Kimberly Junod

Have you ever felt the urge to drop everything and move, because maybe your hometown leaves you feeling like you can't totally be yourself in some way?

Van Halen is quintessential guitar rock. So what happens when an electronic jazz duo of self-avowed fans take on the band's blistering discography? the bird and the bee's latest album, Interpreting the Masters, Vol.

As a World Cafe host, there's one question I'm asked more than any other: Who has been your favorite person to interview? My answer: Vince Gill. And while it's not the answer I expected, I can't think of more thoughtful and kind storyteller than Vince.

When Madison Cunningham was in her late teens, she moved from Orange County, Calif., to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of being a songwriter. It's something that she's been working at since the age of 4. She's also been singing for almost as long.

In this special dispatch from Paris, Keren Ann shows us around the artistic neighborhood Montmartre, which has inspired a lot of her writing and is the place she calls home, even though she's lived in many different places. (She was born in Israel, grew up for a bit in the Netherlands and lived in New York City.)

Pascal Danaë was born just outside of Paris and the first time he went to the French overseas region Guadeloupe, he was given the "Letter of Freedom" that belonged to his ancestor, Louise Danaë. She was freed from slavery in 1841 at 27 years old. At the time, she had four children, one of whom was Pascal's grand grandfather.

There may be more theremins than pieces of furniture in Marc Chouarain's apartment on the classic Parisian street Rue Montorgeil. The multi-instrumentalist, film composer and rare instrument enthusiast believes he has one of the biggest theremin collections in the world and invited us over to learn about the the very first electronic instrument.

Lisa-Kaindé Díaz and Naomi Díaz are twin sisters who make music as Ibeyi. Growing up, the twin sisters split their time between Cuba and France. The music they make now delivers West-African and Afro-Cuban influence through an electronic filter you can feel deeply in your bones, and the blend between their voices is nothing short of spectacular.

This summer, The Raconteurs released its first new album in 11 years.

Bruce Hornsby has an appetite for the unusual that may surprise those who know him best for his 1986 smash hit "The Way It Is." His latest album, Absolute Zero, features a "bitonal pop song" where Hornsby plays in different keys with each hand.

Grammy Award-winning musician and producer Adrian Quesada was just about to get in the car after having lunch with a producer friend in Austin when he casually tossed out the question, "Oh hey! By the way, do you know anybody who would, like, sing on these songs?"

I would say, "You have to go see Another Sky live," except that if you go to one of the band's shows you won't really see Another Sky.

It's humbling, maybe a little embarrassing and definitely exciting to stand in the middle of a packed club show and be the only person who doesn't already know all the words to the songs the band is playing. Welcome to my experience seeing The Amazons at Omeara in London.

Nile Rodgers doesn't just enter a room, he glows into it.

British-born singer Eno Williams grew up in Nigeria, where her family passed on storytelling traditions in the Ibibio language.

Since the '90s, Richard Porter has been zipping around London showing Beatles fans all the band's most famous hot-spots and regaling them with deep dive stories about the Fab Four. He's even earned the title "Beatles Brain of Britain."

If 1960s rock icon Jimi Hendrix and 18^th century composer George Frideric Handel were alive at the same time, they would have been next door neighbors in London.

This week, BBC radio legend Annie Mac named Sea Girls' new song "Violet" the "Hottest Record in the World." That's the second time Mac has singled out Sea Girls this year, and just one of the many thrills the band is riding en route to releasing its full-length debut this coming February.

A chance accident performing a simple skateboard trick changed the shape of the latest Beirut record, Gallipoli. What was supposed to be a recording session in New York City ended up happening in Berlin and the result is a different set of songs that retain that signature Beirut sound.

For more than a decade, Tim Baker led the beloved Hey Rosetta! Then the Canadian band decided to take an indefinite hiatus, and Tim moved from his home on the East Coast island of Newfoundland to the sprawling major metropolis of Toronto. Tim talks about how he turned all that life change into a big-hearted debut solo album called Forever Overhead and he performs live.

When I spoke to Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney about their new album, Let's Rock!, as The Black Keys, they joked around about themselves a lot.

Jimmy Horn was on a road trip with a friend as a teenager when their car broke down in New Orleans. Jimmy's first thought? "I felt like I was born to be here." So he never left. Since then, Jimmy has devoted his life to studying, playing and sharing the music of The Big Easy.

Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi are both gifted multi-instrumentalists and devoted students of music history.