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.”
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An Audience of Athletes: The Rise and Fall of Feminist Sports
Billie Jean King once tried to find a sustainable business model for feminist sports coverage. Then women’s fitness tried to revive the swimsuit model.
Lengua Tacos
Feliz Moreno searches for an answer to the frequently asked question ‘Do you speak Spanish?’ during a trip to Mexico.
J.R.’s Jook and the Authenticity Mirage
When a young white musician gets invited to a house-party, the musicians he plays with show him a slice of blues culture many people assumed had died.
Learning About Memory from a Woman Who Lost Hers
Lonni Sue Johnson was a successful illustrator, when the herpes simplex virus attacked her brain; she lost almost her entire lifetime of knowledge, along with the ability to form new memories. Michael Lemonick describes how she’s invaluable to neuroscientists working to understand how we make and store memories.
MACHO: On Black Holes, and the Fantasies of Men
Frances Dodds recalls two men who laid bare the fragile lines between desire, pain and manipulation — and questions the framework of her own fantasies.
Shelved: Jimmy Scott’s Falling In Love Is Wonderful
Greed and contractual disputes kept one beloved jazz singer’s masterpiece off the shelf for 40 years, and sent him into retirement.
Remembrance of Folks Past: A Reading List of the Stories We Tell
“Who lives? Who dies? Who tells your story?”
What It’s Like to Lose Your Short-Term Memory
An exclusive excerpt from the new memoir by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee.
Swipe White
Jennifer Chong Schneider considers what it is to be Asian, maligned, and fetishized in dating — and questions her own desire when she dates someone of her own ethnicity for the first time.
