“If Maybelle Carter — mother of country music, without whom country and rock and roll guitar would not exist — can’t make the great guitar player list, how can women musicians expect to be seen at all?”
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What to Read After ‘Leaving Neverland’
A list of longreads to make sense of ‘Leaving Neverland.’
The Weather
“D’s depression is the weather in our house, except there’s no forecast. Some days we wake to sunny skies, gentle breezes. We talk and laugh. We eat and nap. We watch the baby the way one watches a campfire, not for any particular reason, but because it is there and strangely fascinating in its combination […]
Longreads Best of 2019: Arts and Culture
We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in arts and culture.
All Mom’s Friends
Svetlana Kitto recalls her 1980s childhood in Hollywood during the early years of the AIDS crisis.
Hanif Abdurraqib on Loving A Tribe Called Quest
“I wasn’t interested in writing the definitive book on A Tribe Called Quest. I was trying to write the definitive book on a single arc of fandom.”
What Didn’t Kill Her
Bernice L. McFadden ruminates on all the things her mother has endured only to find herself spending her golden years in the midst of a deadly plague and state-sanctioned racism.
The Girl I Didn’t Save
Cameron Dezen Hammon reflects on her frustrations as a Christian music minister for the terminally ill, unable to heal a cancer patient she cared for, and struggling to be compassionate at her belligerent Jewish father’s bedside.
The Empire Strikes Back: “Atomic Dog” and the Rebirth of Parliament-Funkadelic in the Early 1980s
In a career made as much of music as ups and downs, the story of how one song revitalized George Clinton’s career is one of the most surprising.
Love in the Time of Britney
One British man spent his adult life devoted to his favorite star. His personal collection tells us a lot about fandom—and about the life cycles of music ephemera.
