“The National Guard come to Memphis on the day of the Country Blues Festival.”
Memphis
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Jukeboxes Made Memphis Music
“When R.E. Buster Williams ruled jukeboxes and jukeboxes ruled music.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
“Then the Alligators Got Him”: Inside Ja Morant’s 18-Month Downfall
“It is a period in which a 22-year-old rising superstar struggling with the excesses of fame has become a 24-year-old man whose actions are jeopardizing his career.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes
Photographing the Collective Experience of Self-Isolation
“The photographer hopes his brief visits…can help break the oppressive monotony of a seemingly endless day, stretching on without distractions from the outside world.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Feature, Nonfiction, Story
Shelved: Jeff Buckley’s Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk
The posthumous Buckley industry began with this problematic album, proof that the people who control a musician’s estate don’t always have his music in mind.
Posted inArts & Culture, Commentary, Culture, Story
Memory and the Lost Cause
An incomplete nostalgia still undergirds parts of American life.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Nonfiction, Story
Hellhound on the Money Trail
Standard recording contracts screwed Bluesmen out of royalties in the early 1900s, and the system was no different when Columbia released “Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings in 1990.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Feature, Nonfiction, Story
Shelved: The Sound of Big Star’s Self-Destruction
As the band dissolved, they managed to capture their destruction in some dark, powerful music.
Posted inCurrent Events, Essays & Criticism, Quotes
Memphis Celebrates King For #MLK50, But Still Struggles To Honor What He Worked For
Essayist Zandria F. Robinson considers the festivities of #MLK50.
Posted inCurrent Events, History
Tennessee, Goddamn: Memphis Fights To Remove Its Confederate Monuments
The legacy of General Nathan Bedford Forrest has the city going up against the state of Tennessee.