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British guitarist and vocalist Romeo Stodart of The Magic Numbers talks about the band's music. The other members are his sister Michele, and Sean and Angela Gannon (also siblings). In sound, they've been compared to early Beach Boys and the Mamas and the Papas.

Grateful Dead fans can once again easily download their favorite concert recordings. The band initially asked the Web site to stop the practice, but backed down after fans' outrage. Commentator Jake Halpern wonders if he is the only fan who is disappointed by the news.

NPR's Alison MacAdam tells the story of getting in touch with her best friend from kindergarten, Scott Hoffman, who is now a sensation in a disco-rock band called The Scissor Sisters. Hoffman explains how he uses music to fill the voids he felt growing up in Lexington, Ky.

Saxophonist Hank Crawford died Jan. 29 at the age of 74. The Memphis-born musician backed B.B. King and Ray Charles before going solo. He later became the musical director for Charles' band. Fresh Air remembers Crawford with a 1998 interview.

LCD Soundsystem's new album, called Sound of Silver, broadens the project's sound to make singer-writer-producer James Murphy's rhythms even more accessible.

Paddy Keenan is an Irish musician descended from a long line of traveling pipers. In the 1970s, Keenan cofounded the influential group the Bothy Band. The group added driving rhythms to traditional Irish music. On the CD The Long Grazing Acre, Keenan plays the Irish bagpipes. Keenan discusses his music with NPR's Melissa Block.

The rock band Wilco's latest CD, A Ghost is Born, was recorded during the lead singer's battle with an addiction to painkillers, among other distractions. Many of the Chicago group's songs reflect this tense and hallucinatory period in the singer's life. Critic Tom Moon has a review.

The Chicago quartet The Sea and Cake uses rock band elements to evoke open spaces in much the same way Aaron Copland did with orchestras. Tom Moon of the Philadelphia Inquirer reviews the group's latest release, One Bedroom.

Joe Albany was an acclaimed bebop pianist, a band mate of legendary jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker -- and a heroin junkie. In her new memoir, Lowdown: Jazz, Junk, And Other Fairytales From Childhood, author A.J. Albany recalls her turbulent life with her troubled, talented father. Tom Vitale reports.

Graham Parker's sarcasm and anger were the trademark of his Squeezing Out Sparks. Nearly three decades after making quintessential bar-band rock with his group The Rumour, the sharp-tongued Englishman releases a more folksy, roots-oriented CD called Your Country. Meredith Ochs has a review.