Music

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews Together Through Life, Dylan's 33rd solo album. Throughout the disc, Dylan sings in cobwebbed moans, growling croons and spoken-word chants.

Rock historian Ed Ward remembers the Detroit label Westbound Records, which recorded early funk, disco and gospel in the 1970s.

Music critic Milo Miles reviews two new albums: Booker T. Jones's Potato Hole, and Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi.

Rock historian Ed Ward explains how New York City's Tin Pan Alley songwriters coped with changing times in the 1960s.

The grainy, blurry portrait of Ran Blake on the cover of his album, Driftwoods, looks like spirit photography: the pianist as ghostly presence. His playing can be spooky, too. The CD radically transforms popular vocal standards from Billie Holiday, Hank Williams, Quincy Jones and more.

A concept album about fuel-efficient cars may not sounds like the most promising idea for lively music, but that's what Neil Young has done with his new collection of songs. Ken Tucker reviews Fork in the Road.

The singer and songwriter's new double album, High Wide and Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project, is a tribute to the old-time country banjo player who died in 1931.

On the new album Trombone Tribe, trombonist Roswell Rudd plays with a number of groups including his own sextet. Music critic Kevin Whitehead has a review.

Pop legend Prince has a new triple-album release called Lotusflow3r. It features two solo albums by Prince and a debut album by Bria Valente, co-written and co-produced by Prince. Rock critic Ken Tucker has a review.

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.

Dan Auerbach, the singer-guitarist for the Akron, Ohio-based rootsy blues-rock duo The Black Keys, broadens his style on his new solo album to include folk, country and even psychedelic elements. Rock critic Ken Tucker has a review.

Two albums featuring the late rock 'n' roll icon have been released — Memorial Collection and Down the Line: Rarities. Rock historian Ed Ward considers Holly's music and tragic death.

The Iraqi heavy-metal band Acrassicauda had problems playing their music under Saddam Hussein, but they didn't get death threats until after the American invasion. Two band members — and the filmmaker who made a documentary about them — talk with Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

Will Oldham's new album Beware, released under his country music name, Bonnie Prince Billy, offers lovely music with a tinge of "lonesome-cowboy pokiness." Ken Tucker has a review.

Originally released in 1961, electric guitarist Grant Green's first album with Blue Note Records, Grant's First Stand, has been reissued. Green has a solid swinger's knack for skippy, airborne jazz rhythms, but some of his lines wouldn't sound out of place in a Chicago blues bar.

Rudresh Mahanthappa's Kinsmen blends South Asian music with American jazz. The jazz saxophonist says his inspiration to explore Indian music on the saxophone came from a CD his brother gave him as a joke called Saxophone Indian Style.

The heart of the blues-rock group Heartless Bastards is Erika Wennerstrom, who wears hers on her sleeve. Her band's new album, The Mountain, features a bold, hard-hitting sound.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the second album from the indie-pop duo The Bird And The Bee.

Jeff "Tain" Watts, an original member of the Wynton Marsalis quintet, has released an album titled Watts. But it's no ego trip; the disc is inspired, at least in part, by L.A.'s Watts neighborhood.