Forgive the "s" alliteration in the headline, but I can't resist.

Everything about Charleston's Spoleto Festival spells summer to a born-and-bred South Carolinian like me: Seersucker. Symphonies. Sopranos. Sweat! Since 1977, this annual music and arts festival has attracted tens of thousands of visitors each May and...

Imagine you're a 9-year-old girl attending a makeshift school in Haiti, and a well-meaning church group or charity drops off boxes of donated books for you and your classmates to read. This is a generous gesture, but the books are in English. You speak French Creole and are just learning...

Of all the musicians on social media, who'd guess that Swing Out Sister would be one of the influential tastemakers in 2013? Yet, judging from the Brit duo's highly engaged following on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, there's plenty of evidence that, 25 years after...

Now that you're past the sensationalist headline, let me ask a question:

When was the last time you had a good, cathartic cry while watching a movie?

Last week at the Carter Center in Atlanta, I attended a premiere for the new HBO film,

This week in 1993, Arrested Development's "Mr. Wendal," an ode to a homeless man, occupied a top 10 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. One in a string of hits from the band's debut album, 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life Of ..., the...

He shimmied in shiny suits to the glam rock sounds of his band Roxy Music in the 1970s, brought sexy back with Boys and Girls in the 1980s, and sang breathlessly forlorn versions of 1930s Cole Porter classics in the 1990s. Yet, to no era does Bryan Ferry's...

When Spanish painter and photographer Martin Frias asks me who my favorite rock band is, I say, "The Beatles." I can tell by the mischievous glint in his eye that this answer is far from correct. "That's not rock 'n' roll," he laughs, rolling his "r's" in a...

This week, British singer Tracey Thorn released her first book, a memoir called Bedsit Disco Queen: How I Grew Up and Tried to Be a Pop Star, in which she discusses fame, family, and her 30-year career in the music business.

Dear Tracey:

Although many readers here in...

March 8, 2013 marks the 102nd anniversary of International Women's Day (IWD), a day when women -- and men -- gather to champion equality. Yet for me, this anniversary feels different than all of the others I've celebrated since I organized my first IWD concert in 1996. This year, there's...

A Note from the bloggers: As fellow citizens of the planet, we're joining our voices together to bring awareness to environmental issues and to suggest simple ways each of us can affect change.

On Dec. 7, Former President Jimmy Carter and Sir Richard Branson were among the guests honored for...

None of us could escape the ubiquitous "Call Me Maybe" from Justin Bieber protégé Carly Rae Jepsen this year. And that turned out to be OK, because the viral parodies and singalongs -- which ranged from an Obama meme to Cookie Monster and

When former First Lady Laura Bush and her daughters Jenna and Barbara participated in a national conference for the poverty-fighting organization CARE in 2011, the NGO knew just whom it should call upon for the dinnertime entertainment. Yewande wowed the family -- and the crowd -- with her...

Remember the documentary Everest Rocks, which ran on the cable music channel Palladia and showed impromptu singalongs by members from 1980s bands such as Squeeze, The Fixx, The Alarm and The Stray Cats as they climbed peaks...

It takes guts to stand in the middle of New York City's Grand Central Station wearing a t-shirt that says "bipolar," especially when you're being filmed for a national public service announcement directed by Ron Howard. Yet, that's just what Jessie Close did in 2009, when she helped...

You may not know Benny Blanco's name, yet you've heard his hits: In the past two years alone, the 24-year-old writer/producer lent his music mojo to chart toppers such as Rihanna's "Diamonds," Maroon 5's "Moves Like Jagger" and Katy Perry's "California Gurls," to name a few. Blanco, who...

Anthony Bourdain's 2000 exposé Kitchen Confidential became the quintessential tell-all about the restaurant business when it mocked the dirty underbelly of the industry with a flashing wit and compelling prose. John Jeter's Rockin' A Hard Place: Flats, Sharps And Other Notes From A Misfit Music Club Owner, released...

World Food Day was established in 1980 to bring public awareness to global hunger and strengthen solidarity in the struggle against malnutrition and poverty. Today, World Food Day is commemorated around the world in various ways, including here in the U.S. at the World Food Prize...

Jakob Dylan has a sense of humor.

"I want to tell you, you've had it coming," he sings atop the funky bass line in "Reboot the Mission," the Clash-y first single from The Wallflowers' new album, Glad All Over, out October 9.

And maybe he's right. Who's...

Last November, Meg Ryan tweeted a picture of a former sex slave she met while on location in Cambodia with journalist Nicholas Kristof to film the Independent Lens special, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (airing on PBS...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn are bringing their best-selling book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide to life on Independent Lens October 1st and 2nd. And in honor of the docu-series and its message of empowering girls and women in the...