Music

Music & Culture

'Fresh Air' Favorites: Catherine Russell

5:36am January 01, 2020

by Terry Gross

This week, we're listening back to some favorite Fresh Air interviews from the past decade. Russell sang tracks from her solo album, Strictly Romancin', during this 2012 interview and performance.

Queue Listen Now

Music & Culture

'Fresh Air' Favorites: Bandleader Jon Batiste

5:36am January 01, 2020

by Terry Gross

This week, we're listening back to some favorite Fresh Air interviews from the past decade. The bandleader for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert let loose at the piano during this 2018 interview.

Queue Listen Now

Music & Culture

Writing Feeling Into Song With Sharon Van Etten (Rebroadcast)

4:41pm December 31, 2019

The "Our Love" singer talks with us about her new record "Remind Me Tomorrow," and more.

Music & Culture

In Memoriam 2019: The Musicians We Lost

3:34pm December 31, 2019

NPR Music celebrates the alt-rock heroes, Hollywood idols, Pulitzer-winning composers, jazz luminaries, cult legends, bold activists, old masters and rising stars the world lost this year.

Queue Listen Now

Spanglish Fly performs at a Tiny Desk Concert on Sept. 9, 2019. (Emily Bogle/NPR)

Music & Culture

Spanglish Fly: Tiny Desk Concert

5:00am December 31, 2019

by Felix Contreras

Spanglish Fly is one of the pioneers of the boogaloo revival scene happening on the East Coast. For about sixteen minutes, they turned the NPR Music offices into the hottest Latin dance club in D.C.

From left to right: John Cleese, Neil Innes, Michael Palin and Eric Idle dressed as Arthurian knights on the set of Monty Python and the Holy Grail in 1974.

Music & Culture

Neil Innes, Monty Python Collaborator And Rutles Member, Dead At 75

4:43pm December 30, 2019

by Stephen Thompson

The singer and writer performed in The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, appeared in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and later formed the Beatles pastiche, The Rutles, with Eric Idle.

Jenee Fleenor at the 53rd annual CMA Awards on Nov. 13, 2019 in Nashville, Tenn., where she was honored as the first woman to win Musician of the Year.

Music & Culture

The Woman Leading The Fiddle Revival In Country Music

4:28pm December 30, 2019

by Jewly Hight

Fiddler Jenee Fleenor is the first woman ever to win the Country Music Association's Musician of the Year Award. Her work is partly responsible for the instrument's resurgence.

Adam Sandler plays jeweler Howard Ratner in the film Uncut Gems. The score is as shiny and cosmic as Ratner's life is messy and frantic.

Music & Culture

Inside 'Uncut Gems': A Cosmic Score In A Frantic Film

5:17pm December 28, 2019

by Tim Grieving

Uncut Gems hurtles along with Howard Ratner's compulsion to gamble, bet his winnings instead of paying off debts and chase down the next high. A lot of the score is, counterintuitively, New Age.

Composer Jerry Herman, flanked by actresses Carol Channing (left) and Jo Anne Worley at a 2002 Tony Awards party in Hollywood.

Music & Culture

Broadway Legend Jerry Herman Is Dead At 88

5:48pm December 27, 2019

by Jeff Lunden

The Broadway songwriter died in Miami of pulmonary complications, according to his publicist.

Queue Listen Now

Bob Boilen says that the Japanese pop punk band CHAI performed one of his Tiny Desk Concerts of 2019: "My face hurt from smiling so much!"

Music & Culture

Bob Boilen's Favorite Tiny Desk Concerts Of 2019

9:40am December 27, 2019

by Bob Boilen

The man behind the desk (when musicians aren't playing, anyway) shares his favorite performances of the year, which include a mix of old favorites, up-and-coming discoveries and a few surprises.