We sat with Lori McKenna before her recent show celebrating the 15th anniversary of her album Return To Bittertown at Cary Memorial Hall in Lexington, MA.

The Stoughton, Mass. native is a multi grammy-winning singer songwriter and the first woman ever to win the Country Music Association's Song of the Year two years running as well as Academy of Country Music's first female Songwriter of the Year.

In addition to her own songs, she has written for Faith Hill, Keith Urban, Little Big Town and Tim McGraw to name just a few. And just this past week we were all able to watch her on the Americana Music Honors and Awards show where she, well as former ATB guest Mark Erelli were each nominated for Song of the Year.

Along with her incredible songwriting chops and beautiful voice, we discovered that Lori is truly one of the most down to earth and nicest person you could ever meet.

When we think of the blended art forms of music and photography, there is a something iconic that can come out of a still picture of the great artists of the past.

Catching a glimpse of Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock or Leonard Bernstein conducting at the Philharmonic, it's as if you can see the music coming out of the page - the thoughts coming from the artist as they glance to the side, backstage. We can let our imagination come up with scenarios, like picturing a scene or portrait while we listen to the music itself.

Recently Ronnie was fortunate to be introduced to Mr. Jack Bradley at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital on Cape Cod. Nancy, His wife of 48 years, who you just heard, spoke of the death of "Louie" in 1971. That man was legendary Jazz trumpeter, vocalist and composer Louis Armstrong, who from the 1920s-60s was the lead influencer of both structural and improvisational elements of instrumental and vocal jazz for decades to follow.

Ronnie's colleague Dr. Anne-Marie Thomas had known of Above The Basement and wanted to connect him with Mr. Bradley. At first glance, Jack is indeed a man who visited the emergency room after a fall and a man living with Parkinson's Disease. But when he picked up the microphone to speak about his story of the love of music, which eventually led to a career as personal photographer for Mr. Armstrong, his face and body illuminated with excitement.

Jack took us on his journey as a kid with eyes and ears glued to the local bandstand, to his Merchant Marine work that took him to NYC, which led to the nightly discovery of jazz with a camera around his neck at all times.

We met up with Jake Shimabukuro before his concert in front of a sold out crowd at Cary Memorial Hall in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Jake became an international sensation in 2006 when a YouTube video of him playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps in Central Park - without his knowledge - became one of the very first viral videos on that site with millions of views.

Jake plays the ukulele (which we also discovered can be pronounced "ookelele") - and has performed at numerous festivals including the Stockholm Jazz Festival and Blue Mountains Music Festival and has appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel Live, A Prairie Home Companion, NPR's Morning Edition and World Cafe, and has spoken at several TED conferences.

In 2012, an award-winning documentary was released tracking his life, career, and music, titled Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings.

Jake is the founder The Four Strings Foundation, which creates music education workshops nationwide and provides ukuleles and other materials and training tools to schools and music teachers.

Song List:

Song 1: While My Guitar Gently Weeps Song 2: Clip from the "Wow" kid - Courtesy of WCRB Classical Radio Boston & The Handel and Haydn Society Song 3: Bohemian Rhapsody Song 4: Chuck Minor (a brand new song!!!!) Song 5: The Greatest Day

Here is the long awaited live acoustic set that the wonderful Circus Trees performed for us after their episode back in June of 2019.

They played three songs for us - two from their amazing album Sakura and a new one that we hope will be on their next album.

Please enjoy, share, and then purchase their music at circustrees.bandcamp.com.

You can listen to their great episode at www.abovethebasement.com.

Recorded on June 10, 2019 at Woods Hill Table, in Concord Massachusetts.

Song List:

Song 1: The Theft Song 2: Despondent Song 3: The OE (The Observer Expectancy Effect)

We saw Circus Trees at The Sinclair in Cambridge when we were there to celebrate The Record Co. and their upcoming new space in Boston.

Three young women came on the stage in front of a full house. And once they began playing, everyone paid attention. They blew us away.

Finola, 15, Giuliana, 17 and Edmee, also known as Egg, 13, are sisters from Marlborough, MA. And they play sad music.

We love sad music. And by the time they finished their set we had already gone over to Robert McCarthy - their manager/dad and founder of Five By Two Records - and he kindly gave us some vinyl of their debut album Sakura.

Giving us free vinyl is a sure way to get on ATB, but in their case they did not need to bribe their way on.

We thoroughly enjoyed our conversation with Egg, Finola and Giuliana and talked influences, writing, rehearsing and how three sisters can get along, collaborate and create intelligent, amazingly sad, but gut-wrenchingly beautiful and emotional rock music in a band that is garnering a lot of attention in Boston.

Here is a short live interview that we did on 91.5 WMFO radio with Anngelle Wood from Boston Emissions for On The Town with Mikey D - a show that was started 30 years ago.

Sadly, Mike passed in 2003 but the show continues in Mikey's D's name, broadcasting On the Town every Wednesday night, from 9PM to Midnight EST on Tufts University's WMFO, 91.5 FM.

You can also hear it streaming at www.wmfo.org

Being on the other side of an interview reminds me of the movie The Jerk with Steve Martin when Navin Johnson worked at a carnival guessing people's weight and a daredevil biker named Patty Bernstein says she would like to guess his weight and he says "Hey that would be interesting for me – no one has tried to guess my weight – this will give me a whole different perspective in this!"

Anyways – we digress – it was a lot of fun being on the other side of the mic.

With a voice that transcends not only genres but generations, it is fitting that Melinda Doolittle came back as a special guest performer for the third time with our friends at The Boston Children's Chorus.

We sat with Ms. Doolittle just before the BCC's final performance of the season at the iconic Wang Theater. The theme for this concert was "Lift Every Voice," with gratitude and celebration of the women in our lives - past, present and future.

While Chuck was taking the day off celebrating two young women in his life as they performed in dance, Ronnie was joined by friend and ATB guest co-host Ike Walker. Ike and Ronnie had the honor to share the mic with a couple of super women of the future, their own daughters and BCC singers, Izzy and Abby.

Melinda is a highly sought after background vocalist singing for musical icons including Michael McDonald, Aretha Franklin, Aaron Neville and Jonny Lang. She was introduced to millions of listeners and viewers on American Idol in 2007 and she brought the house down.

She has sung at the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame and The White House and has been a guest at Boston Pops and a featured performer at the 2015 Boston Pops Fourth of July Spectacular.

She is currently headlining her own soulful show Great American Soul Book.

We are always fascinated to talk about the state of Boston music and Boston music history with people in the business. Terrestrial radio is a huge part of that – WBCN, WFNX, WZLX - if you grew up in Boston those stations were a seminal way to discover new bands that inspired so many musicians.

We met Anngelle Wood at a State of Live Music event that she hosted at iZotope offices in Cambridge when we were trying to learn a bit more about – well – the current state of live music. Whatever your thoughts on the Boston music scene, Anngelle is doing her part to share the legacy and tell the story of Boston Rock and Roll that continues to inspire musicians young and old.

Anngelle began and is still passionate about radio and has worked at all the legendary Boston radio stations including WBCN, WFNX and WZLX. She is the host of Boston Emissions which began airing on WBCN back in the 80's and has been instrumental in introducing and establishing thousands of bands from Boston and New England and she also hosts and produces the great Rock and Roll Rumble that just celebrated their 40th Anniversary.

We plan on publishing a retrospective on the Rumble and its history in the next month or so.

But it was great to talk with Anngelle who works hard to promote and support great Boston Rock and Roll.

Note: Explicit Language

Song List:

Song 1: Cut from Boston Emissions, broadcast March 14th, 2019 Song 2: Suburban Murders – Brix n' Mortar (Freshcut) Song 3: Still - Corner Soul (Instant Gratification) Song 4: Falling Backwards –Set Fire (Aura) Song 5: The Theft – Circus Trees (Sakura) Song 6: Smoke Rolls – Set Fire (Aura)

We sat with Zumix founder Madeleine Steczynski. ZUMIX is an East Boston-based nonprofit organization dedicated to building the Boston community through music and creative technology.

What began as an idea around a kitchen table has blossomed into a wonderful place for kids to create and learn. As you will hear from Madeleine, they are taught valuable skills to instill confidence, collaboration and creativity in music that will follow them their entire life.

Their core belief is that music is the most powerful means of developing adolescent self-identity. Their award-winning music and creative technology programming is designed to equip youth with the tools necessary to reach their full potential, while creating a safe space for youth to explore who they are and who they want to be.

Co-hosting this time around is Kristina Latino. Kristina is founder and owner of CornerScape - an independent artist management company.

Song List:

(All songs by Wild Painting, from their album Emotions (available on iTunes & Spotify). Members include ZUMIX participants Angelina Botticcelli, Mario Dueñas, Juan Gutierrez, and Mario Jarjour.)

Song 1: Within You Song 2: Voice Memo Song 3: Ride

We met up with phenom guitarist and singer Arielle and her band as they road tripped in from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland to The Red Room @ Cafe 939 at Berklee College of Music.

Arielle has toured North America and the UK, opening for the likes of Eric Johnson, Greg Alman, Heart, Joan Jett and many others and none other than Brian May of Queen hand picked her for his production of We Will Rock You which was based on the songs of Queen.

She's been on the cover of Guitar Player magazine and Vince Gill proclaimed her as one of the top 5 Best New Guitarists.

She has quite a story, and you should read her entire bio and hear her music at www.imarielle.com.

\We talked about guitars, lyrics and melody, and women in music and took questions from the cozy audience at Café 939 and then had the treat of watching her play for a house full of Arielle fans.

We had a great evening taking to this thoughtful and talented musician.

Song List:

Song 2: Magick Again Song 3: Devil's Disguise

Kabir Sen, AKA MC Kabir is an educator at heart who teaches through music. He teaches at Shady Hill School in Cambridge and his students are some of his biggest fans, as we discovered when several of his students attended our latest ConcertCast at City Winery Boston.

Kabir also plays with hip-hop reggae band Krush Faktory and they appear often at local establishments like the Lizard Lounge, The Plough and Stars and Bull McCabes.

He's gotten great reviews in Billboard, The New Yorker, Boston Globe, International Herald Tribune, Boston Herald, SPIN, VIBE, NPR and others.

We all met up in front of an intimate crowd at the Haymarket Lounge to talk hip-hop, education, lyrics and their message.