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Fifteen years after her hard-hitting hip-hop debut, All Hail the Queen, Queen Latifah has a new CD of jazz, soul and pop standards covering artists as diverse as Dinah Washington and Al Green.

When it comes to sex, booze and rock 'n' roll, the group Faces didn't just follow the cliché, they helped invent it. The hard-rocking, hard-drinking band helped propel the career of Rod Stewart. Ashley Kahn reports.

British musician PJ Harvey relied on basic home-recording techniques and spare instrumentation for the CD Uh Huh Her. She tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer this music is a bit autobiographical, too.

Hilary Hahn has already recorded landmark violin concertos with the world's great orchestras. She describes the meditative experience of playing Bach alone — and of trying to sound like a bird.

Musician Lenny Kaye is perhaps best known as Patti Smith's guitarist. But he's also a music writer, whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Village Voice and Creem. His new book, You Call it Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon, chronicles the male singers of the 1930s known for their suave, sophisticated and romantic interpretations of song: Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee and Russ Columbo.

The Bangarra Dance Theatre, Australia's leading indigenous dance company, performed Bush at New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music. NPR's Allison Keyes talks with the company's choreographer, Stephen Page.

Reporter Derek John reports on hip-hop artist Jin, the first Asian-American rapper to release a major-label record. Jin's new CD, The Rest is History, challenges negative images of people of Chinese heritage in American culture.

k.d. lang performs songs from her latest CD, Hymns of the 49th Parallel. The disc is a tribute to Canadian songwriters from Leonard Cohen and Neil Young to Bruce Cockburn and Jane Siberry.

In this two-hour live recording, The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson plays his most ambitious album, Smile, at Carnegie Hall. Released almost four decades after its creation, the album has been reconstructed and reworked from original tapes and new recordings. Listen to songs from Smile, Beach Boys favorites, and excerpts from recording sessions in this Creator's at Carnegie special.

NPR's Liane Hansen speaks with acoustic guitarist Kaki King, who performs selections for us in our studio. The 25-year-old guitar whiz honed her unusual fingerstyle technique playing in New York City subway stations. Her new CD is Legs to Make Us Longer.