place? And why keep doing it? For Mark, it started with a dreaded blue exam notebook, refashioned into a weekly journal by his fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Brauer. Her assignment: write what’s going on with you. It was a fun activity that was better than rehashing the same math assignments over and over again. So he kept doing it.

One day, though, he just didn’t feel like completing the assignment. So he drew a picture of an ogre with a smirking jack-o-lantern mouth. Then he engaged in the time honored tradition of putting his head down on his desk after finishing an assignment early. This one act led to a cascade of events that ended up with Mark pursuing a career in science and culture writing. There was the story for his college newspaper (no edits) and a misunderstanding at a party with someone who thought he was a writer, at a time when he didn’t see himself as one.

Then there was Mark’s interview technique. When he was young, he noticed something about the way he could sense other people’s feelings through their facial expressions. Mark felt like he could almost read their minds. Developing this skill was a challenge for teenager Mark, but as an adult, he could use this skill to interview scientists, cancer patients, taco truck owners, and jazz bass players with the same ease.

Musician and today’s co-producer Whitney Mann then returns to grill Mark about his experiences in writing, revealing some insights into how we pass on those traits to our kids.

Musician Whitney Mann was on her way to stardom in the music business. She had opened for some of her heroes, like Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn, and Guy Clark. One day, she misplayed a song on stage, and that turned into a case of stage fright, unraveling her performance before her very eyes. After a few years of trying to settle her nerves, Whitney Mann hung up her guitar and put all her memorabilia in a box in the basement.

It wasn't long until that box – and her own voice – started calling out to her from storage. Today's episode of Taste the Music is about how Whitney Mann responded to the calling to keep writing and playing, and what's happened since.

This episode was written, edited, and produced by Whitney Mann and Mark Griffin and originally appeared on WORT-FM 89.9 in Madison.

Today we launch Taste the Music and give you a little taste of our first episode with Wisconsin singer and songwriter, Whitney Mann. Whitney weaves the story of her rise in the music industry and the sudden stops she took along the way. Listen to the full episode 1:00 PM Central on wortfm.org or subscribe to hear it anytime on TasteTheMusic.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Today's episode was written, edited, and produced by Mark Griffin and Whitney Mann.