“When the greatest musicians of the 1970s needed an instrument—or a friend—my dad was there.”
Search results
If You Think This Instrument Is Hard to Play, Try Building One
“The oboe has 500 parts. Turning a profit is a killer. But Jim Phelan is bent on reviving one of the great names in classical music.”
Heavy Metal is Healing Teens on the Blackfeet Nation
“In response to youth suicides, teachers show students the power of headbanging at Fire in the Mountains festival.”
My 24 Guitars
“Music was hazardous in my family, yet I couldn’t help playing—even in my sleep.”
10 Short Stories, The Power of Music, and Our Top 5
“I always admired how my father could play so delicately with such brutal hands. They were rough, mired with patches of psoriasis, calloused from playing the charango and the guitar, and scarred, scarred all over.” I have fond memories of playing the violin when I was a child, and over the years I’ve considered returning […]
Abandoned Music Dreams and The Week’s Top 5
“It felt like a homecoming but in retrospect seems more like a goodbye: a last great musical act before leaving that period of my life. It felt romantic, anyway, to record in a barn. We set the drums next to the tractor, tried to coax the chickens into cooing for the microphone, and had a […]
Remembering D’Angelo: The Eternal Spell of ‘Voodoo’
“’Voodoo’ has remained one of the pillars of soul music that’s transcended its era and defined its genre, nearly as much as one video almost came to define D’Angelo.”

