A love letter to the musician with a clear country voice.
Oxford American
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Quotes
When Life Imitates Country Music
“The trills in his notes sputter and lift. He sounds like an animal in trouble. Like a lounge singer who’s lost his mind.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Honky-Tonk Man
“I called him Mr. Chuck. We did what families do: We carefully observed the borders of conversational terrain. The election of Obama, no. The best strategy for grilling buffalo burgers, yes.”
Posted inNonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from David Dobbs, Rachel Aviv, Max Read, Holly George-Warren, and Bianca Bosker.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Southern Gallery: Tom Petty
Goodbye, Tom Petty. Revisit this chatty, informal, fun interview with the rock legend from Oxford American’s 2000 Southern music issue.
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Quotes
Building a New Society for Black Americans, First in Mississippi
A movement in Jackson, Mississippi is working to remake the way the city governs, feeds, and runs itself in order to serve the black community.
Posted inArts & Culture, Food, Nonfiction, Quotes
Following John McPhee’s Path to ‘Oranges’
Fifty years after he published Oranges, one writer traces McPhee’s story to Florida to assess the state of American citrus.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Portrait of an Artist Who Flattered Donald Trump
Visiting Mar-a-Lago with Ralph Wolfe Cowan, who has painted celebrities like Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor, and Donald Trump.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Palm Beach Van Dyck
A “willingness to flout the laws of space and time” help painter Ralph Cowan form relationships with the kind of people who will pay for a portrait of themselves with a lion, at the mast of a ship, or gliding through a Venetian dreamscape.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
A Small Town Crushed By a Big Weight — the Military-Industrial Complex
This meticulously-reported piece explores the bungled investigation into a 1994 double murder in Oak Grove, Kentucky, a small town weighed down by the military-industrial complex.