John Henry’s Rage Against The Machine

John Henry is fighting an age old battle. All of us are. Something will always come along and render us useless.

The Queen of the Kingdom of Swing

Despite a mountain of insecurities and sheer craziness, Peggy Lee remained undaunted. Engaging, and at times challenging, she made remarkably sophisticated music well into the 1980s, refusing to be an oldies act. But perhaps her greatest claim to public attention was that the blonde, North Dakota-born singer sounded black.

The Economics of Musical Copyright

The financial distress, or lack of distress, of musicians has nothing to do with the purpose of copyright. We, wild anti-copyright theorists, have now been joined by many sober practitioners in our analysis pointing out the real issues.

King David

For a decade in which rock music was reaching its zenith as a profitable business, the 1970s, it is staggering to consider the sheer number of risks Bowie took, without any hint or appearance that he was risking anything at all.

Blue Funk

There was something about the music that evening, at a party in her honor, that immediately captured Bessie Smith’s attention. As she entered the party with a few of her girlfriends, Smith remarked in classic fashion, “The funk is flyin’.”

Beloved Though Befallen

In 1950, Wellston's population was 9,396. By 2010, this number had dwindled by two thirds.

We Are What We Eat

The food we consume and the resulting benefits/hazards of specific items have been in the spotlight for quite some time now. Each week there is a new food to eat for superior health, and every other week there is another food villain to avoid. This is not surprising given the…

“Just As I Am”

While Graham retained authority over the use of his voice, it is unclear how much control he exercised. Graham’s appeal seems closer to that of a capable politician than a shrewd marketer in that his greatest coup was getting people from strikingly different walks of life to believe that he both represented their views and could serve as their moral guide.

“Other Things To Hide”

Hughes gives us a pleasantly dense tale of the shadows in Richard Nixon’s mind that might have been there even without the Chennault Affair—assuming he would have been elected without the Chennault machinations. We can never know if it determined the election outcome, but one major consequence of the Affair that we do know was Watergate.

100 Percent Franzen

Franzen’s strength is probing concepts we have been raised to emulate or strive for. The question of how secrets can either fester or come out is treated on practically every page of the novel.

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