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Chris Stapleton: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert 0 (0)

September 14, 2015 by JACOB GANZ As a songwriter in Nashville, Chris Stapleton has written hits for Kenny Chesney, George Strait and Darius Rucker. As a singer, he once led the bluegrass band The SteelDrivers, and more recently stepped into the solo spotlight with Traveller, his debut album. It’s the kind of country record that gets better the more you wear it in: When NPR Music named it one of our favorite albums of the first half of 2015, critic Ann Powers compared it to a “soft denim jacket … pulled out time after time, lending comfort, suiting every occasion, [See More…]

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Moumakwe’s brass band@zone5 feat….uncle cry 0 (0)

Moumakwe’s brass band@zone5 feat….uncle cry NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concerts is a popular video series featuring live, intimate music performances by diverse artists, from major stars to up-and-coming musicians, recorded in the small workspace of Bob Boilen’s NPR office in Washington, D.C.brought to you by SloppBoxx.Com.

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Diego El Cigala: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert 0 (0)

Every now and then, if we are extremely lucky, we are witness to a musical game changer. That is the rare musician who single-handedly alters the direction of a genre though the power of musical vision and artistry. Diego El Cigala is one of those game changers. While he comes from the world of flamenco, he has deftly expanded his expressive range by applying his unmistakable voice to boleros, Spanish copla, tangos, jazz and various combinations of all of the above. See and hear for yourself how one musician can create something completely new by drawing on traditions that are [See More…]

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DakhaBrakha: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert 0 (0)

People always ask me, “What’s your favorite Tiny Desk Concert?” Well, right now it’s the one recently performed by DakhaBrakha. The creative quartet from Kiev, Ukraine make music that sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard, with strands of everything I’ve ever heard. There are rhythms that sound West African and drone that feels as if it could have emanated from India or Australia. At times, DakhaBrakha is simply a rock band whose crazy homeland harmonies are filled with joy. All the while, they play tight-knit tunes featuring accordion, drums, reeds and shakers while wearing tall, Marge Simpson-looking wool hats that [See More…]

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Dan Deacon: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert 0 (0)

Sometime years from now I may be asked: What was your favorite day at NPR? I am likely to say it’s the day Dan Deacon got the NPR staff worked up into a giant dance party! It’s also the day Deacon and staff wheeled in an upright piano and connected it to his computer — a magical mix of old player piano and electronic avant-garde. Yes, Deacon makes electronic music and dance music, but it’s not the thump thump thump stuff you’d go to a club for. It’s a mix of Brian Eno, Philip Glass and your kids’ birthday party [See More…]

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Yusuf/Cat Stevens: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert 0 (0)

In the summer of 1971, I was a camp counselor at a sleep-away camp for a bunch of 5- to 7-year-olds. For those eight weeks, I walked home with about $50. I bought a guitar and began to learn the songs I’d come to love from the recently released Tea for the Tillerman by Cat Stevens. “Father and Son” touched me most — it’s a song about growing old, and about beliefs and conviction. More than 40 years later, that songwriter is performing at my desk with his son standing right behind me. You can never imagine the turns life [See More…]

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St. Paul And The Broken Bones: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert 0 (0)

Close your eyes and listen, and you might imagine someone who looks a bit like Otis Redding. Open them, and you’re likely to see someone who looks more like your neighborhood bank teller. That man standing on my desk in the golden shoes is Paul Janeway. He was, in fact, a bank teller in Alabama not long ago — and this stupendous seven-piece band from Birmingham has only been doing this since 2012. But take a look at this Tiny Desk Concert and you’ll see why St. Paul And The Broken Bones’ music is so winning. It’s got heart and [See More…]

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T-Pain: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert 0 (0)

Watch T-Pain play “Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin’)”, “Up Down (Do This All Day)” and “Drankin’ Patna” at the Tiny Desk. Did you know you can watch new Tiny Desk Concerts on npr.org ONE WEEK before they go up on YouTube? Click here: https://www.npr.org/tinydesk Follow NPR Music: Twitter: https://twitter.com/nprmusic Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nprmusic T-Pain’s fingerprints are all over pop and R&B and hip-hop. He wasn’t the first musician to use Auto-Tune as an instrument — he noticed it on a Jennifer Lopez remix, and remembers “Deep” well — but it was, as he says, his style. For a while, in the [See More…]

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Ernest Ranglin: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert 0 (0)

At 82, legendary guitarist Ernest Ranglin still plays the ska, reggae and jazz that he’s championed and helped perfect for more than half a century. Ranglin was a key figure in shaping the sounds of ska — influenced by New Orleans jazz and R&B — in Jamaica in the late 1950s. But most of the world wouldn’t hear of ska until producer Chris Blackwell teamed Ranglin up with a Jamaican singer named Millie Small. Together, they recorded “My Boy Lollipop,” a song that became a smash at the height of Beatlemania and helped put ska and Jamaican music on the [See More…]

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Tweedy: NPR Music Field Recordings 0 (0)

As its name suggests, Tweedy is a new band featuring Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and his 18-year-old son and drummer Spencer. Tweedy recently recorded an album together, out Sept. 23, titled Sukierae. (It’s pronounced sue-key-ray.)At the Newport Folk Festival a couple weeks ago, Tweedy and some of the players on that 20-song record — including Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig from Lucius — were at Fort Adams State Park to perform. We asked them to come backstage, into the tunnels under the fort, to get out of the rain and play one of the songs from Sukierae. Spencer Tweedy’s drums are [See More…]