Rock

Joe Henry has produced albums by Solomon Burke, Allan Toussaint, Hugh Laurie and others. The versatile singer, songwriter and producer has just released Reverie, his 12th album. It features acoustic performances from a three-day jam session in his basement.

Singer-songwriter Nick Lowe joins Fresh Air's Terry Gross for an in-studio interview and performance featuring several songs from his 13th solo album, The Old Magic.

British singer-songwriter PJ Harvey watched hours of war footage before writing the songs for her eighth album, Let England Shake. Here, she describes how she translated what she saw into a mournful elegy about the bitter brutality of combat.

Twenty-one songs Springsteen recorded for his 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town are now being released for the first time. Springsteen spoke to actor Ed Norton at the Toronto Film Festival about the making of Darkness.

The frontman for the pop-punk band Green Day details the group's early days in Berkeley an describes what it's been like to see American Idiot, a new Broadway musical based on one of his albums.

Singer and songwriter Mark Linkous, who performed under the name Sparklehorse, took his own life at the age of 47. Rock critic Ken Tucker remembers the man behind the albums Good Morning Spider and It's a Wonderful Life.

Vic Chesnutt was paralyzed from the waist down at the age of 18, but he's still a massively productive songwriter. Chesnutt has fifteen albums under his belt and his songs have been covered by Madonna, Smashing Pumpkins, and R.E.M. His new album, At The Cut, is a collaboration with Guy Picciotto of the band Fugazi.

Singer, songwriter and performer Janelle Monae earned a Grammy nomination for her 2007 album Metropolis, and caught the eye of Sean "Diddy" Combs, who signed her to his Bad Boy roster.

Long a standout purveyor of rootsy, direct "heartland" rock, Mellencamp is in the midst of a folksy, pessimistic streak on his new album. He speaks to host Terry Gross about the spare sound and dark themes of Life, Death, Love and Freedom.

Antony Hegarty, lead singer for Antony and the Johnsons, has a striking sound — "between male and female ... at once ethereal and earthy," one critic writes. The group's new CD is The Crying Light.