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The Coup realizes what the best blues and soul artists always knew: Focus on everyday people, and you'll never run out of stories. For nearly 15 years, the duo has provided one of the lone voices speaking to the trials and tribulations of working-class, inner-city black life.

The band formerly known as Alabama 3 strips down its roots-meets-dance sound with just two acoustic guitars and voices. The trio plays and talks about its Sopranos success song and plays a country death ballad version of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart."

Since 1996, Sunny Day Real Estate's Jeremy Enigk has experienced band break-ups, reunions and a widely publicized conversion to Christianity. What remains is a man who's grown up and brought his lovely voice and sweet melodies out from behind layers of blaring bluster.

With her tart, no-nonsense voice, Mable John deserved to be a star like her brother Willie, who sang "Fever" before Peggy Lee. But Mable John never quite made it, though it sure wasn't because of her singing. Case in point: "Able Mable."

Director Frank Oz started his career as the voice of Miss Piggy, the Cookie Monster and other Muppets. As a director, he had made star-powered movies such as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. His latest film, Death at a Funeral, is a dark comedy with a cast not well known outside the U.K.

Countless books and films have been made about Abraham Lincoln, but not many have been told in his voice. Jerome Charyn's latest novel, a sort of fictional autobiography, does just that. Charyn spoke with NPR's Scott Simon about Lincoln's poetry, depression, and fictionalizing a life.

Sandy Denny became the queen of British folk rock when she joined the band Fairport Convention in 1968. Her fans included Robert Plant and Nina Simone. Denny was a skilled songwriter with a powerful and expressive voice, yet today many people don't recognize her name.

Soft and insistent, breathy and sometimes wordless, she doesn't have the voice of Ella, or Sarah, or Betty. But she doesn't need it; on her third album, she's got plenty of that slippery, you-know-it-when-you-hear-it quality often abbreviated "musicality."

The late Ellen Willis was the first pop-music critic for The New Yorker. A new anthology, Out of the Vinyl Deeps, collects her thoughts on Dylan, Joplin and The Rolling Stones, among others. Critic Ken Tucker says the anthology "resurrects a nearly lost, vital, invaluable voice" in pop music.

Driven by Zolani Mahola's powerhouse voice, the band is one of the most talked about musical acts out of post-apartheid South Africa. Although its latest album features an American producer, its desire to hang onto the past while establishing a place in the future is decidedly South African.

An Irish-born singer with a husky voice, Katell Keineg remains virtually unknown. Spend a moment with her 1994 album O Seasons O Castles, and it's hard not to be puzzled by the disc's failure to reach a large audience: Its wildly inspired songs aspire to the sprawl and sweep of epic novels.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s young, mostly left-wing students and radicals found a voice on FM community radio across the country. Ken Sleeman was the general manager of one such station, WGTB-FM in Washington DC. He shares some of his recordings from that time.

Jenny Lewis has the clear voice and honest melodicism of a guitar-strumming angel. But she is so good to look at and so forthright about her sexuality that some of Rilo Kiley's serious-minded natural audience suspect she is a pop starlet on the make, like Rihanna or the pitiable Britney Spears.

Meshell Ndegeocello has released five critically acclaimed albums since 1993 that featured socially provocative lyrics driven by a solid groove. On her latest CD, Ndegeocello leaves her husky voice behind and lets her bass guitar take center stage. Felix Contreras reports.

It's difficult to overstate Waits' importance and impact: With a career that spans more than 20 albums, he blends countless musical and theatrical styles, from classic jazz, blues and polka to rock and folk. Held together with his unmistakable voice, Waits' music is instantly recognizable and endlessly compelling.

The Trump administration has finalized a plan to open the coastal plain of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, renewing long-simmering debate over whether to drill in one of the nation's most sensitive wilderness areas.

When a militant Islamic group known as the Taliban took over most of Afganistan, it imposed its brand of fundamentalism on the areas it controls. NPR's Michael Sullivan has the first in a series of reports on how Islamic fundamentalism is influencing central Asia.

Mike O'Connor reports from Sarajevo that Bosnian Serb forces have surrounded the so-called safe haven of Zhepa and can take it any time. The Serbs earlier this week took another safe area, the village of Srebrenica.

Robert talks with Clifford Krauss, the police department bureau chief for the New York Times. Krauss discusses how fingerprint technology and a citywide crackdown on petty crime led to the arrest of three suspected killers in the New York metropolitan area.

Tornadoes tore through parts of Alabama and Tennessee on Friday night, and residents are still trying to put their lives back in order. Melanie Peeples of member station WUAL visited one area where a tornado touched down in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.