NPR Music

Buzz has been building. There were standing ovations when Milo Greene toured with The Civil Wars. Esquire magazine put Milo Greene on its list of artists to watch in 2012, and Milo Greene will perform songs from its debut album on David Letterman's show later this month. But this budding star is probably not who you think he is.

It now seems like a natural rite of summer — open-air classical music festivals where audiences can hear great music while picnicking under the stars. But 75 years ago, when the Boston Symphony first performed on a former estate called Tanglewood in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts, it was a novel idea.

Maybe we should all write our autobiographies and boil them down to 5 minutes. Loudon Wainwright III makes it look so easy in this music video for his song "The Here & the Now." There's a poignancy here that is so bittersweet and a trajectory that is both unpredictable and undeniable.