Kim Ruehl

Folks of a certain age no doubt remember when Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" blew across the music world, with its easy, masculine twang and inherent sensuality. It was a huge hit for Isaak in 1989, but hardly the only trick up his sleeve. A dozen albums

Our story begins in Ohio, at Oberlin College. A busy college conservatory hallway, where deep-thinking coeds bustle past, discussing music theory and other heady ideas. In walks a young woman from Greensboro, NC, named Rhiannon Giddens – tall and dark-skinned, high cheekbones, a playful, thoughtful look in her eye,

Pause, for readers to roll their eyes. This song, after all, has been sung into absurdity. It's been performed beautifully by great singers like kd lang and Jeff Buckley before her. But it's also been paraded around by American Idol contestants and high school talent show

Once upon a time, a writer was working on a story about a musician. The musician was a local girl. She'd grown up outside the city and came of age cutting her teeth at local bars and chowder houses and coffee shops all over the region. She had