When Feminist Anthems Were Volume-Controlled
From an era when protest music rang out across every other frontier, we have only seven feminist songs where the lyrics spoke explicitly to women’s liberation.
1960s
Who Really Wrote the Band’s “The Weight”?
Even if members of the Band could speak from their graves we couldn’t trust what they said about who wrote “The Weight”.
Ellen McIlwaine Was a Goddess Ahead of Her Time
Director Alfonso Maiorana talks about music pioneer Ellen McIlwaine, who raised the power and profile of female musicians, and how she achieved her hard-earned “goddess” status.
Smoking Saved My Life: A Skinny Jewish Kid Comes of Age in the Haze of American Violence
As cool as Marlon Brando, James Dean, Jack Kerouac or Dalton Trumbo, rebel Max "Flaco" Greenbaum grows up in Watts Riots-Vietnam-draft-era L.A. Too smart (and smart-mouthed) for school, the violence of this world is drawn in deep and lingers like the long, slow, life-saving drag of a cigarette.
Stephen Tow’s ‘London, Reign Over Me’ Is a Must-Read Tour of ’60s British Rock
Historian Stephen Tow's London, Reign Over Me is an insightful, thorough, and welcoming exploration of '60s-era British rock.
Time Out of Minds: Interview with Author Ryan Walsh on Van Morrison’s ‘Astral Weeks’
Ryan Walsh chronicles the making of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and the chaotic Boston scene that gave birth to it and tells us all about it in this expansive interview.
‘Astral Weeks’ and the Making of a Van Morrison Classic
Ryan H. Walsh's Astral Weeks beautifully captures a not-so-distant era of free-form radio playing the "boss-town sound", people living communally, thriving underground newspapers -- and a 22-year-old Van Morrison coming into his own.
No Reader of ‘William Blake and the Age of Aquarius’ Will Remain Unmoved
Blake's illuminated prints and poetic songs of soft innocence and apocalyptic experience influenced the post-WWII generation of American artists, musicians, and counter-culture leaders such as Allen Ginsberg, Jim Morrison, and Bob Dylan.
The Rolling Stones: Their Satanic Majesties Request (50th Anniversary)
Despite (or perhaps because of) the outside pressures the Rolling Stones faced in recording Satanic Majesties, it stands 50 years later as arguably the most experimental, tongue-in-cheek, and underappreciated album of their long history.
Richard Goldstein on the Front Lines With Janis Joplin, Andy Warhol, Abby Hoffman and More
Richard Goldstein's journey is a closely observed, fervently lived “I was there” account of the music, the politics, the sex, the drugs, and the poetry in rock lyrics.