The off-again, on-again rock band from Milwaukee, Wisc., built a careening, playful set around mainstays like "Blister In The Sun" and new songs like "I Could Be Anything."

Explosive frontman Paul Janeway offers a salve — not just between lovers, but also for hard times.

In the lead-off track from the first album Rush has made in his home state, the Louisiana bluesman delivers a deeply funky warning to a cadre of potential back-door men.

At 75, the man still sings like an angel who's swallowed a wah-wah pedal. Aaron Neville's new album feels like a manifesto — a declaration of self by an artist who's had time to figure it out.

Baldly earnest and without a tinge of irony, Neville's song responds to the veteran singer's signature tune, "Tell It Like It Is."

The gospel-inspired soul singer has a knack for imbuing narrative tropes with new meaning, transforming them into stories that couldn't be anyone else's.

The Boston-bred soul singer with the meter-pinning voice invokes his gospel schooling in this raw, faith-filled hymn.

"If the truth comes through on those speakers ... of what I just did, then I believe it," the soul legend says. This Is Where I Live is Bell's first album for Stax Records in more than 40 years.

We received over 6,000 entries to the Tiny Desk Contest. There was one winner, but there were many favorites. Here are a few more.

It was Brittany Howard's birthday on Oct. 2, when she and the rest of Alabama Shakes taped their second headlining performance at Austin City Limits. The group's second album, Sound & Color, had debuted at Number 1 earlier in the year, and would go on to earn the ...

Diane Cluck wrote "Red August" in 2012 for her personal "Song of the Week" project, though it's yet to be officially released. Still, she's been performing the song live for a while, apparently not wedding it to any one set of instrumentation — maybe keyboards one ...

Jason Isbell's latest album, Something More Than Free, came out too late in the year to earn a 2015 Americana Honors and Awards nomination. Even so, Isbell, a multiple-category winner in 2014, had plenty to be proud of as he took the stage at Nashville's storied ...

"Thunderbitch. Rock 'n' Roll. The end."

Thus reads the bio for the band Brittany Howard fronts when not leading the formidable Alabama Shakes through their paces. And it's pretty on-point. Also featuring members of two Nashville groups – homegrown psych-rockers Fly Golden Eagle and Brooklyn transplants ...

Mother and son by chance, bandmates by choice: That's Madisen Ward And The Mama Bear. Madisen and Ruth Ward performed together for several years around their native Kansas City before bringing their organic, homespun charm to a national audience with the release of Skeleton Crew, their debut album, ...

Leon Bridges took the stage at the 2015 Newport Folk Festival with a great deal of attendant buzz. Drawing favorable comparisons to Sam Cooke from many corners, he'd released his chart-topping debut, Coming Home, just a month earlier. But the 26-year-old soul singer from Fort Worth, ...

Brandi Carlile's songs are emotional and heartfelt, yet they never feel mawkish, thanks to her thundering voice and lyrics that describe complicated relationships with simple, powerful elegance. During her Saturday-afternoon set at the 2015 Newport Folk Festival, the folk-rock powerhouse performed music from her album The Firewatcher's Daughter, ...

Though they hail from Melbourne, Australia, these days Zoë Randell and Steve Hassett of Luluc live part-time in Brooklyn. And perhaps it's splitting time between their two homes that gives the duo's music a wandering, wistful quality. New York seeps into Luluc's songs in other ways, too. "Tangled ...

Sturgill Simpson doesn't adhere to what's expected of him. One of last year's breakout country stars, he received several nominations for September's Americana Music Awards, but that didn't stop Simpson and his band from taking the Newport Folk Festival stage to Skrillex's "Ragga Bomb." With his message delivered — ...

On Strange Trails, Lord Huron's most recent album, songwriter and bandleader Ben Schneider's cinematic storytelling never strays far from the grave. Even the album's most gloriously foot-stomping tracks are overlaid with apocalyptic portents and tales whose heroes have brushes with death. Yet the Los Angeles band's Newport Folk ...

If the Newport Folk crowd was scandalized by Bob Dylan going electric in 1965, they would've hated Courtney Barnett's grungy, hard-rocking performance 50 years later. Supported by Bones Sloane on bass and Dave Mudie on drums, the Aussie singer, songwriter and guitarist blazed through a set highlighting songs ...