Cultural, Community, Information

Airs Friday, May 24 at 11 p.m.  KUT’s award winning Texas Music Matters unit revisits the story of Texas music by turning a spotlight on the women who’ve helped shape it –and who continue to keep Texas a vital voice on the world stage. Join us for Unsung: The Stories of Women in Texas Music. From the singing cowboys of depression era movies to the beer-drinkin’ good ol’ boys of modern country, Texas music has been wrapped in a Lone Star mythology that’s decidedly masculine. Yet from its earliest days, women like Cindy Walker wrote the songs the cowboys would sing. Some, like Janis Joplin, had to leave Texas to find acceptance on their own terms. Even now, the story of Texas music is only half told—glossing over the roles of pioneers like Big Mama Thornton or the struggles of modern movers and shakers from Ruthie Foster and Shawn Colvin to Sarah Jaffe and Girl in a Coma.

Airs Friday, May 24 at 9 p.m.  The Final Interview, a Radio Special is a 2-hour radio special centers on John Lennon’s last radio interview, along with Yoko, recorded at the Dakota in New York City, only hours before Lennon’s death on December 8, 1980. The special is mixed with music from the Lennon’s solo work, the Double Fantasy album, as well as songs from The Beatles.

Airs Thursday, May 23 at 8 p.m. Tucked between Togo to the west and Nigeria on the east, the West African nation of Benin is one of the smallest on the continent, yet it has produced one of Africa's finest contemporary musicians. During the Spring of 2011, we premiered a special production featuring guitarist Lionel Loueke in a seven-piece ensemble under the direction of Robert Sadin. Working together, Sadin and Loueke crafted an extraordinary hour-long set built around original compositions and an array of stunning instrumentalists: Sadin conducted cellist Vincent Segal, violinist Mark Feldman, multi-reed and wind player Charles Pillow, along with Walter Blanding on bass clarinet, percussionists Cyro Baptista and Thioko Diagne, while Loueke sang and played guitar.