Grateful Dead, The History Channel, Bruce Willis, and more: 5 fresh podcasts to stream this weekend

Congrats on completing the first week of April! We’ve hand-picked a bouquet of podcasts for y’all to stream this weekend. The true crime/music podcast, “Dead and Gone,” premiered its second season this week, exploring tragedies in the Grateful Dead’s fan community. Check out bite-sized episodes of a new history podcast from historian Jon Meacham. Hear about movies and pop culture news on “TMZ Movie Crashers.”

If you’re a foodie and want to learn more about the nation’s biggest brands, there’s a new season of a podcast based on The History Channel’s TV series, “The Food That Built America.” Sports fans might enjoy “Longshot: Payback,” where the U.S. women’s national soccer team striker Jessica McDonald shares her story and uses her platform to fight inequalities.

Dead and Gone

From Dead Elvis, Tenderfoot TV, and Cadence13 comes the newest season of “Dead and Gone,” a true crime and music podcast investigating tragedies that have struck Grateful Dead fans, the diehard community of DeadHeads, for over 5 decades. Some fans vanished en route to Grateful Dead shows or were murdered during or after a concert. Season 1 focused on Mary Gioia and Greg Kniffin’s death in 1985. Season 2 explores DeadHead culture, the band’s history, and researches four unresolved cases. This series is hosted by Jake Brennan (“Disgraceland”) and Payne Lindsey (“Up and Vanished“).

Longshot: Payback

U.S. women’s national soccer team striker, Jessica McDonald, made it to the World Cup in 2019. In iHeartPodcasts’ “Longshot: Payback,” we’re hearing Jessica’s story from her beginnings as a teen runaway and single mom to scoring big and achieving her soccer dreams. Now, Jessica is using her platform to fight inequalities in the field and shares about the recent women’s national team settlement in their battle for equal pay.

Reflections of History

Historian, Pulitzer Prize winner, and New York Times bestselling author Jon Meacham is sharing what happened this day in history on his new podcast, “Reflections of History.” Learn how historical events and people impacted the world with weekday episodes under 10 minutes each. This week, we learned how NATO was formed, why the 13th Amendment was passed, and celebrated film director Francis Ford Coppola’s birthday. This series is presented by C13Originals and Shining City Audio.

The Food That Built America

“The Food That Built America” is back for season 2. This podcast, based on The History Channel’s documentary series, explores visionaries and entrepreneurs behind some of the America’s biggest brands. Last season covered Henry Heinz, Milton Hershey, the Kellogg brothers, and more. One of the latest episodes went back to the 1950s and shared Burger King’s history, starting as a stand that would go on to rival businessman Ray Kroc and McDonald’s.

TMZ Movie Crashers

“TMZ Movie Crashers” breaks down cinematic news, stories, blockbusters, and flops in weekly episodes. So far, hosts Paige Catton and Fabian Garcia covered the Oscars and the infamous slap’s aftermath for all parties involved. In another episode, they discussed news like The Crow‘s reboot with Bill Skarsgard, Bruce Willis’ retirement and Aphasia diagnosis, and more.