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Henry Carrigan

In Honor of Andrae Crouch: A Couple of Great Books about Gospel Music

In Honor of Andrae Crouch: A Couple of Great Books about Gospel Music

In early 2015, Andrae Crouch died. There’s room for a good biography of Crouch, and maybe someday we’ll have one (or perhaps one is in the works, unbeknownst to me). He brought gospel music into a new age, and stands at the fount of the genre that eventually

Talking with Elijah Wald about His Book, "Dylan Goes Electric!"

Talking with Elijah Wald about His Book, "Dylan Goes Electric!"

By now, the story is familiar: angry folk music purists were incensed at Bob Dylan, whom they had begun to revere as an eccentric, but ingenious, songwriter. Like a Messianic figure, he had come out of nowhere to New York City, assuming the mantle of a prophet (not that he

Two of a Traveling Kind: Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell's Musical Kinship

Two of a Traveling Kind: Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell's Musical Kinship

During a performance in Chicago last month, Emmylou Harris told Rodney Crowell that he was starting a song in the wrong key. He glided into his response: “She remembers the keys, but I remember all the words.” Indeed, after 40 years of friendship and collaboration, Harris and Crowell have grown

Drumming for the Dead: Bill Kreutzmann's Memoir of His 30 Years with the Grateful Dead

Drumming for the Dead: Bill Kreutzmann's Memoir of His 30 Years with the Grateful Dead

Over three nights in early July, thousands of Deadheads will flock to Soldier Field in Chicago to let the sweet sounds of “Ripple” wash over them, dance to the pungent rhythms of “Sugar Magnolia” and “Uncle John’s Band,” and celebrate the entrancing music that entered their souls 50 years

THE READING ROOM: Talking with Rick Hall: "The Man from Muscle Shoals"

THE READING ROOM: Talking with Rick Hall: "The Man from Muscle Shoals"

In late September 2013, Magnolia Pictures released the documentary Muscle Shoals, which was both a celebration of that recording studio’s funky, gritty soul sound and a glimpse into the life and times of its founder, Rick Hall. While the film was long on conversations with the musicians who recorded

Jerry Lawson Brings It Home

Jerry Lawson Brings It Home

Although 2015 is still young, Jerry Lawson’s new album Just a Mortal Man already wins the award for top soul album of the year. Having spent 40 years as the lead singer of the a capella group The Persuasions, having performed on the same bill as Joni Mitchell, Solomon

In Reverence of Lester Bangs

In Reverence of Lester Bangs

I'm focusing on Lester Bangs this week – one of our most trenchant, edgiest, provocative, often beguiling, cantankerous, unreasonable, off-kilter, and sometimes dead-wrong critics. Yet, rock writing and criticism died with Lester Bangs when he died in 1982. Look around you these days. When you go into a newsstand