[music]
Alison Stewart: Today is the release day for Blake Mills' latest album, Jelly Road. The LA-based singer, songwriter, and guitar virtuoso joined us in studio yesterday to preview the release with his co-writer and co-producer, Vermont bass musician, Chris Weisman. At the end of our interview, I asked Blake and Chris about one song in particular, a song called Wendy Melvoin, named after the legendary guitarist of Wendy & Lisa and Prince's backing band, The Revolution. Here's what Blake said about the background of that song.
Blake Mills: I knew that Chris was a massive Wendy & Lisa fan, and one of the people that I had reached out to around the time that Chris was coming to Los Angeles was Wendy, and just said, "Hey, some time within these couple weeks, can you come by the studio?" I didn't tell Chris when that was going to be until about 24 hours ahead of time because I didn't want him to psych himself out. He did, but what he did was he went into the other room like a kid on Christmas Eve and wrote a piece of music called Wendy Melvoin. We decided that what was best would be to record it, and put it on the album, and present it to her in that way rather than play her the sketch of it as it existed when she came into the studio. It's one of our favorite songs on the record.
Alison Stewart: After our interview, we asked Chris and Blake to stick around and record a performance of that song for us, and they were gracious enough to do so. Congratulations to Blake Mills on the new album out today and congratulations to Chris Weisman on getting to meet Wendy Melvoin. Here is the song. Wendy Melvoin.
[music - Blake Mills and Chris Weisman: Wendy Melvoin]
Alison Stewart: That was the song Wendy Melvoin, performed by Blake Mills and Chris Weisman off the new Blake Mills album, Jelly Road, which is out today.
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