Music Features

Grammy-winning artist Rhiannon Giddens brings Biscuits & Banjos, a music festival that features Black musicians on guitars, fiddles and banjos, history, dancing and more, to Durham, N.C.

The seven acts voted into the Rock Hall this year include Southern rap and Midwest garage rock duos, pillars of the grunge and English blues rock eras and the '80s most unusual pop star.

Formed in 1975, Pere Ubu embodied the industrial decay and hardscrabble ethics of Cleveland. Thomas tied together the band's sound with uncompromising vocals that exuded steely menace and unfettered anguish.

The big-voiced, unapologetically frank singer-songwriter refuses to be boxed in by genres and finds joy in the full expression of self.

As one of the most-performed living composers, the Pulitzer winner insists that her music communicate to everyone — from farmers to children to the classical music intelligentsia.

For musicians like Rhiannon Giddens and Rissi Palmer, trying to break down doors in the folk and country music scenes has been a long road. A festival in Durham this weekend aims to remedy that.

World Cafe correspondent John Morrison looks back on Prince's daring left turn following the success of Purple Rain.

His wife, Fresh Air host Terry Gross, said the longtime contributor to The Village Voice and NPR had been living with emphysema and Parkinson's disease.

"Once you get the funk out there, it's not going back. You can't put it back in the box," says filmmaker Stanley Nelson. His new Independent Lens documentary is out now.

Bagayoko, an acclaimed guitarist and half of the Grammy-nominated blind duo Amadou & Mariam, died in his hometown of Bamako on Friday.