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Music reviewer Tom Moon takes a look at "Billy Breathes," the latest release from the heirs-apparent to the Grateful Dead...the rock band Phish (FISH). He says that their music has come a long way from the days of simple folk-tinged jamming, and their lyrics have now caught up to the rest of the technical abilities of the band. ("Billy Breathes" is the latest album from Phish, and is on Elektra Records.) (5:00) ((ST

In Part 10 of our series on the roots of American country music, NPR's Paul Brown tells the story of Bob Wills. The fiddler grew up in a family of fiddlers in the cultural mixing bowl of the American southwest. He went on to lead a band that mixed breakdowns, big band swing, blues and square dance music — a style that came to be called Western swing.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination. But in 1961, he was a student at Saint Paul's prep school in New Hampshire, where he played bass guitar for a band called the Electras. A copy of the band's album sold on eBay this week for more than $2,500. Hear NPR's Bob Edwards.

The band Modest Mouse has released their first album in four years. The group often referred to as the perfect indie-rock band suddenly finds itself enjoying pop success that had eluded it for 10 years. Mikel Jollett has a review of their new CD, Good News for People who Love Bad News.

Guitarist, songwriter and vocalist James Hetfield was a founding member of the metal band Metallica. His time in rehab is chronicled in the documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, which tracks the band at a time of crisis and is now on DVD. We rebroadcast an interview with Hetfield from Nov. 9, 2004.

In the late 1960s he founded the MC5, a Detroit band considered to be the prototype for punk rock. By 1972 the band had burned out. In between then and now, Kramer did time in jail for drugs, teamed up with Don and David Was to found the group Was (Not Was), and began a solo career. His new solo album is Adult World. This interview first aired August 20, 2002.

The British band Gomez is back with a new album after a two-year touring and recording hiatus. Gomez has captured the Mercury Prize, the U.K. equivalent of a Grammy. But most people in the United States aren't familiar with the folky, electronic blend of rock music. Rico Gagliano has a review of the band's new CD, In Our Gun.

In the crowded field of indie rock, a band's first few albums are crucial. They establish the band's sound and expand its fanbase. But Cincinnati's Heartless Bastards breaks those rules with its second CD, All This Time. Instead of sticking to its workmanlike gritty blues rock, the band has developed a more open, expansive and personal sound.

The Meat Puppets, a punk rock band led by brothers Cris and Curt Kirkwood, played with Nirvana on MTV Unplugged in 1994, and released the hit single "Backwater" the next year. Two years later, Cris plunged into a decade of heroin addiction, and the band fell apart. Now the Kirkwoods are back with Sewn Together, the band's second album since Cris' return.

Backspacer is Pearl Jam's first studio album since the musicians became free agents, finally fulfilling a seven-album contract with Sony. That process took 15 years. The band is now on its own, striking distribution deals with major corporations, a turnaround for the once very anti-corporate band.