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Dreaming Freedom: Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”
It’s a truism, but nevertheless may be worth repeating: that music and literature of a radical bent can encapsulate the possibilities of their social moment in a way that manifestos and movement histories, no matter how subversive their authors’ politics, are sometimes just unable to match.
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A Rainy Night in Georgia
In 1977, I was a signaler (radio operator) in the South African Army, the infantry. I was stationed in a camp called Mpacha, which was a few hundred yards from the border of Zambia in the ...
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On Sixto Rodriguez – The Sugar Man
Sixto Rodriguez, the Detroit singer and songwriter, died on August 8, 2023. He was 81 years of age. What follows is a short essay I wrote about him in July, 2012, the day after seeing the ...
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A Small Slice of Private Life
For a few years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I had the good fortune to be in a relationship with Clem Maharaj, a former jazz drummer from Trinidad whose mother had taken the precaution ...
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Special Treatment
1990’s Chicago was not Thatcher’s Britain of the 1980’s. The music of The Specials, while of a specific context, still contained elements which would resonate quite loudly across the sea of time and space, and allowed ...
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Hybrid Moments
On September 17th, 2022, I witnessed something long believed to be impossible: a reunion of “The Original Misfits,” founder, songwriter, and vocalist Glenn “Danzig” Anzalone, bassist Jerry “Only” Caiafa, and guitarist Paul “Doyle” Caiafa. Danzig and ...
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American decline? Imperial reckoning. 40 years of Combat Rock by The Clash
Interrupting all programs, but we’re putting out this transmission…a review of the 40th anniversary reissue of The Clash’s Combat Rock. August 21st is Joe Strummer’s birthday. He would have been seventy years old. He died twenty years ago. ...
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One Million Dollars
In February 2011, my Brooklyn-based, French-language rock band, Les Sans Culottes, was asked to perform at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Chelsea. The band would perform a couple of songs between various improv skits and ...
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EDDY GET READY, ROCK STEADY!: The Equals, Eddy Grant, and Trump
Most people who are old enough remember the reggae singer Eddy Grant for his popular radio song in 1983 called Electric Avenue. Fewer know about his earlier seminal London rock combo, the Equals. Eddy Grant is ...
Shotgun Writer
Throughout my unheralded scribing life, I have tried to write cogently about rock and roll. I don’t know if I’ve ever done a decent job, some might say so now and again, but there is always ...
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