Music critic Milo Miles reviews Mi Sueño, the posthumous album from Cuban singer Ibrahim Ferrer, who made a name for himself in his later years as a member of the Buena Vista Social Club. Ferrer died in 2005, at age 78.
Comic Don Rickles is known for insulting his audiences on stage, but he doesn't consider himself an insult comic. His heyday was in the '50s and '60s, on TV and in Vegas. Frank Sinatra, an early fan, helped get him noticed. Now Rickles has written a memoir, Rickles' Book.
Alt-country musician Robbie Fulks doesn't get much airplay on country radio, and he often takes an adversarial stance against the Nashville establishment. So a big part of his reputation is based on his more humorous songs — and his raucous live shows.
Fulks has just released his first live album, a two-disc set called Revenge; critic Ken Tucker has a review.
Documentary producer Huw Cordey helped create the staggeringly ambitious BBC series Planet Earth. The series was five years in the making and was shot in 62 countries on every continent. It was broadcast in the United States on The Discovery Channel, and is now available on DVD.
Misunderstood giants? None have ever been as popular as Shrek, star of two huge summer hits since 2001. Paramount's grumpy-green-ogre franchise is the epitome of the hand-hold movie: family flicks that serve up action, tomfoolery and life-lessons for the kids, nonstop pop-culture in-jokes for the adults, and fart jokes for the whole family.
During his early-'70s heyday, shock-rock icon Alice Cooper dressed like a ghoul, with a gaunt face and mascara-streaked eyes, performing cartoonishly violent onstage stunts.
His hits included "I'm Eighteen," "School's Out," and "Welcome to My Nightmare."
The man in charge of Regent Law is a graduate of the University of Chicago's law school and the author of a 1999 book titled Is Higher Law Common Law? Readings on the Influence of Christianity in Anglo-American Law. Brauch talks to Terry Gross about Regent Law and about Savage's reporting.
Ever since word got out that Don DeLillo was working on a novel about Sept. 11, anticipation has been building. After all, DeLillo has claimed plots and conspiracies as his literary subject. Book critic Maureen Corrigan has a review of DeLillo's new novel, Falling Man.
Pulitizer Prize-winning journalist Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe. He's been writing about a Christian law school, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson, whose graduates have become influential in the Justice Department.
One of those Regent University graduates is Monica Goodling, former top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Savage writes that Goodling has "drawn a harsh spotlight to the administration's hiring of officials educated at smaller, conservative schools with sometimes marginal academic reputations."
The Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder and pastor of Lynchburg, Va.,'s Thomas Road Baptist Church and an outspoken leader of the religious right, died yesterday at age 73; we remember him with an interview recorded in the early days of Fresh Air's national broadcast. In 1979, Falwell founded a movement he called the Moral Majority and helped return the Republican Party to power with the election of President Ronald Reagan. Falwell also founded Liberty University, an evangelical institution believed to be the largest of its kind. Rebroadcast from March 14, 1986.
Michael Chiklis stars as rogue detective Vic Mackey in the TV series The Shield; the Peabody Award-winning show is in its sixth season on the FX cable channel.
Previously, Chiklis starred in The Commish; over the years, he's also made guest appearances on Seinfeld, L.A. Law, Miami Vice, and Wiseguy.
Bobby Braddock is the award-winning country songwriter behind tunes including "He Stopped Loving Her today," "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," and "Did You Ever."
Now he's tackled a different kind of writing: His memoir, Down in Orburndale: A Songwriter's Youth in Old Florida, is out now from Louisiana State University Press.
Wondering what your pet is trying to tell you with that bizarre habit or that pleading look? Dodman is the best-selling author of The Dog Who Loved Too Much and The Cat Who Cried for Help. His latest is Puppy's First Steps: The Whole-Dog Approach to Raising a Happy Healthy, Well-Behaved Puppy.
A new box-set DVD collection of early musicals starring Hollywood's favorite wholesome blonde includes Romance on the High Seas, My Dream Is Yours, On Moonlight Bay, I'll See You in My Dreams, By the Light of the Silvery Moon and Lucky Me. Lloyd Schwartz has a review.
Melinda Merck literally wrote the book on investigating animal cruelty — a crime that's increasingly understood to be linked to domestic violence. Merck is co-author of Forensic Investigation of Animal Cruelty: A Guide for Veterinarians and Law Enforcement, and in June she will publish a textbook, Veterinary Forensics: Animal Cruelty Investigations. (A warning: Parts of this interview are disturbing).
As artistic director of the Encores series at New York's City Center, Jack Viertel is the go-to guy for one of New York's hottest musical-theater tickets. It's just the latest phase, though, in an impressive theatrical career.
The new album 3 showcases Lafayette Gilchrist's maximalist jazz piano in a trio setting rather than with his seven-piece New Volcanoes band. Even in the more intimate arrangement, Gilchrist isn't afraid to make the box shout; this is jazz from artists influenced by everything from hip-hop to the D.C. area's distinctive go-go sound.
In Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989, historian Michael Beschloss takes a look at nine crucial moments when a president risked his political career for the good of the country, often by taking an unpopular or controversial stand.
It's been eight years since Nathan Englander's award-winning short-story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, was published. Since then, he's been working on a novel, and if nothing else, his knack for intriguing titles is intact: His debut novel, set in Buenos Aires during the Argentina's '70s-era "dirty war," is called The Ministry of Special Cases.
Garry Shandling parodied TV talk shows on The Larry Sanders Show, which ran on HBO from 1992 to 1998 and is now out in a four-DVD box set. It's called Not Just the Best of "The Larry Sanders Show" — in part because it features eight hours of extras, including essentially unedited conversations with stars who made guest appearances on the Larry Sanders sofa.
