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Music critic Michelle Mercer reviews new recordings from two Brazilian artists: Natural by Celso Fonseca, and the self-titled Blue Note debut by the Tribalistas. She says both will put you in the mood for summer.

The birds are singing, the flowers are blooming and May Day is soon upon us. But somehow Jim Nayder, the Annoying Music Man, finds a way to spoil the beauty of it all. On Weekend Edition Saturday, Nayder shares some terrible recordings he considers appropriate for May Day with NPR's Linda Wertheimer.

As part of the occasional series "Musicians in Their Own Words," jazz violinist Regina Carter describes her music.

A hot new film, Laurel Canyon, stars Frances McDormand as a hard-livin', hard-lovin' record producer in '70s L.A. In the real world, female record producers were virtually nonexistent in the music industry. How come? NPR's Neda Ulaby investigates in a two-part series. Today: the secret history of women rock 'n' roll producers, with music from Sheryl Crow, the Fleetwoods, the Shangri-las and Missy Elliott.

The U.S. Senate releases thousands of pages of transcripts from closed-door hearings held by Sen. Joseph McCarthy. The committee McCarthy chaired in the mid-1950s interrogated political and cultural figures in an anti-Communist crusade. Hear Associate Senate Historian Donald Ritchie.

In Part 10 of our series on the roots of American country music, NPR's Paul Brown tells the story of Bob Wills. The fiddler grew up in a family of fiddlers in the cultural mixing bowl of the American southwest. He went on to lead a band that mixed breakdowns, big band swing, blues and square dance music — a style that came to be called Western swing.

NPR's Melissa Block talks with Larry Charles, who directed the new movie starring Bob Dylan, Masked and Anonymous. Charles also picked the songs for the soundtrack. They're all Dylan songs — either he's performing them or a panoply of international musicians are. We sample some of the international fare. Among them are Italian and Japanese covers of Dylan tunes, which Charles says are testament to Dylan's worldwide appeal.

Twenty-five years after his death, it's still difficult to get many people not to think of Keith Moon as just a hard-drinking, lunatic rock star who would smash his drum set on stage or destroy a hotel room. But his biographer, Tony Fletcher, says The Who's legendary drummer should be remembered as the man who forever changed the sound of rock 'n' roll. On Weekend Edition Sunday, NPR's Liane Hansen talks to the author and bandmate Roger Daltrey about Moon's legacy.

At 74, he's a reigning ambassador of Latin jazz, and percussionist Ray Barretto is still going strong. NPR's Felix Contreras profiles the artist. Hear clips of the song that inspired Barretto to take up jazz and a track from his latest album, Homage to Art Blakey.

Verve Records has again invited DJs and electronic musicians to remix classics from it's extensive catalog. Music critic Michelle Mercer has a review of the Verve Remixed 2 CD.