Music

James Bond and The Rolling Stones both turn 50 this year. As critic John Powers points out, both may have been born in response to a dying British Empire, but their evolving legacies have reflected the times through which these brands have lived.

The country-music star has enlisted the help of Merle Haggard, Elvis Costello and others to salute the man behind songs like "Make the World Go Away."

ChesnuTT is the best sort of egomaniac: On Landing on a Hundred, he's preachy but delightful.

Yirga finds his way into Ethiopian standards, displays his flair for jazz over solo and ensemble pieces, and performs effortless homages to vintage soul. He holds everything together with voracious talent that helps him savor each musical flavor.

Carter lived one of the most fulfilled lives any artist could wish for. What's sad about his death Monday at 103 isn't just that a whole era in music has come to an end, but that Carter was still composing, and on the highest level.

Critic Ken Tucker says that, like all good pop artists, Swift continues to evolve in a manner which challenges her diehard fans while inviting naysayers to give it another listen.

The actress plays Gemma, the fierce matriarch of the biker gang in the FX series. She's best-known for playing the acerbic Peg Bundy on the long-running show Married With Children.

In the 1970s and '80s, Cables was the pianist of choice for saxophonists Dexter Gordon and Art Pepper; Pepper called him his favorite pianist. Critic Kevin Whitehead says Cables' new trio album, My Muse, is so unassumingly good, you could miss just how good it is.

Colbert loves music and loves to sing, so Fresh Air's Terry Gross asked him to bring a few songs that mean a lot to him and tell her why.

Six feet tall, weighing in at 400 pounds and in his 40s when stardom hit him, Big Joe Turner is behind a load of rock 'n' roll hits. His hardest-hitting singles have been collected on a new compilation, titled Big Joe Turner Rocks.

On Blak and Blu, you can hear the roar in Clark's blues guitar. But critic Ken Tucker says Clark remains a work in progress.

Musician Michael Feinstein chronicles his experience working as an archivist and cataloger for legendary songwriter Ira Gershwin. The book is presented through the stories of 12 of the Gershwin brothers' songs, including "Fascinating Rhythm," "The Man I Love" and "I Got Rhythm."

Among the most central pieces of the classical-music repertoire are the 16 string quartets Beethoven composed over the course of his career. For critic Lloyd Schwartz, these quartets, especially as recorded by the Budapest String Quartet, were crucial to his own musical upbringing.

Ed Ward connects the dots of the British band's eight studio albums, which were just collected in a box set.

For Miles, the better he knows how a tune works, the less he has to play to put it across

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

The band's new Call Me Sylvia is as raucous as its debut, though it's slightly more self-conscious.

Ed Ward reviews the reissued catalog from the multiracial, multi-generational ska band.

Waging Heavy Peace is about his music, raising two sons with special needs, and his own medical conditions, which have included polio, epilepsy and a brain aneurysm.

The freewheeling saxophonist and his small group from the 1970s came together for a live concert in 2007 -- their first together in more than two decades. Now, a recording has been posthumously released on CD, and critic Kevin Whitehead says it's like they never went away.