Claudia Marshall
Though she started her broadcasting career as a news reporter, City Folk Morning host Claudia Marshall is a music lover at heart — she's from Motown, after all.
The day after graduation, Marshall packed up her Ford Escort and drove to Los Angeles in pursuit of a journalism career. She soon found it at all-news station KFWB, where she worked her way up from copywriter to newscaster before going on to a gig at L.A.'s top-rated oldies station, KRTH. In 1995, after a stint as a television reporter and a move to Portland, Ore., Marshall was lured to New York by CBS News. She spent the next five years reporting and anchoring national radio broadcasts there and at ABC News.
Soon after arriving in New York Marshall discovered WFUV and became an enthusiastic member. A few years later, Marshall decided WFUV might be a fun place to work and contacted program director Chuck Singleton. Her background in journalism and love of music thus begat City Folk Morning in the winter of 2001.
Marshall enjoys meeting "our great listeners" at local concert venues and interviewing her musical heroes on the air. She lives in Rockland County with her husband, two stepdaughters and a yellow lab. When she is not working at the station or catching live music, she is writing and performing her own music and contributing her talents to the non-profit group "Songs of Love," which cheers terminally-ill children with songs personalized just for them.
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Joseph Arthur is a versatile and prolific rocker. In addition to playing music, his humanitarian efforts have helped bring art, music and more to children in Northern Uganda refugee camps. For all his sterling credentials, Arthur remains easygoing and casual in this session on WFUV.
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Despite his high profile and popularity in the industry, the former Jayhawks singer-songwriter has a low-key, almost shy demeanor. The alt-country pioneer performs songs from his first solo CD, Vagabonds, in an interview and performance on WFUV.
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Julian is cleverly disguised as a sensitive singer-songwriter: He's a white guy with an acoustic guitar. In fact, he's a true soul singer and an astonishing storyteller in the vein of Randy Newman or Paul Simon. Hear an interview and performance from WFUV.
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Earle's marriage to Allison Moorer two years ago and his move to New York City have resulted in Washington Square Serenade, which the roots-rock icon calls a collection of love songs to his wife and his new home. Hear an interview and in-studio performance.
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Sharon Jones has great talent and a great story. The "queen of funk" has faced music honchos and wildly shifting music trends, but has more than earned her nickname. Hear Jones and her band, The Dap-Kings, in an interview and performance from WFUV.
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Since writing poetry as a teenager and making his first foray into songs on 1970's 'Small Talk at 125th & Lenox,' Scott-Heron has merged message and music in a manner that's influenced countless activists and artists. Hear an interview and performance from WFUV.
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The singer, songwriter and producer's latest solo album, Civilians, returns to his rootsier sounds. It's a great complement to Mary Gauthier's new album, which Henry produced; she joins him on one song in this interview and studio performance from WFUV.
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The daughter of a literature professor and blues enthusiast, Williams had been marked to write powerful songs about strong characters right from the beginning. Hear an interview and in-studio performance with the roots-rock songwriter from WFUV's Claudia Marshall. -
Claudia Marshall, host of City Folk Morning on New York-based NPR station WFUV, compiled this list of the year's best discoveries: breakthrough artists likely to make a bigger mark in the months and years to come.
