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With an innovative repertoire and creative musical arrangements, the five brass players of the Meridian Arts Ensemble — and the group's new percussionist — have redefined the boundaries of the traditionally stodgy brass quintet in music that ranges from J.S. Bach to Frank Zappa.

Singer-songwriter Tom Russell lives in El Paso-Juarez, which sits right on the border between Texas and Mexico. When he heard about the new wall going up between the two countries, he realized that all cheap labor on the border is done by illegal immigrants. So he wrote a song that asks an obvious question.

The Gaslight Anthem's new album, The '59 Sound, is filled with narratives that recall and refer directly to Bruce Springsteen's early works. Music reviewer Tom Moon says that it's one of the year's great surprises.

Soul may be a full-fledged style of music or just a flavor, but whether you like it straight-up or blended with other music and innovations, there's a sense that soul is always going to be part of the mix. Newcomers Sharon Jones and Eli "Paperboy" Reed share their thoughts.

Steve Cropper shaped the Memphis soul sound as a guitarist and songwriter for Stax Records. Felix Cavaliere fronted the hit-making group The Rascals. They ran in the same music circles for decades, but only now have they made their first album together.

Duke has put out more than 30 albums, which have incorporated jazz, pop, Latin and R&B to critical and commercial success. On his latest album, Dukey Treats, he pays tribute to funk, soul and Sly Stone.

The city of Chicago has one more thing to boast about: Its hometown orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, has been named America's top orchestra in a new critics' poll published in the venerable British magazine Gramophone.

On her latest album, Back to the River, singer and guitarist Susan Tedeschi uses her hard blues style to tell stories of family life. Her own day-to-day existence with husband Derek Trucks (a guitarist with the Allman Brothers Band) and their two children may not be average, but Tedeschi's songs have universal appeal.

The Chicago rapper's new album, 808s and Heartbreak features him singing instead of rapping, but he's filtered his vocals through the voice processing system known as Auto-Tune, an increasingly popular trend among pop artists. The result is a melancholy, intimate and decidedly quirky effort.

On Dec. 28, 1958, the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts played a game that turned pro football into America's sport, and even a metaphor for the country. Frank Gifford was a Giants running back in that game, and he's looked up all his old teammates on both sides of the line to write a new book.