Music

Cue the Hamilton quotes: Soon the room where it happens will be your living room! Shout it to the rooftops that the Broadway sensation Hamilton will be available for home viewing this summer! Look around, look around to see how lucky we are to be alive in a world where Hamilton is coming to Disney+ on July 3, more than 15 months ahead of schedule!

We're roughly two months into a collective crisis that's kept us sheltered in place, cut off from friends and fearful for the future of our health, our families and our economic well-being. Our emotions frequently form a thick slurry of anxiety, worry, boredom, rage and desperate desire for threads of normalcy; for moments of mundanity; for the calming comfort of the familiar.

Our Daily Breather is a series where we ask writers and artists to recommend one thing that's helping them get through the days of isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.

Who: Gregory Porter

Where: Bakersfield, Calif.

Recommendation: Getting creative and learning something new

Little Richard died on Saturday, May 9, 2020 in Tullahoma, Tenn. at the age of 87. This essay was originally published as part of the book Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music, written by NPR Music's critic and correspondent Ann Powers and published by Dey Street Books in 2017.

Betty Wright, a luminary R&B singer known for her hits "Clean Up Woman" and "Tonight is the Night," has died at the age of 66.

Steve Greenberg, president of S-Curve Records, confirmed the singer's death on Sunday, saying it came after a battle with cancer. Greenberg, who collaborated on several recordings with Wright, called her "one of the most significant women in the history of R&B music, period."

Andre Harrell, hip-hop and R&B mogul and founder of the visionary label Uptown Records, has died. He was 59 years old.

The Revolt network, where Harrell worked as vice chairman, confirmed Harrell's passing in a statement. "Everyone in the REVOLT family is devastated by the loss of our friend, mentor and Vice-Chairman," the statement read. "Andre's impact on Hip Hop and the culture and on us has been immeasurable and profound. May he Rest In Peace."

It has become a cliché to compare Kraftwerk to the Beatles — but if anything, the group's impact has been wider and more enduring. During its two decades of prime creativity, Kraftwerk intersected with and influenced a staggering array of genres and phases: progressive rock, glam, krautrock, disco, post-punk, synthpop, industrial, hip-hop, techno, trance. Artists in their debt are likewise bizarrely diverse, ranging from Human League to Spacemen 3, New Order to Stereolab, Prince to Daft Punk, Afrika Bambaataa to Big Black.

Our Daily Breather is a series where we ask writers and artists to recommend one thing that's helping them get through the days of isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.

Who: Teddy Thompson

Where: Brooklyn, N.Y.

Recommendation: Learn something new and share it

I have been quarantining alone at home in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.

The 2020 Tiny Desk Contest closed for entries on April 27. We've seen entries from every state in the country; from big bands and solo artists; and from a huge range of styles and genres — and now, our judges will start to comb through our entries to find a winner. In the meantime, we've been sharing some of favorite entries to this year's Contest.

There are flowers all across Hayley Williams' Nashville house, both living and deceased: dried-up bouquets of shriveled and curled roses, hydrangeas the color of weathered paperback pages, vibrant pots of purple and white pansies thriving in the patio sun. At first, this was her therapist's idea, to surround herself with these blooms – she'd never really been a flower person, never felt too connected to those ideas of femininity and girliness tangled up with them.

Florian Schneider, 0ne of the founders of the pioneering and highly influential German electronic music group Kraftwerk, has died. He was 73 years old.

His death was confirmed by his former bandmate, Ralf Hütter, in a statement issued Wednesday. Hütter said that Schneider died "from a short cancer disease just a few days after his seventy-third birthday." No other details were provided.

More than 20 airports across the country, including John Glenn Columbus International, will come together tonight for an online celebration of local music. 

Depending on where you live in the United States, turning the calendar from April to May means entering the second or third month of an indefinite period of social distancing. With little other choice in the way of entertainment, people have naturally turned to streaming TV to fill the time and to escape from the increasingly bleak news. Deciding among the available options can be overwhelming, however, and even a trending phenomenon like Tiger King can fall off the radar in an instant.

Our Daily Breather is a series where we ask writers and artists to recommend one thing that's helping them get through the days of isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.

Who: Michael Trotter of The War and Treaty

Where: Nashville, Tenn.

Recommendation: Embracing childhood nostalgia and taking time to make memories with your loved ones

Drummer Tony Allen has died at age 79. He is widely hailed as one of the founders of Afrobeat alongside his longtime musical partner Fela Kuti, with whom he played for 15 years.

Allen died Wednesday evening in Paris of a heart attack, his manager, Eric Trosset, told NPR. Trosset told Agence France-Presse that Allen took ill in the afternoon and was taken to the Hôpital européen Georges-Pompidou, where he died.

Lately, we've been sharing some of favorite entries to the 2020 Tiny Desk Contest, which closed for entries on April 27. We've seen entries from every state in the country; from big bands and solo artists; and from a huge range of styles and genres — and now, our judges will start to comb through our entries to find a winner.

Our Daily Breather is a series where we ask writers and artists to recommend one thing that's helping them get through the days of isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.

Who: Ben Watt

Where: London, England

Recommendation: Listening to solo guitar music

The music marketplace and streaming service Bandcamp will once again forgo its share of sales for a 24-hour period this Friday, May 1, the company announced Monday. The initiative will also repeat on June 5 and July 3, and will last from 12 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. PST time on all three days.

Updated at 4:21 p.m. ET.

The coronavirus pandemic has completely shut down the business of concerts and other live events. Some people, including Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, are even predicting that live events won't resume until next year.

Our Daily Breather is a series where we ask writers and artists to recommend one thing that's helping them get through the days of isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.

Who: Allison Moorer

Where: Nashville, Tenn.

Recommendation: Reading and listening that encourages contemplation

Morning Edition's series One-Hit Wonders / Second-Best Songs focuses on musicians or bands whose careers in the United States are defined by a single monster hit, and explains why their catalogs have much more to offer.

Lately, we've been sharing some of the many 2020 Tiny Desk Contest entries that have caught our eyes and ears.

Our Daily Breather is a series where we ask writers and artists to recommend one thing that's helping them get through the days of isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.

Who: Courtney Marie Andrews

Where: Nashville, Tenn.

Recommendation: Poetry

Lee Konitz, the prolific jazz saxophonist who maintained a singular style and devotion to improvisation throughout a career that stretched more than 70 years, died on Wednesday at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York at the age of 92. His son, Josh Konitz, confirmed to NPR that the cause was pneumonia related to COVID-19.