mendelssohn spotlight

A Day With Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy

Ever wonder what it would have been like to spend a day with, say, Felix Mendelssoh? Especially a day when Robert Schumann shows up? George Sampson did just that, and set down the experience for posterity.
by David McGee
 

 
 
 

‘You’ve Got To Chase the String While You Can’: Paula Poundstone Gains Wisdom From Her Vast Squadron Of Cats

Paula Poundstone has 16 cats. She loves cats. In the new installment of Talking Animals, the 'Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me' mainstay explains the invaluable lesson she's learned from her felines: 'You've got to chase the string wh...
by David McGee
 

 

 
woody spotlight

A Woody Guthrie Centennial Moment: Woody and Moses

Folkways founder MOSES ASCH regarded WOODY GUTHRIE as a meaningful artist, but Woody's undisciplined ways agitated him. A look at how two strong personalities meshed during a period when Woody recorded his most important music.
by David McGee
 

 
 
 

It’s Got That Swing…: Alexandre Tharaud’s Swinging Paris Le Boeuf Sur le Toit

Recalling the glory days in the 1920s of the famed Paris nightspot Le Boeuf Sur le Toit, French classical pianist Alexandre Tharaud offers a program of material you might have heard in the club when it was sizzling, ranging fro...
by David McGee
 

 

 
04

NASA’S Fermi Measures Cosmic ‘Fog’ Produced by Ancient Starlight

Astronomers using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have made the most accurate measurement of starlight in the universe and used it to establish the total amount of light from all of the stars that have ever sho...
by David McGee
 

 
 
dickens1 290x170

The Cautionary Tale of Jenny Wren

From his last published novel, Our Mutual Friend, comes the tale of Jenny Wren, a character Dickens uses to illustrate the damage adult alcoholics inflict on their offspring. Vividly drawn, altogether unforgettable, and the ins...
by David McGee
 

 

 
hurricane sandy2

Ruminating About Sandy

If you've ever lived through a catastrophe in which you lost everything (in my case, a house I lived in burned to the ground and I walked away with only my cat and the coat on my back-and the coat was stolen the next day!) you ...
by David McGee
 

 
 
02

Hep Cats

Since making their recording debut in 1999, North Carolina’s Grass Cats have become accustomed to their albums residing in the top 10 of bluegrass charts; with their newest, The Mountains My Baby And Me, they may well find th...
by David McGee
 

 

 
01

From a Master, A Master Class in Blues

There was a missing link in Louisiana Red’s recording odyssey, and it has been revealed on a new release from Labor Records, When My Mama Was Living, recorded in the early '70s in upstate New York and now seeing the light of ...
by David McGee