The Arcs: NPR Tiny Desk Concert

January 25, 2016 by BOB BOILEN Today, we celebrate the release of our 500th Tiny Desk concert. It s amazing that something that started as a bit of a wisecrack has been so widely embraced by artists and fans. In 2008 at SXSW in Austin, NPR Music s Stephen Thompson and I met up to see singer Laura Gibson. Laura was so quiet, and the crowd was so loud and rude something about a March basketball game that Stephen jokingly asked her to come play at my desk so we could hear her. My lightbulbs went off, and a month later, Laura came to D. C.; I was ready with a couple of cameras, a microphone, my desk and a chair. In the years since, we ve had the privilege of enjoying intimate moments with Adele, Tom Jones, TPain, The Tallest Man On Earth, Mavis Staples, Phoenix, Reggie Watts, Andrew W. K., Kacey Musgraves, John Legend, Ralph Stanley, Sylvan Esso, Lianne La Havas and 486 more. It s a list that includes opera singers, Romanian brass bands, legendary bluegrass singers and pickers, a Colombian jazz harpist, a b