Music

Aimee Mann and Ted Leo began performing together in 2012, when Leo was Mann's opening act. Mann began joining Leo onstage during his set. Their debut album is "The Both."

Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez tell Terry Gross about the inspiration for "Let It Go" and a "very strong strike across the bow at all princess-myth things" song that didn't make the film.

The country singer treats the classic songs on her new album like living, vital pieces of art that can withstand being taken apart, thought about and re-imagined.

The Mekons and Waco Brothers veteran often places his left-wing politics front and center in his music and art. Here Be Monsters has a way of mixing pretty melodies with harsh criticisms.

In 1974, sound engineer Owsley Stanley crafted a superior live experience with an enormous conglomeration of amps and speakers called the Wall of Sound. Dave's Picks Volume 9 captures this era.

On Feb. 5, 1953, Powell was uncommunicative face to face at the New York jazz club Birdland. But when he sat at the keys, it was a whole other story.

Surrounded on the charts by younger men and their big hits about drinking and partying, Sara Evans' hit-single success of Slow Me Down's title song all the more heartening.

The mezzo-soprano discovered opera as a 22-year-old pre-med student. She took "a crack at a singing career" and has been at the Metropolitan Opera for 25 years. Now she's helping emerging singers.

Musician Marty Ehrlich doesn't play much on his new album; instead, he conducts an ensemble that performs his compositions. He tells Fresh Air about his first album devoted to his orchestral music.

Starting in the late 1960s, the jazz saxophonist produced a series of recordings that came out on the musicians-owned Strata-East label. Those seven albums are now collected in a box set.

Olsen has often been called a folk singer, but Ken Tucker says her new album — her first with a backing band — takes her music into an unclassifiable realm.

To hear G I R L, you'd think Pharrell's world consisted of grooving on catchy beats and flirting with women. It's a lightweight image that draws gravitas from his prolific work ethic.

The poet describes his new book — about the death of his father and the birth of his son — as having a blues sensibility. "There are moments of humor even in the sorrow," he says.

Eric Dolphy's creativity was exploding early in 1964, and he was finding more players who could keep up. Out to Lunch is free and focused, dissonant and catchy, wide open and swinging all at once.

Daughter of Everything is a superb pop album with one foot in the past and another in the future.

The band prides itself on technique over originality, but is nonetheless passionate about its craft.

There's something tender and specific about the ways elders like Frank Wess shaped their notes.

Church uses the power he's accrued from hit records to make exactly the kind of album he wants.

Penny Penny put down his broom and picked up a mic for his 1994 debut, now reissued.

On Sixteen Sunsets, the soprano saxophonist varies and honors melody like Billie Holiday.