Longreads Best of 2019: Music Writing By Longreads Reading List We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in music writing.
Shelved: The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band’s “Brain Opera” By Tom Maxwell Feature What happens when you’re not different just for the sake of being different.
Remembering Daniel Johnston By Tom Maxwell Feature This outsider musician made music sound new again to everyone who listened.
Shelved: Van Morrison’s Contractual Obligation Album By Tom Maxwell Feature This is the sound of not really trying.
Images Present Themselves: A Conversation With Photographer Burk Uzzle By Tom Maxwell Feature Some of the most iconic images get captured when you’re just out for a stroll. What you do with these images is a political act.
Shelved: Jimi Hendrix’s Black Gold Suite By Tom Maxwell Feature The genius guitarist’s autobiographical, multi-song fantasy album sat in his drummer’s apartment for twenty years. Now in the care of the Hendrix estate, will it ever see the light of day?
Remembering João Gilberto By Tom Maxwell Feature Eccentricity was inseperable from this musical innovator’s artistic vision.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Remembering Ken Nordine By Tom Maxwell Feature The ambitious radio personality created his own form of expression, called “word jazz,” to properly accomodate his musical voice and artistic ambitions.
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.
Shelved: Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine By Tom Maxwell Feature How the songwriter’s abandoned third album became two albums.
A History of American Protest Music: Come By Here By Tom Maxwell Feature How cultural appropriation and erasure turned an African American spiritual into a white campfire sing-along.
Remembering Singer Nancy Wilson By Tom Maxwell Feature The influential singer’s voice cut across genres and decades, and it will continue to.
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.
Remembering Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks By Tom Maxwell Feature The Buzzcocks’ enduring influence might have surprised punk frontman Pete Shelley, but not his fans.
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.
Shelved: The Sound of Big Star’s Self-Destruction By Tom Maxwell Feature As the band dissolved, they managed to capture their destruction in some dark, powerful music.
Shelved: Bill Evans’ Loose Blues By Tom Maxwell Feature An album that took five months to record sat in the vault for 20 years before finally getting pressed to vinyl.
Remembering Pioneering Studio Engineer Geoff Emerick By Tom Maxwell Feature Emerick engineered more than The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. He helped re-engineer the way music got made.
Shelved: The Velvet Underground’s Fourth Album By Tom Maxwell Feature The story of the Velvet Underground’s fourth album that almost never was.
A History of American Protest Music: Which Side Are You On? By Tom Maxwell Feature Just as we were in the 1930s and ’60s, America is suffering a moral crisis. We have to decide which side we are on: hate and exclusion, or justice, inclusion, and democracy?
The Story of ‘Ella and Louis,’ 60 Years Later By Tom Maxwell Feature A century-defining album’s improbable genesis.
