David Dye

Steve Martin is a true Renaissance man, having run the gamut of accomplishments from acting to writing to art collecting. He's also an award-winning banjo player, offering easy, lilting banjo melodies alongside former New Bohemian Edie Brickell's lyrics on the duo's latest album, Love Has Come ...

This week's World Cafe: Next artist is the Kansas band Moreland & Arbuckle, whose members play blues-drenched roots-rock. On their fifth album, 7 Cities, they've adopted the loose theme of the explorer Coronado's search for the seven cities of gold — which, not so coincidentally, took the conquistador right into ...

Soulful singer-songwriter Jessie Ware is far from the first vocalist to make the transition from backing vocals to center stage; Sheryl Crow once backed Michael Jackson, after all. But the Londoner has made the leap with tremendous success in her own right.

Ware's first album — ...

The French band Phoenix seems to be appearing at the top of music charts all over the world. In 2009, Phoenix's album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix guided them to fame with popular tracks like "1901" and "Lisztomania."

Released in April, the band's latest album, Bankrupt!, is a departure from ...

After working together for more than a decade, the members of Stockholm's Shout Out Louds continue to make lush, highly melodic pop music. The product of a year and a half of tinkering, their recent Optica is significantly lighter-sounding than its predecessors.

On this installment of World Cafe, ...

Pete Yorn has long had a way with hooky rock songs, so it was easy for him to connect with fellow L.A. musician J.D. King over a mutual love for '60s music. The two first started recording together just for fun, blending folk-rock and subtle psychedelia into a joint project ...

When Telekinesis' Michael Benjamin Lerner plays live, he sings from behind his drum set, but he plays almost all the instruments on his albums. The power-pop multi-instrumentalist recorded his latest record, Dormarion, at Spoon drummer Jim Eno's house — fittingly located on Dormarion Lane.

In this ...

Sam Amidon grew up surrounded by music, from playing fiddle with his parents in Vermont to finding a best friend in musician and arranger Thomas Bartlett (a.k.a. Doveman).

On his fourth album, Bright Sunny South, Amidon draws from a variety of traditional folk material, weaving it ...

In the spring of 2012, Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall traveled to Tucson, Ariz., to work on her sixth album, Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon. But before she could return to finish the record, a lot happened in her personal life: The death of her father, as well as ...

Rose Windows' debut album, The Sun Dogs, is steeped in '60s classic rock, recalling the heavy organ sounds of The Doors and the folk-infused flutes of Traffic. Formed in 2010 by songwriter Chris Cheveyo, the Seattle septet signed a label deal earlier this year, then put together an ...

When Big Country founder and lead singer Stuart Adamson died in 2001, most would have assumed that the Scottish band was finished. But in 2007, the group reunited for a 25th-anniversary tour with a new lead singer in its lineup. Though Adamson was a hard man to replace, Big Country ...

When Lissie stopped by World Cafe for her session about a month ago, she still didn't have a name for her new album. Now titled Back to Forever, the singer's second record is due out Sept. 10; it comes three years after the release of her debut, Catching a Tiger. ...

Though Rhye's debut album, Woman, was released this past March, many first encountered the duo of Mike Milosh and Robin Hannibal in a series of evocative videos released in 2012. There was little to no accompanying information and — as Milosh says — that was exactly the point. ...

La Santa Cecilia got its start playing a mix of rancheras, norteno music and other Mexican-influenced rhythms for tourists and passers-by on Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles. The group developed a strong following as it started writing original songs and playing in clubs and other venues.

Audiences ...

Bobby McFerrin has a wide range of musical abilities, from singing multi-octaves to serving as a classical conductor, but he didn't arrive there on his own. Inspired by his father's album Deep River, McFerrin pays tribute to music of the past on his new album, spirityouall.

His father, ...

Alt-psychedelic quintet Coke Weed is from picturesque Bar Harbor, well up the Maine coast. The band just released its third album, Back To Soft, which took nine months to make and is — despite the title — its heaviest release so far.

Lead by songwriter Milan McAlevey, the band has ...

In this installment of Latin Roots, the World Cafe team travels to Fidel Nadal's home studio in Buenos Aires for a session with a reggae performer who truly owns his genre. Nadal has 15 solo records to his name, and his album Forever Together was nominated for a Latin Grammy ...

Jeff Lynne isn't quite at the forefront of '70s and '80s classic rock, but he was responsible for some formidable records with Electric Light Orchestra and Traveling Wilburys; later, he produced releases for Wilbury collaborators Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and George Harrison.

Here, World ...

Nomad is an appropriate title for Bombino's new album; a member of the Tuareg tribe in Saharan Africa, the guitar was first relocated to a refugee camp in Algeria, where he learned to play his instrument. In 2011, he went into exile in Burkina Faso, which led to ...

Brett and Rennie Sparks have inhabited a unique musical world together since the '90s. As The Handsome Family, husband Brett sings and writes the melodies while wife Rennie focuses on the lyrics; the resulting ghost stories and murder ballads have won the band an intense cult following. After years spent ...