Singers & Singing

The Grammy-Award winning baritone first auditioned to play the Demon Barber of Fleet Street back in high school. He didn't get the part then; now he's starring in the Broadway production.

ARI SHAPIRO – one of the hosts of NPR’s All Things Considered. He’s written a new memoir about moving between different worlds. He’s traveled the world as a journalist and has sung around the world with the group Pink Martini. He does a cabaret act with actor Alan Cumming.

The duo have a new album, I Love a Love Song. In 2020, Rachael & Vilray spoke to Fresh Air and played songs from their self-titled debut album, which drew on the music of the '30s and '40s.

Green's string of hits in the '70s include "Let's Stay Together" and "Love and Happiness." He later became an ordained minister, and bought a church in Memphis. Originally broadcast in 1991 and 2000.

The Sound of Music star will soon be honored with the AFI's Life Achievement Award. In 2008 and 2019, she spoke to Fresh Air about growing up during WWII and performing in her parents' vaudeville.

A decade ago, Costanzo had surgery that threatened to destroy his singing voice. Now he stars as a gender-fluid Egyptian pharaoh in the Met Opera's production. Originally broadcast Oct. 7, 2019.

SNL's Cecily Strong co-stars in the Apple TV+ satire series Schmigadoon!. It centers on a couple who gets trapped in a town where people burst into song. We talk with Strong as well as Cinco Paul, the show's co-creator.

To mark the debut of the biopic RESPECT, we listen back to archival interviews with Aretha, as well as with Jerry Wexler, producer of the hit "Respect," and Dan Penn, who co-wrote "Do Right Woman."

Russell cut her new album in a scant four days, pouring a lifetime of experiences into it. Outside Child is the confession of a woman who's faced hellish experiences and emerged with uncommon grace.

Odom Jr. landed his first Broadway role at 16, and later starred as Aaron Burr in Hamilton. Now he's up for two Oscars, one for his role as Cooke in One Night in Miami.

King made some recordings in the 1970s, but then quit the music business to raise her children. Now in her late 70s, she's released her first full-length solo album: Living in the Last Days.

Wilson, who died Feb. 8, began singing with Diana Ross and Florence Ballard in 1959. As the Supremes, they helped define Motown sound with a string of hits in the 1960s. Originally broadcast in 1986.

Married Broadway stars Danny Burstein and Rebecca Luker both contracted COVID in the spring. Burstein was hospitalized. Luker's case was less severe, but it came soon after she was diagnosed with ALS.

A few years ago, pianist Renee Rosnes organized a jazz band featuring six female musicians sometimes joined by a singer. These jazz all-stars are in alignment on Artemis' self-titled new album.

Baranski started her career in theater and now stars as a progressive lawyer in The Good Fight. "I was a passionate acting student and nothing was going to stop me," the Emmy Award-winning actor says.

DeMent describes herself as extremely shy, but says, "when the songs started coming to me, I felt I didn't have the option to hide and avoid" the stage. Originally broadcast in 2015.

Rachael & Vilray first met in 2003 when they were students at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, but didn't begin performing together until 2015. Now they are the duo Rachael & Vilray and they play original songs inspired by the music of the 1930s and 40s. They'll talk and sing in the studio.

Julie Andrews and her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton have written over 30 children's books together. Now they've collaborated on a new memoir about Julie Andrews' Hollywood years, which began when she was invited to Disney studios to play Mary Poppins.

Counter tenor Anthony Ross Costanzo sings in what's considered a woman's range - in the range of the castrati, men who maintained their high voices by being castrated before puberty. He's about to star in the Philip Glass opera 'Akhenaten.'

Emily Blunt talks about portraying Mary Poppins: getting the accent right, singing, and being suspended from a wire to simulate flying.