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, T-Pain, 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