Music & Culture

Music & Culture

Across the Blue Ridge #75- Music of southwestern Virginia and beyond

4:06pm June 02, 2017

This week, as the fiddlers' convention season in the south really gets underway, we check out some songs and tunes old and new from the Virginia mountains. In the southwestern part of Virgini

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Music & Culture

alt-J On World Cafe

3:10pm June 02, 2017

by Talia Schlanger

The band's sound is hard to pin down: It's somewhere between folk and electronica, the words sometimes poetry, sometimes prose.

An image from Beyond Words, the new book of photos and song lyrics compiled by John Prine.

Music & Culture

John Prine Has Stories Enough To Fill A Book

2:48pm June 02, 2017

by Jim Allen

After nearly 50 years of songwriting, John Prine has released a book, Beyond Words, full of photos, handwritten lyrics and notations full of typical cockeyed humor and Zen-like poetic observation.

Joyce DiCamillo appears on this week's Piano Jazz.

Music & Culture

Joyce DiCamillo On Piano Jazz

1:56pm June 02, 2017

The veteran pianist, composer and educator duets with host Marian McPartland on for a rousing rendition of "Falling in Love with Love."

Music & Culture

'Fresh Air' Interviews With Beatles Ringo Starr And Paul McCartney

1:56pm June 02, 2017

To mark the 50th anniversary of the U.S. release of Sgt Pepper, we listen back to Terry Gross' 1995 interview with Ringo Starr, as well as her 2001 and 2012 interviews with Paul McCartney.

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Bill Orcutt's self-titled album comes out June 30.

Music & Culture

Songs We Love: Bill Orcutt, 'Ol' Man River'

12:02pm June 02, 2017

by Marc Masters

Orcutt's guitar playing scrambles conventional logic, but his take on the song from the 1927 musical Show Boat might be one of his gentlest tracks ever.

Nick Grant performs a Tiny Desk Concert on May 8, 2017. (Claire Harbage/NPR)

Music & Culture

Nick Grant: Tiny Desk Concert

10:20am June 02, 2017

by Rodney Carmichael

The Atlanta-based MC came through with the flu and coolly earned our praise. How sick is that?

Music & Culture

Songs We Love: Glen Campbell, 'Arkansas Farmboy'

9:55am June 02, 2017

by Ann Powers

The bluegrass-blessed ballad channels the experience of memories growing at once more vivid and more disordered — as they do for everyone, but especially for someone with dementia.

Music & Culture

After 40 Years, DJ Rodney Bingenheimer Will Say Goodbye To KROQ

8:15am June 02, 2017

DJ Rodney Bingenheimer is leaving the long-running Los Angeles rock station KROQ. His show helped make numerous bands become successful, including Van Halen.

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Alt-J (left to right: Thom Green, Gus Unger-Hamilton, and Joe Newman) release Relaxer, their third studio album, on June 2.

Music & Culture

alt-J's 'Relaxer,' Track By Track

7:48am June 02, 2017

by Bob Boilen

alt-J's new album, Relaxer, is thick with literary allusions and steeped in folk traditions. To get deeper into these inspirations and influences, the trio walks us through the album, song by song.