Music

Music & Culture

'Buzzin' The Blues' Revisits The Declarative Harmonica Style Of Slim Harpo

1:51pm July 28, 2015

by Ed Ward

Born in Baton Rouge in 1924, the blues musician known as Slim Harpo influenced rock bands like the Rolling Stones, the Kinks and Pink Floyd. Rock Historian Ed Ward shares Harpo's story.

Queue Listen Now

Music & Culture

New Release Features Jazz Flutist Sam Most's 'Breathy, Punchy Sound'

2:05pm July 27, 2015

by Kevin Whitehead

From the Attic of My Mind is a batch of reissues drawn from the old Xanadu catalog of Sam Most recordings. Critic Kevin Whitehead says the late flutist makes "every note in a fast phrase pop out."

Queue Listen Now

Drive-By Truckers on stage at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, where It's Great To Be Alive! was recorded.

Music & Culture

Drive By-Truckers To Release Massive Live Album

11:41am July 27, 2015

by Ann Powers

The 35-track It's Great To Be Alive!, recorded over three nights last year at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, will be out October 30. Hear the album's version of "Birthday Boy" now.

Roger Waters performs at the 2015 Newport Folk Festival.

Music & Culture

Newport Folk's Pink Floyd Moment

12:00pm July 26, 2015

by Bob Boilen

Joined by My Morning Jacket and other special guests, the Pink Floyd co-founder proved himself to be one of the folk with a Friday evening set that seemed to turn rainy skies into a glorious sunset.

It's been 50 years since Bob Dylan strolled on stage at the Newport Folk Festival, plugged in an electric guitar, and infuriated his flock.

50 Years Ago, Bob Dylan Electrified A Decade With One Concert

11:17am July 26, 2015

by NPR Staff

It's been 50 years since Bob Dylan strolled on stage at the Newport Folk Festival, plugged in an electric guitar, and infuriated his flock. Historian Elijah Wald says there's much more to the story.

Queue Listen Now

To create his album Tangier Sessions, Sir Richard Bishop had to learn to love a mysterious and temperamental acoustic guitar.

Music & Culture

The Guitar In The Window: How One Instrument Steered Sir Richard Bishop's Life

11:11am July 26, 2015

by Rick Karr

Bishop's new album, Tangier Sessions, springs from a love affair with a mysterious and temperamental guitar, found in a secondhand store in Switzerland and inscribed with indecipherable writing.

Queue Listen Now

Music & Culture

The Night That Bob Dylan Went Electric

5:26pm July 25, 2015

Fifty years ago this weekend Bob Dylan scandalized crowds at the Newport Folk Festival with an electric guitar. Murray Lerner, a filmmaker who shot the festival, recalls the scene.

Queue Listen Now

Willis Conover, The Voice Of Jazz Behind The Iron Curtain

10:55am July 25, 2015

by Scott Simon

American broadcaster Willis Conover was known around the world in places like Prague, Moscow and Warsaw, but not so much at home. For more than 40 years, he hosted a jazz show on the Voice of America.

Queue Listen Now

A rehearsal for the first fully staged U.S. production of Ethel Smyth's 1904 opera The Wreckers at the Bard Music Festival in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.

Music & Culture

One Feisty Victorian Woman's Opera Revived

3:30pm July 24, 2015

by Tom Huizenga

A skilled mountain climber who knew Tchaikovsky and Brahms, Ethel Smyth was a big personality whose politically charged opera The Wreckers gets its first fully staged production in the U.S.

Queue Listen Now

The new album The Other Side of Desire marks Jones' first original material in years, spurred on by a life-changing move to New Orleans.

Music & Culture

Leaving Los Angeles: Rickie Lee Jones Turns A Decade Into An Album

2:51pm July 22, 2015

by NPR Staff

The new album The Other Side of Desire marks Jones' first original material in years, spurred on by a life-changing move to New Orleans.

Queue Listen Now