Segments by Date

Folksinger Hazel Dickens. She sings and appears in the John Sayles film "Matewan." Dickens is best known for her traditional renditions of country and folk tunes and for her songs of protest.

Television Critic David Bianculli previews the new PBS comedy series titled "Trying Times."

Ken Tucker will review the home video release of the 1955 classic "The Night of the Hunter," starring Robert Mitchum as a creepy Appalachian preacher, and Shelly Winters as a gullible widow.

Playwright Albert Innaurato. His works include the long-running hit "Gemini," "Coming of Age in SoHo" and "The Transformation of Benno Blimpie."

Performance artist Meredith Monk. Her interdisciplinary art fuses elements of dance, film, theater and music. Her new collection of songs combines half-sounds like shrieks, sobs and moans into a unified and startling whole.

Brazilian composer and guitarist Orlando Haddad will perform two songs popularized in Brazilian films.

Rock Critic Ken Tucker will review "Tunnel of Love," the new and long-awaited Bruce Springsteen solo album.

A live concert featuring Kansas City pianist Jay McShann. As a big band leader in the 40s and 50s, McShann helped start the careers of jazz stars like Charlie Parker and Big Joe Turner.

Film Critic Stephen Schiff reviews "Best Seller," the cop thriller starring James Woods and Brian Dennehy.

Richard Ford, who wrote the critically acclaimed novel The Sportswriter.

Filmmaker Albert Maysles. He was a pioneer of the cinema verité style, where the camera acts as an eye and the film proceeds without narration or script. With his late brother David, Albert Maysles made the films "Gimme Shelter," and the recent "Vladimir Horowitz: The Last Romantic," which won two Emmys.

Book Critic John Leonard reviews The Fords, by David Horowitz and Peter Collier, the biography of the family that built the automobile empire. The Fords follows Horowitz' and Collier's books on the Rockefellers and Kennedys.

Rock historian Ed Ward looks at Smokey Robinson's early recordings, when he was the lead singer of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and one of Motown's top acts.

Moe Tucker, drummer for The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed's band that won cult status in the mid-70s.

Jazz Critic Kevin Whitehead reviews "Shades," the new album by pianist Andrew Hill.

Television Critic David Bianculli reviews "Star Trek: The Next Generation," the syndicated series that features an entirely new cast of voyagers.

Betty White, longtime television actress. She currently stars in the NBC series "The Golden Girls."

Economist, writer and lecturer John Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith, who served as an advisor to Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy, is perhaps the most influential Keynesian economist. Under Roosevelt, he played a key role in formulating wartime economic policy. Under Kennedy, he helped formulate the liberal social policies that President Johnson pursued in the Great Society initiatives.

Norman, who died Monday, was first exposed to opera as a child listening to live broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera. "I was intrigued by it and I loved it," she told Fresh Air in 1987.

Polka player Guy Klucevsek. Klucevsek grew up in western Pennsylvania, a hotbed of polka playing. He'll perform "Ain't Nothing But a Polka," an excerpt from his work "Polka From the Fringe."