If you like Fats Domino’s rollicking style of Fifties rhythm and blues, you owe it to yourself to try out The Complete Imperial Singles. It is a six-disc collection filled with […]
Category: music
Q&A with Denise Von Glahn, author of “Libby Larsen: Composing an American Life”
Denise Von Glahn is the Curtis Mayes Orpheus Professor of Musicology at Florida State University, where she is also the coordinator of the Musicology Area and director of the Center for […]
“Czech Bluegrass: Notes from the Heart of Europe” Video Trailer
Lee Bidgood offers a fascinating study of the Czech bluegrass phenomenon, merging intimate immersion in the music with on-the-ground fieldwork informed by his life as a working musician. Drawing on […]
The King and Us
This week marks the anniversary of the death (?) of Elvis Presley, a transformative cultural figure of the twentieth or any other century. If you have memories of that afternoon in 1977, […]
Meeting Jimmy Martin
In early May 1953, my girlfriend Jean Armstrong suggested I apply in the coffee shop where she worked as a waitress at the Tulane Hotel in Nashville. The hotel was […]
The Story of the Concord Sonata
The following is an excerpt from Kyle Gann’s new book Charles Ives’s Concord: Essays after a Sonata. In January 1921 a prominent insurance executive in New York City sent copies […]
200 Years of Illinois: Cal Coolidge, controversy, and Cairo
The 1927 Mississippi River flood disaster had a far-reaching social impact, inspired timeless music, influenced policy that includes what happened during Hurricane Katrina, and received its due in at least one […]
Backlist Bop: John Lennon knows politics ain’t easy
As the tumultuous late Sixties and early Seventies retreat into history, the zeitgeist is steadily sanding the many rough edges off John Lennon in order to enjoy his music without […]
Backstreet Bop: Rhythm of the rails
On this day in 1947, the City of New Orleans made its first run between the Chicago and the Crescent City on the Illinois Central line. The City traveled the early 921-mile […]
Happy Birthday, Muddy Waters
Longing for that down home music? Looking for a shot of brilliance? Tryin’ to forget that you asked for water and your woman/man gave you gasoline? Then you must be celebrating the 100th […]
Backlist Bop: Rockmore, not less
You can’t have Women’s History Month without musician-genius Clara Rockmore (left in the photo). The appropriately named Rockmore was a master of the theremin, that haunting/creepy sound-maker that entered our consciousness through 1950s science fiction films, […]
Anatomy of a Peggy Seeger classic
Excerpted from Peggy Seeger: A Life of Music, Love, and Politics, by Jean Freedman Peggy had written some mildly feminist songs, such as “Darling Annie,” about an equal partnership between […]