When the Broadway musical's creator said the life of Alexander Hamilton embodied hip-hop, people laughed. Now, he's written a book about the national phenomenon with former critic Jeremy McCarter.
NPR's Scott Simon spent some time with the country legend aboard his tour bus in 2001. Simon remembers a man who'd come a long way since his imprisonment at San Quentin, where he did time for robbery.
The production team behind "Toxic" takes a more cerebral approach with its own music. At South By Southwest, the members spoke with Audie Cornish about the big ideas they smuggle into their songs.
The Boss is standing with opponents of the law that says transgender people must only use bathrooms that correspond with their sex at birth. The musician says he is supporting "freedom fighters."
Haggard, who died April 6, was singularly rebellious and rootless, and his songs are a graduate course in everything timeless and true about music, says the Drive-By Truckers singer.
"I was, to say the least, probably the most incorrigible child you can think of," Haggard told Fresh Air in 1995. The country icon died Wednesday morning in California. It was his 79th birthday.