Search results for

Gibbons returns with a solo album, Lives Outgrown, and a song that wonders beyond this life. On this week's 8 Tracks, NPR Music's Lars Gotrich listens to songs that explore what happens next.

Alynda Segarra examines our frailty and resilience with an unsparing, yet tender cadence. This week on 8 Tracks, NPR Music producer Lars Gotrich looks at lyrics that stand on their own as poetry.

What do New Jazz Underground, Black Sabbath and Remi Wolf have in common? According to NPR Music producer Lars Gotrich, they put out the best tracks of the week.

Each week, guests and hosts on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour share what's bringing them joy. This week: the shows The Agency and The Pitt, audiobooks by Philomena Cunk, and cinema from the late director David Lynch.

It's worth pausing to consider not only the legacy and achievements of former South African president Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, but also the rich musical associations of his life.

A STEREO in the studio concert and interview with singer/songwriter, guitarist RICHARD THOMPSON. He was a founding member of the band Fairport Convention in the late 1960's. He's since gone solo and is known for his dark songs which blend elements of British folk ballads, the blues, and rock n' roll. His latest album is "Mirror Blue," (Capitol). A retrospective collection of his work was released last year, "Watching the Dark: The History of Richard Thompson," (on Rykodisc.) (THIS CONCERT & INTERVIEW continues into the second half of the show, and the review segements).

Director BRIAN DE PALMA. Now 53, he's the son of a orthopedic surgeon in Philadelphia, and sometimes watched his father's surgeries. Perhaps this explains the frequent depiction of blood and violence in many of his films, which include "Carrie", "Dressed to Kill", "The Fury", and "Scarface". His thrillers were often compared with those of Hitchcock. In the 1970's, De Palma, along with other young film directors Martin Scorcese, Steven Speilberg and Francis Coppola made films of such quality that the period is sometimes refered to as another Golden Age of Hollywood. De Palma returns to that era with his new film "Carlito's Way", which stars one of the great actors of the 70s, Al Pacino.

His works debuted at a public memorial earlier this month in St. Louis, where families who lost loved ones to COVID-19 were present.

JANICE NEILSON, Executive Director of World Association for Children and parents (WACAP), a non-profit organization for parents who are interested in adopting children at risk worldwide. She has worked with Chinese children's institutions since 1991. NEILSON says her observations are "at variance" with the conclusions of the Human Rights Watch report. NEILSON urges that China not be judged by our standards but by the "standards of the developing world." She says that Chinese authorites are trying to improve the situation.

KAY ANN JOHNSON does research on adoption and abandonment in China, for the Committee for Scholarly Communications with China 1995-1996. She says that the Human Rights Watch report misrepresents the scope of the problem in Chinese state-run orphanages and that she has seen no systematic official policy of letting children die. JOHNSON is a Professor of Asian Studies and Political Science at Hampshire College

Alex Perrone, the mayor of Calexico, Calif., has been listening to the immigration debate in Washington. But he's been watching the actual process up close in his town, which sits on the American side of the U.S. border with Mexico.

The powerful singer previews songs from her album, Burn Your Fire for No Witness. Watch her and you'll see calm in her eyes; listen to her and you'll sense torment in her heart.