Pop

Sing the Delta is the roots-folk singer-songwriter's first album of new songs in 16 years.

The Analog Players Society provides some of the best evidence since the rise of Vampire Weekend that formerly exotic international music -- particularly African rhythms and accents -- has become an everyday part of modern popular tunes.

Ken Tucker says that Charmer is a song cycle about getting rid of a cynical frame of mind; about distancing yourself from people who are dragging you down.

Critic Ken Tucker says that some songs on Tempest should less like concentrated efforts than outpourings of rambling thoughts; others are as precisely crafted as any Bob Dylan has written.

Memphis has been a music town since anyone can remember, and it's had places to record that music since there have been records. Some of its studies -- Sun, Stax and Hi -- are well-known, but American Studios produced its share of hits, and yet remains obscure.

Hal David, the Oscar- and Grammy-winning lyricist, died Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 91. David is best known for his many collaborations with composer Burt Bacharach between the late '50s and the mid-'70s.

The members of Shoes have cobbled together albums like stubborn craftsmen who know that their trade is at once outmoded and valuable. Ken Tucker says Ignition retains the same pop-rock rigor heard in the band's 1970s records.

The prolific, and often risqué, crooner's 14th album explores sounds from earlier eras with surprising restraint.

Ocean has written songs for Beyonce, Justin Beiber and John Legend; last year, his mixtape Nostalgia Ultra attracted mainstream attention. Now, Ocean has released his first major-label album, Channel Orange. Rock critic Ken Tucker has a review of Ocean's album and career thus far.

A Southern hip-hop artist, Big K.R.I.T. recently released his major-label debut, titled Live From the Underground. Rock critic Ken Tucker says the album takes the audience through K.R.I.T.'s own version of Southern history.

Apple's new album, The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, is her first in seven years. Rock critic Ken Tucker says the frequently stripped-down sound is a backdrop for her thoughts about the complications of love.

In 2003, Donna Summer appeared on Fresh Air to talk about her memoir, Ordinary Girl, her hit Love to Love You Baby and her collaborator, record producer Giorgio Moroder. We remember Summer -- who died Thursday at the age of 63 -- with excerpts from that interview.

Carole King wrote songs for others before becoming a performer and writing for herself. In her new memoir, A Natural Woman, she details the stories behind some of her most famous songs and her relationships with songwriters like James Taylor, Gerry Goffin and Paul Simon.

One Direction recently became the first U.K. act to make its debut on the U.S. Billboard albums chart with Up All Night. Rock critic Ken Tucker says the new record is reminiscent of The Backstreet Boys and other pop stars.

McCartney recently released a collection of standards -- songs he heard while growing up in Liverpool. He talks about several of those songs, and his own songwriting, from his home studio.

South African trumpeter and band leader Hugh Masakela has released more than 30 albums since his American debut in 1961. The concept behind his latest album, Jabulani, is deceptively simple. It's a collection of South African wedding songs with Masakela remembers vividly from his youth.

Rock critic Ken Tucker says questions of identity and authenticity have come to dominate heated discussions of the singer-songwriter's music.

Now in his late 70s, the singer-songwriter has just released a new album, his first collection of new material in eight years, titled Old Ideas. Rock critic Ken Tucker says these Cohen songs work as both pop music and as prayers.

It's hard to believe today, but in the mid-1950s, Los Angeles didn't mean much in terms of popular music. But the coming of rock 'n' roll meant an infusion of tiny record labels -- and one was Dore, run by a happy-go-lucky guy named Lew Bedell. Ed Ward tells its short, crazy story here.

Lea first had success in 1955, with her album A Woman in Love, and was rediscovered in t he late 1970s. She died last week at 82. Fresh Air remembers Lea with excerpts from a 1991 interview and in-studio performance.