Chronicles the musical life of the country star who has made a career of blending disparate influences, drawing on interviews to explore his authenticity and success as an artist.

"THE MEANING OF SOUL discusses Black resilience and innovation through soul music and soul logic. Emily Lordi analyzes soul music and musicians from the 1960s, the 1970s, and after, bridging the different valences of soul as a way of moving through the world. The book encompasses soul's racial-political meanings while being sensitive to the details of the music and small details that shaped artists' lives and their relationship to soul. Chapter 1...

"Margo Price is from Aledo, in western Illinois; she's a Midwest farmer's daughter who moves to Nashville to become a musician. She waits tables, busks on the street, plays open mics, and talks to her uncle, Bob Fischer, a songwriter for dozens of country music legends. Uncle Bob's advice is to throw away her TV and do nothing but write. So, discouraged but determined, she does. Price writes constantly, but she's also trying to meet industry people...

How does one pay homage to A Tribe Called Quest? The seminal rap group brought jazz into the genre, resurrecting timeless rhythms to create masterpieces such as The Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders. Seventeen years after their last album, they resurrected themselves with an intense, socially conscious record, We Got It from Here . . . Thank You 4 Your Service, which arrived when fans needed it most, in the aftermath of the 2016 election. Poet...

Deep Inside the Blues collects thirty-four of Margo Cooper's interviews with blues artists and is illustrated with over 160 of her photographs, many published here for the first time. For thirty years, Cooper has been documenting the lives of blues musicians, their families and homes, neighborhoods, festivals, and gigs. Her photographic work combines iconic late-career images of many legendary figures including Bo Diddley, Honeyboy Edwards, B. B....

"In 1963, sisters Barbara Ann and Rosa Hawkins and their cousin Joan Marie Johnson traveled from the segregated South to New York City under the auspices of their manager, former pop singer Joe Jones. With their wonderful harmonies, they were an immediate success. To this day, the Dixie Cups' greatest hit, "Chapel of Love," is considered one of the best songs of the past sixty years. The Dixie Cups seemed to have the world on a string. Their songs...

"Listening to Bob Dylan seeks to reposition music and musical performance as central, essential aspects of Bob Dylan's art. Countering the tendency on the part of many scholars, journalists, fans, and casual listeners to regard Dylan primarily or even exclusively as a poet, or as a writer of lyrics, Starr presents Dylan's work as a complete package and a personal, unique synthesis of words, music, and performance. Starr aims to provide an unpretentious...