Billie Holiday performs on stage at the Sugar Hill nightclub in Newark, N.J. Farah Jasmine Griffin's 2001 book posed a challenge to biographers and helped reimagine Holiday's legacy. Bob Parent/Getty Images hide caption
Music Features In-depth storytelling from the NPR Music team.
Music Features
Ivo Pogorelich's new recording of Beethoven and Rachmaninoff sonatas is the pianist's first album in 21 years. Bernard Martinez/Sony Classical hide caption
Jonathan Biss
The Blair House Collective reads poems for Turning the Tables NPR hide caption
Post Malone performs onstage for Bud Light's Dive Bar Tour, which stopped at Exit/In in 2018. Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Bud Light hide caption
Cameron Duddy (center) says that Midland's Let It Roll combines "the powers of the three voices coming together." Harper Smith/Courtesy of the artist hide caption
Billie Holiday sings at a Sunday afternoon jam session. Charles Peterson/Getty Images hide caption
Billie Holiday performs at the Club Downbeat in Manhattan in 1947. William Gottlieb/Redferns/Getty Images hide caption
Baby Rose started winning talent shows at 14, but lost a college scholarship and a spot on The Voice before finding her way back to music. Donte Maurice/Courtesy of the artist hide caption
Maybelle Carter (second from right) in 1974 with her daughters (from left) Helen, Anita and June. GAB Archive/Redferns/Getty Images hide caption
Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney. Nikko LaMere/Courtesy of the artist hide caption
Burn, Don't Freeze: Sleater-Kinney On Making Art In The Midst Of Change
Miles and Betty Davis in color in Miles' New York westside brownstone, 1969 Baron Wolman hide caption
Electric Miles: Behind The 'Brew'
WBGO and Jazz At Lincoln Center
Electric Miles: Behind The 'Brew'
Lydia Mendoza had one of the most extensive performance careers for Mexican American women singers and an immense recording archive. Listeners to border radio in the 1930s would have heard her music alongside that of Maybelle Carter. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images hide caption
XET Station Break, Introduction, Theme Song/The Wandering Boy
Courtney Marie Andrews demonstrates how to play the "Carter scratch" NPR hide caption
In the 1930s, when Maybelle Carter (left) was touring with her cousin Sara (center) and Sara's husband A.P. Carter as the Carter Family, the members of the group still labored on the family farm in Poor Valley, in southern Virginia. Donaldson Collection/Getty Images hide caption
Sleater-Kinney performs on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on June 19, 2019. On July 1, drummer Janet Weiss announced her departure from the band after more than 20 years. Andrew Lipovsky/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images hide caption
Maybelle Carter, playing her autoharp, performs with her daughter, Helen. Robert Alexander/Getty Images hide caption
For Women Musicians, Maybelle Carter Set The Standard And Broke The Mold
Maybelle Carter joined with the Carter Family in 1926. GAB Archive/Redferns/Getty Images hide caption
Performing "Rebel Girl" felt risky in Bikini Kill's early years, Kathleen Hanna says. "There were confrontations, things thrown at us, stuff like that. So doing that song always felt like putting my superhero cape on." Jason Frank Rothenberg/Courtesy of the artist hide caption
Fascination, Friendship And Desire: Kathleen Hanna On The Reign Of 'Rebel Girl'
"If you think about it, it's almost like Dr. Seuss," Beauty Pill's Chad Clark notes about one of David Berman's lyrics, "if Dr. Seuss had become seriously depressed." Edd Westmacott/Getty Images hide caption
WALKING LIKE A PANTHER: Rapsody celebrates the legacy of black women with Eve, out August 23. Jose Gongora/Courtesy of the artist hide caption
Bessie Smith on stage with her band in Philadelphia, Penn. Smith infused her performances with glamour whether she was performing in cities or for rural audiences in settings that evoked minstrelsy. Anthony Barboza/Getty Images hide caption
A sign marks an intersection of Highways 61 and 49 near Clarksdale, Miss. Scott Olson/Getty Images hide caption