Music & Culture

Everybody can play the kazoo, practically no skill required — but only two places in the U.S. make them.

Music & Culture

Buzz Bin: A Proper Look At Where Kazoos Come From

2:10pm January 29, 2015

by Karen Michel

They're the instrument anyone can play — but only two places in the U.S. make them, and only one makes the colorful plastic kind most people know. Karen Michel pays a visit to the latter.

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Music & Culture

At The BBC, The Beatles Shocked An Institution

6:46pm January 28, 2015

Between 1962 and 1965, The Beatles were featured on 53 BBC radio programs. For The Beatles: The BBC Archives, Kevin Howlett had to search for many of these recordings, and they weren't easy to find.

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Adam Namm (left) is the U.S. ambassador to Ecuador and a member of Samay Blues Band. He performs regularly with the group and says its a way to breakaway from traditional diplomacy.

Singing The Blues, A U.S. Envoy Hopes To Boost Ties With Ecuador

12:31pm January 28, 2015

by John Otis

In South America, left-wing governments hostile to the U.S. are tossing out diplomats or shunning them entirely. In Ecuador, U.S. Ambassador Adam Namm is using music to do something about it.

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Steve Reich, with a phase-shifting pulse gate, photographed in New York in 1969.

Music & Culture

Fifty Years Of Steve Reich's 'It's Gonna Rain'

7:14pm January 27, 2015

by Tom Huizenga

In 1965, a happy accident with tape machines, and the words of a Pentecostal preacher, helped launch the celebrated composer's career.

Music & Culture

Punch Brothers May Look Like A Bluegrass Band But Their Sound Is Unique

11:27am January 27, 2015

by Vince Pearson

Punch Brothers sing of distraction and isolation in the digital age on their new album The Phosphorescent Blues. While the group may look like a typical bluegrass band, the sound is all their own.

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Frank Sinatra captured by photographer William "PoPsie" Randolph during a 1943 concert. Author Ben Yagoda points to Sinatra as one of the interpreters who helped revive the Great American Songbook.

When Pop Broke Up With Jazz

9:00am January 27, 2015

by NPR Staff

For the first half of the 20th century, Tin Pan Alley songwriters like Irving Berlin and the Gershwins dominated pop music. By the the 1950s, tastes had changed, and the music changed with them.

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International pop star Demis Roussos hams it up for the camera at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1975. Roussos died in Athens Sunday at age 68.

Music & Culture

From Prog-Rock Pioneer To Kitsch King: Remembering Demis Roussos

1:09pm January 26, 2015

by Anastasia Tsioulcas

Greek songman Demis Roussos lived an enormously colorful life, from his start as a prog-rock pioneer to being held captive by Hezbollah terrorists. He died Sunday at age 68 in Athens.

Not My Job: We Quiz Funk Legend George Clinton On The British Parliament

1:42am January 25, 2015

Clinton, the founding father of funk, is the creator of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic. We'll ask him three questions about another kind of parliament — namely, the British Parliament.

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Music & Culture

Producer Cosimo Matassa Always Believed In New Orleans

1:25pm January 23, 2015

by Ed Ward

In the '60s, musicians left New Orleans, major labels lost interest, and Motown and Memphis took over the black music charts. But one producer didn't give up.

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Music & Culture

Tom Varner's Got 'Nine Surprises' And A Big Band Is All Of Them

1:20pm January 22, 2015

by Kevin Whitehead

In 2005, jazz composer and french horn player Tom Varner left New York for Seattle, where he put together a nine-piece band of local players.

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