Podcast Pending

Country Roads magazine has a birthday coming up, and it’s a big one. Don’t tell her we told you—but it’s very close to the big four-oh.

Turning thirty-nine this year, our publication is old enough to be established, respected. But still young enough to keep up with today’s trends—the ol’ girl is well-versed in the talents of adapting to the times, and has no intent to slow down now.

For almost forty years, Country Roads has brought its nuanced takes on the culture of our region to magazine stands and coffee tables across Louisiana and beyond, in the time-tested-and-fortified form of the printed word on paper. And in our admittedly-biased editorial opinion, flipping through an issue to read a story on the page never gets old.

And yet, in 2022, the art of storytelling has taken on a multitude of exciting new formats, and is constantly challenging the limitations of prior traditions. One medium, in particular, has captured the heart of this editorial team as we look to the future of our magazine: imagine a Country Roads story that you can hear.

Enter: dreams of a podcast. Much like the written word, podcasting allows voices and stories to travel from their creators into homes, businesses, and vehicles across the region—simultaneously public and intimate. But the richness of sound brings with it altogether new possibilities: music experienced as its meant to be, stories told straight from the mouths of those who experienced them, a celebration of the vast diversity of language and accents our region is known for.

One medium, in particular, has captured the heart of this editorial team as we look to the future of our magazine: imagine a Country Roads story that you can hear.

Heading towards Country Roads’ fortieth anniversary—which we’ll be celebrating throughout all of 2023 as we lead up to the big day next September—we’re excited to share our ambitions to create the official Country Roads podcast (name TBA, got any ideas?). We’re still in the early stages, but this is what we’ve got so far :

1. A full internet’s worth of resources on how to make a podcast.

2. A guy with an Australian accent (our Publisher James Fox-Smith, of course).

3. A theme song (!!!)

That, and a whole lot of excitement—which, in our past experience, has been enough to get plenty more outlandish ideas than this off the ground.

As folks who work in print publishing who quite enjoy podcasts, but have never produced one ourselves, we weren’t exactly sure where to start. What we did know is that an engaging theme song can do wonders to grab an audience’s attention, and draw them into the intrigue of a story. So, we outsourced our motivation and hired a couple of musicians to get the train chugging down the tracks.

Drummer and percussionist Sam Shahin and guitarist, producer, and owner of New Orleans’ Wild Child Studios “Wild Bill” Daniel regularly bring their complex, completely shreddin’ musical sensibilities to their progressive jazz-funk sextet Naughty Professor—so we figured they could apply those skills to our theme song.

Knowing even less about musical composition and recording than we do about making podcasts (you do the math), the guidance we gave them was fairly vague. “Country with a sly smile,” was James’s primary note. I asked them to think about the content of the magazine, which the podcast will reflect—how it takes readers “off the beaten path,” and enlightens them to unexpected people and places and experiences that can at some times be winding and down-home and weird, and at others, elevated and inspiring.

After only a day spent jamming, laying down tracks, and mixing/mastering the recording at Wild Child Studios in Mid City, my goodness—we think they nailed it. And we can’t get it out of our heads.

We hope you’ll think so, too. But we’ve got a long way to go before Country Roads’ new theme song will exist in its final form, in the context of our podcast. Thankfully, we’ve got some time still to work out the kinks. But for now, we couldn’t resist sharing our excitement about our new auditory endeavor, and the song it will come wrapped up in—so be sure to keep an ear out for a whole new Country Roads experience, coming just in time for forty.

Since we’ve clearly got quite a bit of work to accomplish before releasing our pilot episode, we’d love to hear any advice, ideas, or words of encouragement you might have to spare about our latest endeavor—just email editor@countryroadsmag.com.