Music Interviews

NPR's Melissa Block speaks with director Peter Miller about his recent documentary, A.K.A. Doc Pomus, about the obscure songwriter behind Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas," The Drifters' "This Magic Moment" and many more pop hits.

But on her new album, There's a Last Time for Everything, Roche doesn't feature any of her famous family of musicians. She tells NPR's Melissa Block it was "great to do it in a little bubble away from the family." The album includes an unlikely cover — the Robyn anthem "Call Your Girlfriend."

The sitar-playing daughter of the late Ravi Shankar discusses teaming up with her half-sister, Norah Jones, on the new album Traces of You. Hear how their collaboration elicited an unexpected echo of their father's work, a sign that they were meant to work together.

Composer Phillip Glass, director Robert Wilson and choreographer Lucinda Childs discuss their epic modern opera, which is being staged for the first time in two decades.

The Modzitzer sect of Chasidic Judaism, which originated in the Polish town of Modzitz, is known for its beautiful melodies. Among the most emblematic and prolific composers in this tradition is Brooklynite Ben Zion Shenker — who, at 88, continues to create new works.

Next weekend, Los Angeles will host a massive festival dedicated to alternative comedy, featuring acts Eric Idle of Monty Python, Sarah Silverman, Adam Sandler and dozens of others. Host Arun Rath speaks with the organizers (as well as one of the marquee acts): Jack Black and Kyle Gass, better known as the outrageous acoustic-metal band Tenacious D.

Morton Subotnick has been a pioneer in the creation, composition and popularization of electronic music since the 1960s. Now 80, he recently unveiled his latest creation: an iPad app that allows children (and everyone else) to create their own electronic compositions.

The genre has some of the most creative, politically savvy, intelligent female personalities in the industry, made by artists as different as Chile's Ana Tijoux, who melts and reworks the Spanish language like a blacksmith, and Dominican-Spanish Arianna Puello, she of the machine gun delivery.

Music was Erik Friedlander's refuge when his wife fell ill. Then, in one week, he lost both. The cellist and composer speaks with NPR's Arun Rath about making the new album Claws & Wings after months out of commission.

Kicking off a week of stories on Morning Edition about the extraordinarily talented children often known as prodigies, NPR's David Greene spends a few minutes with a preteen musician who has already performed at Carnegie Hall and the White House.