Music

The new live album from Andy Bey shows off his extraordinary range as a singer. There's plenty of Ellington, risk-taking, and evidence of his virtuosity—even if he didn't become famous until his ongoing revival in the '90s.

Hamburg-born Astrid Kirchherr met the Beatles in 1960, before they were famous. She took some of the earliest photographs of the group and was engaged to Stuart Sutcliffe, the Beatles' original bassist, before he died of a brain hemorrhage in 1962.

It's not often that you hear of a record company being destroyed by success, but that was the fate of one of America's most prominent soul labels, Vee-Jay Records. They recorded John Lee Hooker, the Four Seasons and Betty Everett, but the music has been unavailable for decades. A new box set ends the wait.

Los Zafiros, or The Sapphires, was bigger than The Beatles — in Cuba, anyway. Fresh Air's rock historian reviews a new DVD about the band: Los Zafiros: Music from the Edge of Time.

Rock historian Ed Ward remembers the sound of San Francisco in the '60s, from the early days of countercultural upheaval through the Summer of Love in 1967. It's all lavishly documented in Love is the Song We Sing, a new four-disc set from Rhino Records.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews Big Love in a Small Town, the debut album from country singer Sarah Johns.

Nils Lofgren, best known as guitarist with Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, also played for Neil Young and Crazy Horse early in that band's career. He's also had a notable solo career — and he founded the mid-1970s band Grin. There are several reissues of Lofgren's work: Grin's 1+1 and All Out (now available on a double-album set), plus the solo discs Nils Lofgren and Back It Up.

Fresh Air's classical music critic takes a look at the career of opera legend Maria Callas — because the recording industry can't seem to resist her. EMI has just released a 70-disc collection called Maria Callas: The Complete Studio Recordings, and there's a new DVD compilation of the soprano's work, called The Eternal Callas.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews two Christmas albums. The team behind the TV series The O.C. has released Have a Very Merry Chrismukkah, and Dwight Twilley has a new album called Have a Twilley Christmas.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead gives the lowdown on new jazz releases that are perfect for the music lover on your last-minute shopping list. Detail of the box set for Miles Davis's complete recordings for the Columbia label. Whitehead says that this year, there is something for every budget, from affordable classics to handsome box sets and series. Also included are a book on jazz, and a combination CD/calendar.

Record producer Joel Dorn worked with Roberta Flack, Bette Midler, Max Roach, Herbie Mann, the Allman Brothers and many more. He worked as an in-house producer at Atlantic Records before going out on his own, and in the late 1980s he repackaged back catalogs for the major record labels. He founded or co-founded several independent labels. He died Monday at age 65, of a heart attack. Fresh Air remembers him with this archival interview from April of 1991.

Owing to his superb taste and refined touch, Roy Haynes has spent six decades as a drummer of choice for jazz stars like Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughan, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Pat Metheny. All of them appear on A Life in Time: The Roy Haynes Story, a new anthology spread over three CDs and a DVD. It's less a showcase for aggressive drumming than a reminder of how much good and great music Haynes has contributed to as a team player between 1949 and 2006.

A Baptist deacon, R&B drummer and former gospel-music editor for Billboard magazine, Robert Darden is also a journalism professor at Baylor University, where he runs the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project . He'll play some rare recordings for us.

Fresh Air's rock critic runs down the best pop music of 2007, which he likes to call The Year in Rehabilitation. His picks are:

"Rehab" by Amy Winehouse

"Piece of Me" by Britney Spears

"Closure" by Aly & AJ

"Navy Nurse" by The Fiery Furnaces

"Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" by Miranda Lambert

"Change of Heart" by Teddy Thompson

Frank Morgan, a bebop-jazz sax player who modeled his playing style after Charlie Parker's, died Dec. 14 at age 73. After some early successes, Morgan succumbed to heroin addiction, which led to 30 years of crime and imprisonment — and an absence from the stage. But while he was in jail, Morgan did play with other inmates; most famously, he and Art Pepper formed a small ensemble at San Quentin. The Washington Post reports: "Once asked why so many jazz musicians became addicts, [Morgan] replied: 'It's about being hip.

Bettye LaVette recorded her first hit, "My Man — He's a Lovin' Man," at the age of 16. She toured with Ben E. King, Barbara Lynn and Otis Redding. And now she's being crowned the Comeback Queen for her recent albums, I've Got My Own Hell to Raise, which came out in 2005, and her recent The Scene of the Crime. LaVette recorded The Scene of the Crime at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala., with the Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers and the legendary session musician and songwriter Spooner Oldham.

Ike Turner, the soul-music star and rock 'n' roll pioneer, died this week. He was 76, and had reportedly suffered from emphysema. Turner shaped the sound of early rock 'n' roll, co-writing and playing piano on the 1951 song "Rocket 88." (He was the "Jackie Brenston" of Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats.) Then, in 1958, he discovered a singer named Anna Mae Bullock; before long, she and his band both had new names, and the Ike and Tina Turner Revue became one of the hottest acts of the '60s and early '70s.

With 13 days still to go, some listeners might be crying "Enough!" (already) when the carols play. For them, Fresh Air's resident rock critic offers up two Christmas albums that might help make the holiday chestnuts seem fresh again: It's Christmas, Of Course, from Darlene Love, and Raul Malo's Marshmallow World and Other Holiday Favorites.

Drummer Levon Helm once backed Bob Dylan and sang with Van Morrison. Now, 30 years after The Band split up — and 10 years after he was diagnosed with throat cancer — Helm is putting out a solo album. The Washington Post has called Dirt Farmer "an exquisitely unvarnished monument to Americana from a man whose keening, lyrical vocals have become synonymous with it."

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the new album by country singer Gene Watson. It's called In A Perfect World.