Clifford Brown first picked up a trumpet in high school, 1945. By the time of his early death, in a car crash at age 25, he had become a jazz legend, even though he had not reached the peak of his powe …

Even though Emmylou Harris has spent four decades constantly redefining roots music, it's hard to peg her as "rootsy," simply because her voice seems to hover high up in the air - an almost otherworldl …

Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris's outlaw-and-angel duets on tunes like the cheaters' confession "We'll Sweep Out the Ashes In the Morning" offered a new idea of how country music could work. Ever since …

The idea of any band garnering GRAMMYr nods and steady sales with a "punk rock opera" (American Idiot, in this case) is absurd enough, but who knew Green Day had it in them? Certainly not anyone …

Before Dookie happened, Green Day sprinted through Kerplunk and 1039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours - simple but promising slabs of pop-punk that offered a glimpse of the group's burgeo …

After a brief shot at pop popularity as Tom & Jerry in the late '50s, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel ditched the pseudonyms and hopped on board the Greenwich Village-bound hootenanny train. But it took p …

"You Don't Know Where Your Interest Lies," a curious collision of a ska rhythm with "Hazy Shade of Winter," was originally available only as a B-side to "Fakin' It," but the psych-folk oddity has since …

Seattle songsmith Brandi Carlile may not be a household name - yet - but titanic talents like T-Bone Burnett, Rick Rubin, Elton John, and the Indigo Girls have already been bowled over enough to work w …

The songs of Diane Warren don't sit idly on the sidelines, waiting to be noticed - they stand up tall and command your attention. They're four-minute movies overflowing with intense emotions and …