Search results for

One of the joys of listening to The Weather station is the tension and release in the group's enchanting music. It's what made the band's most recent album one of Bob Boilen's favorite of 2017.

The LA band's signature sound is intimate and demonstrative, haunting yet uplifting, an old-fashioned rock beat under glimmering guitar and keys. And at the Tiny Desk, it was at ease.

The Dixie Chicks are back after a three-year break with a new album, Taking the Long Way. It's the band's first release after it experienced a furious backlash in 2003 after an anti-Bush comment by lead singer Natalie Maines.

Country music star Waylon Jennings died this week at the age of 64. Born in 1937 in Littlefield, Texas, he was a disc jockey at 14, and had already formed his own band at the age of 12, making guest appearances on local station KDAV's Sunday Party, where he met Buddy Holly in 1955. Jennings became Holly's bass player. It was Jennings who gave his seat up to the Big Bopper on the plane that crashed and killed Buddy Holly. In 1975, Waylon was named the Country Music Association's Male Vocalist of the Year, and in 1976, he helped found the "Outlaw Movement." In that year, Waylon, Willie, Jessi Colter (who married Waylon in 1969) and Tompall Glaser teamed up for Wanted: The Outlaws that became the first platinum (one million units) album ever recorded in Nashville. Waylon, the authorized autobiography, was written with writer-musician Lenny Kaye in 1996.

He calls his latest project a musical novel. This is part two of our interview with Young about his new CD Greendale. The 10-song album is set in a fictional California seaside town. Young also shot a feature film version of the album on Super8, which made the film festival circuit and goes into wider distribution in April. There is also a DVD, Inside Greendale, which includes in-studio footage of Young and his band Crazy Horse and scenes from the film. Over the years, Young has made excursions into country, blues, electro, rockabilly and soul. Early in his career, he formed Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills. He was then part of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, which eventually morphed into Crosby, Stills and Nash when Young embarked on a solo career.

The Nirvana frontman was known for smashing guitars during performances and in the studio. This one includes messages to his old friend, Mark Lanegan of the Screaming Trees.

Banning Eyre reviews the CD World Musette by the Paris-based group Les Primitifs du Futur -- or in English, The Future Primitives. The band, which features American cartoonist Robert Crumb on mandolin and banjo, devotes itself to old-style acoustic jazz. It sounds like it came from the 1920s. In fact, many of these compositions are contemporary, and were written by members of the group. Crumb, known for album covers and cartoons from the '60s and '70s, especially the everlasting Keep on Truckin', has had a lifelong fascination with 78 RPM records and old music. Back when this music was not the least bit fashionable, Robert Crumb was a member of The Cheap Suit Serenaders. Now he lives in Paris where he's clearly having a blast! (3:30)The CD is World Musette by Les Primitifs Du Futur, distributed by Harmonia Mundi, catalog number Sketch 333012.

The last time Scott Simon spoke to percussionist Bobby Sanabria, it was about Sanabria's newest CD, which has since been nominated for a Grammy Award. Now, Sanabria wants listeners to meet a classic Afro-Cuban album: Machito's Kenya.

Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl joins hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton to discuss his upbringing in Washington, D.C., and the role of geography in Foo Fighters' new album, Sonic Highways.

On this week's show: Songs about facing fears, being true to yourself and not worrying what everyone else thinks, plus an interview with singer Angel Olsen about her surprising new single.