Garrett McCutchan is a multi-instrumentalist and world traveler. His material is contained in a binder of yellowed, coffee-stained pages. And it's the music in the background at one of Baton Rouge's hidden lunch spots.
LL Cool J has been making music for more than 25 years. Through it all, he says, he's tried his best to remain authentic.
"The last thing that I want to do is be a hack," says the rapper and actor, born James Todd Smith. "Someone who is adapting to whatever the current trend is, and manipulating the public into being on board with me even though, from an artistic standpoint, I'm not doing anything."
Longtime blues joint Gip's Place, in Bessemer, Ala., has been forced to close its doors. Weekend Edition profiled the place two years ago. Host Scott Simon takes note of the closing.
When she's discovered to be a multiracial woman "passing" as white, the Cotton Blossom's star performer, Julie (Alyson Cambridge), is forced to leave the company.
Credit Scott Suchman / Washington National Opera
Joe (Morris Robinson) is the dockworker role written for the legendary bass-baritone Paul Robeson; his song "Ol' Man River" is one of the American musical theater's most enduring creations.
Credit Scott Suchman / Washington National Opera
Crowded with a cast of 100 and awash in circus-bright colors, the Washington National Opera's Show Boat revival is a vivid reminder that the classic is first and foremost entertainment — despite its darker themes.
It's been more than eight decades since Show Boat -- the seminal masterpiece of the American musical theater — premiered on a stage in Washington, D.C. Now the sprawling classic is back, in a lush production put on by the Washington National Opera.
Natalie Maines is a small woman with a really big voice. Flanked by Emily Robison on banjo and Martie McGuire on fiddle, Maines powered the Dixie Chicks to some 30 million records sold. And then came the collapse — after what the band calls "the incident."
