News

Who knows where the time goes? We’ll be ringing in the new year on Mystery Train this week, barhopping from Tipitina's to the House of Blue Lights, sharing a couple of old photographs and greeting the dawn...with some passengers in better shape than others. Tune in Wednesday at 6pm and Sunday afternoon at 4.

Dig if you will the picture of Prince under the mistletoe. It's one of the scenes we'll visit on Mystery Train this week. The peculiar paternity of Joseph is considered, along with stories of other travelers headed to new places with big plans. We'll also hear transformative versions of Silent Night and the Nutcracker. Hop on board Christmas day at 6pm and Sunday afternoon at 4.

The Mystery Train Christmas Show, Part 1, will be on this Sunday at 4pm. Passengers include Ella and Elvis, Wilco and Wynton and Bland and Brubeck, among others. There's even a tune from the Grinch's girlfriend.

It's becoming a holiday tradition to rival the Grinch. For the second year running, after more than a decade in the vaults, the December 1978 Austin City Limits performance by Tom Waits is on the TV again. Tune in to WXXI this Saturday at midnight. After all, it just wouldn't feel like the holidays without hearing "Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis."

Brooklyn orchestral indie rock outfit San Fermin released the sleeper hit record of 2014 with its self-titled debut. 

Effective immediately, Mystery Train will pull out of the station Sundays at 4pm on WRUR. The 6pm Wednesday broadcast remains as is, as does the usual routing and passenger list.

Eclectic singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash joins us for this week's Free at Noon concert. The Different Radio favorite and daughter of country music legend Johnny Cash is readying her latest full length record, The River and the Thread, for an January 2014 release. The album, written with her husband and longtime collaborator John Leventhal, will be her first album of original material since 2006's acclaimed Black Cadillac. Cash also earned praise recently for 2009's The List, an album covering 12 country music classics from a list her father gave her at age 18.