Tag: NPR

Music NPR Music Tiny Desk Concerts

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…]

Music NPR Music Tiny Desk Concerts

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…]

Music NPR Music Tiny Desk Concerts

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…]

Music NPR Music Tiny Desk Concerts

The National: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert 0 (0)

The first thing you might notice about this video is the change in surroundings: NPR recently moved to a new building, and though we worked to make the Tiny Desk as visually similar as possible to the old space — a process we recently documented with the help of OK Go — the ceilings are higher, the square footage more generous and the surfaces lavishly unsullied. The visuals will surely evolve in the months and years to come, as more tchotchkes and coffee stains accumulate on, around and behind Bob Boilen’s desk. In the days leading up to this hotly [See More…]

Music NPR Music Tiny Desk Concerts

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert 0 (0)

Tears and laughter in the span of about 15 minutes — that’s what’s so astonishing about these Macklemore & Ryan Lewis songs. The first time I heard “Same Love,” it brought tears to the eyes of a roomful of people, myself included. The song is about equality, specifically gay rights, with an unambiguous message: “It’s human rights for everybody / There is no difference.” Then, in a flip of a backing-track beat, Macklemore (a.k.a. Ben Haggerty) sings about wearing a velour jumpsuit and some house slippers, “grandpa style.” The contrast in these songs, “Same Love” and “Thrift Shop,” makes the [See More…]