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Edna St. Vincent Millay, an American lyrical poet and the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, is the inspiration for Caroline Weeks' debut solo album, Songs For Edna. Struck by the beautiful imagery in Millay's poems, Weeks found that the music flowed freely when she picked up a guitar.

Hear and see video of the band, recorded live in concert from the Sixth and I Synagogue in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 3. This stunning performance includes songs from the band's new album, The Crying Light, as well as its 2005 breakthrough, I Am a Bird Now. Video of the performance is provided by Pitchfork.tv.

Conductor, arranger and musical historian John McGlinn frequently stripped classic musicals to their roots by returning to original orchestrations and reinstating lost songs. McGlinn died on Feb. 14; Fresh Air remembers him with interviews from 1989 and 1992.

Walker's sweet tenor carries an edge of pain, as well as affection for blue notes. His blues music isn't just about guitars and drums, just as it isn't about the torn jeans and unshaven face he presents on his Web site. Topping off that hobo look is a fedora with a sharp crease — a cool, nostalgic hat that's the sartorial equivalent of "I Got a Song."

With all the swagger and gusto of a band armed with its first album, New Zeland foursome Cut Off Your Hands embodies everything there is to love about a young band. You & I is brimming with energy and sheer exuberance.

The songwriter behind Eric Clapton's "After Midnight" and "Cocaine" says he once thought of himself as a late bloomer at 30. Forty years later, he's still blooming. Cale tells Melissa Block about his new album, Roll On.

The music of East Forest is hard to classify. With such diverse sound effects and samples as frogs croaking, children playing, side walk preachers preaching, and a New York subway door closing, The Education of the Individual Soulis tied to both nature and to everyday urban life, giving it the qualities of a sort of ethereal and mystical modern-day fairy tale.

Rudresh Mahanthappa's Kinsmen blends South Asian music with American jazz. The jazz saxophonist says his inspiration to explore Indian music on the saxophone came from a CD his brother gave him as a joke called Saxophone Indian Style.

Firesight, the debut album from emerging singer-songwriter Jessie Baylin, takes its name from the pub her parents owned during her childhood. The CD evokes the classic pop and jazz tunes played at the pub and stands out as a fine first album. Baylin plays songs from Firesight in this session.

When Bill Callahan (a.k.a. Smog) came to KUT to promote the release of 2007's Woke on a Whaleheart, he brought members of Shearwater to back him up. His performance was hopeful, big and explicitly in touch with his influences.