WFIU: Popular Music

"Every song is different and some are well known, it's a challenge." Hoagie Bix Carmichael

"And as we talked, it just seemed as if we'd known each other all our lives!" Louise Seger

Two actors talk about how their own family experiences informs their parts of Alison Bechdel's story.

"Being famous actually makes life harder!" a hard learned lesson for the group.

Local musicians Cindy Kallet and Grey Larsen bring "new" Old-time music to the 2018 Bloomington Early Music Festival.

"Aunt Em is all about 'no nonsense,' and Glinda is all about nonsense!" Ashleigh Thompson

I’m George Walker for WFIU Arts. West Side Story opened this weekend at the IU Opera Theater. When the show debuted on Broadway in 1957 I was just about the age of Baby John, the youngest member of the Jets. My friends and I spent a lot of time listening to the gang’s “Officer Krupke” […]

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Be careful of what you wish for! Stephen Sondheim

it's the sound of America...in close four part harmony

The Great American Songbook Foundation has just received a donation of a $30 million estate, the first steps towards creating a museum.

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Local musicians create music to lend to the Black Lives Matter movement, and Dr. Tyron Cooper talks about the history of African American protest music.

Love Songs For A Lasting World is part music and dance extravaganza, part apple pie fest.

The newest album from Bloomington band Busman's Holiday was two years in the making

Longtime WFHB Music Director Jim Manion finds continuity between Hoagy Carmichael's musical impulses and the DIY spirit of today's punk shows.

Rock drumming legend Kenny Aronoff reflects on a moment when he knew he would either hit paydirt or be sent packing.

Is music-making valuable only when pursued toward mastery? The St. Charles Parent Band revels in its amateur status, yet nudges members toward improvement.

The Swedish/Icelandic folk duo, My Bubba, brings artistic intimacy to its audiences through minimalist folk music -- and bacteria samples.

Aubrey Seader takes Alexa Bruetman, freshman at IU and avid concert-goer, to the Lotus World Music and Arts Festival, and sees the festival through new eyes.

The all-women Patagonian trio Fémina is bringing rap folk fusion and social consciousness to Lotus Festival.

UK folk duo Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker, will be playing at the Lotus Festival next week. We talk about music making, their US touring debut, and ice cream.

A recent show by up-and-coming performance troupe Pig Pen Theater Company at the BCT highlights the venue's role as an incubator for emerging talent.

Erin Tobey's first solo album in a decade "Middlemaze" is a rich and varied reflection on youth and maturity.

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The lineup of artists performing at the 2016 Lotus Festival of World Music and Arts has been announced

Since beginning his musical career career in Bloomington in 1993, Will Oldham, a.k.a Bonnie Prince Billy, has released 19 studio albums and 17 EPs.

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Julia Baird, a half-sister of John Lennon, will be accompanying The Mersey Beatles on their Bloomington tour stop October 24.

The singer-songwriter family patriarch brings songs and stories, old and new, to Bloomington.

Audio engineer Mark Hood started his successful career in an unlikely place.

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Jessica Hopper is a music and pop culture critic. She’s senior editor at Pitchfork, the Chicago-based Internet publication for music criticism and commentary.

A veteran singer-songwriter enjoys the most prolific period of a three-decade-plus career.

The once-obsolete vinyl record has seen a renaissance in the last eight years. But for Bloomington record stores, vinyl is nothing new.

WFIU's DeShawn Wells speaks with Tyron Cooper about the IU Soul Revue.

Eric Weisbard's new book, "Top 40 Democracy," examines what we can learn about American culture from Top 40 radio.

The Irish performer pays tribute to a fellow singer-songwriter who had Bloomington ties.

A band with longtime Bloomington ties kick-starts a fresh chapter in its career.

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I was set for music college as a bass,but on the radio there was the countertenor Andreas Scholl and knew that I wanted to sing like that." Timothy Wayne-Wright

Emergent Theater breaks through the fourth wall of social justice issues through semi-improvised dance, theater, poetry and music performances.

IU's Hoo Shir A Capella, a group created by a request from the White House.

Singer-songwriter Kay Bull has "protested most everything in the twentieth century." But alienation from the mainstream has been key to her music-making.

On the eve of an Indiana appearance, the singer-songwriter and film composer reflects on his career.

Lee Williams has been booking musicians for Lotus since the very beginning, but his history as a music programmer in Bloomington goes back to the early 1980s.