The only place Billie Holiday received vocal instruction also gave her bad-girl cred and an ambitious spiritual discipline. It was The House of the Good Shepherd for Colored Girls, a Catholic convent.
Baby Rose's smokey voice evokes a wisdom beyond her years. That's part of what sets the rising singer's debut album, To Myself, apart from the current R&B scene.
There really was no precedent for Maybelle Carter, who learned to play from her own mother and spent much of her life teaching her children — as well as generations of country stars that followed.
The Center Won't Hold casts an uneasy gaze on technology and politics; it's also the band's last album with its longtime drummer. NPR's Rachel Martin speaks with Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker.
One of the most indispensable guitarists of all time, Carter was a quiet revolutionary. Though she didn't concern herself with celebrity or need to be the star, she deserves our deepest admiration.
We rarely place Mendoza and Carter, both great guitarists and lead vocalists in family bands, in conversation — though listeners to border radio stations in the late 1930s were often fans of both.