Music

On Mother, Maines' first solo record, the singer moves beyond the music that propelled her to fame as a member of the Dixie Chicks. It features an assortment of pop and rock covers, including a reworking of the Pink Floyd song that lends the album its title.

Dubbed a country singer by virtue of her Nashville base, Rose sounds more like a pop vocalist on The Stand-In. Drawing inspiration from Roy Orbison, Carlene Carter and countless others, Rose knows it takes an assured performer to sell the notion of vulnerability over the long haul.

The country singer, known for "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and many other hits, died Friday at age 81. Fresh Air remembers Jones with excerpts from a 1996 conversation with Terry Gross about his autobiography, his addictions and his perspective on his celebrated but troubled marriage to Tammy Wynette.

"Accidental Racist" launched an Internet firestorm and threatened to overshadow everything else on the country singer's fine new album, Wheelhouse. Even in that polarizing song, Paisley's biggest sin is that he's well-meaning in a way that topples too easily into sentimentality.

Mosaic Records has released Classic Earl Hines Sessions 1928-1945. a seven-disc showcase for the jazz pianist and bandleader. Hines' right hand played lines in bright, clear octaves -- and his left hand had a mind of its own.

Cash spent half a century in the limelight as a country singer turned American icon. Between 1958, when he first recorded for Columbia, until 1986, when it didn't renew his contract, he recorded more than 50 singles and 60 albums for the label.

The musician, songwriter, composer and producer has made a name for himself by playing with the like of Amanda Palmer. For his latest album, however, he found himself departing from a rock sound as he began writing his own orchestral arrangements.

The talented young singer-songwriter has as much in common with John Prine as she does with Kenny Chesney. With any luck, Same Trailer, Different Park is the start of a long career that will make both Musgraves' core audience and other open-minded listeners sit up and take notice.

Ramone started out as a sound engineer for Lesley Gore, and went on to work with Simon and Garfunkel, Barbra Streisand and Frank Sinatra. He died Saturday at the age of 79. Fresh Air remembers him by listening back to a 1995 interview. He talks about losing old demos and being mistaken for a member of The Ramones.

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell have been friends and collaborators since they first met in 1974. While they always wanted to make an album together, they never did until recently. Old Yellow Moon includes songs by Crowell, Patti Scialfa, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson among others.

Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Marc Almond, Marianne Faithfull, Shane MacGowan and others appear on a new two-disc compilation of pirate ballads and sea songs called Son of Rogues Gallery. Here, Terry Gross talks with Hal Willner, the project's producer, about some of the stories behind the project.

David Mamet, the writer and director of the new HBO movie Phil Spector starring Al Pacino and Helen Mirren, includes a disclaimer at the beginning of the film: While the movie might be based on the controversial music producer, "This is a work of fiction. It's not 'based on a true story.'

On his new album, The 3dom Factor, Altschul is great at mixing opposites: abstract melodic concepts with parade beats, open improvising and percolating swing. The album is the sort of comeback that reminds you how much good music the artist made the first time around.

On his first album since 2006, The 20/20 Experience, Justin Timberlake explores his range, from soul-man groove to falsetto croon, taking inspiration from neo-soul and the expansiveness of '60s and '70s rock song formats.

Before he became the guitarist for ZZ Top, Billy Gibbons was in a band called the Moving Sidewalks that just missed its shot at stardom. The album the Moving Sidewalks never released in the late 1960s was released in late 2012 and is very much a period piece, albeit a very well-made one.

Spaghetti Westerns, Philadelphia soul, opera and the Wu-Tang Clan all come together in the music of Adrian Younge. He has produced and composed two new albums — one with William Hart, the lead singer of The Delfonics, and another with rapper Ghostface Killah.

The twin sisters from Canada depart from their indie singer-songwriter roots with their latest album. The music on Heartthrob is often loaded with a carefully articulated sense of doubt that Tegan and Sara suggest needs to be shaken off through a triumph of the pop-music will.

The icon's new album plays like a collection of discreet singles, with each performed in a different style, genre and mood. In this way, the album isn't a return to form, in part because David Bowie never took one form to begin with.

Recruiting the likes of Guy Clark and Vince Gill, the country singer and member of The Pistol Annies works within a tradition that extends back well beyond her twentysomething years. Monroe avoids the pitfalls of cliche, with sentiments on her new album that are nothing if not nicely ambivalent.

Known for his work in New Klezmer Trio, clarinetist Ben Goldberg has just released two new albums for different quintets: Subatomic Particle Homesick Blues and Unfold Ordinary Mind.