Music

The crooner sang lead for the Drifters and became famous for the classic hit "Stand By Me." King died April 30th. Fresh Air remembers him with this interview. Originally broadcast in 1988.

Triangles and Circles, the new album from Dafnis Prieto, blends Afro-Cuban beats, blues feeling and spontaneous rhythmic variations. Critic Kevin Whitehead says that drums are at the album's heart.

McKay's new album My Weekly Reader is a collection of covers of songs made famous in the 1960s. The range of material is wide — from the Beatles' "If I Fell" to Frank Zappa's "Hungry Freaks, Daddy."

In honor of Billie Holiday's 100th birthday this month, several artists are releasing out Holiday tribute albums. Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead looks at a couple of these by other singers. One he rather likes; the other, not so much.

Some 30 years ago, the Kronos Quartet created a sensation by releasing an album of chamber music that included an arrangement of Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze." Now Brooklyn Rider, another gifted string quartet, is again blurring the boundaries between classical and more popular kinds of chamber music. Fresh Air classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz says he admires that blur.

To mark the release of his seventh album, the singer-songwriter brings his acoustic guitar to the Fresh Air studio to sing some new songs as well as some of his favorites from the 1920s and '30s.

Over the course of Sound & Color, Alabama Shakes messes with what had already, after its first album, become its signature sound. Fresh Air rock critic Ken Tucker has this review.

Fresh Air rock critic Ken Tucker says the album is one of Yoakam's most stylistically diverse.

Donald Palumbo is the Metropolitan Opera's chorus master. He tells Fresh Air about "stagger breathing," the ways singers protect their voices and his own lack of formal training.

The producer says there was a moment when his co-writers thought, "Maybe this song wasn't meant to be." He also describes working with Amy Winehouse and Bruno Mars.

Fresh Air rock critic Ken Tucker says The Mountain Goats' concept album about pro wrestling is filled with a remarkable range of melodies and moods.

Fresh Air music critic Ken Tucker says the rapper's second album has an excitingly adventurous sound.

Holiday was born 100 years ago Tuesday in Philadelphia. Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead has some thoughts on Holiday's changing style, her influences, and singers she influenced.

For the composer, life is how the past and the future connect. Glass' new memoir, Words Without Music, looks back on his childhood, travels through Asia and when his music provoked violence.

John Lennon's first wife died Wednesday at 75. In 1985, Cynthia Lennon talked with Fresh Air about her marriage to John, going on tour to America, and meeting Yoko Ono.

Alex Gibney intersperses recently unearthed concert footage from 1971 with vintage and newly recorded interviews to make Sinatra: All or Nothing At All. It's illuminating and by no means a puff piece.

The mostly instrumental cuts draw on salsa, funk, soul and rock from vintage and new performers.

In 1970, Warner Bros. Records had an unusual philosophy: they'd sign artists and, instead of wanting a hit single immediately, they'd develop them over several albums. Hence, Captain Beefheart.

Since 2006, Laurie Pepper, the widow of jazz saxophonist Art Pepper, has been releasing live recordings her husband made during the last years of his life. A new batch of these recordings from 1981 is out. Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says that Art Pepper played like he was making up for lost time.

Barnett just released her first full album called Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit. Critic Ken Tucker says she somehow manages to infuse with a freshness rare in any songwriter.