In the 1990s, numerous women rockers emerged on the popular music scene, flooding the airwaves of college and independent radio stations with alternative feminist rock and momentarily elevating these women in the rock pantheon. As Tanya Pearson, founder […]
The songs of Joni Mitchell saved novelist Paul Lisicky’s life. In his loving ode to Mitchell and her music, Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell (HarperOne, February 25), the novelist declares that […]
Many years ago, a friend of Charlie Peacock’s daughter Molly came to visit her. She noticed the records hanging on the wall and a few trophies displayed here and there and asked Molly, “Is you dad famous?” Molly replied, […]
As the twenty-first century dawned, Doc Watson looked back over his life and declared—in his typically humble and understated fashion—“If I had planned to do a certain thing and then done it, it’s that I’ve played music that I […]
Former president Jimmy Carter died at age 100 on December 30, 2024. Carter will be remembered as a humanitarian and human rights activist, but he’ll also be remembered as the “rock and roll president.” His close relationship with Greg Allman […]
In times of darkness and despair, books offer hope and glimpses into world far away from our own. The best books entertain us, inform us, shape us, and transform us. Music books often carry us back to times in our […]
“Well, it’s one for the money, two for the show/three to get ready, now go, cat, go.” That’s just what Australian music writer Jeff Apter (Don’t Dream It’s Over), does in his affectionate, straight-ahead biography Carl Perkins: The King […]
Texas historian Joe Nick Patoski sums up the experience of attending one of Willie Nelson’s annual picnics as “living inside a Willie Nelson song every Fourth of July.” As Patoski writes in his foreword to journalist Dave Dalton Thomas’ Picnic: […]
In 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival celebrated the lives and music of a group of fictional street singers Willy and the Poor Boys in their hit song “Down on the Corner.” As the four boys gather on the corner near […]
There is a sense in which this book should not need to be written. Bessie Smith, Nina Simone, Mahalia Jackson, Mother Maybelle Carter, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, among others, are the fount of the blues, jazz, gospel, country, and rock. […]
