Gwen Thompkins
Gwen Thompkins hosts Music Inside Out on WWNO in New Orleans.
Up until recently, she was an NPR foreign correspondent covering East Africa. She was based in Nairobi, Kenya, reporting on the countries, people and happenings from the Horn to the heart of Africa.
Since arriving in Africa in 2006, Thompkins has reported on the toppling of the Islamic Courts Union government in Somalia, ethnic violence in Kenya, insecurity in Darfur and Sudan's first nationwide elections in a generation. She has also written a series on the Nile River, traveling from the shores of Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea. Heading south, she has reported stories from South Africa and Antarctica.
From 1996 to 2006, Thompkins was senior editor of Weekend Edition Saturday. Working with Scott Simon she learned — among other things — that when a horse walks into a bar, the bartender has to say, "So, why the long face?"
While at Weekend Edition, Thompkins also reported from her hometown of New Orleans. In the months following Hurricane Katrina, she and senior producer Sarah Beyer Kelly filed stories on the aftermath of the storm and the rebuilding efforts.
Before coming to NPR, Thompkins worked as a reporter and editor at The Times-Picayune newspaper.
A graduate of Newcomb College at Tulane University, Thompkins majored in history and Soviet studies. While on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, she was in Eastern Europe when the Berlin Wall fell. Fortunately, she says, she was not injured.
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The pioneering singer influenced blues, jazz, rock and beyond with her powerful voice and inventive delivery, displaying a greatness rooted in the ability to channel her life story into her work.
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Fats Domino has died at 89. Antoine Domino Jr. was a founding father of rock 'n' roll and a recipient of the National Medal of Arts. He daughter says he died of natural causes on Tuesday.
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The rhythm-and-blues legend who became one of the progenitors of rock 'n' roll — and reportedly sold more than 65 million records along the way — died Tuesday.
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C. Morgan Babst's portrait of a troubled New Orleans family that fractures further during and after Hurricane Katrina is poetic and suspenseful — but the drama sometimes drowns in too much detail.
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With technical mastery and endless style, Washington never sang the same song the same way twice. No singer since has had Washington's particular combination of talent, sass and pluck.
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Drummer Stanton Moore — a founding member of the funk band Galactic — has a new release with "Here Come the Girls" on a tribute album to the late songwriting producer Allen Toussaint.
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Elaine M. Hayes' new book traces the ups and downs of the singer known as the Queen of Bebop, from her great Town Hall debut in 1947 to the cheesy but profitable novelty songs that marred her legacy.
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In music, "accidentals" are notes that color just outside the lines. They shocked listeners during the Renaissance, but these days you can find them all over the place.
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NPR contributor Gwen Thompkins met the musician at a time when he'd thrown himself into performing around the world. Before his death this week in Madrid, he gave her a song he never got to release.
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Egyptians say that two colonial-era agreements forever guarantee them most of the Nile's flow. But other countries in the Nile River basin want more access to the water.