How has New Orleans fared in the decade since the levee breaks in the wake of Hurricane Katrina? Trying to answer the question, we listen to the music and musicians who helped the city’s culture stay afloat, including Allen Toussaint and Irma Thomas. Also scenes from the Superdome roof, where workers repaired a 9.7-acre hole, and Cajun musicians Michael and David Doucet on 100 years of hurricanes. Finally, humorist Harry Shearer and Creole bandleader Deacon John talk today about their hopes for New Orleans’ tomorrow, as the landscape of culture and economy changes.

Do the words make the song or the notes? What does it take to tell a good tale in music or about music? We put those questions to a few writers of both songs and stories. Singer-songwriter and memoirist Rosanne Cash sits down before a live audience to tell us about her authorial journey, then we chat with novelist Cyril Vetter on translating a musician's life into fiction. And New Orleans bluesman Little Freddie King spins a few tall tales from the juke joint.