I’ll admit I’m a bit late to the game on this. I recently sat down and watched Mark Kidel’s documentary Elvis Costello: Mystery Dance that was first broadcasted on the BBC television network back in November 2013 and is currently running on […]
Many people think of bluegrass music and hillbilly music in the same breath. Old-time, a description often applied to string band music as it developed in the first third of the 20th century in the mountains, hills, and hollers of […]
The story goes something like this… In early 1955, my 14-year-old father went over to his girlfriend’s house on a Saturday night. A few minutes after he arrived, and was sitting on the girl’s living room couch with her parents […]
A remarkable new exhibit just opened at the Country Music Hall of Fame honoring a singular figure in American music. The title says it all: “Flyin’ Saucers Rock & Roll: The Cosmic Genius of Sam Phillips.” In fact, it was […]
On September 16, 1901 the funeral train of President William McKinley left Buffalo, NY at about 8:30 AM. The chief executive died three days before, lingering four days after being shot by an anarchist while shaking hands at a public […]
Rock and roll originated from a variety of racial, cultural, and regional sources, and osmotic excitement at burgeoning cultural flux. It represented in the early 1950s exactly the social unity that voices of divisiveness — including Jim Crow-allegiant political, educational, […]
I’m not sure why, but I get really sad when session musicians die. Maybe it’s because I think they never got the credit they deserved, or at least that they got less acclaim than the headlining stars who might have […]
If you are like me and haven’t used up all of the money on your holiday gift cards yet, here is a random assortment of recently released pop culture goodies you might enjoy. Elvis Presley – That’s The Way It […]
“That’s the story of my career,” says Dwight Twilley on the phone from his home in Tulsa, his hearty laugh and facetiousness belying the bane of what could’ve been: Mere weeks before his death in August 1977, Elvis Presley almost […]
This collection of Elvis Presley performances, recorded for the Louisiana Hayride radio show in 1954 and ’55, really does capture a revolution in the making. At first, Elvis was positioned as just another country act. “I’m sick, sober, and sorry,” […]
