Contrary to Popular Belief, the Blues Were Not Born on the Mississippi Delta
Historians Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff debunk myths about the origins of blues music, locating them not in the Mississippi Delta but in southern black vaudeville.
George de Stefano
George De Stefano is a New York-based writer and editor specializing in culture and politics. He is the author of An Offer We Can't Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America (Farrar, Straus, Giroux) and a contributor to numerous other books, including the Routledge History of Italian Americans, Our Naked Lives: Essays from Gay Italian American Men (Bordighera Press), Mafia Movies (University of Toronto) and The Essential Sopranos Reader (University of Kentucky Presses). He is currently working on a book about the Sicilians of New Orleans. His articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Nation, Newsday, Film Comment, The Advocate, The Italian American Review, Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, and the online publications PopMatters, Rootsworld, and the New York Journal of Books, La Voce di New York and I-Italy. He also has appeared in the documentary films "Beyond Wiseguys," "The Godfather Legacy," and the four-part PBS series "The Italian Americans."
Pickett Was Wicked Good and Wicked Bad: ‘In the Midnight Hour’
Tony Fletcher's biography of the great soul singer is a vivid, detailed, and insightful portrait of a complex, talented, and often deplorable man.
The Rolling Stones: Blue and Lonesome
On their new album, the Stones return to their origins -- but now with greater authority and skill
Tredici Bacci – Amore Per Tutti (album stream) (premiere)
Composer Simon Hanes and his Tredici Bacci orchestra create a soundtrack for an imaginary Italian movie
The Misappropriate Commercialization of a Mina Mazzini Song
A television ad for a Las Vegas hotel featuring Mina Mazzini’s “Tintorella di Luna” seems like campy fun. But the subtext isn’t so innocent.
La Notte della Taranta: Celebration and Solidarity
The "big concert" of Italy's biggest folk festival was almost canceled after a devastating earthquake. But the show went on -- as a benefit for relief and reconstruction.
Allen Toussaint: American Tunes
On his final album, New Orleans songwriter, producer, and pianist Toussaint puts his distinctive stamp on jazz, pop, and R&B classics.
‘Homintern’ Is Not as Subversive and Liberating as Its Subject Matter
What was unique and liberating about the gay influence on Western culture? Gregory Woods tells only part of the story in Homintern.
Professor Longhair: Live in Chicago
Live in Chicago, a seven-song set recorded at the 1976 Chicago Folk Festival, is a very welcome addition to Professor Longhair's catalog.
Rokia Traoré: Né So
With her latest album, Malian singer-songwriter Traoré has made something beautiful and moving from the traumas of war and personal crises
Rosanne Cash and Her “Peculiar” South
Rosanne Cash brings her stories of violence and redemption, beauty and suffering, to Carnegie Hall with The River and the Thread.
An Epoch of Annihilation Whose Consequences Still Reverberate
In Fire and Blood, Historian Enzo Traverso sets his sights on two concepts: the facile equation of totalitarianisms, and the equally facile belief in the inevitability of historical progress.