From North Carolina To Buenos Aires With Che Apalache

XPN | By Talia Schlanger,

Published October 21, 2019 at 3:15 PM EDT

Che Apalache performing live for World Cafe

Have you ever felt the urge to drop everything and move, because maybe your hometown leaves you feeling like you can't totally be yourself in some way?

The leader of Che Apalache has certainly felt that: Joe Troop decided when he was in college that he needed to go explore who he was outside of the confines of North Carolina. He went from studying abroad in Spain to immigrating to Argentina. But Joe did bring a piece of home with him — his banjo — and that is how he found his calling in Buenos Aires. Together with three of his former banjo students, Joe started to create music that combines the Latin American influences of his adopted home with the bluegrass he grew up on. The result is entirely unique — so much so that banjo master Béla Fleck decided to produce the group's debut album, Rearrange My Heart.

Che Apalache stopped by World Cafe to play a live set in front of an audience. Joe shared his story — what made him leave North Carolina, his life as an American immigrant in Argentina, the beginnings of the band and how he sees the U.S. now that he has spent a decade abroad.

This interview was recorded in September and was former host Talia Schlanger's last with World Cafe.

Talia Schlanger

Talia Schlanger hosts World Cafe, which is distributed by NPR and produced by WXPN, the public radio service of the University of Pennsylvania. She got her start in broadcasting at the CBC, Canada's national public broadcaster. She hosted CBC Radio 2 Weekend Mornings on radio and was the on-camera host for two seasons of the television series CBC Music: Backstage, as well as several prime-time music TV specials for CBC, including the Quietest Concert Ever: On Fundy's Ocean Floor. Schlanger also guest hosted various flagship shows on CBC Radio One, including As It Happens, Day 6 and Because News. Schlanger also won a Canadian Screen Award as a producer for CBC Music Presents: The Beetle Roadtrip Sessions, a cross-country rock 'n' roll road trip.

See stories by Talia Schlanger

Kimberly Junod

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).

See stories by Kimberly Junod