Places & Travel

Producer, composer and arranger Thom Bell was one of the prime originators of the Sound of Philadelphia, creating hits with the Delfonics such as "La La La Means I Love You" and "Didn't I Blow Your Mind." Bell was born in Jamaica and moved to Philadelphia at age 5. He planned to become a classical conductor, but in his early 20s, he was signed by Cameo Records to create a Philadelphia version of Motown.

Eric Newman, the executive producer of Narcos, the netflix series about drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and the Columbian drug wars tells us about the series which is told in part from the point of view of an American DEA agent.

Married couple Rennie and Brett Sparks have been making songs together as The Handsome Family for 21 years. In 2014, they gained much wider fame when their haunting song, "Far From Any Road," became the theme for the first season of HBO's True Detective.

Actress and voice-over artist Pamela Adlon on deciding to base her new FX series Better Things, on her own life as a single mother of three daughters, and working with Louie C.K. who created the show with her. She also worked on his show Louie.

A new drama series on Netflix chronicles the rise of early hip-hop music in the late '70s. Rock critic Ken Tucker says the show's soundtrack is dense, complex and delightful.

Two masked robbers clean out small branches of a Texas bank in David Mackenzie's new neo-Western. Critic David Edelstein calls Hell or High Water a work of "broad scale and deep feeling."

Journalist Rukmini Callimachi on what she's learned about ISIS tactics from her conversations with a German man who joined ISIS and became disillusioned, and from monitoring the organization's own encrypted social media channels.

The National Book Award winner's new novel is based in part on her memories of growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s. Woodson describes the teen years as an "amazing and urgent moment" in life.

The Late Late Show host talks about belting out songs with celebrities like Elton John, Steve Wonder and Adele. He tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross he doesn't know what he did to deserve this great gig.

A conversation with novelist Jay McInerney about finding fame as a young man, writing, New York City, and his new novel Bright, Precious Days about marriage, fidelity and middle age.

Critic at large John Powers says there's an explosion of literary talent coming from Mexico. He reviews two new novels by Mexican writers.

The New Orleans-based musician completed recording his final album a month before he died last November. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead calls American Tunes a "fond last look" at Toussaint's talent.

Stephanie Danler drew on her own experiences to write her novel about a young woman working at an upscale restaurant in New York. "It's so physically punishing," she says of her work as a server.

The creator, the show-runner and the star of Silicon Valley talk about putting together the HBO comedy about the insular start-up tech world.

Rock historian Ed Ward remembers Jamaican singer Desmond Dekker, who died last week at the age of 64. His 1969 hit "Israelites" was for many Americans the first reggae they'd ever heard.

Pulitzer prize winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen says he wants to take the narrative of the Vietnam war created by Americans and retell it from the perspective of the Vietnamese. His family left Vietnam after the fall of Saigon when he was 4.

critic at large John Powers reviews A Bigger Splash, a "gripping slow-burn" film by the same Italian director behind the romantic hit I Am Love.

In Jennifer Haigh's new novel Heat & Light she examines what happens when fracking comes to a small Pennsylvania town. Maureen Corrigan describes the book as Haigh's "most ambitious - and compelling - novel yet."

The Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Empire Falls says his characters are inspired by his parents' working-class World War II generation. Russo's new novel is set in a small town in upstate New York.

Historian Frank Dikötter says newly opened archives offer fresh details about the chaos China experienced in the 1960s, when Chairman Mao urged students to take to the streets.