Michael Raphael

Sherman Alexie reads his new story about a motel maid confronting some of the ugly sides of human nature.    

Two songs by Andrew Bird.

Do you have what it takes to fill the Supreme Court’s ninth seat? Take this quiz to find out!    

Sandra Bernhard’s breakout role was as an obsessed fan in “The King of Comedy,” but her real-life obsession with Carol Channing changed her life.

The legendary jazz musician originally started out as a piano player, until a great record turned him on to the possibilities of drumming.

Abigail Washburn is a leading light of the Americana music scene. But she was on her way to study international law and practice in Beijing when a record by Doc Watson convinced her to pick up the banjo instead.

Doc Watson, a giant of American folk music, died last month at 89.  Watson’s guitar and banjo playing was a powerful force in the 1960s folk revival, and his long career inspired gen...

The drummer Jack DeJohnette has recorded with all the jazz superheroes of the last half century. But he tells Studio 360 that what he really wanted to do was play piano. He’d begun a...

“Larger-than-life” doesn’t do justice to performer Sandra Bernhard. She can be cartoonishly tough and irreverent, but also intensely sincere. Her breakout role came in Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy (1983), in which she plays an obsessed fan who helps kidnap the talk show host ...

Abigail Washburn thought she had her goals set. She was on her way to a career in international law based in China when a bluegrass musician stopped her in her tracks. At a party, s...

Listen Stephen Vitiello is a composer and sound artist. In 1999, he worked in a studio on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center. For six months he recorded the noises of the bu...

Neil Finn is the lead singer of Crowded House, a band which had its share of big hits in the 80s and 90s. (Admit it, you belted along to “Don't Dream It's Over.”) Growing up in New ...

Brian Blade is a drummer's drummer. He's played with Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Norah Jones, and Bob Dylan. He also leads his own ensemble, The Fellowship Band. Gr...

When jazz saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa was still a student at Berklee College of Music, his older brother gave him an album called Saxophone Indian Style — as a joke. Mahanthappa h...

Studio 360 has been asking artists what music they listen to on the road. Singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia turns to Huun-Huur-Tu, a group of throat-singing musicians from Siberia. She says their song "Oske Cherde" helps her feel solitary and free, even on an overcrowded tour ...

Summer is touring season for musicians, and Studio 360 is asking what they like to listen to on the road. Tim Munro plays flute for the classical sextet Eighth Blackbird. When the chaos of constant travel starts to take its toll, he turns to

Summer is touring season for musicians, and Studio 360 is asking what they like to listen to on the road. Thao Nguyen, of the band Thao with the Get Down Stay Down, relies on the Zombies song "This Will Be Our Year." It's a tune about ...

The songwriter Lee Hazlewood just released his last album, Cake or Death. Hazlewood has had many ups and downs in his half-century career, and lately his music has become popular with rock musicians young enough to be his grandkids. Produced by Michael Raphael.

The Danielson Famile regularly plays trendy rock clubs, like New York's Knitting Factory, but they're not your average rock band. They've built quite a following among Christians and non-Christians and they say that they want their shows to express faith, and create spectacle. Produced by Michael Raphael.

Almost all of us, given the opportunity, indulge the eavesdropping urge, especially when overhearing cell phone conversations. The sound artist known as "Scanner" has been incorporating the frequency band of cell phones in his work since the early 1990s. Produced by Michael Raphael.