The Country Music Hall of Fame’s annual Artist-in-Residence series has, in its four years, developed its own traditions. A longstanding ace of live performance is selected, one with legend-in-progress status and unquestionable accomplishment — who happens, also, to have a […]
A couple of years ago, Jesus crossed over and went pop. It was an unlikely development to say the least. At a time when contemporary Christian music and southern and black gospel were as far outside the cultural mainstream as […]
Blessed with hindsight, you could easily consider the music that Sally Spring was making in the ’70s to be what’s known these days as Americana. Her 1978 album Bird sported contributions from a guitarist and a bassist who were longtime […]
John Henry Hammond, father of singer John Paul Hammond and a scion of the Vanderbilts, grew up in a lavish Manhattan mansion and discovered jazz and blues hanging with the black servants. As an adult working for social and racial […]
If Scott Nelson’s fascinating assemblage of research and folklore is correct, John Henry was a free black man from Elizabeth City, New Jersey, who stood 5-foot-1-and-a-quarter-inches tall and ran afoul of the complicated racial and economic politics of Reconstruction-era Richmond, […]
Michael Kosser’s engaging and illuminating history of Music Row includes, immediately after the introduction, a cast of characters with a brief note about each. Explaining who Brenda Lee is seems unnecessary, but the list is a helpful guidepost in a […]
At the time of his greatest fame, between 1965 and 1968, Arthur Lee was perceived as the musical link between folk-rock and the more sinister stylizations of the Doors. This formulation makes less sense today; Lee was a black man, […]
I stumbled upon her one Saturday afternoon on the grounds of the state capitol in Raleigh: Etta Baker, in a cheery yellow sweater buttoned to the lace collar at her neck, flanked onstage by several of North Carolina’s most revered […]
In its fifth year, The Austin City Limits Festival continues to pose many questions, but one is straightforward enough for this review: “What is rock ‘n’ roll?” Rock ‘n’ roll, to begin, is in the blood. Day One: Ted Leo […]
If I were to perish prematurely (and I can’t imagine it happening any other way), the music running through my brain would likely be the title cut to Michael Hall’s The Song He Was Listening To When He Died. Like […]
