During the summer — especially this summer — we get a chance to catch up on all that reading we’ve been meaning to do, and to pare away at that stack on the floor beside our bed, or on our […]
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When Charlie Daniels died last week, the tributes and accolades poured in from friends and fellow musicians. In their own ways, they each focused on Daniels’ contribution to music, his deep religious faith, and his loyal friendship and generosity and […]
What makes a great song? The lyrics? The music? Surely, of course, it’s some combination of the two. We sometimes call a song “timeless” because the lyrics express some universal sentiment, and sometimes the “timelessness” of a song, for us, […]
“I’d been singing for years, but almost no one knew about it. In the country, first on the plantation where we lived and worked, then later, after we’d moved to Belzoni but still hired ourselves out during harvest time, I’d […]
Over the past few years, a few writers have been down to the crossroads of art and commerce to try to find Robert Johnson, amid especially contentious conversations about the few photographs we have of the legendary bluesman. Last year, […]
As the time comes to write another column about books, I struggle. It’s not because of my recent health issues, or any dearth of music books about which to write. My struggles arise from speaking to the travails of our […]
Levon Helm would have turned 80 this week. It’s been just over eight years since his unmistakable voice fell silent and his steady, propulsive drumming rolled over yonder. Spending the day listening to his music — whether from his years […]
Lucy Clabby grew up in Wilmette, Illinois, spending happy summer days reading at her spacious local public library. “They had a great YA section, and on beautiful sunny days, I could stay there all day reading,” she recalls fondly. Her […]
Food and music create a sense of place for us. We likely can still smell the bread or the casserole that mama would bake when we were in second grade and out playing in the yard before supper. A bite […]
Johnny Cash embodied the lyrics in the chorus of his friend Kris Kristofferson’s song “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33”: “He’s a poet, he’s a picker / He’s a prophet, he’s a pusher / He’s a pilgrim and a preacher, and a […]
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