Rita Houston
A nationally recognized tastemaker with a broad knowledge of and passion for music, Rita Houston shapes the musical direction of WFUV's acclaimed City Folk® format. With the help of staff, Houston selects the songs that become part of City Folk®, establishes theme days and creates popular features like "New Release Monday" and "Guilty Pleasures Day." Well-known for her rapport with artists, she books the on-air interviews, hosting a number of them herself. Houston also serves as executive producer of the nationally distributed City Folk Live concert series, and produces annual benefit CDs of performances from WFUV's Studio A.
After years as a popular City Folk® midday host, Houston shifted her on-air presence to create The Whole Wide World with Rita Houston, a dance-based program showcasing her wide-ranging taste in music. The show airs Friday nights from 8 to 11 p.m. ET, and often features live sessions with artists from around the globe, and broadcasting from locations as exotic as Louisville, KY, and Austin, TX.
Houston is a two-time Radio & Records (R&R) Music Director of the Year and a three-time designate of Gavin's Music Director of the Year, and she has also been awarded the Deems Taylor Award for Broadcast Excellence. In 2001, Houston enjoyed acclaim as part of the WFUV team as its was named Album Network 2001 Major Market Adult Rock Station of the Year, Gavin's Station of the Year, and the 2001, 2002 and 2003 FMQB Progressive Noncommercial Radio Station of the Year.
Houston came to WFUV in 1994 from Westchester's WXPS, where she hosted Starlight Express, a show close in style to City Folk®. After anchoring the midday there for six years, she left the station to join WFUV. A Westchester native, Houston recently moved from the East Village to Nyack, N.Y., to plant basil and perfect her fireplace skills.
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WFUV's New York City home is more than a thousand miles from New Orleans. But on a recent fine day, a favorite son of the Crescent City brought his city's sounds to the station's Studio-A piano. Throughout the session, pianist Allen Toussaint led the way down through the different "musics" of New Orleans.
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Theresa Andersson is a one-woman band, and this was never more apparent than when she strolled into the WFUV studios with two engineers, but no band members. She surrounded herself with drums, floor pedals, slide steel guitar and a guitar — all the while singing.
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Now that the MP3 is king, vinyl has become something of an underground revolution. More and more artists have begun to insist on releasing their new albums on vinyl, and music fans who jettisoned their collections in favor of "clear, perfect digital sound CDs" are raiding garage sales and rediscovering analog music all over again. Here are 10 releases from 2008 that are worth the extra effort of vinyl.
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It was a short commute for Brooklyn's Little Jackie when it performed at the Bronx studios of WFUV. The band strips away Adam Pallin's lush production in this session with an acoustic guitar, percussion and back-up vocalists. Vocalist Imani Coppola even pulls out her violin on a Shangri-Las cover.
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Appleton, Wis., provides a lot of material for Cory Chisel: It's the childhood home of Harry Houdini, and it's surrounded by small towns, bigger lakes, paper mills and vast stretches of rural landscape. The singer-songwriter plays music inspired by the seemingly normal town, and talks about a music scene that takes a lot of pride in itself.
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With just a guitar and his voice at WFUV's Studio-A, Amos Lee shows off a new approach to the songs from his latest album, Last Days at the Lodge. Lee injects his love of soul music into his singer-songwriter fare and shares the stories behind the music.
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The band formerly known as Alabama 3 strips down its roots-meets-dance sound with just two acoustic guitars and voices. The trio plays and talks about its Sopranos success song and plays a country death ballad version of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart."
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Since the early '90s, Escovedo's solo albums have quietly cast him as an artist of note. He's come a long way since his bands Rank And File and True Believers, which both looked at roots-rock music in new ways yet only achieved cult status. Slowly but surely, Escovedo is getting his due.
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Coming up along with a slew of British singers who look back to classic '60s girl groups, Adele stands out with a big, bluesy voice. At just 20, she sounds wise beyond her years, writing songs of heartbreak and loneliness. Here, Adele performs songs from her debut CD, 19, with just a guitarist for accompaniment.
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Growing up in Wales, neo-soul singer Duffy didn't have the luxury of record stores, or even possess the notion of trendy pop music. As she tells Rita Houston in a session from WFUV, this allowed her to fully enjoy the classic songs she heard on the radio.