Music

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.

Even before he had a band, Jon Bon Jovi delivered demos with the confidence of a superstar. He joins Terry Gross for a conversation about his new album, The Circle, and a companion book and movie.

In his new album, If It Wasn't For the Irish and the Jews, Irish musician and folklorist Mick Moloney celebrates the musical collaboration of the Irish and Jewish songwriters and performers of vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley.

For decades, singer songwriter Geoff Muldaur has been reinterpreting blues and jazz of the '20s and '30s. Today, we'll play some of the tracks from Muldaur's new album, Texas Sheiks, and he'll perform some songs live. Muldaur's band, also called Texas Sheiks, is currently on tour.

Forty years after siblings Richard and Karen Carpenter signed with A&M Records, Richard Carpenter is releasing a 40th-anniversary compilation CD, Carpenters: 40/40. The two-disc set includes 40 tracks with hits including "Top of the World" and "We've Only Just Begun."

Lyricist and composer Johnny Mercer -- born Nov. 18, 1909 -- wrote or co-wrote more than 1,000 songs, including American Songbook standards like "Skylark," "That Old Black Magic" and "Come Rain or Come Shine." HIs Academy Awards tally includes a statue for what's possibly his most famous tune, "Moon River." Fresh Air marks the anniversary of his birth with an in-studio concert starring Rebecca Kilgore and Dave Frishberg.

Entrepreneur Seymour Stein got his start in the music industry as a teenager, when he worked with Syd Nathan at King Records in Cincinnati. Stein went on to co-found Sire Records, where he signed such artists as The Ramones, Talking Heads, The Pretenders, Madonna, Depeche Mode and The Smiths.

While most record companies of the 1940s and 1950s made money in one genre, Cincinnati-based King Records spread the love to R & B, rockabilly, bluegrass, western swing and country. Jon Hartley Fox tells the story in his new book King of the Queen City.

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.