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GUITAR BOSSES: LES PAUL & HONEYBOY EDWARDS

Tune in and pay witness to over 150 years of guitar experience between this week’s nonagenarian guests. Les Paul, the Wizard of Waukesha, talks about his leap from taking up the instrument to inventing the guitar heard ‘round the world that bears his name. And Delta guitarist and walking blues encyclopedia Honeyboy Edwards comes by our studio and remembers Robert Johnson, the 1927 flood and recording for Alan Lomax along the way.

HARD ROAD TO TRAVEL: SHELBY LYNNE AND MICHAEL HURLEY

Conversation with the eclectic song stylist Shelby Lynne — formerly of rural Alabama, now of Palm Springs — to hear about the vicissitudes of her musical and emotional journey from country to pop, including a recent embrace of Dusty Springfield. Elusive singer-songwriter Michael Hurley talks about a family devoted to opera and his sometimes dark, often humorous disaffected songs about the mysteries of modernity and werewolves. Plus a visit to an Alabama cemetery for revered coondogs. We surround it all with Southern soul, hard country, deep blues, traditional jazz and respect for what is still significantly unknowable and magical in American culture.

GET RHYTHM: A TRIBUTE TO JOHNNY CASH

It’s a two-hour tribute in song and story to the Man in Black. We’ll hear from his family, friends and associates on the contradictions—preacher, outlaw, loving family man, rockabilly rebel—that made the man. Voices include Rosanne Cash; son John Carter Cash; sister Joanne Yates; bassist and original member of the Tennessee Two Marshall Grant; guitarist Johnny Western; producer Rick Rubin; long time manager Lou Robin; writer and critic Michael Streissguth; and, of course, Johnny Cash.

NURSERY RHYME BLUES: MUSIC BY, FOR AND ABOUT... KIDS

Rock the cradle, with music by, for and about kids—but hip enough for children of all ages. Swing Mother Goose in jazz, blues and country; plus animal tales in rock and funk. Join us for a visit to the Louis Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp and hear the next generation of New Orleans musicians. Also, The Imagination Movers drop by to talk about going from a birthday party conversation to the next big sensation in kids’ music.