Hall doesn't often hog the spotlight on his debut album, Into the Light. He doesn't need to; he plays more stuff behind other musicians than some drummers do in a solo. Hall stays busy back there, exhorting and swinging the band, playing contrary rhythms, shifting his patterns and punctuating everybody else's solos.
In 2008, historian Tony Judt was diagnosed with ALS, a progressive motor-neuron disease. For the past several months, Judt has been writing a series of essays for The New York Review of Books, charting life in what he calls a "progressive imprisonment without parole."
Noah Baumbach's movie stars Ben Stiller as a 40-ish unemployed carpenter searching for meaning in his life. After seeing the film, critic David Edelstein wonders if there's a limit "to how self-centered, how small you can make a character before you're punishing the audience."
The number of hate groups in the United States continues to rise, says Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Potok discusses how the rhetoric of hate groups has increasingly entered the mainstream in the wake of the nation's changing demographics and the election of President Obama.
Directed by Nicholas Ray, the 1956 film Bigger Than Life, stars James Mason as a schoolteacher who experiences wild mod swings and psychotic episodes after becoming addicted to his arthritis medication. Critic John Powers applauds the film, which he says "has a juiciness missing from a period show like Mad Men."
The bawdy, crudely animated sitcom South Park is about to celebrate its 200th episode. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone go behind the scenes of some of their favorite episodes and explain how they come up with the weekly parodies.
On her new three-disc album, the singer-songwriter accompanies herself on harp and piano, with occasionally elaborate arrangements incorporating strings and horns. Rock critic Ken Tucker calls Have One on Me an anti-concept album, an extended piece that rewards the work of the listener.
Superbug, a new book by journalist Maryn McKenna, tracks the spread of MRSA, the drug-resistant staph infection that seems to outwit every antibiotic thrown at it. McKenna explains how the bacteria has changed over the past 30 years -- and how a vaccine may be the only way to stop it.
In 1975, Michael Abrasion decided to photograph the blues clubs of Chicago. The pictures Abramson took in Pepper's Hideout, among other venues, have been released in a set called Light on the South Side. Jazz critic Ed Ward takes a listen to Pepper's Jukebox, the CD released along with the photographs.
The star of Noah Baumbach's new film, Greenberg, initially wanted to be a serious actor -- and he's still got a thing for Vietnam War movies. Stiller talks to Terry Gross about how he got from that initial ambition to films like Meet the Parents and Zoolander.
A fiery feminist, former political reporter and founder of the National Women's Political Caucus, Carpenter was the person who wrote the 58-word text that newly sworn-in President Lyndon B. Johnson read when he returned to Washington after President Kennedy's assassination. LBJ's onetime executive assistant was also press secretary to Lady Bird Johnson; Fresh Air remembers her with excerpts from a 1987 interview.
Jane's Fame, Claire Harman's book about the author of Emma and Sense and Sensibility, reveals the gap between her legacy -- modest, indifferent to fame and devoted to her characters -- and her ambition.
The AMC seres Breaking Bad and the new Discovery Channel nature series Life premiere on Sunday night -- and Showtimes' Nurse Jackie and The United States of Tara are back Monday. TV Critic David Bianculli reviews all four -- and tells you which ones are worth watching.
A story of the sultry all-girl '70s rock band fronted by Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, The Runaways is an exhilarating story of female self-expression that's also a cautionary tale of female exploitation. Kristen Stewart co-stars as Jett, but critic David Edelstein says it's Dakota Fanning as Currie who gives the film its electricity.
Chilton, who died Wednesday from a heart attack, was the lead singer of the '60s teenage band the Box Tops and the '70s power pop group Big Star. He joined Fresh Air for two interview, first in 1991 and again in 2000. Today, we remember the cult musician.
Until his arrest in 2004, nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan -- the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb -- ran a vast smuggling network that sent nuclear material to Iran and Lybia. In his book Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America's Enemies, weapons expert David Albright explains how Khan's network continues to threaten global security.
The book by the conservative strategist is called Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. Rove tells Fresh Air the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 was not based on wrong information from the Bush administration, but was based on wrong information from the intelligence community.
Michael Lewis' new book The Big Short chronicles the 2008 financial collapse through the investors who realized what was happening to the U.S. economy while it was happening -- and then made a fortune by betting against the markets.
Starting tonight on the FX cable network, Deadwood star Timothy Olyphant is back playing another man with a badge -- this time in Justified, a modern-day Western based on stories by Elmore Leonard. TV critic David Bianculli review the new series for Fresh Air.
Speculation is growing that Justice John Paul Stevens, the Supreme Court's longest-serving member, will step down in June. New Yorker legal correspondent Jeffrey Toobin discusses who is likely to replace Stevens -- and offers his take on how the court will rule on the future of gun control laws.
