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Rock critic KEN TUCKER reviews "War & Peace" the new album by Syd Straw, the singer with the New York cult band the Golden Paliminos.

Big Sandy is the lead singer of the Fly Rite Boys a band that combines rockabilly, western swing, and hillbilly boogie sounds. They are currently on tour and have a new album Night Tide. With it, theyve taken a darker more personal bent. Big Sandy and his Fly Rite Boys have been making music together since 1988 and have recorded seven albums all told, including Big Sandys solo do-wop tribute, Dedicated to You.

The saxophonist, flautist and bandleader has been traveling to Cuba and performing its music for over 30 years.

We remember Consuelo Velazquez, whose song "Besame Mucho" became a standard in many languages and styles of music. Velazquez died Saturday in Mexico City at the age of 84. "Besame Mucho" became a big band hit during World War II and was later recorded by many artists over the years, including the Beatles and Nat King Cole.

The new album 3 showcases Lafayette Gilchrist's maximalist jazz piano in a trio setting rather than with his seven-piece New Volcanoes band. Even in the more intimate arrangement, Gilchrist isn't afraid to make the box shout; this is jazz from artists influenced by everything from hip-hop to the D.C. area's distinctive go-go sound.

British singer-songwriter Bryan Ferry is probably best known as the frontman for Roxy Music, the experimental synth-pop band he founded in 1971. But over the years, in between his Roxy music, he's recorded albums devoted to songwriters he admires. The latest? It's called Dylanesque.

The outer bands of Hurricane Isabel sweep along the coast of North Carolina and Virginia as the storm nears landfall. Tens of thousands of people have evacuated, and tens of thousands of homes are without power. Forecasters says the storm will bring heavy rain, damaging gusts and potential flooding to several mid-Atlantic states. Hear NPR's Adam Hochberg.

Balkan Beat Box fuses clarinets and horns with hypynotic trance music and a techno beat. The band's Israeli-born founders Ori Kaplan and Tamir Muskat tell Jacki Lyden about their first-ever CD.

Franz Ferdinand is the name not only of the assassinated Archduke of Austria, considered the trigger for World War I; Franz Ferdinand is now a Scottish band that has made it big in Britain. Reviewer Mikel Jollett thinks the reason they've succeeded is that the group bridges the distance between headphones and dance floor.

Watch Jim James and his band perform songs from The Waterfall live during a special First Listen Live concert from Mack Sennett Studios in Los Angeles, presented by KCRW.