NOTE: This blog entry is from October 2013
by Chad Campbell, senior producer
All credit for this guest’s appearance goes to Phil Harrell, my former colleague first at NPR, then at XM with Bob. For years Phil has been telling me about Okkervil River and the band’s leader Will Sheff and what a great guest he would be with Bob given our open format. I finally took the advice and booked Sheff to discuss his career and the music from the band’s new CD The Silver Gymnasium. The songs on the album are all inspired by the people and places of tiny Meriden, New Hampshire of the mid 1980s. That’s where Sheff grew up on the campus of Kimball Union Academy, the college prep school where both his parents taught.
NPR Music prepared this interactive link to Sheff’s world, based on the map created by Sheff’s friend and frequent artistic collaborator William Schaff.