Ecstatic fans cheer for The Head and the Heart as they perform on the Fort Stage at the 2012 Newport Folk Festival.
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Credit Erik Jacobs for NPR
Like the storm looming overhead, Megafaun whispered and raged through a set of classic-rock traditionalism with a real ear for experimentation.
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Blitzen Trapper's breezy classic-rock vibe brought a little Grateful Dead love to a drenched Newport audience.
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Opening with Woody Guthrie's "Christ for President," Wilco played a two-hour career-spanning set that culminated in an encore featuring Guthrie's granddaughter, Sarah Lee.
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Crowd members try to stay dry during an downpour.
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Fans settle in and snuggle up at Fort Adams State Park, surrounded by Newport Harbor and Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island.
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Arlo Guthrie plays with The Guthrie Family Reunion at the Newport Folk Festival moments before being surrounded by his grandchildren on stage.
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Over 10,000 people are gathered at the Newport Folk Festival this weekend.
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Getting some sun during Apache Relay's show at the Harbor Stage.
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The appropriately spirited old-time group Spirit Family Reunion won over the Harbor Stage crowd.
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With inclement weather in the forecast, folk fans from around the world came prepared.
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At Newport, Alabama Shakes' music reached ecstatic, rafter-shaking heights with singer Brittany Howard dominating the proceedings.
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"This is a folk festival right?" asks Sharon Van Etten in the middle of a raucous set.
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The Swedish sister act in First Aid Kit mixed wearily winsome mountain music with a welcome sunny side.
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Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes on his tippy-toes at the Fort Stage.
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Jim James' hair and seersucker suit were in full force during My Morning Jacket's set at the Fort Stage.
The summer of 2012 marks the centennial of the birth of American folk icon Woody Guthrie, on July 14, 1912. A poet of the people, Guthrie wrote some of America's most important songs, including "This Land Is Your Land." He penned ballads that captured the heart of hard economic times and war.
While Guthrie left a lasting mark on music, culture and politics, he struggled with family poverty, tragedies and personal demons.
The barn reeked of mildew, wet wood in 90 degrees, an odious perfume with which I was familiar from a childhood in a Long Island canal town peppered with planked houses. I opened my instrument's case to see the hygrometer's needle stuck on the highest humidity level: assurance that my first professional-grade violin would not crack, or, to the great aural pleasure of Katja, my radiant Austrian stand partner with superb pitch, remain in tune.
A black arm band is a gesture of mourning around the world. But for aboriginals in Australia it has come to mean something else.
The "black arm band view of history" is a version of history that takes a critical — some would say militant — analysis of Anglo-Australia's mistreatment of indigenous people. Much like American Indians, indigenous Australians — who've lived on their continent for at least 40,000 years — have had their land stolen, treaties broken, and children taken away.
Aaron Copland is considered one of America's greatest composers. Among his most famous works is a tribute to an iconic figure in American history. In 1942, Copland wrote A Lincoln Portrait, which features a full orchestra playing while a narrator reads excerpts from Lincoln's speeches and other writings.
If you're planning a wedding, and looking for music that's fresh, irresistible and completely unexpected, you might want to consider The Boban i Marko Markovic Orkestar, a cutting-edge Gypsy brass band from southern Serbia. A new best-of compilation called Golden Horns puts the group's wild, genre-bending flair on full display.
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