Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

In the latest season of Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell is looking at the origins and consequences of mistakes—why we make them, the context in which we make them, and what happens after we make them. Years ago a music producer named Irv Gotti—a hitmaker for Jay-Z, Ja Rule, and Ashanti—was tapped by Sony Music to make a record with Jennifer Lopez. They wanted a big hit. And Irv delivered. But then he made the biggest mistake of his career.
Find more episodes of Revisionist History wherever you get podcasts.
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The magic of Bruce Hornsby isn't just that he's one of American music's great piano stylists — or that he wrote one of the most unlikely pop hits of the 1980s, a song about racism with two improvised solos that nobody at his label thought should be the single. It's how relentlessly he's kept moving, long after he had any commercial reason to.
Hornsby grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia, and got discovered playing a steak and ale joint across from the Hampton Coliseum by Mike McDonald. He scored his first big hit in 1986 with "The Way It Is. What followed was a long, restless second act: teaching himself two-handed independence by scheduling benefit concerts just to give himself a hard deadline, making jazz records with Jack DeJohnette and Christian McBride, bluegrass records with Ricky Skaggs, and going deep into Shostakovich fugues that now shape everything he writes.
On today’s episode Bruce Headlam sat down with Bruce Hornsby at the piano to talk about all of it. But they started somewhere unexpected: a steak and ale restaurant in Hampton, Virginia, in the fall of 1978.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Bruce Hornsby HERE.
Time-coded chapters:
(01:26) Discovering Musical Influences
(09:24) Success of “The Way It Is”
(15:51) Crafting Unique Sounds and Styles
(20:30) Collaborations and Songwriting Process
(26:40) Exploring New Directions in Music
(33:20) The Challenge of Musical Growth
(39:10) Jazz and Bluegrass Fusion
(44:47) The Art of Improvisation and Composition
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The magic of Dave Grohl isn't just that he's one of rock music's great raconteurs, or one of its greatest drummers and frontmen of the last thirty-plus years. It's the sheer number of lives he's gotten to live within rock and roll.
Dave started out drumming for Scream, one of DC's great, underrated hardcore bands, running in the same circles as Ian MacKaye and the Dischord crowd. Then he joined Nirvana and more than made his mark in one of the most consequential bands since the Beatles, and an indelible piece of Seattle's music story dates all the way back to Jimi Hendrix and Quincy Jones.
And then, as if that weren't enough: Foo Fighters. Which Dave Grohl essentially built by himself — Prince and Stevie Wonder-style — writing and recording nearly every note on the debut alone, save for some guitar from Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs.
On today's episode Justin Richmond sits down with Dave at the Foo Fighters' studio to talk about their twelfth album, Your Favorite Toy. But they start somewhere unexpected talking about a song from a cassette-only solo record in 1992 he made under the pseudonym "Late!"
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Dave Grohl HERE.
Time-coded chapters:
(02:20) Recording first album, Pocketwatch
(05:58) Formation & collaborative spirit of Scream and the DC hardcore scene
(09:53) The Power of Live Recording
(20:07) Community in Music Today
(28:04) The Creative Process Behind Foo Fighters' New Album
(34:04) The Enduring Passion for Music
(36:15) Writing Through Life's Challenges
(37:48) Cooking as a Parallel to Music
(43:39) The Surprising Influences of Musicians
(48:42) Exploring Themes in New Music
(53:22) The Evolution of Musical Style
(57:21) Reflecting on Musical Journeys
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Wyclef Jean may just be the most wide-ranging rapper, producer, performer, and composer of his time. As the lead producer and MC of The Fugees, he helped craft their 1996 landmark album The Score, one of the best-selling hip-hop albums of all time. The following year he released his debut solo album, The Carnival, which included hits like "Guantanamera" featuring Celia Cruz, and the platinum-certified single "Gone Till November."
As a writer and producer for other artists, Wyclef is behind Whitney Houston's "My Love Is Your Love," Santana's chart-dominating "Maria Maria," Shakira's global smash "Hips Don't Lie," and Destiny's Child's breakout single "No, No, No."
This spring, Wyclef is releasing Clef Notes, Volume One of Quantum Leap — an ambitious seven-album solo project that unfolds over the next year. Each installment is seven tracks and zeroes in on a different genre, ranging from country and reggae to jazz, hip-hop, Haitian kompa, and beyond.
Today, we're bringing you a special episode: a live conversation recorded at the On Air Podcast Festival, where Justin Richmond was joined by special guest host Sam Sanders to sit down with Wyclef. They get into what it was really like in the studio with Whitney Houston, how The Fugees shaped their sound while recording The Score, and the wisdom Wyclef would pass on to his younger self about what makes a great creative collaboration.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Wyclef Jean HERE.
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Jessie Ware has always moved between worlds. She's a British soul singer who spent the early part of her career making intimate, understated records. Then, in 2020, she released What's Your Pleasure? and morphed into a full-blown disco goddess. The record received widespread critical acclaim, earned Jessie her first top-three album on the UK charts, and was nominated for British Album of the Year at the BRITs. Today Jessie traces that sonic evolution back to an especially ripe creative period in her life, when she launched Table Manners, the podcast she hosts with her mom Lennie. Table Manners has become one of the UK's most beloved shows, racking up over 60 million listens, and in turn gave Jessie a new kind of confidence.
This month Jessie is releasing Superbloom, her sixth album. As she has since What's Your Pleasure?, Jessie A&Rs the record herself, staying carefully in control of every creative decision. Her production team included core collaborator James Ford, the producer behind landmark records with Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode, Florence and the Machine, and Blur. As well as three-time Grammy winner Stuart Price, best known for producing Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor and The Killers' Day & Age.
On today's episode, Leah Rose talks with Jessie Ware about how Superbloom was born after a particularly difficult year filled with illness and loss, and how that led to an album that sounds like pure joy. Jessie also talks about channeling Grace Jones to slip into a sexy persona to record sultry new songs like "Ride" and "Sauna," and she explains how Minnie Riperton and Stevie Wonder inspired her to make her private life public like never before.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite songs from Jessie Ware HERE.
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