Music & Culture

John Schlesinger's 1971 film Sunday Bloody Sunday has just been released on Blu-ray. The film's complex love triangle starred Peter Finch, Murray Head and Glenda Jackson.

Mozart's Starring Role In 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'

1:35pm January 07, 2013

by Lloyd Schwartz

The 1971 John Schlesinger film, recently released on Blu-ray, tells the story of a love triangle and makes moving use of a trio from the opera Cosi fan tutte as the film's musical theme.

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Jim Carter as Mr. Carson in Downton Abbey. The third season premiered on PBS Sunday.

Julian Fellowes On The Rules Of 'Downton'

1:23pm January 07, 2013

On the hit Masterpiece Theater series, the social rules the characters have always known are changing as the world events of the 20th century unfold. The series' creator, Julian Fellowes, says his relatives who lived through that era inspired his lasting interest in class.

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Professor Longhair performs at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, circa 1970.

Music & Culture

Preserving The Home, And History, Of New Orleans' Piano Professor

2:10pm January 05, 2013

by Gwen Thompkins

Any New Orleans piano player worth his fingers owes a debt to Henry Roeland Byrd, aka Professor Longhair. The late musician's home is still standing on Terpsichore Street, but it's in serious disrepair.

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Music & Culture

Emel Mathlouthi: Voice Of The Tunisian Revolution

9:59am January 05, 2013

by Betto Arcos

With all that's going on in the Middle East now, it's easy to forget that the Arab Spring began just two years ago in Tunisia. A video of one of Mathlouthi's songs went viral and became an anthem for protesters in her homeland during the December 2010 uprising. Her debut album is out now.

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Music & Culture

Remembering 'Rescue Me' Singer Fontella Bass

12:04pm January 04, 2013

Bass died on Dec. 27, 2012. We'll listen back to a Fresh Air interview from March 1995, in which she spoke about performing at funeral homes as a girl in St. Louis and how secular music wasn't allowed in her childhood home.

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The singer Skin of Skunk Anansie performs at Brixton Academy in London last month. She wrote the foreword to Laina Dawes' What Are You Doing Here?: A Black Woman's Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal.

The 'Life And Liberation' Of A Black Female Metal Fan

10:15am January 04, 2013

by NPR Staff

Writer Laina Dawes has loved heavy metal ever since she got her first Kiss album at age 8. But the metal community hasn't always loved her back, as she explains in her book What Are You Doing Here?

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A sampling of one listener's cherished classical Christmas albums from a few years back.

Music & Culture

Whatever Happened To The Classical Christmas Album?

2:38pm January 03, 2013

by Tom Huizenga

The flow of good classical Christmas albums seems to have slowed to a trickle. And that's got one holiday listener longing for holiday albums from years past, from Jessye Norman's Christmastide, Duke Ellington's Nutcracker Suite and carols led by Robert Shaw.

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Music & Culture

Patti Page, Who Dominated The '50s Pop Charts, Dies

6:27am January 03, 2013

by Jacob Ganz

Page had one of the biggest-selling singles ever with her version of "The Tennessee Waltz."

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In Bernie, Jack Black plays a small-town mortician who murders his live-in companion after she won't stop nagging him. The movie is based on a true story.

Jack Black: On Music, Mayhem And Murder

5:44pm January 02, 2013

Actor Jack Black plays a kindly small-town funeral director who murders a millionaire in the film Bernie. Black is also one-half of the comedy folk-rock group Tenacious D. In May, they released an album in the style of heavy metal bands from the 1980s.

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The sheet music for Beck's "Do We? We Do." as it appears in the Song Reader package.

Music & Culture

Beck Explains 'Song Reader,' An Album Fans Perform Themselves

2:57pm January 02, 2013

by NPR Staff

The shape-shifting musician often sounds like a completely different artist from one song to the next. On his new Song Reader, he leaves the sound in the listeners' hands.

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