The Great American Taxi visits KPIG Radio

Sometimes spontaneous works best. I’ve been chatting Jim Lewin of The Great American Taxi for months about trying to get together for an interview on my “Songs and Stories” podcast. Recently, they were in town for a gig at Moe’s Alley in Soquel. Jim called and said, “Hey, we’re going to play on to promote tonight’s show. Want to meet us there in ten minutes?” And it was that simple. I headed down to the station and did an interview (in two parts) with band members Chad Staehly, Brian Adams, Vince Herman and Jim.  

The Great American Taxi is a Boulder, Colorado-based band, headed by Vince, who KPIG listeners probably know his work with Leftover Salmon. The local tie with the band is Jim Lewin. Although he’s been with Taxi for five years, Jim's a longtime local who lives in Santa Cruz, is part of the bluegrass outfit Harmony Grits, and is known as one of the areas go-to sidemen for his work with songwriters like Lacy J. Dalton.  

Jim’s also a fine guitar teacher. I took lessons from him years ago, which is how I really got to know him. I always say that “anything I do correctly when I play guitar is probably Jim’s fault.”

The Great American Taxi straddles between the jam-band and Americana genres: They’re all great players but are each fine songwriters in their own right. Their latest record, “Paradise Lost” is a different sort of effort. Produced by Todd Snider – whom they now regularly perform with—the new CD is a collection of songs that most of their fans haven’t heard.

Being part of the jam-band scene, recording and trading of live shows is encouraged. With “Paradise Lost”, they decided to try something different and record new songs that hadn’t been played out before. This episode includes clips of “Poor House” and “Olden Days” from the new CD.

(And if you listen to KPIG, you’ve probably heard "Olden Days," which is getting lots of airplay. The tune is written by Jim and features him on lead vocal.)

The entire interview is in available as a downloadable MP3, and it runs 45 mins:

• Click here to download and listen to the interview with The Great American Taxi.
• Click here to view the entire archive of interviews.