Music

Fresh Air rock historian Ed Ward has a look in to a vital part of Lynn's career.

Fresh Air rock critic Ken Tucker says Black Messiah is as adventurous as any fan could hope for.

Making new sounds while staying mindful of the past is a common theme in the Fresh Air music critic's year-end list.

Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews three box sets featuring memorable pianists: the Chick Corea Trio's Trilogy, Herbie Hancock's Warner Bros. Years (1969-1972), and The Rosemary Clooney CBS Radio Recordings 1955

Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews two reissues featuring the late soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy — a live recording of a 1963 quartet that only played Thelonious Monk tunes, and later music for solo soprano. Monk was always Lacy's biggest influence.

Fresh Air rock critic Ken Tucker says that one of the best books he's ever read about punk rock is a new memoir by Viv Albertine.

McLagan, who died at 69, helped define the sound of '60s British rock with his bands Small Faces and Faces. He toured with the Rolling Stones, Dylan and Billy Bragg. He appeared on Fresh Air in 2004.

Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews three jazz books out this holiday season—a singer's biography, a pianist's autobiography, and a fat coffee table book. Whitehead says they're all worth a look, though he has a couple of quibbles — and also a confession.

"I think if I had been an accomplished songwriter I wouldn't have written 'You Really Got Me,'" Davies tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

It's not too early to be releasing Christmas albums, and Fresh Air rock critic Ken Tucker has been listening to a lot of them.

A batch of lyrics that Bob Dylan wrote in the late 1960s were given by Dylan to producer T-Bone Burnett, who came up with the idea to have some contemporary musicians set the words to music.

The Boston jazz guitarist tackles the Rite of Spring and Quartet for the End of Time on a pair of new CDs.

During a hiatus, some tapes surfaced of new songs Bob Dylan had been writing: the Basement Tapes. These songs have been collected in a box set.

Since the 1970, Lake has led numerous bands of his own, including an occasional big band, and an organ quartet. That organ group is one to watch.

Womack, who had the hit "I Hope You Dance," hasn't released a new album since 2008. The sound of her new album The Way I'm Livin' is different from the country music dominating the industry.

Giordano has been obsessed with 1920s jazz since he first heard it on his grandparents' Victrola. His band the Nighthawks performs the music heard on the HBO series Boardwalk Empire.

Taylor Swift's fifth album is called 1989, the year she was born. For the past few years, she's been the young queen of country music, by far its biggest-selling artist. But 1989 sidesteps country music entirely to become Swift's first pure pop album. Fresh Air rock critic Ken Tucker has a review

Singer Conley had a number of hits before disappearing in the '70s, a few years after his mentor Redding died in a plane crash. So where did he go? To Europe, where he changed his name.

Punk rock lives on the debut album by a new trio, Ex Hex. The album is called Rips, and it's at once a throwback to bands like the Ramones and the sound of something new. Fresh Air rock critic Ken Tucker says the three women who make up Ex Hex have created an exhilaratingly energetic piece of work.

The Swedish pop singer-songwriter has a knack for capturing the thoughts of the romantic mind in a delightfully wordy.