Joshua Radin and William Fitzsimmons
Josh Radin would be hard-pressed to deny that he’s still cruising on the fumes of his 2008 breakthrough, Simple Times, as those are the songs that his audience will probably always expect, if not demand, in concert. The big hit, “I’d Rather Be with You,” turned up in TV programs, as did tracks like “You Got Growin’ Up to Do” and “Brand New Day,” especially on hypochondriac-porn shows such as House, Grey’s Anatomy, and even Scrubs, which was already using his music in multiple episodes two years before his debut 2006 album.
In fact, he had only taught himself to play guitar around 2002, and it was landing his first composition, “Winter,” on Scrubs that pretty much got him into the studio and putting his muse on tape. In addition to getting his songs into over a hundred movies and TV shows since then, he’s released five albums after Simple Times, with the most recent from last year, The Fall. They may not have set the charts on fire, but cuts like “Beautiful Day,” featuring Sheryl Crow, from 2015’s Onward and Sideways, have become staples of MOR radio and adult-contemporary satellite stations. His many appearances on the daytime TV show hosted by Ellen DeGeneres (who hired him to sing at her wedding) have helped keep his profile high enough that he’s likely to sell out the Music Box on April 7, for a bill that includes Illinois-based “whisper rocker” William Fitzsimmons.