Music

Columbus outfit Cousin Simple will return for a Studio A session during the Global Village in advance of some upcoming shows in the near future!  One of which is sold out at The Parlor and you'll have a chance to win tickets to the event!

Tune in for some new local music from the band and what's been going on since their last visit to WCBE after they won the 2017 Groove U Instaband competition!

More love for local music on 90.5FM Columbus, 106.3FM Newark and on line at www.wcbe.org!

Back in 1967, Bobbie Gentry sang a haunting ode to young love and sad endings in the deep South called "Ode to Billie Joe." That song, about a mysterious occurrence on the Tallahatchie Bridge, was the No. 1 song in America for several weeks. A year later, Gentry released a country-rock opera, The Delta Sweete. It hardly sold at all — but has since become a favorite of collectors and musicians.

On Sunday night, the 61st Grammy Awards telecast did its best to balance several requirements — making amends to an entire gender, widening its palette of winners and honorees, and doing its best to award those who are affecting the mainstream now, not five years ago. Within the narrow lens of prime-time awards shows, it seemed to make some progress on each count, without drifting too far from its comfort zone.

Columbus band Hello Emerson will perform Live From Studio A in advance of their show that night at the Rumba Cafe!

Tune in for live local music, conversation and a chance to win tickets to the show!

It's all waiting for you on 90.5FM Columbus, 106.3FM Newark and on line at www.wcbe.org!

Candi Staton released her 30th studio album, Unstoppable, in August 2018. True to the album's name, the four-time Grammy nominee and Christian Music Hall of Famer has shown that her life will slow down at nothing.

The early '70s was a watershed era for Marvin Gaye; What's Going On produced three chart-topping singles and became one of the most powerful and revered concept albums of all time, taking a reluctant Motown beyond producing hits; in 1972, Gaye recorded and released the film soundtrack, Trouble Man; between 1971 and 1973 he recorded tracks for what would become the iconic album Diana and Marvin, released in 1973; just two months earlier, he had released the legendary Let's Get It On.

WCBE is looking forward to hosting Lindsay Beaver and her band Live From Studio A in advance of their show that night with Sean Carney and Hadden Sayers at Natalie's Coal Fired Pizza And Live Music!

Cincinnati's indie rock outfit Motherfolk will join us Live From Studio A in advance of their show that night at The Rumba Cafe with two openers Stay Outside and Harbour.

Betty Carter, the adroit and unsurpassable jazz singer, was 61 when she took the stage at Aaron Davis Hall in New York for The Music Never Stops on March 29, 1992. Presented by Jazz at Lincoln Center, a newly formed organization at the time, it was a concert of grand, unabashed ambition, celebrating Carter's magnificent prowess in the context of a specially assembled big band with strings, as well as three all-star rhythm sections.

Sammy Miller And The Congregation will perform Live From Studio A in advance of their show that evening at The Refectory for their Dinner Music Series at 6PM.

Tune in for some live joyful jazz and conversation on the Global Village at 2PM!

It's all waiting for you on 90.5FM Columbus, 106.3FM Newark and on line at www.wcbe.org!

LISTEN HERE!

WCBE is looking forward to the return of Rayland Baxter to perform Live From Studio A with his band in advance of his show that night at The Basement!

Tune in for live music, coversation and a chance to win tickets to the show!

It's all waiting for you on 90.5FM Columbus, 106.3FM Newark and on line at www.wcbe.org!

Chicago's OHMME will perform Live From Studio A in advance of the show that night at the Rumba Cafe!

Tune in for live music, conversation and a chance to win tickets to the show!

It's all waiting for you on 90.5FM Columbus, 106.3FM Newark and on line at www.wcbe.org!

Welcome to a brand-new season of New Music Friday! After a few quiet weeks, the flood gates are opening and we've got a whole bunch of essential albums dropping on Jan. 18 to tell you about. This includes the smart, sparkling pop of singer Maggie Rogers, swooning love songs from James Blake, deep introspection from Pedro The Lion's first new album in 15 years, pure joy from Toro y Moi and much more. Host Robin Hilton is joined by NPR Music's Stephen Thompson for this quick sprint through the essential releases for Jan. 18, the first busy drop date for the new year.

So far, Maggie Rogers has spent a healthy dose of her professional career as an online sensation. That may not sound strange given the Internet age, but in Rogers' case, it was entirely accidental.

A new year calls for new discoveries, and 2019 is no different. As part of NPR Slingshot, member stations have chosen a select group of artists who are making this a promising year in music.

Packed with discoveries, our 2019 Artists To Watch list is more than just an unpredictable mix of jazz montages, complex grunge solos and unifying anthems. It's a diverse celebration of artists who've been here all along, but are only now getting to be heard.

Mike Farris is unflinchingly optimistic. You can read it on his Twitter, hear it in his music and feel it in conversation when you talk with him. He can even have a laugh about the name of the band he played in during his 20s while signed to Atlantic Records, The Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies.

Columbus outfit Damn The Witch Siren will perform Live From Studio A in advance of the art party of the season at Wonderball At Columbus Museum Of Art!  

There are songwriters and then there are storytellers, and Steve Earle is very much the latter. His songs, such as "The Devil's Right Hand," "Copperhead Road" and "Guitar Town," have been sung by Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Vince Gill, Patty Loveless and many, many more.

This story is part of American Anthem, a yearlong series on songs that rouse, unite, celebrate and call to action. Find more at NPR.org/Anthem.

By the early 1960s, Nina Simone was well-known to the world as a singer, songwriter and classically trained pianist. But around 1963, as race relations in America hit a boiling point, she made a sharp turn in her music — toward activism.

Sean McConnell returns to WCBE to perform Live From Studio A!  

The progressive bluegrass outfit The Wooks from Lexington, Kentucky will perform Live From Studio A in advance of the show the night at Woodland's Tavern with The Way Down Wanderers!

They're out on the road with their 2018 release  Glory Bound and you'll get to hear all about it on WCBE!

Today, we're traveling back 50 years to 1968 Memphis, Tenn. to take a peek inside one of the most influential recording studios, Stax Records. Co-founded by brother and sister Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, Stax was home to the likes of Otis Redding, the Staples Singers, Booker T.

In her Turning the Tables essay for NPR Music, singer-songwriter Kaia Kater extols Rhiannon Giddens' virtues as not only a singer, fiddler, banjoist and folklorist, but also as a reckoner of truth. "Throughout her career Giddens has been reaching towards something more imperative than the honors and praise she's received," Kater writes.

On Saturday night, Bruce Springsteen will perform, for the 236th and final night, Springsteen on Broadway, his intensely personal one-man show at the intimate, 975-seat Walter Kerr Theatre. Just a couple of hours after that, Netflix will make public a document of the show, filmed during a July performance.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced its newest class of inductees Thursday, one year to the day after the 2018 class was announced. From 15 nominees, seven remain. Here they are, in alphabetical order:

• The Cure
• Def Leppard
• Janet Jackson
• Stevie Nicks
• Radiohead
• Roxy Music
• The Zombies