Steve Knopper

Singer-satirist Mark Russell, namesake of PBS' 25-year-old "Mark Russell Comedy Specials," faces one vexing question of contemporary politics: "What rhymes with `W'?" No doubt he'll answer it with typically deadpan...

Though we're certain "Everybody Loves Raymond" actress Doris Roberts is a perfectly pleasant person in real life, her controlling TV-mom character may be the scariest vision at "Dream Halloween." Featuring...

Gerda Weissmann was one of 120 Jews who survived a Nazi death march near the Germany-Czechoslovakia border. Kurt Klein was an American G.I. who helped liberate her labor camp in...

Somewhere between Woody Guthrie's "Hard Traveling" and Jerry Garcia's profitable line of ties, folk music lost some of the grit beneath its fingernails. So this weekend, '60s sing-along stalwarts Glenn...

Red, yellow, orange and green are just some of the exciting colors you'll see at the North Park Village Nature Center's ninth annual Fall Harvest Festival. It's at 10 a.m....

If you rent "The Thomas Crown Affair" before attending "Kremlin Gold: 1,000 Years of Russian Gems and Jewels," don't get any bright ideas. Field Museum security is not to be...

Shemekia Copeland Wicked (Alligator) Shemekia Copeland, 21, is a major talent, but she's still in a sort of Aretha Franklin jazz phase. Once she finds her signature "Respect," the late...

John Hiatt Crossing Muddy Waters (Vanguard) With this all-acoustic album, prolific Indiana-born singer-songwriter John Hiatt enters yet another "downbeat phase" after spending much of the '90s jamming with young punk...

Willie Nelson Milk Cow Blues (Island) Country superstar Willie Nelson probably has a great blues album in him; "Milk Cow Blues" isn't it. Instead of using his laid-back voice and...

In 1471, Christopher Columbus was just about to discover America when a cow in the cargo hold knocked over a lantern and set fire to the ship. That, or we've...