It’s a muggy late August evening in Woodstock. The scent of hours-old summer rain breathes new life into the earth around the Colony Café. As I walk up to the Spanish-style façade of the club I see a group gathered in the alley. They’re standing around a smallish man recognizable by his large, white cowboy hat. It’s Ramblin’ Jack Elliot.

The Protest Singer is a biography of Pete Seeger unlike most any other. Reading more as a recorded conversation than a biographical portrayal, Wilkinson based most of his little book on a series of visits to the Beacon NY home of his subject.

Junkyard Empire may be the hungriest new hip hop band in North America. Not hungry for fame or fortune or platinum records, though they probably would love all that.

On this episode, the government is now saying that the swine flu may not be as bad as expected, plus, we interview scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson about his new radio show, Star Talk Radio, and we talk with up and coming hip hop band Junkyard Empire about politics and music.

My brother, Gary, was killed on the job, at a plant called Meadville Redi-Mix.
His family, his friends, his future was robbed when he fell 25 feet to his death.

Close on the heels of Barack Obama's presidential inauguration with its focus on public honesty and sacrifice, Kirsten Price's new music video shines a tender light on the human price paid by the Bush administration's war veterans.

Though it has not received a lot of press to date, the industry is on the case—in part for the sake of its own survival, and thanks to the hard work of a handful of green groups, guitar makers and wood suppliers.

Odetta had hoped to sing at the January 20 inauguration of Barack Obama. After decades of performing and fighting for civil rights, human rights and the right to speak her mind, this beautiful sister to us all recognized that the struggle itself could now be put into a new light.

It's a busy Saturday afternoon on a main drag in New York's Hudson River Valley and Pete Seeger can be found standing vigil aside a flurry of traffic as he's done each week for five years.

From my seat in the upper reaches of Shea Stadium, I never felt a drop of rain. The small cadre of friends I was with on October 13, 1982 couldn’t afford to buy the good seats either, so we’d plunked down $16 each to sit up in the nosebleeds, just under the stadium’s partial overhang.

I was quite pleased about that because, as you mention, most people know me as a political song writer, and I think sometimes my love songs get out of the loop. The best ones, I think, are ones that can be seen as both love songs and political songs.

We all loved his collaboration with folk-rocking band Wilco that produced the two-disk Mermaid Avenue collection of reproduced Woodie Guthrie songs. Many of his albums from Workers Playtime to William Bloke are must haves for any progressive's music collection.

"The rude boy's back in town," booms Michael Franti at the beginning of his new album. He's talking about his return to Kingston, Jamaica, where he recorded the politically incendiary Yell Fire! two years previously.

A jazz version of Rage Against the Machine, Minnesota-based Junkyard Empire blends jazz instrumentals, hip hop, and socially consciously lyrics to create a fresh sound.

Well, Lily, he and his spawn have been. Non-stop. We have witnessed the musical death of a generation in this country, one that grew up never hearing a melody they could whistle, who think chords are trousers, and think 'bones is a TV program.

Ned Ludd. You've heard the name, read the book, very probably got the T-shirt as well. Now you can hear the music – courtesy of the Italian folk-roots band of the same name.

When the head of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Neil Portnoy, applauded the Writers’ Union for its successful labor contract negotiations during the February 10th showing of the 50th Grammy Awards, millions of viewers saw a side of the industry rarely put forward.

Always an artist with a good understanding of his craft, Bruce Springsteen once told an interviewer that he sees his live shows as part circus, part dance party and part political rally - an apt description of Magic, his fifteenth studio album

When a noted or celebrated musician passes away, it is perhaps inevitable that their final recording will always be given consideration for reasons beyond the merits of the work.

And if you’re like me, while you may have vaguely heard of the Dixie Chicks before their “notorious” remarks in 2003, you probably weren’t familiar at all with their songs, then relegated almost exclusively to the traditional outlets and audiences for country music.