I'll be participating in the 'Music for Girls' online symposium on Wednesday 18 May 2022. I'm planning to present material from my ongoing Songs and Objects project, specifically looking at how song lyrics foreground evocative objects and how these reflect the importance of such objects in everyday life, memory and life-writing, as well as considering… Continue reading Music for Girls Online Symposium
Tag: experience
ppp: the personal, the political and the piano
The news that today is being celebrated as National Album Day has inspired me to post the following text on Nina Simone’s 1969 masterpiece Nina Simone and Piano! It’s a text that’s being lying dormant for a few years and now seems a good time to do something with it. The concept shouldn’t have been… Continue reading ppp: the personal, the political and the piano
Who Knows Where The Time Goes?
I have contributed to a programme on the song 'Who Knows Where The Time Goes', part of Radio 4's series Soul Music. The programme airs at 9:00am on Wednesday 14 June, then again at 9:30pm the same evening; it will also be available to download on the Radio 4 website. The song was written by… Continue reading Who Knows Where The Time Goes?
The Late Voice now available in paperback
The paperback edition of my book The Late Voice: Time, Age and Experience in Popular Music has been published. In the eighteen months since the publication of the hardback edition, two of my major case studies have died (Ralph Stanley and Leonard Cohen), as well as two artists whose work had a profound influence on… Continue reading The Late Voice now available in paperback
Old Ideas: Leonard Cohen’s Late Voice
Leonard Cohen's death has been announced. Cohen is the second of the musicians I wrote about in The Late Voice to have died this year. When Ralph Stanley passed away in June, we were reeling from the results of the EU Referendum. Cohen's passing was announced in the wake of the catastrophic election of Donald… Continue reading Old Ideas: Leonard Cohen’s Late Voice
Of Constant Sorrow: Ralph Stanley 1927-2016
Old-time musician Ralph Stanley has died. This morning, I'm too upset by the monumentally stupid decision my fellow Brits have collectively made to say more about Stanley, so I'll just note a deep appreciation of his music and post a link to the chapter I wrote about him for my book The Late Voice. As soon… Continue reading Of Constant Sorrow: Ralph Stanley 1927-2016
Life soundtracker: Guy Clark (6/11/1941 – 17/05/2016)
Another great musician has gone. Unlike many of the other deaths of musicians this year, Guy Clark's passing does not come as a great surprise. Anyone who had been following his progress in recent years knew he'd had a tough time health-wise and that he hadn't been in great shape for a while. Clark was… Continue reading Life soundtracker: Guy Clark (6/11/1941 – 17/05/2016)
Upcoming presentation: ‘A Blank Space Where You Write Your Name’
I will be participating in a panel with Emily Baker, Ian Biddle and Freya Jarman at the EMP Pop Conference in Seattle. Our panel is on Sunday 17 April and my paper is entitled 'A Blank Space Where You Write Your Name: Taylor Swift’s Early Late Voice'. Abstract below. Taylor Swift’s songs invite listeners to… Continue reading Upcoming presentation: ‘A Blank Space Where You Write Your Name’
Thoughts on Merle Haggard
Merle Haggard has died. In a year already rife with notable deaths in the music industry, I felt this one deeply, for reasons both objective and subjective. Objectively, Haggard was a colossal figure in country music, as a singer, songwriter, hitmaker and soundmaker (by which I mean there is particular country sound that is distinctive… Continue reading Thoughts on Merle Haggard
New article on Patti Smith published
My essay 'Words from the New World: Adventure and Memory in Patti Smith’s Late Voice’ has been published in the book Patti Smith: Outside, edited by Claude Chastagner (Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée, 2015). ABSTRACT: Patti Smith’s late work is invariably connected by critics and fans to the work of her ‘classic’ era (the 1970s… Continue reading New article on Patti Smith published
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