Search results for

A new book argues that Motown was a step in the evolution of the American popular song, a tradition reaching back to songwriters like Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Cole Porter.

Shirley Bassey, famed singer of James Bond's "Goldfinger," releases a CD revamping some of her classic hits and introducing new songs, including a cover of Pink's "Get the Party Started."

After a rendition on American Idol, a tune by Jeff Buckley rocked the iTunes charts. Offering a tour of Buckley's career is David Browne, music journalist and author of Dream Brother, a dual biography of Jeff and his father Tim.

Eighties absurdo-disco band Was Not Was has a new album. David Was shares some of his thoughts about embarking on a rock and roll odyssey at a time when he should be figuring out how to stretch his Social Security check.

The sound of New Orleans Jazz is unmistakable. If you're in the Crescent City, there's one place you're sure to find it: Preservation Hall. A new, jam-packed box set celebrates the Preservation Hall Jazz Band master tapes that survived Hurricane Katrina.

Many Muslim-Americans say the current political climate is worse than the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. Many Muslims who once voted Republican, say don't feel like they have a home in that party.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew says the government is reviewing a proposal to stop making the penny. It actually costs nearly 2 cents to make a penny, so the government loses money.

During the summer of 1896, a 10-day heat wave killed nearly 1,500 people across New York City — many of them tenement-dwellers. In Hot Time in the Old Town, historian Ed Kohn describes the disaster — and how a little-known police commissioner named Theodore Roosevelt championed the efforts to help New Yorkers survive the heat.

When people ask me, "What was it like to grow up on Long Island?" I give them a copy of Alice McDermott's novel That Night. "Read this," I say.

Writer Jonathan Hayes was escaping a painfully dull Boxing Day dinner when he was introduced to Dorothy Sayers' The Nine Tailors for the first time. Hayes says Sayers helped nudge the English mystery novel out of the drawing room and into the real world.