Cheryl Prashker is a talented musician with wide and deep skills, particularly on the drums, but she especially has a heart of gold and bestows endless blessings on all around her. Besides performing decades ago with a back called CC RailRoad, she performs currently with a Celtic-based band called Runa.

We welcome back David Wilcox to share his second Song of the Soul, following up on his 2013 interview. David has a hearty laugh even while digging deep in the challenges and pains of our lives, managing to keep grace and gratitude percolating without rose-colored glasses. His gift is sharing the full story, without inundating us with all the words, thereby calling them out of us as well. He joins us from Asheville, NC.

The music of Ben Bedford talks on on a trip through a wider lens to life, not only that of humans, but of the vibrant world around us, with all our relations. While Ben's words dance lyrically through images and poetry, his tunes dance magically through guitar strings and vibrations.

I interviewed Peter Mayer back in 2011 – so 15 years ago – and for some bizarre reason I've waited all this time to have him back. The recent impetus was a song Peter wrote, called “Heroes,” inspired by the recent Minnesota uprising, so near to my home and to his. But Peter's music is endless reason to visit him time and again, because it's not only beautiful, but it's deeply reflective and inspirational, dancing on the line between spirituality and science, between inward magic and outward miracles.

Seven portions of seven Song of the Soul shows with seven great musicians back in the summer/fall of 2020, with songs linked by themes around old-timey music, old times, old folks, and new songs.

Today we have a wide-ranging re-visit with musician-farmer, Andy Juhl. Though much of his music tilts Americana/Folk, he's also passionately into progressive rock music, and plays with a band of that character also. Raised on the farm, he's also been navigating that work in the direction of organic farming, working side-by-side with his father on 800 acres in NW Iowa. Time in the self-driving combine leaves him with more time than you might expect to write music, and he's expanding his range regularly.

El Kleiner does music from the deeper side of the pool, with profound imagery, and with sensitive sensitivity and insightful sight into the way we look below the layers of meaning of our lives. El does not define or box-in our beliefs, but creates a shifting mosaic of perception that allows the listener to flow beyond the usual constraints of analysis, all of it delivered through haunting, enrapturing, heart-opening voice, lyrics, & melodies.

We welcome back Katie Dahl for Song of the Soul today, plunging deeper into the soul-sharings she gifted us with just over 2 years ago. Immediately after the murders of citizens in Minneapolis, Katie wrote and recorded A Song for Minnesota, which made it urgent to welcome back this Minnesota-raised Wisconsinite. With typical Minnesotan modesty, she looks deep within, looks boldly at the world around her, and she transforms these into heart-opening music, and into theater.

We're headed over to Metuchen, New Jersey, today, for a visit with the amazingly talented Efrat. Efrat showed her musical gifts from a tender age, with the Oak Ridge Symphony at age 10, than with the Knoxville Youth Orchestra at 11, along the way with her dad in a Mexican Jewish band, and on and on. Though she shines powerfully in classical and jazz music, and she's top notch in klezmer, blues, & swing, she found a special place in folk & pop music.

Ethan Eckert is a player of music in a wild variety of genres, including folk, jazz, hip-hop, hard rock and just about whatever you can imagine. He's a drummer, keyboardist, guitarist, vocalist, and he writes songs on the creative edge. He will help raise you up, just as he does with his sourdough bread and his songs will answer your thirst, as does his mushroom tea. Ethan does all of this and more in Kansas City, Kansas.