“Back then farming was people,” says Alan Guebert. Guebert has written about agribusiness issues in “The Farm and Food File” since 1993. But the syndicated columnist notes that he would […]
Category: biography
The Stanley Brothers on the record
Gary B. Reid’s introduction to the Stanley Brothers was a used record he picked up for 33 cents in 1973. That modest investment launched Reid on an odyssey that would […]
Q&A with Becoming Julia de Burgos author Vanessa Pérez Rosario
Vanessa Pérez Rosario is an associate professor of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at City University of New York, Brooklyn College, and the editor of Hispanic Caribbean Literature of Migration: […]
Martin Luther King’s life remembered and examined by David Levering Lewis
Initially published soon after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., David Levering Lewis’s King: A Biography was acclaimed by historians as a foundational work on the life of the civil rights […]
Marian Anderson’s groundbreaking moment
On January 6, 1955 contralto Marian Anderson became the first African American soloist to sing at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. She appeared in the role of Ulrica (a Creole fortuneteller medium) in Verdi’s Un […]
New in paperback: poetry and opera
Two UIP titles are now available in paperback editions. Denise Levertov: A Poet’s Life Called by Kenneth Rexroth “the most subtly skillful poet of her generation,” British-born Denise Levertov authored […]
Best of Illinois: Very sporting
Metrics used to refer to a baffling system of weights and measures that Americans refused to adopt. These days, however, sports fans quote a different kind of metrics that measure everything from […]
Happy Saxophone Day: celebrate with the re-inventor
On November 6, 1814 Adophe Sax was born in Wallonia, Belgium. Sax invented many musical instruments but the one for which he is best known (and has immortalized his name) […]
Ray Bradbury’s ‘Moby Dick’
Many a high school English student has turned to a video of the 1950s film adaptation of Moby-Dick when faced with writing a report on lengthy sea tale. The plot […]
Happy birthday, Natalie Maines
Name one other banjo player who wears Prada. And I don’t mean Prada overalls. —Natalie Maines The lead singer of the breakout bluegrass trio the Dixie Chicks, Natalie Maines, was […]
Beyond “El Paso”: a story song survey
Story songs had won love from an admiring public since the days when drunken Vikings flung wandering skalds into a nearby volcano. When the wireless came along, story songs filled […]
Happy birthday, Marty Robbins
Country music superstar Marty Robbins was born on September 26, 1925. In three decades as a singer and songwriter Robbins placed a staggering 94 songs on Billboard’s country music charts. […]