NPR : Fresh Air from WHYY

Fresh Air Weekend: Tom Waits, Bill Nighy

November 5, 2011
Play associated audio
comments

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors, and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

Tom Waits: The Fresh Air Interview: The darkness of Tom Waits' lyrics is accentuated by the rumble and rasp of his voice, which sounded old even when he was young. On Bad Like Me, Waits reflects on loneliness, life, death and heartbreak. Here, he talks to Terry Gross about performing, being a father and writing his haunting melodies.

Bill Nighy: From 'Love Actually' To 'Page Eight' The British character actor shot to international stardom after playing an aging rocker in the 2003 romantic comedy Love Actually. In his latest project, the BBC drama Page Eight, Nighy plays a British intelligence officer who discovers a state secret.

The SMiLE Sessions: A Window Into The Beach Boys: SMiLE may be the most famous unreleased album of all time, but it's not really unreleased: Bits and pieces of it wound up on other Beach Boys albums. Now that EMI has assembled a definitive collection of the session tracks, Ed Ward has listened to them — and wonders what the shouting was about.

You can listen to the original broadcasts here:

Copyright 2011 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Arts & Culture

NPR

Book News: Kim Jong Un Reportedly Gave 'Mein Kampf' As Gifts

Also: The folly of marathon readings; Tom Wolfe has a new book; VICE apologizes for tasteless photo spread.

Food

WAMU 88.5

After Four Years Of Fighting, D.C. Council Approves New Rules For Food Trucks

The new rules create a long-awaited regulatory framework for what has become a popular and industry made up of over 150 food trucks.

Politics

NPR

IRS Staffer: 'What I Did Was Not Targeting'

More interview transcripts from the IRS investigation are released but there's still no evidence of a direct connection to the White House.

Technology

NPR

U.S. Automakers Are On A Roll, But Hiring Is Slow And Steady

Profits for the nation's carmakers are on the rise, but after years of doing more with less, higher profits are unlikely to translate into significant numbers of new jobs. There are eight fewer plants and hundreds of thousands fewer workers in the industry than before the Great Recession.

Leave a Comment

Help keep the conversation civil. Please refer to our Terms of Use and Code of Conduct before posting your comments.