Mark Reynolds has written extensively about African-American culture and celebrity since the late ‘80s. He began his print journalism career with the weekly Cleveland Edition, and was a longtime contributor to its successor, Cleveland Free Times. He has also written for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and various publications in Cleveland and Philadelphia. His national credits include reviews and features for the college-distributed entertainment magazine Hear/Say, and reporting on the travel industry for the trade magazine Black Meetings & Tourism. His media criticism was honored in 2004 by the Society of Professional Journalists, Ohio chapter.
Features
Friday, October 23 2009
The Long and Short of Long-Form Journalism
Prevailing wisdom is a funny thing, and the sense that people don’t have the time or patience to work through a complicated work of journalism has taken hold among many of the people and institutions that used to win awards for it.
Tuesday, July 7 2009
He Got the Money, I Got the Good Looks
But Michael Jackson and his brothers opened up and represented the possibilities of a wide, wonderful world for me at a most impressionable moment in my youth.
Thursday, July 7 2005
When I Say "Debt" You Say "Relief": Live 8 in Philadelphia
Live 8 in Philly made for a very good party -- just not for those in need.
Monday, January 17 2005
The Long Shadow of the Dream
Tensions between activists from Dr. Martin Luther King's era and young progressives 10 years later brought the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Social Change to a critical point. As an intern at a summer institute, Reynolds recalls that for him and his fellow progressives, they're formative experiences weren't the Cold War but the Vietnam War, not water cannons but Watergate. And now, 40 years later, how can Dr. King's lessons be applied to today's activists?
Monday, September 20 2004
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of "Cool"-ness
The Real World shot a segment in Philadelphia, thereby christening this city 'cool' to those who partake of such artificial takes on 'reality', but that show can't even come close to what is really cool about this city. Leaving no stone unturned, Reynolds explores every aspect of this place deemed the 'Cradle of Liberty' -- its history, its music, its politics and people -- but it was the death of one little boy that showed him the real spirit of Philadelphia.
Columns
Thursday, April 19 2012
That Thing That Makes Funk Funky: 'The One: The Life and Music of James Brown'
James Brown – an untrained musician, mind you, operating on not much more than feel, instinct and desire – revolutionized black pop music, setting off depth charges that would still be exploding a decade hence.
Wednesday, February 29 2012
Dead Stars Tell No Tales: Whitney Houston's Death Casts New Light Onto Memoirs by Two '70s Pop Stars
Just as the winners of the war tend to write the history books, only survivors write memoirs. Nile Rodgers' Le Freak and Gil Scott-Heron's The Last Holiday.
Monday, February 20 2012
Black Music, White People / White Music, Black People
These two books show how knotty the connections between culture, race and music have become, even though the only thing the worlds they explore share in common is that in both cases, the audiences are almost all white.
Wednesday, September 7 2011
In Appreciation of Nick Ashford: Love Songs, Unsung
Nikolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson stood for all that was true and eternal and clear-eyed about adult love and relationships. Romance resounded in every note.
Tuesday, June 28 2011
On Losing Superman: Gil Scott-Heron's Rise, Fall, and All-Too-Brief Second Act
We thought Gil Scott-Heron was bulletproof. He wasn’t. We thought he’d know better. He didn’t. He was human. And I‘m New Here, not his greatest work, is his most human work.
Reviews
Wednesday, February 15 2012
After Hurricane Katrina, the Band Plays On: 'Groove Interrupted'
These profiles of some of the leading figures in New Orleans music capture the strength and faith they summoned to keep the music going after Hurricane Katrina.
Wednesday, October 26 2011
To Fully Appreciate the Wailers, We Must Fully Appreciate What Formed Them: 'The Natural Mystics'
This biography of a band often feels more like the biography of a nation. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
Thursday, September 22 2011
Today's Seriously Sagging Britches Have a Precedent in the Society Challenging 'Zoot Suit'
Kathy Peiss takes us back to a time whe “clothes make the man” led some to adopt a wild sartorial departure from the mainstream, and others to beat them viciously for it.
Friday, September 16 2011
'Harlem Is Nowhere': An Ingenious Weaving of History and Experience
It’s clear that Harlem is home for Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, but at no point does she ever intimate what made it home, or even when it became home and not just fodder for a book.
Friday, April 8 2011
'All Labor Has Dignity' Offers Depth, Intelligence and Passion -- and an Eerie Sense of Timeliness
This new collection of the civil rights leader's speeches to union audiences makes clear Dr. King's long fellowship with the labor movement, and his thinking on the connections between labor, race and class.
Blogs
Tuesday, December 15 2009
Gods and Soldiers
Gods and Soldiers: The Penguin Anthology of Contemporary - Rob Spillman [$16.00]
