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Trumpeter, composer, and arranger Gerald Wilson turned 88 years old Monday. He grew up in Mississippi, and got his start playing with Jimmy Lunceford's band in New York City. He later worked with Benny Carter's band and formed his own. As a composer-arranger, he worked for the Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie bands. And he accompanied Billie Holiday on her tour of the South in 1949. He's arranged music for Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughan, Bobby Darin, and Carmen McRae. His most recent CD was released last year, In My Time.

From the South African production of the opera Carmen, and Yiimimangaliso: The Mysteries, an opera based on the medieval Chester Mystery plays: Music Director Charles Hazlewood and Singers Sandile Kamle and Pauline Malefane. The operas were staged in Londons West End to rave reviews. They are currently making their American premiere at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina that runs May 24-June 9. (www.spoletousa.org). Hazlewood went to South Africa and auditioned over a thousand performers for Carmen. The Mysteries has a 34-member South African cast and is performed in four languages: Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu and English. The Mystery plays were popular medieval street theatre performed in the streets of towns all over Europe. They are dramatic versions of stories from the Bible.

British singer-songwriter James Hunter's classic R&B sound has earned him an endorsement from fellow troubadour Van Morrison, who calls Hunter one of the "best-kept secrets in British R&B and soul."

Rock and Roll Hall-of-Famer Eric Burdon was the lead singer for two seminal acts: the British invasion band the Animals and the 70s funk group WAR. His distinctive growl is instantly recognizable on his new solo album, Soul of a Man.

Beth Orton has been making her own brand of emotional, clean and poignant music for 10 years now. Her reputation has grown tremendously since her debut album, Trailer Park, was released. Her latest album is called Comfort of Strangers.

The great singer and pianist Ray Charles died Thursday, June 10, at the age of 73. He was about to go back on tour, but died of complications of liver disease. Charles shaped American music since the 1950s, at first copying the styles of black vocalists like Nat King Cole and Charles Brown. But he soon developed a style all his own. His career grew along with Atlantic records, which signed him as a fledgling label. Charles' first hit was "I've Got a Woman" in 1955. He went on to record more bluesy, gospel-charged hits, country, jazz and rock. He spoke after the release of his four CD box-set Ray Charles: The Complete Country and Western Recordings 1959-1986. (Rebroadcast from Oct. 19, 1998.)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is lifting its COVID-19 testing requirement for airline travelers coming into the country. It's a major change for the travel industry.

It's somehow fitting that The Whigs' members reside in Athens, Ga., the flashpoint of '80s indie-rock. The trio's debut, Give 'Em All a Big Fat Lip, is a great and goofy exercise in nostalgia that combines the gravelly rock of The Replacements with the off-kilter pop of Guided by Voices.

In "Get Your Head Around It," Headlights' Tristan Wraight mourns the connection lost between friends and lovers who've outgrown each other: "In silence, we both walk away." Under his words, the instruments fix together into a massive wall of sound.

At 25, singer-songwriter Devon Sproule has already released four albums, lived on a rural Virginia commune, toured with the Dave Matthews Band and drawn from musical influences as diverse as Frank Zappa and Bikini Kill. Hear an interview and in-studio performance.