Tom Petty’s Problematic Album Southern Accents By Michael Washburn Feature In 1985, one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most beloved songwriters made a regrettable misstep with a narrow conception of Southern identity.
Shelved: Lee Hazlewood’s Cruisin’ For Surf Bunnies By Tom Maxwell Feature It’s no surprise that the legendary songwriter and producer dabbled in surf music. What’s surprising is why music this good remained unreleased for 50 years.
Manic Street Preachers’ Album The Holy Bible By Longreads Feature How a band seemingly out of step with its times outlasted so many of its indulgent, in-step contemporaries.
Those Limits Were Not Hindrances: An Interview with Megan Pugh By Aaron Gilbreath Feature How a writer worked hard to understand one of American music’s most mysterious performers while protecting his past, and art.
William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock ‘n’ Roll By Longreads Feature From Bob Dylan to David Bowie to The Beatles, the legendary Beat writer’s influence reached beyond literature into music in surprising ways.
It’s Like That: The Makings of a Hip-Hop Writer By Michael Gonzales Feature Hip-hop was a different kind of music that needed a different kind of writer to cover it. This is how Michael A. Gonzales came of age in a time when Black writers began breaking the white ceiling.
Remembering Roky Erickson By Tom Maxwell Feature Despite ongoing personal struggle, the psychedelic rock pioneer left a singular body of work that continues to influence musicians and challenge listeners.
Odetta Holmes’ Album One Grain of Sand By Longreads Feature The singular singer released her groundbreaking album in 1963, the same year as the March on Washington, and used her art and appearance as weapons in the Civil Rights struggle.
Shelved: Tupac and MC Hammer’s Promising Collaboration By Tom Maxwell Feature Sometimes the most fertile creative relationships are the most unlikely.
The Enduring Myth of a Lost Live Iggy and the Stooges Album By Aaron Gilbreath and Tom Maxwell Feature In 1973, Columbia Records professionally recorded the infamous band for a planned concert record. Columbia never released it. Maybe they never recorded it.
Remembering Scott Walker By Tom Maxwell Feature When the pop singer went avant garde, he traded narrative meaning for emotional truth to explore those things that lay beyond language.
The Manhandling of Rock ‘N’ Roll History By Evelyn McDonnell Feature Less than 8 percent of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s inductees are women. Time for it to step up and induct an all-female class in 2020.
Remembering Mark Hollis of Talk Talk By Tom Maxwell Feature The singer of “It’s My Life” left us a brilliant solo album, then chose to be a family man.
Shelved: Brian Wilson’s Adult/Child By Tom Maxwell Feature Music from the time after the good vibrations ended.
When Music Speaks to Our Experience By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Anton Webern’s Concerto, Opus 24 had the structure that was missing from one young musician’s life.
Three Decades of Cross-Cultural Utopianism in British Music Writing By Longreads Feature 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.
Shelved: Sonny Rollins Live at Carnegie Hall By Tom Maxwell Feature The saxophone colossus recorded two concerts at the same venue fifty years apart. Only one recording emerged from the vault.
Remembering James Ingram By Tom Maxwell Commentary The R&B singer and songwriter made it look easy, even when it wasn’t.
The Paths of Rhythm By Longreads Feature A Tribe Called Quest’s pioneering music is one of many filaments that connects Americans of color with each other now and back through time.
Accidental Music History: How Jeff Gold Saved Rare Iggy & the Stooges Recordings from the Dump By Aaron Gilbreath Feature Sometimes this is how musical history gets saved.
Shelved: Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine By Tom Maxwell Feature How the songwriter’s abandoned third album became two albums.
When Black Male Singers Were Sex Symbols By Ericka Blount Danois Feature Teddy Pendergrass was the R&B singer women wanted and who men wanted to be. And the one whose life-sized cardboard cutout stood in one family’s living room.
Fruitland By Steven Kurutz Feature Privately made records enjoy a cult following among collectors, but few are as legendary as Donnie and Joe Emerson’s 1979 LP Dreamin’ Wild.
Hellhound on the Money Trail By Longreads Feature 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.”
Shelved: The Lady of Rage’s Eargasm By Tom Maxwell Feature Rapper Robin Allen’s hit song bypassed the hip-hop boys club that held her debut solo album back.
You Don’t Own Me By Joe Bonomo Feature Some fans prefer small club shows, others like arena rock shows, but do we care what the bands prefer?
Shelved: Jimmy Scott’s Falling In Love Is Wonderful By Tom Maxwell Feature Greed and contractual disputes kept one beloved jazz singer’s masterpiece off the shelf for 40 years, and sent him into retirement.
Link Wray’s Rustic Masterpieces By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Link Wray is best known for his rock instrumentals, but in the early 1970s, he and his brothers recorded three albums in a chicken shack that sound like nothing else in his massive oeuvre.
Living to Create: Talking Music and Writing With Drummer Emily Rose Epstein By Aaron Gilbreath Commentary Musician Emily Rose Epstein talks about her dual life as a rock drummer and writer.
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