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After Sept. 11, many turned to the Internet to learn more about Islam. What they found was an online Muslim community of surprising diversity. In the first of a three-part series, NPR's Davar Ardalan reports on the wide range of voices online celebrating the religion and culture of Islam. (9:48)

With just a guitar and his voice at WFUV's Studio-A, Amos Lee shows off a new approach to the songs from his latest album, Last Days at the Lodge. Lee injects his love of soul music into his singer-songwriter fare and shares the stories behind the music.

Rock concert posters produced some of the most iconic art of the '60s. Then came a period of decline. But an explosion of indie bands producing their own CDs has revived the genre. Producer Scott Carrier of the Hearing Voices radio project offers a review of the book Art of Modern Rock.

Best known as the lead singer of the alt-country trio The Be Good Tanyas, the Canadian singer-songwriter breaks out with a compelling solo record, Obadiah. Sharp, personal, emotional songwriting serves as solid ground for Ford's incomparable voice. Hear two of the new tunes on World Cafe: Next.

Swedish pop star Jens Lekman sounds more like Lawrence Welk and Burt Bacharach than his American counterparts Kanye West and Ashlee Simpson. His deep, silky voice and instrumentation lends his music a retro pop feel, but the lyrics are too odd to be throwbacks.

One of the few bands to improve with every album, Centro-Matic makes room-filling country-pop that's been winning converts for more than a decade. In "Patience for the Ride," Will Johnson's gravelly, intimate voice sounds warm and inviting — a perfect complement to the fuzzy classic-rock guitars.

After his "deep slacker jazz" band Soul Coughing broke up in 1998, Doughty spent years on the road finding his voice with just a rental car, an acoustic guitar and a cult following. His new album, Golden Delicious, finds him in a relaxed and joyful setting.

Carter Tanton, of the band Tulsa, sat in the middle of a room with only his guitar, but his powerful voice filled every inch of it. In a session recorded by KEXP, he flew through three covers by The Carter Family, The Kinks, and Townes Van Zandt, and talked about singing in subways.

Like many rough-voiced singer-songwriters, Forbert has done time as a potential "next Bob Dylan," but he's carved out a distinct niche in an uncompromising career that spans nearly 30 years. Hear Forbert perform a concert from WXPN and World Cafe Live in Philadelphia.

Musician Ben Taylor's voice and name are probably quite familiar to many music lovers: He is the son of James Taylor and Carly Simon. Taylor talks about the fears he had about following in his parents' musical footsteps — and how he found his own way.

Matthew Dear's "Deserter" sounds like a gem plucked from a compilation of early-'80s European synth-pop. His emotionless voice serves Dear's chilly new-wave perfectly, just as the song serves as an ideal introduction to his new album's icy pop excellence.

News from Somalia usually involves violent warlords or pirates hijacking ships off the coast. Other than that, average Somalis don't have much of a voice. The rapper K'Naan is trying to change that, and in the world of hip-hop, he's become an artist to watch.

Pulitzer Prize winner Gunther Schuller once called Sarah Vaughan the "greatest singer of the 20th Century." Her voice won a 1948 talent show at the Apollo Theater, launching a career that included singing with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. This album captures Vaughan at her purest.

Ella Fitzgerald is one of the most recognized voices in jazz history. As a teen, her dream was to be a dancer, but fate had different plans for her. "Lady Ella" possessed a three-octave range, was noted for her pure tone, and is widely considered one of the finest Great American Songbook interpreters.

For 15 years, Elson has graced magazine covers and runways as a top fashion model. But these days, it's her voice that's attracting attention. Elson's debut, The Ghost Who Walks, is a roots-rock album with a bit of a dark side; it was produced by her husband, musician Jack White.

The Chicago rapper's new album, 808s and Heartbreak features him singing instead of rapping, but he's filtered his vocals through the voice processing system known as Auto-Tune, an increasingly popular trend among pop artists. The result is a melancholy, intimate and decidedly quirky effort.

The Mills Brothers were so proficient at imitating instruments with their voices, that many of their CDs contained a clarifying note: "No musical instruments used on this recording other than one guitar." This two-disc set has all of the brother's biggest hits, including "Paper Doll" and "Glow Worm."

Hamilton Peterson, president of the Board of Families of Flight 93, talks with Steve Inskeep about the cockpit voice-recordings from United Flight 93, the Sept. 11 flight that crashed in Shanksville, Penn. Peterson has heard the tapes and says he thinks they should be made available to the public.

The advent of bebop added a fresh sound to American music. It also added new voices to some metropolitan radio stations: the late-night jazz DJs who specialized in presenting this new music to their fellow hipster nightflies. Appreciative musicians often wrote them tributes like these.

Ella Fitzgerald began her career by winning a talent contest as a teenager at Harlem's Apollo Theater. Possessing one of the most distinctive voices in music, she successfully sang ballads and swinging solos. This album has one of her best pieces in the scat-singing style, "Jersey Bounce."