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A new CD entitled The Two Tenors and Qantara offers highlights of a five-hour concert of Arabic music that took place last spring in Las Vegas. The "two tenors" are Wadi Al Safi and Sabah Fakhri. Qantara is an instrumental ensemble led by oud player Simon Shaheen. Banning Eyre attended the concert and reviews the recording.

Editors ROBERT GOTTLIEB and ROBERT KIMBALL have collaborated on the new book –Reading Lyrics— (Pantheon Books), an anthology of some of the most important lyricists of the last century, including the lyrics of George M. Cohan, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, Lorenz Hart, Dorothy Field, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, and more. The book covers the time period 1900-1975. ROBERT GOTTLIEB is the author of –Reading Jazz,— and ROBERT KIMBALL is the editor of complete lyrics collections of Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, and Lorenz Hart. (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES INTO THE SECOND HALF OF THE

Classical Music Critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews Bach Christmas Cantatas, a new boxed set featuring the orchestra and chorus of Emmanuel Music.

Host Bob Edwards talks with Jon Pareles, music critic for the New York Times. Pareles has logged year after year reviewing holiday releases, and says the Christmas music genre does a good job of representing the wide array of American attitudes toward the holiday. And, while there's a plethora of recordings out there, Pareles says a few notable ones do stand out.

Scott talks with the Annoying Music Man Jim Nayder about his annual harvest of awful songs for the Holiday Season. (9:45).

Host Lisa Simeone talks to jazz pianist Cyrus Chestnut about his latest CD, Cyrus Chestnut & Friends, which pays tribute to the music of the Charles Schultz inspired Peanuts TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Legendary jazz singer Abbey Lincoln has been hailed by one critic as the "Last Great Diva", and says herself that she sings in the tradition of Sarah Vaughan, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday.

Band leader Woody Herman. Herman was the leader of numerous big bands, all variously called The Thundering Herd. His bands were noted for their dazzling improvisation combined with their incisive ensemble playing. He died in 1987.

NPR's Renee Montagne talks to percussionist John Densmore about the new symphonic tribute to the rock band, The Doors. Densmore and the other two surviving members of the group like the album, which is getting mixed reviews. Their instrumental parts from the Doors repertoire were transcribed and arranged by Jaz Coleman and are performed by Nigel Kennedy and the Prague Symphony Orchestra.

Rob Hilton reports from Athens, Georgia, on Five Eight, a promising local rock band who's yet to make it big. But that could change with the band's latest release, The Good Nurse. It's a personal album for one of the band members, who wrote most of the songs after suffering a nervous breakdown and later surviving several illnesses in his family. The first pressing of the album sold out in a week.