What Makes Edie Brickell Happy

XPN | By Talia Schlanger,

Published March 25, 2019 at 11:39 AM EDT

This past fall, Edie Brickell and New Bohemians released an explosively joyful album called Rocket. It had been 30 years since the band's 1988 smash hit single "What I Am" made it an overnight sensations. Shortly after that brush with fame, Edie put the band on the back-burner and stopped touring to pursue another dream she had — raising a family. She married Paul Simon, they had children and as she told me "I feel like it's a great privilege to be with your kids".

When it felt right, Edie kept up with music. She made her own solo albums, she teamed up with Steve Martin to for some bluegrass musical adventure that included co-writing a Broadway musical, and she worked a bit with New Bohemians including making the group's 2006 album, Stranger Things.

Edie shares her story and the values that guided her choices along the way. She also talks songwriting shop, and reveals how she and Paul Simon manage to separate their home lives and creative lives. Hear it all in the player.

Tags

Music News from NPR

Talia Schlanger

Talia Schlanger hosts World Cafe, which is distributed by NPR and produced by WXPN, the public radio service of the University of Pennsylvania. She got her start in broadcasting at the CBC, Canada's national public broadcaster. She hosted CBC Radio 2 Weekend Mornings on radio and was the on-camera host for two seasons of the television series CBC Music: Backstage, as well as several prime-time music TV specials for CBC, including the Quietest Concert Ever: On Fundy's Ocean Floor. Schlanger also guest hosted various flagship shows on CBC Radio One, including As It Happens, Day 6 and Because News. Schlanger also won a Canadian Screen Award as a producer for CBC Music Presents: The Beetle Roadtrip Sessions, a cross-country rock 'n' roll road trip.

See stories by Talia Schlanger

Kimberly Junod

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).

See stories by Kimberly Junod