In this episode of World Cafe, Mickey Guyton talks about Spotify's role in making her music more visible, women in country music getting "chicked," her debut album, Remember Her Name, and more.
Fire Shut Up in My Bones, based on the Charles M. Blow memoir of the same title, is the first work by a Black composer to be staged by the Metropolitan Opera.
NPR's Michel Martin speaks with singer-songwriter Anthony Hamilton, who delivers his first album in five years with the help of some friends including Jennifer Hudson.
At the heart of Esperanza Spalding's new album is the question "What do you need a song for?" NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with the Grammy-winning musician about her album, Songwrights Apothecary Lab.
The soul and R&B legend, who died in 2004, was recently voted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 1998, Charles came on Fresh Air to promote The Complete Country & Western Recordings: 1959-1986.
The pioneering music impresario, who created the Newport Jazz Festival in 1954 and the Newport Folk Festival in 1959, died Sept. 13. Originally broadcast in 2003.
Perhaps the most famous banjo player in the world, Fleck dedicates his new album, My Bluegrass Heart, to his late musical heroes, Tony Rice and Chick Corea.
Staples began singing with her family as a teenager. The Staple Singers started out in gospel, but moved over to pop, eventually playing the '69 Harlem Cultural Festival. Originally broadcast in 1989.
Lincoln started out as a nightclub singer, but began performing in a style influenced by the civil rights movement after she met drummer/bebop pioneer Max Roach. Originally broadcast in 1986 and 1987.
The renowned bluesman, who died in 2015, spoke to Fresh Air in 1996about growing up as the son of a sharecropper — and leaving the plantation as a young man to pursue a career in music.
Masekela, who died in 2018, was a symbol of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement. He performed around the world, including at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. Originally broadcast in 1988.
The 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival featured some of the biggest names in Black music, but it had largely faded from history. The Roots co-founder sought to change that. Originally broadcast July 2021.
To mark the debut of the biopic RESPECT, we listen back to archival interviews with Aretha, as well as with Jerry Wexler, producer of the hit "Respect," and Dan Penn, who co-wrote "Do Right Woman."
Inspired by a memory of Rodrigo Amarante's father asking the young singer-songwriter — as a child — to cut his hair, Drama is the perfect slice of lush, tropical jazz-inspired pop.
The sound artist and composer took a deeply unique, and wonderfully successful, approach to the composing of his score for the new Jordan Peele-written horror reboot.
