This Asheville alt-country trio consists of singer/songwriter, guitarist Kevin Fuller, bassist Ryan Kijanka and drummer Ryan Sargent. The band meshes crunchy guitar noise with folk, country and Americana stories. They play the Mothlight in West Asheville on Sunday the 23rd.

Adopted from Texas and raised in Mississippi, Krista Shows was a kid who grew up singing in church. She spent time in Los Angeles, Hawaii, and Western North Carolina before returning to Mississippi in her early 20s. She's now back in Asheville, and has a sweet blend of folk, R&B, and country influences. She performs (with a full band!) at Isis Restaurant & Music Hall in Asheville on Saturday the 22nd.

Chris Masterson & Eleanor Whitmore have a 4th album of their own material coming out next month, "No Time For Love Songs." As for one of the possible themes of this new collection: "Only by cataloging and acknowledging loss and grief can we move forward with gratitude for what we have." When not working on their own songs, they are The Dukes in Steve Earle & The Dukes. Before joining Steve, Chris used to work with Son Volt among others, and Eleanor with Regina Spektor and Angus & Julia Stone. They're passing through our area briefly on an East Coast tour.

Heartfelt songs from this Los Angeles-based artist, passing through the area on a radio station tour for her new album I Know a Gun . “All of the songs come from emotions that I needed to process,” says Hart, who partly attributes her intricate inner world to growing up in a troubled home and learning to tend to herself at a young age. “In the end, I needed to make this album for my own wellbeing and healing and peace, almost as a balm for my own hurt. Now I want everyone to take this medicine for themselves, and realize the value of their own magic." Get to know her more here .

Just listening to him tell a story will transport you to his hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi, growing up the son of a pentecostal preacher who charted his own course: from furniture factory full-timer to professional boxer to the great professional blues/rock musician he is today. Paul Thorn returns to WNCW Thursday afternoon before a string of shows in our area: Asheville Thursday night, Johnson City on Friday, Shelby, NC on Friday the 6th, and Newberry, SC on Saturday the 7th.

Tom Rush helped shape the folk revival in the ’60s and the renaissance of the ’80s and ’90s, his music having left its stamp on generations of artists. James Taylor told Rolling Stone, “Tom was not only one of my early heroes, but also one of my main influences.” His voice and guitar skills remain as rich and vibrant as ever, and we are honored to host him for a live morning session before his concert at Isis Restaurant & Music Hall Wednesday evening.

"The cosmic American love child of Howlin Wolf and Link Wray…" He's been making music and performing around the world for over two decades now, and it feels like almost that long since we had him on for a live session. The long absence ends this Friday when he visits us on his way to Ambrose West in West Asheville.

Firecracker has played everywhere from street corners, secret speakeasies, jazz festivals, & swing-and-swill dance halls, to Bonnaroo and the Kennedy Center. They've returned to the 20's -- as in the 1920's, give or take a few decades -- on their fine new collection of songs from the Teens through today, centered around their great Dixieland and New Orleans jazz heroes. Album release show Saturday the 14th at The Mothlight.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that Western NC has some of the freshest, most innovative bluegrass being made, thanks in part to Fireside Collective. It's Joe Cicero on guitar, Alex Genova on banjo, Jesse laquinto on mandolin, and Tommy Maher on resonator guitar, and Carson White on upright bass. Their brand new album is a real winner! And they officially release it at the Grey Eagle in Asheville on Saturday the 14th. We have a rather firy streak of local Studio B acts this week, with Firecracker Jazz band live Friday at 3.

This Charlotte band started off as a solo project of singer/guitarist and SC native Jeremy Davis, but their sound has morphed to the great fiddle/mandolin/bass lineup they have today. And their indie-rock roots still show with a new cover of My Morning Jacket's "Golden". We welcome them back to Studio B in advance of their Friday the 13th show at Pisgah Brewing in Black Mountain.

Johnson City's own performs solo and with her own band, when not part of Our Native Daughters (for which she received particular acclaim for her song "Black Myself".) Following are words from Amythyst herself, in a Facebook post regarding the current COVID-19 pandemic: "...I love what I do and I am thinking of all of the beautiful, hardworking, full-time musicians I've met that this will affect. It's important now more than ever for us to talk to and support one another in the music industry - most of us musicians are not millionaires with Swiss bank accounts. I'm proud to see so many resourceful folks finding new ways to do things. We'll make it through this, but also remember it's okay to freak out if you need to, and then use that energy and anxiety to make it work. We'll see you all back out on the road soon enough."

Someday soon we'll be able to open Studio B back up for live sessions... In the meantime, revisit this one with the Carolina Chocolate Drops from their heyday in 2010, on "This Old Porch."

Google says most of its employees will likely be allowed to work remotely through the end of year. In a companywide meeting Thursday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said employees who needed to work in the office would be allowed to return in June or July with enhanced safety measures in place. The rest would likely continue working from home, a Google spokesperson told NPR. Google had originally told employees work-from-home protocols would be in place at least through June 1. Facebook also said it would allow most of its employees to work remotely through the end of 2020, according to media reports. The company had previously announced it was canceling large events through June 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Both companies began telling employees to stay home in March . Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

As of Friday in Texas, you can go to a tanning salon. In Indiana, houses of worship are being allowed to open with no cap on attendance. Places like Pennsylvania are taking a more cautious approach, only starting to ease restrictions in some counties based on the number of COVID-19 cases. By Monday, at least 31 states will have partially reopened after seven weeks of restrictions. The moves come as President Trump pushes for the country to get back to work despite public health experts warning that it's too soon. "The early lesson that was learned, really, we learned from the island of Hokkaido in Japan, where they did a really good job of controlling the initial phase of the outbreak," said Bob Bednarczyk, assistant professor of global health and epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta. Because of that success, many of the restrictions on the island were lifted. But cases and deaths surged in a second wave of infections. Twenty-six days later

For the first time in its 231-year history, the Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments remotely by phone and made the audio available live. The new setup went off largely without difficulties, but produced some memorable moments, including one justice forgetting to unmute and an ill-timed bathroom break. Here are the top five can't-miss moments from this week's history-making oral arguments. A second week of arguments begin on Monday at 10 a.m. ET. Here's a rundown of the cases and how to listen. 1. Justice Clarence Thomas speaks ... a lot Supreme Court oral arguments are verbal jousting matches. The justices pepper the lawyers with questions, interrupting counsel repeatedly and sometimes even interrupting each other. Justice Clarence Thomas, who has sat on the bench for nearly 30 years, has made his dislike of the chaotic process well known, at one point not asking a question for a full decade. But with no line of sight, the telephone arguments have to be rigidly organized, and

As the COVID-19 pandemic began to pick up in Alaska, Dr. Anne Zink, the state's chief medical officer, faced a difficult choice. Should she continue in-person meetings and nightly briefings with Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy? Or should she opt for a more socially distant form of engagement? Zink chose the latter, saying she wanted to model the behavior that she has been appealing to residents to follow. She now appears at Dunleavy's briefings by video. And over the past two months, she has become a trusted voice as she urges Alaskans to follow the strict social distancing and other public health guidelines adopted by the state administration — which doctors groups have credited with keeping the state's COVID-19 numbers among the lowest in the country. Zink, who has a Facebook fan club and a #ThinkLikeZink hashtag , isn't the only public health official to acquire a cultlike following during the pandemic: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal infectious disease expert, has inspired a Saturday

Dr. Grace Farris is chief of hospital medicine at Mount Sinai West in Manhattan. She also writes a monthly comics column in the Annals of Internal Medicine called "Dr Mom." You can find her on Instagram @coupdegracefarris . Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Updated at 9:44 a.m. ET As a young woman growing up in a poor farming community in Virginia in the 1940 and '50s, with little information about sex or contraception, sexuality was a frightening thing for Carole Cato and her female friends. "We lived in constant fear, I mean all of us," she said. "It was like a tightrope. always wondering, is this going to be the time [I get pregnant]?" Cato, 78, now lives in Columbia, S.C. She grew up in the years before the birth control pill was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, on May 9, 1960. She said teenage girls in her community were told very little about how their bodies worked. "I was very fortunate; I did not get pregnant, but a lot of my friends did. And of course, they just got married and went into their little farmhouses," she said. "But I just felt I just had to get out." At 23, Cato married a widower who already had seven children. They decided seven was enough. By that time, Cato said, the pill allowed the couple to

Updated at 2:24 p.m. ET Little Richard, the self-described "king and queen" of rock and roll and an outsize influence on everyone from David Bowie to Prince, died Saturday in Tullahoma, Tenn. He was 87 years old. Bill Sobel, a lawyer for Little Richard, tells NPR that the cause of death was bone cancer. Rolling Stone was the first to report on Little Richard's death. With his ferocious piano playing, growling and gospel-strong vocals, pancake makeup and outlandish costumes, Little Richard tore down barriers starting in the 1950s. That is no small feat for any artist — let alone a black, openly gay man who grew up in the South. He was a force of nature who outlived many of the musicians he inspired, from Otis Redding to the late Prince and Michael Jackson. His peers James Brown and Otis Redding idolized him. Jimi Hendrix, who once played in Little Richard's band, said he wanted his guitar to sound like Richard's voice. The late David Bowie was 9 years old when he first saw Little

Airlines and airport operators in the United Kingdom are not waiting for the British government to publicly confirm their fears. Already, the groups representing major players in the U.K.'s air travel industry are pushing back on a proposal that would require travelers to quarantine after arriving from outside the country. A spokesperson for Airlines UK — a trade body with British Airways, EasyJet and Ryanair as members — says the group understands from government officials that plans for a quarantine are in the works, but that details remain scarce at the moment. "We need to see the detail of what they are proposing. Public health must of course be the priority and we will continue to be guided by Sage advice," the group said in a statement emailed to NPR, noting that support measures will be necessary to ensure "that we still have a UK aviation sector once the quarantine period is lifted." "We will be asking for assurances that this decision has been led by the science and that

Earlier this Month vocalist Roberta Gambarini visited Detroit to be the judge for Detroit Jazz Festival Vocal Competition and appear at The Dirty Dog Jazz Café. She also visited WEMU to share her Italian and international jazz life story as well as her admiration for jazz masters such as Hank Jones and Jimmy Heath. She also brought her most recent CD “Connecting Spirits”.

Couldn't make it to this year's Detroit Jazz Festival? You can catch all the highlights from WEMU hosts and staff from the 2016 Detroit Jazz Festival right here!

Ahead of his new album, "A World That's Bigger," Washtenaw County songwriter Mike Vial stops by the WEMU studios for exclusive live music performances and conversation.

As I reflected on the past 12 months, I realized that 2016 was a banner year for jazz releases. It was extremely difficult to narrow my selections of outstanding recordings to just 16. My criteria for this list is that these were all CDs that moved me emotionally. They are albums that I would like to keep in my permanent collection.

WEMU’s first free Sesi Motors 5:01 Jazz Show for 2017 will be a salute to the legendary trumpet player and widely respected teacher, Louis Smith. Louis passed away in August, 2016. He had suffered a stroke, but recovered valiantly and lived for years afterwards with his loving and generous wife, Lulu. Louis was equally generous and was very wise as a teacher. Trumpeter Paul Finkbeiner will lead the Louis Smith salute on Friday, January 6th at 5:01PM sharp at Rush Street Nightclub, 314 South Main Street in Ann Arbor.

Early in her musical career, in the ‘90s, Diana Krall played a regular gig on Saturday evenings in Boston. When she drove down to New York City on Sunday mornings, she’d plan the trip so she could get close enough to hear the FM signal of WBGO in time to hear Singers Unlimited. She’s been hearing herself playing piano and singing ever since on WBGO. Diana Krall performs live in-studio, and speaks with Michael Bourne. Recorded 5/5/17. Nowadays, she can listen to wbgo.org during her travels around the world or in her hometown, Nanaimo, British Columbia. “I listen to you all the time,” she said when she came in for a recent session with a killer band, featuring frequent quartet-mate Anthony Wilson on guitar, along with bassist Robert Hurst, drummer Karriem Riggins and violinist Stuart Duncan.

To wrap up our 40 Years of Jazz celebration, WEMU is inviting area musicians and jazz fans to come in the studio and be a Guest DJ. Today’s guest was drummer Sean Dobbins. Sean remembers years ago when his main musical mentor, trumpeter, and teacher Louis Smith told Sean to listen to WEMU to hear more of the music he wanted to play. WEMU has been a big part of Sean’s life and Sean has been a big player in our sound and programming for years.

The first Roots Music Project of 2018 is a special one! Host Jeremy Baldwin welcomes Ann Arbor's own Americana band Corndaddy to the WEMU studios for a live interview and performance!

The 39th annual Detroit Jazz Festival was marked by two overriding themes: a sense of musical discovery and a series of unfortunate weather events.

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont says the state’s educational partnership with the Dalio Foundation is on track to start funding programs by the summer.

Enrollment at colleges in Connecticut is declining at a rate faster than the national average.

Microbes are the bacteria that live in our guts. Scientists are learning how they help us process medication.

Six lunar modules from the Apollo Program still sit on the surface of the moon, each with a name plate: “Made in Bethpage.”

A Southern Connecticut State University study explores the link between cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins and Type 2 Diabetes.

A new study from Yale University found some users of the popular e-cigarette brand Juul might be inhaling unexpected chemicals.

A group of genetically engineered super-strong mice from Connecticut are headed to space. Their mission? Study a new therapy to prevent muscle loss.

PFAS, common chemicals used to make everything from pizza boxes to take-out containers, are associated with risk of miscarriages, according to a new study from Yale.

It’s a busy time at the state Capitol, with just over one month to go until the state budget is due. Groups are bringing advocates by the hundreds to try to get their favored items placed into the spending plan. Meanwhile, there are lingering recriminations over the failed Amazon deal.

Public campaign financing could be coming to New York by the end of this year, now that Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature have created a commission to come up with a plan. Supporters say the current system favors a small group of big money donors at the expense of the average citizen and needs to be changed. But not everyone agrees that is a good idea.

The Connecticut General Assembly Appropriations Committee approved a $43.3 billion two-year state budget proposal on Tuesday. It sets the stage for final budget negotiations in June with Democratic Governor Ned Lamont.

Connecticut’s finance committee has approved a tax package that increases revenue by more than $2 billion over the next two years. Democrats say the increase is needed to fund the state’s $43.3 billion two-year budget proposal.

Officials say Connecticut paid $63 million to settle lawsuits last year. Nearly three-quarters of the money went to settle one case.

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont says he is ready to sign the $43 billion two-year state budget approved by the Democratic-controlled state legislature. Republicans allege it’s not balanced.

The State Assembly narrowly approved a measure to remove the religious exemption for vaccinations, in the wake of a severe measles outbreak that began in communities with a high percentage of unvaccinated children in New York and is steadily spreading to other states. The measure almost didn’t make it out of the Health Committee, and the Chair of the Committee voted against the bill on the Assembly floor.

The first hearing of a state commission to implement a public campaign finance system for New York’s elections was overshadowed by the issue of whether to end fusion voting, which allows candidates to run on multiple ballot lines. Critics of the proposal say Governor Cuomo wants to strike against a left leaning party that he’s been feuding with, something the governor denies.

As of Friday in Texas, you can go to a tanning salon. In Indiana, houses of worship are being allowed to open with no cap on attendance. Places like Pennsylvania are taking a more cautious approach, only starting to ease restrictions in some counties based on the number of COVID-19 cases. By Monday, at least 31 states will have partially reopened after seven weeks of restrictions. The moves come as President Trump pushes for the country to get back to work despite public health experts warning that it's too soon. "The early lesson that was learned, really, we learned from the island of Hokkaido in Japan, where they did a really good job of controlling the initial phase of the outbreak," said Bob Bednarczyk, assistant professor of global health and epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta. Because of that success, many of the restrictions on the island were lifted. But cases and deaths surged in a second wave of infections. Twenty-six days later

As the COVID-19 pandemic began to pick up in Alaska, Dr. Anne Zink, the state's chief medical officer, faced a difficult choice. Should she continue in-person meetings and nightly briefings with Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy? Or should she opt for a more socially distant form of engagement? Zink chose the latter, saying she wanted to model the behavior that she has been appealing to residents to follow. She now appears at Dunleavy's briefings by video. And over the past two months, she has become a trusted voice as she urges Alaskans to follow the strict social distancing and other public health guidelines adopted by the state administration — which doctors groups have credited with keeping the state's COVID-19 numbers among the lowest in the country. Zink, who has a Facebook fan club and a #ThinkLikeZink hashtag , isn't the only public health official to acquire a cultlike following during the pandemic: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal infectious disease expert, has inspired a Saturday

Dr. Grace Farris is chief of hospital medicine at Mount Sinai West in Manhattan. She also writes a monthly comics column in the Annals of Internal Medicine called "Dr Mom." You can find her on Instagram @coupdegracefarris . Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

For the first time in its 231-year history, the Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments remotely by phone and made the audio available live. The new setup went off largely without difficulties, but produced some memorable moments, including one justice forgetting to unmute and an ill-timed bathroom break. Here are the top five can't-miss moments from this week's history-making oral arguments. A second week of arguments begin on Monday at 10 a.m. ET. Here's a rundown of the cases and how to listen. 1. Justice Clarence Thomas speaks ... a lot Supreme Court oral arguments are verbal jousting matches. The justices pepper the lawyers with questions, interrupting counsel repeatedly and sometimes even interrupting each other. Justice Clarence Thomas, who has sat on the bench for nearly 30 years, has made his dislike of the chaotic process well known, at one point not asking a question for a full decade. But with no line of sight, the telephone arguments have to be rigidly organized, and

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.