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Saxophonist Hank Crawford died Jan. 29 at the age of 74. The Memphis-born musician backed B.B. King and Ray Charles before going solo. He later became the musical director for Charles' band. Fresh Air remembers Crawford with a 1998 interview.

LCD Soundsystem's new album, called Sound of Silver, broadens the project's sound to make singer-writer-producer James Murphy's rhythms even more accessible.

The British rock band Supergrass arrived in 1995 with a mixture of '70s glam-rock, wall-of-sound production and sweet bubblegum refrains. Critic Tom Moon of the Philadelphia Inquirer says the group's fourth release, Life On Other Planets, is more in tune with current trends.

Nashville-based band Lambchop has two new albums out, Aw C'mon, and No, You C'mon. Both CDs rely on lush guitar rhythms and a sultry sound, combined with the unmistakable baritone of bandleader Kurt Wagner. David Greenberger has a review.

The rock band Wilco's latest CD, A Ghost is Born, was recorded during the lead singer's battle with an addiction to painkillers, among other distractions. Many of the Chicago group's songs reflect this tense and hallucinatory period in the singer's life. Critic Tom Moon has a review.

Jolie Holland has a voice reminiscent of some of the great old blues vocalists, but the fresh approach of a 21st-century singer and songwriter. She was a founding member of the Vancouver roots band the Be Good Tanyas, and there is some of that sound in her music, an unschooled style with soul and heartache. Her latest CD is called Escondida.

The Chicago quartet The Sea and Cake uses rock band elements to evoke open spaces in much the same way Aaron Copland did with orchestras. Tom Moon of the Philadelphia Inquirer reviews the group's latest release, One Bedroom.

Graham Parker's sarcasm and anger were the trademark of his Squeezing Out Sparks. Nearly three decades after making quintessential bar-band rock with his group The Rumour, the sharp-tongued Englishman releases a more folksy, roots-oriented CD called Your Country. Meredith Ochs has a review.

J.J. Johnson, a pioneer of the modern jazz trombone died Sunday at his home in Indianapolis. He was 77. It was an apparent suicide. Johnson was considered the definitive trombonist of the bebop generation. He played with the Count Basie Orchestra, Benny Carter, Dizzy Gillespie, Wood Herman, and Miles Davis, often balancing that with leading his own band. Later in life, Johnson moved to Hollywood to work as a composer and arranger for television.

A French-style '60s band has taken New York by storm. But most of the members of Les Sans Culottes are Americans. Their act is a musical takeoff on the French pop music of an era far more famous in America for the British invasion led by The Beatles.