NPR's annual list of the year's best albums is full of work by musicians who hit career peaks, discovered their voices or willed something new into reality.
The mostly white country and folk music industries remain frustratingly difficult for Black musicians to enter. During one of Nashville's biggest events, one group envisioned a new pathway in.
It felt good to be at the Tiny Desk, if only for one night. Tiny Desk Contest winner Neffy plays her winning song, "Wait Up," plus three more in the first Tiny Desk concert since March 2020.
Karen Dalton, an enigmatic artist beloved by colleagues Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs, and idolized by followers like Nick Cave and Courtney Barnett, is the subject of a new film.
John Prine's self-titled album came out 50 years ago. Bonnie Raitt, Jim Rooney, Fiona Prine and Jody Whelan guest in an online listening party with host Ann Powers on Sept. 23.
A founder of the Newport Folk Festival, the Newport Jazz Festival and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival — and perhaps the most important jazz impresario of all time — died Monday.
After a silent year in which artists were sent grants instead of invitations to perform, the beloved festival was determined to go on this year, as carefully as possible. And how possible is that?
How do we understand Blue in the 21st century? Can we think of Mitchell's 1971 album, long considered the apex of confessional songwriting, as a paradigm not of raw emotion, but of care and craft?
