The University of Illinois Press thinks country and western music hung the moon. Our list of C&W books reads like a who’s who of that musical form’s rhinestone-studded history. You want singers? […]
Category: music
The Man That Got Away
Harold Arlen wrote the soundtrack to long nighttime walks on wet streets, to the staring contests we hold with memory out of the windows of our lonely room, to the melancholy […]
The King of the Cannibal Islands
Pirates. They have a bad reputation. The robbing. The kidnapping. The walking of planks. But how about the positive things pirates have done? The contributions to fashion. The government-sanctioned predatory […]
Throwbacklist Thursday
George Hamilton IV departed the world two years ago today. Unrelated to the actor and tanning phenomenon of the same name, IV, as he was sometimes called, ambled out of […]
From Cincinnati to Grizzly Flats
Today marks an auspicious day in music history: the first recorded performance of Stephen Foster’s “Oh! Susannah,” the earliest hit song in U.S. history. Foster’s smash debuted in a Pittsburgh saloon. […]
Bird’s birthday brings celebration to Kansas City
On August 29, 1920 Charles Parker, Jr. was born in Kansas City, Kansas. As Chuck Haddix writes in Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker, the jazz icon’s launching […]
UIP adds the Journal of Mormon History
The University of Illinois Press is welcoming the Journal of Mormon History as the newest addition to the journals program. The Mormon History Association (MHA) is currently in its 50th […]
Survey Says!: The King Is Dead
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, […]
Pretty Good company for Murphy Hicks Henry
Murphy Hicks Henry, author of Pretty Good for a Girl: Women in Bluegrass, has been given a Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Bluegrass Musical Association (IBMA). The award is […]
The Tao of Ho
Eighty-five years ago today, out where the warm trade winds blow, Don Ho began life in Hawai’i, one of the nicer outposts of our current reality. In time, his mellow singing […]
New in paperback: spotlight on music makers
This month brings a number of new in paperback releases from the Fall 2015 season including four titles that delve into the deep well of of American music. George Gershwin: […]
Like a huwwicane
Monday marked the 75th anniversary of Bugs Bunny’s first appearance. Icon and Coyote-level mischief maker, tormentor of ducks and Fudds and violent cowboys, Bugs tapped into all kinds of pop […]