Fresh Air: Natalie Maines: A Country Music Rebel Rocks on Her Own
All Things Considered: Natalie Maines on Motherhood, Eddie Vedder, and Leaving Country Music
First Listen: Mother by Natalie Maines
MOTHER is the solo debut from Natalie Maines, the always provocative, multi-platinum, Grammy-Award winning singer of the Dixie Chicks. On MOTHER, people will hear a new direction from the singer. Heavily influenced by the more rock-based, edgy and intense sound of title track, and Pink Floyd cover, “Mother,” Maines teamed up with friend and Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and guitar wizard Ben Harper, who co-produced the record with Maines. The album was recorded in Harper’s studio.
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NPR: Inferno Excerpt
NHPR: Dan Brown on a New England Stage
In his international blockbusters The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, and The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown masterfully fused history, art, codes, and symbols. In this riveting new thriller, Brown returns to his element and has crafted his highest-stakes novel to date.
In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology, Robert Langdon, is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces … Dante’s Inferno.
Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust … before the world is irrevocably altered.
Weekend Edition: ‘Fat’ Dad, Jim Gaffigan on Kids, Comedy and Apartment Living
The Leanard Lopate Show: Comedian Jim Gaffigan
Jim Gaffigan is outnumbered. The comedian and actor lives with his wife, Jeannie Noth Gaffigan, and five children - five; that’s not a typo - in a two-bedroom apartment in lower Manhattan. It’s a neighborhood that proudly abounds with hipsters, swingers, adults-only shops, men in high heels and people who mutter to themselves on the street. But nothing may attract more surprise in the neighborhood than a Midwestern couple and their five children. Jim Gaffigan, of course, is a widely-acclaimed and traveled comedian - or, as a son once put, it a stand up chameleon - who may be best-known for his routines about American food, including Hot Pockets.
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All Things Considered: Plain Truths, Sharp Humor & Three Part Harmony
Pistol Annies-comprised of Miranda Lambert (Lone Star Annie), Ashley Monroe (Hippie Annie) and Angaleena Presley (Holler Annie)-are back with Annie Up, the follow-up to 2011’s Hell On Heels, which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart. The Annies’ refreshing sound was met with widespread acclaim, and The New York Times’ Ben Ratliff declared Hell On Heels to be 2011’s No.1 Album of the Year. “The goal of our music is to have people feel like they’re having a conversation with us,” said Lambert. With the trio writing all 12 of the tracks on Annie Up, this sophomore collection promises to up the ante on one of the most compelling debuts in recent years.
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Fresh Air: In ‘This Is 40,’ Family Life In All Its Glory
Review: ‘This Is 40’: Ambling Into Midlife
From the director of Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin comes an unfiltered, comedic look inside the life of an American family. After years of marriage, Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) are approaching a milestone meltdown. As they try to balance romance, careers, parents and children in their own hilarious ways, they must also figure out how to enjoy the rest of their lives. Featuring Melissa McCarthy, Jason Segel, Megan Fox, John Lithgow and Albert Brooks, This Is 40 is a candid and heartwarming comedy about the challenges and rewards of marriage and parenthood in the modern age.
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