Bob Boilen
In 1988, a determined Bob Boilen started showing up on NPR's doorstep every day, looking for a way to contribute his skills in music and broadcasting to the network. His persistence paid off, and within a few weeks he was hired, on a temporary basis, to work for All Things Considered. Less than a year later, Boilen was directing the show and continued to do so for the next 18 years.
Significant listener interest in the music being played on All Things Considered, along with his and NPR's vast music collections, gave Boilen the idea to start All Songs Considered. "It was obvious to me that listeners of NPR were also lovers of music, but what also became obvious by 1999 was that the web was going to be the place to discover new music and that we wanted to be the premiere site for music discovery." The show launched in 2000, with Boilen as its host.
Before coming to NPR, Boilen found many ways to share his passion for music. From 1982 to 1986 he worked for Baltimore's Impossible Theater, where he held many posts, including composer, technician, and recording engineer. Boilen became part of music history in 1983 with the Impossible Theater production Whiz Bang, a History of Sound. In it, Boilen became one of the first composers to use audio sampling — in this case, sounds from nature and the industrial revolution. He was interviewed about Whiz Bang by Susan Stamberg on All Things Considered.
In 1985, the Washington City Paper voted Boilen 'Performance Artist of the Year.' An electronic musician, he received a grant from the Washington D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities to work on electronic music and performance.
After Impossible Theater, Boilen worked as a producer for a television station in Washington, D.C. He produced several projects, including a music video show. In 1997, he started producing an online show called Science Live for the Discovery Channel. He also put out two albums with his psychedelic band, Tiny Desk Unit, during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Boilen still composes and performs music and posts it for free on his website BobBoilen.info. He performs contradance music and has a podcast of contradance music that he produces with his son Julian.
Boilen's first book, Your Song Changed My Life, was published in April 2016 by HarperCollins.
-
Laura Marling delivers an intimate performance of songs from her just-released record Song For Our Daughter in her living room.
-
With a great deal of "Salva-Mex-American" pride, Angelica Garcia performs three songs from her album, Cha Cha Palace at the Tiny Desk.
-
From Kevin Morby's tiny desk in Kansas City, Kevin Morby and Waxahatchee duet.
-
Alex Toth, who played the Tiny Desk back in 2015 as a member of Rubblebucket returns front and center with his own band, Tōth.
-
From Margo Price to Nathaniel Rateliff, watch five artists perform their favorite John Prine tunes from their homes (and bathtubs) in honor of one of the greatest songwriters of any generation.
-
From her "quarantine shed" in Hawaii, King Princess performs three songs from Cheap Queen in ways we never would have imagined.
-
The Death Cab For Cutie frontman performs a new song and pays tribute to Fountains of Wayne songwriter Adam Schlesinger in this quarantine concert.
-
You'll want to watch this deeply reflective and personal Tiny Desk concert.
-
"Don't go out to the cookout." The leader of Tank and the Bangas spreads pure joy from her living room in New Orleans.
-
One of Nashville's most talented couples took to their attic for a three-song set, including an unrecorded song that speaks to what so many of us our feeling right now.