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As Kabul fell to the Taliban in 2021, a teenager got separated from his family at the airport and wound up on a plane without them. He's been living on his own in the U.S.

His parallel careers, as an author, a teacher, and a Broadway and film and television actor, mark Guy Davis as a Renaissance man, yet the blues remain his first and greatest love. Growing up in a family of artists (his parents were Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis), he fell under the spell of Blind Willie McTell and Fats Waller at an early age. Guy’s one-man play, "The Adventures of Fishy Waters: In Bed with the Blues," premiered off-Broadway in the ‘90s and has since been released as a double CD. He went on to star off-Broadway as the legendary Robert Johnson in "Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil," winning the Blues Foundation’s Keeping the Blues Alive award. More recently he joined the Broadway production of "Finian’s Rainbow," playing the part originally done in 1947 by Sonny Terry, an experience that helped inspire the acclaimed Terry/McGhee album, "Sonny Brownie’s Last Train." In his new album, "Be Ready When I Call You," it’s his songwriting that really comes forward. For the first time in over a dozen-album career he wrote nearly everything on the disc, Howlin’ Wolf’s classic Spoonful being the sole exception. “I call it Americana, but I slip a little world music in there too,” he says. “When you’re trying to create beautiful music, you don’t think too much about categories. You know, I came up in the Pete Seeger tradition – folk songs, topical songs, the Woody Guthrie kind of tunes. And then the delightful entertaining kind of tunes, songs like Kisses Sweeter Than Wine. I have all that in me and I tried to let it flow a little bit in this opus.” Tying all his work together is his love of a good story, and a willingness to speak out when there’s a point to be made. “That’s what I consider myself, a musical storyteller. I tend to create music but even if I didn’t, I would use somebody else’s music — and if I didn’t have that, I would speak poems or prose. I think that all these things increase me as a performer…. the songs, the plays, the descriptions, everything I do with words. They’re all part of each other.” Happy Traum was smitten by American folk music and began playing guitar and 5-string banjo as a teenager. He was an active participant of the legendary Washington Square/Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1950s and ‘60s, and studied guitar with the famed blues master, Brownie McGhee. A first-rate fingerstyle guitarist and singer, he has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan, both as a soloist and as a member of various groups. His avid interest in traditional and contemporary folk music has brought him recognition as a performer, writer, editor, session musician, teacher, and recording artist. He has been recording music since 1963, both with his brother, the late Artie Traum, and as a solo performer. In July, 2022, Happy released "There’s a Bright Side Somewhere," a collection of songs and instrumentals backed by nearly twenty of his very talented musical comrades from the Woodstock area and beyond. “As he shows yet again on a new album titled There’s a Bright Side Somewhere, his exceptional fingerpicking guitar is unrivaled, and he brings dazzling life to traditional and contemporary folk songs.” – Henry Carrigan, Folk Alley Now in his 84th year, Happy continues to perform, record, conduct guitar workshops and classes, and produce new lessons for Homespun Tapes. One of Woodstock’s most revered local musicians, he can often be heard playing for large fundraisers or other community causes, trying to pay back the half-century of friendships and good will that came to him and his family in that creative, progressive community. guydavis.com www.happytraum.com Presented by the nonprofit San Diego Folk Heritage, www.sdfolkheritage.org

The 'anti-city' country song is a well-worn trope, one that pits idyllic country life against the corruption of the city. But Aldean's controversial song reveals the dark heart of the tradition.

The "most known unknown" rap city found its voice by embracing the dark and light sides of its history equally: the horror stories and church hymns, the field hollers and Stax stacks.

For 36 hours, dozens of police, veterinarians and hunters scoured a wooded German suburb while warning residents a lion could be at large. Turns out they may have misjudged a video of the animal.

In June, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law undoing local protections that ensured breaks for laborers who spend their days in scorching heat. The law takes effect Sept. 1.

The beloved singer and interpreter of pop standards won 20 Grammy awards over a career that touched eight decades.

The U.S. Defense Department said troops spared civilians during a celebrated 2019 raid against the leader of ISIS, but NPR has uncovered new details that challenge the U.S. claims.

The results of the British special elections, if replicated at a likely general election next year, would certainly see Labour emerge as the biggest single party.

Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023 at 11 p.m. on KPBS TV. Improvisational pianist and composer Thelonious Monk is among the 20th century's most revered jazz luminaries. This film by Alain Gomis, features raw footage from an interview the artist gave to French state television in 1969. It shows Monk in the grip of a violent factory of stereotypes, offering an unfiltered glimpse at the racial indignities some artistic geniuses are asked to endure.