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Blues guitarist Robert Johnson is said to have gotten his musical talent by selling his soul to the devil at the crossroads close to the famous Dockery…
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A fire destroyed an obscure factory in California a few weeks ago. Apollo Masters Corporation ran one of only two plants in the world that supplied…
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This year’s NEA Big Read book is Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, and you’ve probably heard about all the local celebrations of this botanist’s memoir. The book…
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Watching a country tear up its continental agreements has gotten me thinking about how music is an international industry. The U.K. exports more than…
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Historic events can shape the course of music. This week marks the anniversary of the Kansas Oil Boom, when a well just east of Wichita struck crude in…
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As a musician, I always have to evaluate my connection to history. Most of the music I’m hired to play is from before I was born, and I have to decide how…
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I have no plans to help storm Area 51 on the 20th of this month. I’m referring to a joke Facebook event that some UFO enthusiasts have taken seriously:…
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Allow me to bring to your attention the British DJ John Peel, whose posthumous 80th birthday is this Friday. Peel worked for an offshore pirate station…
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Every Quentin Tarantino film is a musicological event — a study in the use of soundtrack music — and his latest is particularly interesting, because he…
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A couple years ago I was playing in an opera production; a famous Hungarian singer was slated to star — except that his visa application was held up…
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It looks like Apple is killing its music app iTunes. Introduced when mp3s were becoming the new medium, iTunes was a brilliant move for Steve Jobs, and…
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Canada Day is July 1, so I figured I’d send my browser to points north to find out what’s going on up there musically. We share a 5,000-mile border with…