I consider myself lucky to work with such a wide variety of music contributors who bring their picks to Weekend America. I am constantly exposed to new material from Alan Light of Tracks Magazine, Steve Smith of Time Out NY, and Tom Pryor of Global Rhythm Magazine. I'm also very pleased to welcome 2 new contributors: Jason Koransky of Downbeat Magazine and Mark Wheat of MPR's The Current in MN.

All of these music vultures are here to help you wade the multitude of musical releases that most of us don't have time to get to. I understand how difficult it can be to stay on top of all of the latest releases. Alan, Steve, Jason, Tom, Mark and myself live and breathe this stuff so you don't have to destroy your inner ears.

As you have probably heard, there is quite a bit of music on Weekend America. As the Music Director, I'm the guy who chooses the majority of the musical content, and works will all of our music contributors. This past week, I received a number of emails regarding our World Music picks with Tom Pryor and a few question about our bridges. One of the really nice features on our website is the complete listing of all of the music used in the program. You can also find a detailed listing of all of the bridges that followed each story here, along with a complete listing of all of the "picks" here. Both of these areas are updated weekly with links to a retailer where you can purchase the discs.

So I go to Amoeba (which if you haven't been there is a HUGE cd store in LA and San Franscisco, with a couple of floors and a place where you can sample thousands of albums any night and day; it's full of totally hooked-in-mondo-music fanatics and poseurs and honest to god working musicians) to buy Keren Ann's first cd which was mentioned in our music picks a week or so back, and it immediately turns into an exercise in character assassination.