NPR Music

Langhorne Slim was born Sean Scolnick, and hails from his pseudonym-sake: the borough of Langhorne, Penn. After graduating college, Slim moved to New York City, where he began his slow climb into the American musical consciousness by touring with the sweetly arty Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players.

The career of Brazilian singer and songwriter Tim Maia was defined by two periods of exile that contribute to a story so crazy that nearly overwhelms his notable career. Round-faced and diminutive (a press release says he was five feet, seven inches tall, "6' with the Afro"), Maia released his first album in 1971. It was a huge hit. He died in 1998 at the age of 55, but Maia would have been 70 on Sept. 28. On Oct. 2, Luaka Bop will release Nobody Can Live Forever: The Existential Soul of Tim Maia.