Terry Gross

Guitarist Link Wray died on November 5 at the age of 76. He's credited with inventing the power chord in the 1950s. His first big recording hit was the 1958 instrumental Rumble. When he went to record the song, he wasn't happy with the sound on the amp, so he pierced holes in the speaker cone to create additional distortion. Guitarists including Pete Townshend and John Lennon were influenced by his work. Wray's other hits include Rawhide and the Batman theme.

Jimmie Dale Gilmore's new album — his seventh — is called Come on Back and it's a memorial to his late father. He died of ALS in 2000. The album includes version of his dad's favorite songs like Pick Me Up on Your Way Down and Walkin' The Floor Over You. Gilmore was born, raised and lives in Texas. He has been recording solo albums since 1988, when he released Fair and Square.

Jazz singer Dianne Reeves has received a lot of exposure recently through her singing in the film Good Night and Good Luck. Before the movie, she already had a devoted following after winning Best Jazz Vocal Performance Grammys for each of her last three recordings. Reeves is about to go on national tour with her Christmas Time is Here show. Some of the cities it will be stopping in: Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Toronto.

Investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell writes for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., and specializes in unearthing new evidence from Civil Rights era criminal cases. His coverage has led to the convictions of four Ku Klux Klan members, starting with Byron De La Beckwith for the assassination of Medgar Evers. Recently, Edgar Ray Killen was found guilty of orchestrating the murders of Civil Rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner. Next week Mitchell will be honored with the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Director Harold Ramis brings his brand of dark -- and often silly -- humor to holiday audiences with The Ice Harvest. The irreverent film stars John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Randy Quaid.

After 25 years as the host of ABC's Nightline, news anchor Ted Koppel is retiring. Nightline started out in March 1980 as extended news coverage of the hostage crisis in Iran. Koppel has won 37 Emmys and 6 Peabody Awards, as well as many other honors.

Actor Neil Patrick Harris is starring in the new CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother -- but most people know him as a teenage doctor in the early 1990s TV series Doogie Howser, MD, which is now available on DVD. Harris also played a parody of himself in the film Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.

In a cover article for the December issue of Atlantic Monthly, reporter James Fallows argues there is no easy way out of Iraq for American forces. Pressure is mounting to withdraw U.S. troops, but the move would almost certainly leave Iraq in chaos. It will take years to train an Iraqi security force.

Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson collect stories about America's hidden kitchens in a new book, Hidden Kitchens: Stories, Recipes and More from NPR's Kitchen Sisters.

In November, Columbia Records released the Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition boxed set. The three-CD set includes a remastering of Springsteen's Born to Run album, released in 1975. The box set also includes a concert DVD of a never-before seen 1975 concert from London and a documentary about the making of Born to Run. This interview originally aired on Nov. 15, 2005.