Gwen Thompkins
Gwen Thompkins is a New Orleans native, NPR veteran and host of WWNO's Music Inside Out, where she brings to bear the knowledge and experience she amassed as senior editor of Weekend Edition, an East Africa correspondent, the holder of Nieman and Watson Fellowships, and as a longtime student of music from around the world.
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The former home of a New Orleans musical great Professor Longhair was severely damaged by Katrina. It was recently restored by local nonprofits.
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At the 2013 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, every sort of performer was welcome. But the festival grounds were at the center of a much wider celebration of Louisiana music that continued during, around and after the last two weekends. -
In the 1990s, Jim McCormick was teaching at the University of New Orleans and looking ahead to a future in academia. Today, he's one of the hottest lyricists in country music, having hit the top of the Billboard Country Music charts twice in the past six months. -
Any New Orleans piano player worth his fingers owes a debt to Henry Roeland Byrd, aka Professor Longhair. The late musician's home is still standing on Terpsichore Street, but it's in serious disrepair. -
This mix presents a cross-section of songs and interviews from New Orleans' Music Inside Out With Gwen Thompkins, which focuses on people in Louisiana who've devoted their lives to music. Hear songs that have inspired any number of musicians, not to mention countless dancing fans. -
A New Orleans socialite donated space in her family's mausoleum in the city's famous St. Louis Cemetery No. 2. Now, the final resting place of a white, aristocratic family is also the eternal home of black musical royalty: Ernie "Emperor of the Universe" K-Doe and Earl King. -
An upcoming documentary highlights the life of the man many called New Orleans' best pianist in a hundred years.
