Episode 1

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Published on:

10th Apr 2026

Episode 1: Whitney Mann and the Box in the Basement

Musician Whitney Mann was on her way to stardom in the music business. She had opened for some of her heroes, like Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn, and Guy Clark. One day, she misplayed a song on stage, and that turned into a case of stage fright, unraveling her performance before her very eyes. After a few years of trying to settle her nerves, Whitney Mann hung up her guitar and put all her memorabilia in a box in the basement.

It wasn't long until that box – and her own voice – started calling out to her from storage. Today's episode of Taste the Music is about how Whitney Mann responded to the calling to keep writing and playing, and what's happened since.

This episode was written, edited, and produced by Whitney Mann and Mark Griffin and originally appeared on WORT-FM 89.9 in Madison.

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About the Podcast

Taste the Music: Conversations about creating.
Interviews, stories, and talks about why artists create.
Taste the Music is a show where the artist tells their story about what drives creation. Here we’re going to figure out the reasons we’re driven to make music, and how that vocation ends up forming in some people, or maybe in all of us.

Each week we’ll hear an account of the path to creation by artists, and we’ll try to get at a few questions: why do this? Why write a song, paint a painting, recite a poem, tell a joke, or craft a beer?

And we’ll also seek to answer another question, something that we hope gets at a cultural truth about who we are as a people: why do we choose to sometimes not do these things?

About your host

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Mark Griffin

Mark is a science and culture writer based in Madison. He's written about groundbreaking cancer treatments, advancements in renewable energy, and trying to figure out how to find a mushroom in the woods. He currently resides in Madison, WI.