April 15 may be Tax Day, but for some—especially singer Gillian Welch—it’s the 14th of April that’s notorious. April 14 marks the anniversary of three awful, fabled events: the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865; the Titanic striking an iceberg in 1912 (it sunk in the wee hours of the 15th); and the Black Sunday dust storm of […]
music
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium Helped Launch Led Zeppelin
Whether by accident or design, [the Fillmore Auditorium’s Bill Graham] has succeeded in launching most of the international pop groups whose claim to fame is musical rather than fashionable. Cream, Jimi Hendrix and the Who all owe a great deal to his fanatical championship. And at the beginning of January, he promoted a new group […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Origins of ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin”
TERRY GROSS: So were you writing the song on assignment? Were you writing it for The Righteous Brothers? BARRY MANN: Yes. CYNTHIA WEIL: When we wrote the song, they weren’t that crazy about it (laughter). GROSS: Really? MANN: Well, when I sang it – I loved The Everly Brothers at the time, and I sounded […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Maestro as Detective
At a mere 31 years old—practically an infant in classical music years—British conductor Robin Ticciati is already a major maestro. He made his La Scala debut at 22, making him the youngest conductor ever to grace the podium at the world’s most famous opera house. Two years later he was named principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How the Hand Painted Rock ‘n’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip Came to Be
Collectors Weekly: Who started the music industry’s billboard trend?
Landau: As far as I can tell, it was the Doors in 1967 for their debut album. I talked with Jac Holzman—the head of Elektra Records who signed the Doors—while writing my book. In 1967, he had just come out here from the East Coast and opened an office on La Cienega Boulevard, not far from Sunset Boulevard, and it occurred to him that billboards were being used for everything except promoting records and music. A lot of radio stations where popular disc jockeys worked were farther east on Sunset, and he knew they drove on the Strip, and that the entertainment industry in general was based there.
Posted inUncategorized
How a Legendary Rock Critic Found a Home in the Comments Section of an MSN Blog
As for the awe he inspires himself, Christgau’s devotees are smaller in number these days than in his Voice years, but they’re still extraordinarily dedicated, particularly among a small community who came together in the comments section of Expert Witness, the MSN blog he started after leaving the Voice. (He’s since moved on to the Medium site Cuepoint.) “The Witnesses are the greatest experience of my professional life,” Christgau says. “Most of them are very married kind of guys, but I’m so very married that it makes sense.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How Mardi Gras Helped Make Mahalia Jackson a Political Activist
“I never did like the world-famous Mardi Gras that went on in New Orleans. It was a beautiful sight, but to me it was horrible. I have seen so many people hurt on that particular day . . . The white people would celebrate their Mardi Gras with big and expensive floats that went down the main part of Canal Street, which were very beautiful and high class . . . But for my people, for them it would be such a tragedy. “
Posted inCollege, Nonfiction
The Return of the Cassette Tape: Our College Pick
Spencer Hall writes convincingly of the appeal of cassette tapes.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
What It Was Like to Record Michael Jackson’s Voice
I was still in Detroit, and I got a call from Berry Gordy — he was out in California — and he said, “We signed these kids. We finished the album and listened to all the mixes, and I don’t like any of the mixes. I’ll send you the multitracks, and I want you to […]
Posted inReading List
Beyond the Simply Salacious: Five Stories on Adultery
Here are five stories born of adultery. Read about technological advancements for philanderers and their cuckolds, personal perspectives from the cheater and the cheatee, a forbidden lust-fueled crime story, and a piece on how adultery became bedfellows with American popular culture and music—back in 1909. 1. “The Cuckold” (James Harms, Guernica, February 17, 2014) “The cuckold […]