NPR Staff

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Bobby McFerrin: Spirituals As Sung Prayers

Friday, May 17, 2013

Listen to Bobby McFerrin — onstage, warming up with his band — and it's like you're listening to an entire orchestra bubbling up through one man's body. He becomes a flute, a violin, a muted trumpet, a percussion instrument, a bird, you name it.

Spirityouall is an album McFerrin ...

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Quinto Turns Inward To Find Spock's Soul

Friday, May 17, 2013

Science-fiction fans can get touchy when you mess with their icons — and few characters are as iconic as Star Trek's Spock. The half-human, half-Vulcan character was played by Leonard Nimoy in both the short-lived original series and the series of movies that eventually followed, and when director J.J. Abrams ...

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A Gift Of Life And Friendship After A Family's Loss

Friday, May 17, 2013

Today, Rick Bounds is a 58-year-old triathlete, with four competitions and a 100-mile bike ride to his credit.

But six years ago, he was diagnosed with a nonhepatitis liver disease. Rick's doctors told him that if he didn't have an immediate kidney and liver transplant, he would die.

He was ...

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Sam Amidon: Reshaping An American Folk Tradition

Friday, May 17, 2013

Shape-note singing is a communal form of music that began in New England 200 years ago, mostly from townsfolk without any musical training. It's music that surrounded folk singer Sam Amidon during his childhood in Vermont.

"These are some of the melodies that are the deepest-seated for me," Amidon ...

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From Fame's Leroy To Jay-Z

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Looking for Leroy is a new book by Mark Anthony Neal that takes a look at how high profile black men like Jay-Z, Denzel Washington and Barack Obama shape our perceptions of black masculinity in America. He sat down with Tell Me More's Michel Martin.

Inspired by Fame

The "Leroy" ...

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Tina Brown's Must-Reads: On Luck, Good And Bad

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Tina Brown, editor of the Daily Beast and Newsweek, joins NPR's Steve Inskeep again for an occasional feature Morning Edition likes to call Word of Mouth. She talks about what she's been reading and gives us some recommendations.

This month, her reading suggestions have a common theme: luck. Not good ...

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A Songwriter And An Army Dad Share One Touching Story

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Two years ago on Memorial Day, Nashville songwriter Connie Harrington was driving in her car, listening to a story on the public radio program Here & Now. And she heard a father remembering his son — a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan.

"He mentioned that he drove ...

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Vampire Weekend: New Sounds Signal The End Of An Era

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Vampire Weekend's third album, Modern Vampires of the City, is out today. The band, featuring four classmates from Columbia University, emerged in 2008 and made a big splash with its bubbling rhythms, world-music influences and highbrow lyrics about mansard roofs and Oxford commas. Singer Ezra Koenig says those ...

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Is The FDA's Caution Hazardous To Our Health?

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

When it comes to approving new medical treatments, the Food and Drug Administration is balancing the need for patient safety against the urgency of making important new treatments available as quickly as possible.

Some argue the FDA sets the bar too high, requiring a process that takes too much time ...

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'Guns At Last Light' Illuminates Final Months Of World War II

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

In December 1944, the Nazis looked like a spent force: The U.S. and its allies had pushed Hitler's armies across France in the fight to liberate Europe from German occupation.

The Allies were so confident that the Forest of Ardennes, near the front lines in Belgium, became a rest and ...

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In Somalia, Surviving A Kidnapping Against 'Impossible Odds'

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

In 2011, Jessica Buchanan was an aid worker in northern Somalia, helping to raise awareness about how to avoid land mines. The north was the relatively safe section of the country; that October, she traveled to the more dangerous southern region for a training. The night before she left, she ...

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When The Right One Comes Along: How 'Nashville' Tells Stories In Song

Monday, May 13, 2013

With Nashville's first season about to wrap up — and a second one just ordered — the prime-time TV drama has found a niche audience on Wednesdays. The soundtrack has also enjoyed pop chart success.

The characters in Nashville fall into three categories: struggling unknowns looking for their big break, ...

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ABC's Live Streaming Aimed At Keeping Cable Cords Intact

Monday, May 13, 2013

There's another way television is moving online. Starting Tuesday, ABC will let viewers in New York and Philadelphia watch their local stations over the Internet. But this is not a way to cut your cable bill.

NPR's Dan Bobkoff discusses the change with All Things Considered co-host Audie Cornish.


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Why You Should Give A $*%! About Words That Offend

Monday, May 13, 2013

If you said the "s" word in the ninth century, you probably wouldn't have shocked or offended anyone. Back then, the "s" word was just the everyday word that was used to refer to excrement. That's one of many surprising, foul-mouthed facts Melissa Mohr reveals in her new book, Holy ...

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After Leaving Senate, Snowe Is Still 'Fighting For Common Ground'

Monday, May 13, 2013

As a Republican senator from Maine, Olympia Snowe was known for her willingness to stand alone. A moderate with independent views, she had substantial influence in the health care debate as both sides vied for her vote. Earlier this year she left the Senate, out of frustration, she says, with ...

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After Long Wait, Novelist James Salter Shares 'All That Is'

Sunday, May 12, 2013

On the list of great postwar American male novelists — along with Philip Roth, Norman Mailer and John Updike — is James Salter.

With the publication of his first book in 1957, he won the admiration of writers and critics alike. But after 1979, his production slowed. Salter still wrote ...

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Litterbugs Beware: Turning Found DNA Into Portraits

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Heather Dewey-Hagborg was sitting in a therapy session a while ago and noticed a painting on the wall. The glass on the frame was cracked, and lodged in the crack was a single hair. She couldn't take her eyes off it.

"I just became obsessed with thinking about whose hair ...

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A 'Cooked Seed' Sprouts After All, In America

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Anchee Min's best-selling memoir Red Azalea told the story of her youth in China during the Cultural Revolution. Her followup, The Cooked Seed, picks up nearly 20 years later as she arrives in America with $500 in her pocket, no English and a plan to study art in Chicago.

Min ...

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For Amy Grant, Beauty And Tragedy Give Way To 'Mercy'

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Amy Grant released her first album in 1977, when she was a teenager. Apart from a few secular mainstream hits in the 1990s, most of her work is unabashedly spiritual, and her name has become synonymous with contemporary Christian pop music. It doesn't bother the singer; for her, music has ...

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He Didn't Just Call His Mother, He Made Her A Star

Sunday, May 12, 2013

A little over three years ago, filmmaker Josh Seftel's father passed away. After that, he says, it became difficult to keep up with his mom. He didn't use the phone very often and she didn't like email.

But then he got an idea.

He got his mom, Pat Seftel, an ...

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