The notion of unknowns doing what they had to do to become stars. It's as long as time.

New York Times best-selling author Marc Shapiro has been writing books on pop culture for many years. He's written about stars like Susan Sarandon, Adele, Santana, George Harrison, Justin Bieber, and now has written about BTS and the phenomenon called K-Pop.

It's three albums and nearly nine years since our last encounter with Eli "Paperboy" Reed.  He brought his soul swagger to the Madison Avenue stage at Albany's annual LarkFEST in the fall of 2010!

Sean and Jamie Oshima, Oshima Brothers, grew up in a musical household in Maine. They remember singing as a family while being driven to school. 

As they got older, they started making their own songs. Now, they not only write and record them but they create and edit their own videos. 

Our new friends, the Diver sisters from Bundoran, Co. Donegal, Ireland, dropped by the day their album, "Life in a Carnival," was released. They were getting ready to play a special show in a community that loves them. They've played in the area several times before.

Joan, Angela, Gràinne and Marie Thérèse played songs from that new album, and we spoke about their life in music.

I sat down with Hozier at The Palace Theatre before his sold out show on March 11, 2019.  Hozier had just begun his tour and was downright ebullient over the release of his second album, "Wasteland, Baby."

We talked about his relationship with the blues and R&B, and his mother the the visual artist, and more.

Sandy McKnight is a singer, songwriter, producer, playwright, author and phlebotomist. Well maybe not the latter, but his songs get under our skin.  His new band, Sandy McKnight's Pop-Clique, played our studio and talked up a new release called, "Hit List".