Cody ChesnuTT On World Cafe

Cody ChesnuTT's debut album, 2002's The Headphone Masterpiece, was the result of two years spent recording alone in his bedroom. The double-length record is at once both sprawling and intimate; it encompasses a wide array of genres, but ChesnuTT sings and plays nearly every part.

Released a full decade later, ChesnuTT's second album — Landing on a Hundred — finds the singer with a different lifestyle and a different approach to recording. He now lives in Florida with his wife and two children, a far cry from the solitude of the Los Angeles bedroom he used to call home. He also decided not to perform this record entirely by himself, and instead enlisted the help of session players pulled from throughout the South.

The result retains ChesnuTT's unmistakable style, but with a stronger focus on the classic soul sounds of the '60s and '70s. "I just tried to study, you know, what makes these records last from generation to generation," he tells World Cafe host David Dye. "I wanted that feeling, along with what is relevant right now."

Although ChesnuTT had a team of musicians backing him for the recording of Landing on a Hundred, he plays solo throughout this session of World Cafe, performing stripped-down versions of his songs with just piano and guitar.