The co-authors of ‘Country Music USA’ – a revised edition of the genre’s definitive history – talk about the music’s African-American tributaries, its unpredictable politics, country radio’s woman problem, and working on Ken Burns’ forthcoming doc.
Search results
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * * 1. The Tamir Rice Story: How to Make a Police Shooting Disappear Sean Flynn | GQ | July 14, 2016 | 30 minutes […]
Three Decades of Cross-Cultural Utopianism in British Music Writing
The history of England’s fertile music press reveals as much about the opinionated English youth who created it as it does the music they covered in the second half of the 20th century.
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.”
Why Do Men Fight?: An Interview with Thomas Page McBee
“When I started asking myself questions about my own notions of masculinity. I just felt so limited, so suddenly afraid of becoming the kind of man I’d grown up in fear of.”
A Minor Figure
While searching for photographs that depict black young women and girls living free in the second and third generations born after slavery, Saidiya Hartman finds a disturbing image.
Namwali Serpell on Doing the Responsible Thing — Writing an Irresponsible Novel
“I joke that this is the great Zambian novel you didn’t know you were waiting for.”
The Hippies Who Hated the Summer of Love
The merchants of Haight-Ashbury advertised a summer of free food, free lodging, and free love. What they got instead was a civic nightmare.
When Will Hip-Hop Have Its #MeToo Reckoning?
It has already, time and time again.
The Wheel, the Woman, and the Human Body
How the newly evolved bicycle helped liberate women and modernize America’s concept of fitness.

