Death diminishes us all, but the deaths of musicians are often especially difficult since these artists seem to have tapped into some eternal spirit that flows through them into our hearts and souls. Musicians’ deaths sadden us — sometimes because […]
Chuck Berry’s straight-ahead bluesy, rhythmic romps “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Johnny B. Goode,” and “Maybellene” lie deep in the DNA of American popular music. A savvy entrepreneur, Berry cannily cashed in on the shift in musical styles from rhythm and blues […]
Many country songs evoke the persistent longing for place, for community, for belonging, but in many of those songs inclusion comes only through the exclusion of others. Although there are exceptions, country music has long excluded women, queers, and Black […]
This has been a challenging year in book publishing. Book sales continue a slow downward spiral, in part because Amazon — most publishers’ biggest customer, and their biggest competitor — has cut back on their orders and in part because […]
We can all recall where we were and what we were doing when we heard a certain song. Songs often take us back to our younger days when we had fewer cares, but some can embed themselves in our hearts […]
Amid the rush and bustle of the upcoming holidays, it’s nice to take a few moments to be quiet and reflect on a few music books for which I’m grateful. In a few weeks, I’ll do a year-end roundup of […]
When you listen to music, what aspect of it appeals most to you? Do you listen to the lyrics of songs, or are you attuned more to the melody, following the opening melodic notes as they course through the verses […]
This should be an easy review to write, right? Here beside me is Bob Dylan’s The Philosophy of Modern Song (Simon & Schuster), his long-awaited new book, and the first since the Nobel Committee awarded him the Nobel Prize for […]
In her 2013 autobiography Simple Dreams, Linda Ronstadt shares her life as a key part of the Southern California country rock scene of the late ’60s and early 1970s. Her voice soars in those pages much as it does on […]
In the song “Me and Paul,” Willie Nelson immortalized his beloved friend and long-time drummer Paul English in lines such as “we received our education / In the cities of the nation, me and Paul.” Now, Nelson lets readers in […]
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