Music & Culture

Maybelle Carter, playing her autoharp, performs with her daughter, Helen.

Music & Culture

For Women Musicians, Maybelle Carter Set The Standard And Broke The Mold

4:37pm August 15, 2019

by Tift Merritt

One of the most indispensable guitarists of all time, Carter was a quiet revolutionary. Though she didn't concern herself with celebrity or need to be the star, she deserves our deepest admiration.

Lydia Mendoza had one of the most extensive performance careers for Mexican American women singers and an immense recording archive. Listeners to border radio in the 1930s would have heard her music alongside that of Maybelle Carter.

Music & Culture

On The Border With Maybelle Carter And Lydia Mendoza

3:22pm August 15, 2019

by Deborah Vargas

We rarely place Mendoza and Carter, both great guitarists and lead vocalists in family bands, in conversation — though listeners to border radio stations in the late 1930s were often fans of both.

Music & Culture

Remembering Bob Wilber, A Standard Bearer For Traditional Jazz

2:35pm August 15, 2019

by Terry Gross

The saxophonist and clarinetist, a student of Sidney Bechet and thusly a specialist in early styles, died Aug. 4 at the age of 91. He spoke with Terry Gross in 1988.

Queue Listen Now

Miles and Betty Davis in color in Miles' New York westside brownstone, 1969

Music & Culture

Electric Miles: Behind The 'Brew'

2:09pm August 15, 2019

We celebrate the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis going electric for Bitches Brew — part controversial, part revolutionary and as a whole, historic.

Courtney Marie Andrews demonstrates how to play the "Carter scratch"

Music & Culture

How To Play The 'Carter Scratch' (Featuring Courtney Marie Andrews)

10:37am August 15, 2019

Maybelle Carter's guitar innovation helped revolutionize the way the instrument is played. Watch Americana singer-songwriter Courtney Marie Andrews show you how it's done.

Fans sit atop a painted bus at the Woodstock Music Festival in Bethel, N.Y., in August 1969.

Music & Culture

How Woodstock Changed The Little Town Of Bethel, N.Y.

9:35am August 15, 2019

by Karen Michel

Fifty years later, the site of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair is on the National Register of Historic Places. For some who were there, it's a place of pilgrimage and memories.

Queue Listen Now

Music & Culture

The Long Ride To 'Old Town Road': Black Artists And Their Contributions To Country Music

5:13pm August 14, 2019

Country music is getting off its high horse.

Music & Culture

A$AP Rocky Found Guilty Of Assault

4:31pm August 14, 2019

by Andrew Limbong

The rapper was convicted of assault by a Swedish court but will serve no additional jail time in a case that has drawn widespread attention from the music industry and President Trump.

In the 1930s, when Maybelle Carter (left) was touring with her cousin Sara (center) and Sara's husband A.P. Carter as the Carter Family, the members of the group still labored on the family farm in Poor Valley, in southern Virginia.

Music & Culture

A Lifetime Of Labor: Maybelle Carter At Work

2:43pm August 14, 2019

by Jessica Wilkerson

Her musical career began in childhood. She witnessed the dawn of the recording era and helped create country music as one of the genre's biggest acts. But Maybelle Carter never stopped working.

Sleater-Kinney performs on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on June 19, 2019. On July 1, drummer Janet Weiss announced her departure from the band after more than 20 years.

Music & Culture

What It Means To Listen To Sleater-Kinney Now

2:21pm August 14, 2019

by Hanif Abdurraqib

What happens when an artist you count on to be one way suddenly isn't? For writer Hanif Abdurraquib, appreciating the left-turn album The Center Won't Hold has meant letting go of years of nostalgia.