Country music

Country singer Loretta Lynn married at 13, had six children and created controversy by singing songs about divorce and the pill. Here, she talks about her decades in the music business, her relationship with her husband and a new tribute album, Coal Miner's Daughter.

Wolf was the lead singer of the J. Geils Band, which led many to assume he was J. Geils. He explains how the band — with hits such as "Centerfold," "Freeze Frame" and "Love Stinks" — actually got its name and discusses his new country-influenced solo album, Midnight Souvenirs.

The Grammy-winning country-music fiddler is still recording new tracks 70 years after he picked up his first instrument. Gimble's new album, Playing With Friends, features Vince Gill, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and Garrison Keillor.

The veteran punk rocker John Doe embraced his inner mountain man on Country Club, an album of classic country covers he recorded with The Sadies. The Canadian rockers and the former X frontman joined Terry Gross in the Fresh Air studio for an interview and an intimate performance.

This interview was originally broadcast on May 19, 2009.

Fresh Air's music critic Ken Tucker's picks for the best music of 2009 include songs by Taylor Swift, Billy Currington and Michael Franti as well as albums by Loudon Wainwright III, the Fiery Furnaces, and Bob Dylan.

Funk bassist and psychedelic soulster Bootsy Collins is known for his solid grooves and flashy style. Collins got his start at Cincinnati's famed King Records, where he began as a session musician before joining James Brown's band, The JBs.

When Cash was 18, her father (you know him as Johnny) presented her with a gift: a list of 100 essential country songs to help the budding singer-songwriter connect with and better understand the music that came before her. After holding on to it for the past few decades, Roseanne Cash decided to turn that gift into The List, her new album.

Best known as founder and frontman for the Los Angeles punk band X, musician John Doe has always had a weakness for country music — and X's sound, in fact, sometimes had a twang to it. After that band's dissolution, Doe explored his countrified yearnings further, and in recent years he's turned in some eminently satisfying roots rock. With Country Club, Doe dives headlong into the genre, collaborating with the Canadian band the Sadies on a collection of classic covers originally recorded by titans like Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette and Willie Nelson.

The singer and songwriter's new double album, High Wide and Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project, is a tribute to the old-time country banjo player who died in 1931.

Bassist Charlie Haden is known as a great jazz musician, but his lineage is all country: Growing up, he performed alongside his brothers and sister in the Haden Family Band, a country group led by parents, Carl and Virginia.