Oxford American's Music Issue

Has anyone seen the new one yet?
http://www.oxfordamericanmag.com/
Nice article on the "Blonde on Blonde" sessions (included in its entirety on the website), and I'm digging the CD.

http://www.oxfordamericanmag.com/StylePhotos/449b.jpg

I love that photo of Monk on the cover. Does anyone know where that comes from?

Idolator highlighted the article on the blog buzz band effect that focussed on North Carolina band the Annuals.

I always buy these music issues and enjoy them even if the Oxford American applies the same approach to the enclosed cd every year. I wish they'd expand their definition of Southern music beyond archival soul & garage rock and recent indie rock. Surely there must be some current chitlin circuit soul and southern rap that's clean enough to include.

I love these each year - haven't bought the new one yet.

the new one's CD has "Cadillac on 22s"

Cool. They're widening their horizons.

I love that photo of Monk on the cover. Does anyone know where that comes from?
It must have been taken during the "Monk Underground" sessions, because it looks almost identical.
I love the fact that's playing a big old upright, rather than a concert grand.
http://www.elclubdejazz.com/monk_underground.jpg

BTW that's got to be one of the all-time great cover shots.

I've always wondered if that was the same room The Basement Tapes cover was shot in.

Mike Powell doesn't write for them anymore?

Yes, he does--

Mike Powell fills in the blanks on what happened to the tragically anonymous Fred Neil, author of “Everybody’s Talkin,’” a song was made enormously popular by Harry Nilsson. Fred, meanwhile, practically disappeared. But in unearthing Fred’s records, Powell discovers a singer whose voice “fluttered through melodic turns with the surreal volatility of birds. Blues vocalists are often praised for sounding like their tragedies are worn into their throats like notches in a tree; Neil sounds much more alert and much more passive. His best vocal passages aren’t dried tears, they’re winks. Smirks, even.”

Oh, I must have missed that.

Actually Mike has two pieces in this issue.

Uh? (Making this more of a general Oxford American thread.)

more here
http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/07/16/founder-and-editor-marc-smirnoff-out-at-oxford-american#readerComments

very interesting

http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/07/16/smirnoff-planning-on-fighting-dismissal-from-oxford-american

Thinking it's more than just giving drinks to interns, but who knows.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/books/oxford-american-editor-fired-in-sex-harassment.html?ref=arts

Weird how he admits to certain things

We hold our work retreats on Petit Jean Mountain too. It's quite the party spot.

http://www.oxfordamerican.org/blogs/post/2012/jul/25/alex-rawls-named-guest-editor/

Alex Rawls from New Orleans mag Offbeat will likely do a fine job as guest editor of the December 2012 issue

Very much so!

Lord have mercy.

http://editorsinlove.com/

That's a web design that just sucks...you in.

Oy veh. Wow, Fitzgerald is sticking with Smirnoff despite all the allegations against him.

We have additional photos of Enzinna and his finger available on request.
Hilarious.

“I understand that I walk a fine line with my joking, my banter,” Mr. Smirnoff said, comparing himself to the bumbling boss played by Ricky Gervais on “The Office.” “I have made bad jokes. My intent with regards to that humor is just as important.”

god, i wonder how many shitty bosses out there these days think "oh David Brent/Michael Scott does this" like that makes it okay

Then, after insisting that the intern ride back to Conway with him, he asked her if she wanted to hold hands. She declined, he said, saying she’d rather “hold hands with a dead dog.” Still, he told her he wanted to take her to his favorite make-out spot.

... During a conversation with the same intern earlier that week, Mr. Smirnoff said, he hugged her and kissed her on top of the head.

None of those things constitute harassment, he insisted.

“It was acceptable to her in that moment,” he said, saying that she did not object to his behavior at the time.

How is it that 20 years after Anita Hill we still have people so unclear on this concept?

http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/issues/31/

New issue out with focus on Louisiana music. Guest-edited by Alex Rawls who used to edit Offbeat.

The new permanent editor, Roger Hodge, is a former Harper's editor who was born in Texas:

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/oxford-american-names-roger-hodge-editor-after-tumult-of-predecessors-firing/

Looks promising (or maybe just the same magazine as before but minus office drama).

Saturday, February 23rd
At Shreveport's historic Municipal Auditorium

FROM ELVIS TO HANK
TO JOHNNY:
Celebrating 65 Years of the
Louisiana Hayride

2:00 PM: Panel discussion:
Preserving Our Musical Heritage featuring Alex Rawls, guest editor of the Oxford American Louisiana Music issue, Maggie Warwick, Dan Garner, Eddie Giles, J Bratlie, and Ron Hardy

4:00 PM: Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne and BP America present Sunshine By The Stars: Celebrating Louisiana Music,
a film starring Harry Connick, Jr. and featuring The Marsalis Family, Better Than Ezra, Tim McGraw, Rebirth Brass Band, Trombone Shorty, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Guy, Buckwheat Zydeco, Irma Thomas, Zachary Richard, Zion Harmonizers and Mickey Gilley

6:45 PM: The music begins
featuring Shreveport’s Dirtfoot

7:45 PM: Louisiana Hayride Band featuring Maggie Warwick

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Spurred on by hearing Margaret Lewis' demo version of "Reconsider Me" on this year's Oxford disc, I picked up Shreveport Stomp; digging it a bunch. RAM Records was a cool, female-owned Shreveport label releasing blues, country, swamp pop and even surf instros.

http://www.amazon.com/Shreveport-Stomp-Ram-Records-Volume/dp/B0000009IF

I should probably get this(even if their definition of Southern music can be a tad formulaic and stuck in the past--I like most of the old Southern stuff they like)

The Oxford American's 15th Annual
Southern Music issue & CD features the
music of Tennessee!

A few highlights: Rosanne Cash on her three Tennessee lives; John Jeremiah Sullivan on Rosco Gordon and the birth of ska; Amanda Petrusich on the life and music of Bessie Smith; Joe Hagan on the Charlie Rich Fan Club; a posthumous memoir from Memphis blues guru Jim Dickinson—
and more!

My family knows to get me this issue each year as a Christmas gift.

My family neglected to get it for me for Chanukah, so I will have to get it myself... :(

where is roxy in this issue.

For real, or are you kidding or wishing?

ilx's Roxy?

tenn. musicians, just kinda figured.

They mostly just stick with blues, soul, roots folks.

x-post
$4 American shipping...grrr, but no choice as I am not sure of a bookstore nearby that carries it

ok, you got me. i was kidding, curmudgeon.

Barnes and Noble is where I've always gotten mine. (xpost)

every once in awhile they do expand their focus musically, as long as the person is from the South

i remember some absurd article about my morning jacket like 10 years ago, all dicrescenzo'd out.

I recall a Richard Hell is from Kentucky piece

oh don't you start with the whole "is Ky. the South?" argument.

Haven't heard the Cd's yet, but digging the writing lots. Damn good stuff from (the late) Jim Dickinson on growing up in Memphis, and on Rosco Gordon's influence on ska.

My family knows to get me this issue each year as a Christmas gift.

Not the Oxford American but wasn't sure which thread to put this on:

Southern Spaces, a peer-reviewed, online journal, invites scholars, critics, writers, artists, and musicians to submit essays, photo essays, music essays, original documentaries, and digital projects for a new series "Music and the US South."

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

The impact on musics of migration into, out of, or within regions of the US South
Southern musics outside the US South
Intersections of music with place, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class
Native American musics, Latina/o musics, musics of immigrant groups
Local music scenes: punk, hardcore, rock, folk, hip-hop, emerging genres, etc.
Radio and television stations and musicians playing live on the radio
Material culture relating to musics of the US South and its regions
Recording companies and recording studios
Music and musical instrument stores
Concert and performance venues
Music making at home, in the workplace, and in public spaces
Sacred and religious music, religious musical cultures
Song collecting and recording
Archiving and archives of musics of the US South
Sound studies
Folklorization, heritagization, and festivalization
Memorialization and memory of music and musicians
In addition to essays, photo essays, and short videos, Southern Spaces will publish peer-reviewed music essays and digital projects as a part of this series. We imagine music essays as collections of audio recordings with accompanying text. Digital projects may take any of a number of forms. Please contact us if you have any questions about our process, infrastructure, or other aspects of digital project publishing. Southern Spaces editors are committed to assisting scholars at varying levels of technological proficiency. We will work with submitters on the process of producing image, sound, and video files for submissions. We will accept completed works as well as proposals. See our submissions guidelines for style and formatting.

Please submit proposals (350–700 words), essays, or projects to sedi✧✧✧@em✧✧✧.e✧✧ by March 17, 2014.

The following pieces are examples of the sort of critical, interdisciplinary, and multimedia engagement with music that we seek.

Hanson, Bradley. "The Tennessee Jamboree: Local Radio, the Barn Dance, and Cultural Life in Appalachian East Tennessee." Southern Spaces, November 20, 2008. http://southernspaces.org/2008/tennessee-jamboree-local-radio-barn-dance-and-cultural-life-appalachian-east-tennessee.

Matthews, Scott L. "John Cohen in Eastern Kentucky: Documentary Expression and the Image of Roscoe Halcomb During the Folk Revival." Southern Spaces, August 6, 2008. http://southernspaces.org/2008/john-cohen-eastern-kentucky-documentary-expression-and-image-roscoe-halcomb-during-folk-revival.

Miller, Matt. "Dirty Decade: Rap Music and the US South, 1997–2007." Southern Spaces, June 10, 2008. http://southernspaces.org/2008/dirty-decade-rap-music-and-us-south-1997–2007.

Spitzer, Nick. "Creolization as Cultural Continuity and Creativity in Postdiluvian New Orleans and Beyond." Southern Spaces, November 28, 2011. http://southernspaces.org/2011/creolization-cultural-continuity-and-creativity-postdiluvian-new-orleans-and-beyond.

Series editor: Grace Elizabeth Hale, University of Virginia

seditor at emory dot edu

John Jeremiah Sullivan writing anything is worth celebrating, but particularly when it's music-related: http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2014/feb/18/chop-upbeat/

Skimmed a bit of it and will have to read it all later. Some beautiful phrasing there

Some of Sullivan's ethics in working on that NY Times article were later questioned by many (and discussed elsewhere).

THE OXFORD AMERICAN IS GOING TO TEXAS FOR
OUR 16TH ANNUAL MUSIC ISSUE.
We need your help to make this music issue our best ever.

Please support our project on Kickstarter (and receive cool tokens of our appreciation—like a limited-edition OA t-shirt or cover poster). Our goal is to raise $25,000 on Kickstarter, and so far we are 10% there!
Will you make a pledge to support our next music issue?

The Oxford American has extended its internship application deadline to November 1.

Please remember that all interns must agree to define "Southern" and "Americana" in the retro way that we employ...(please no contemporary Southern soul or pop-country)

They do too feature contemporary Southern musicians, like Johnny Cash!

Of course

I heard David Banner for the first time through one of these comps...

I really liked the tune on last year's comp by The Ronnie & The Daytonas guy, son of the woman who wrote "Long Black Veil."

John "Bucky" Wilkin. Here is something nice he wrote about one of our heroes: http://m.nashvillescene.com/nashvillecream/archives/2010/03/19/alex-chilton-as-remembered-by-john-bucky-wilkin

x-post--Oh, that's right they did have Banner. Yea, every once in awhile they throw a cut or 2 that's is contemporary into the mix, and I just hope they could do 3 or 4...while still enjoying immensely the old-school numnbers.

G-Side also...

CD with this years edition is pretty weak. No Townes Van Zandt? 13th Floor Elevators? DJ Screw? Daniel Johnston? The CD is basically a country sampler with a Spoon song.

Oh their Texas music issue. That sounds a bit too narrow

that's a shame, some of those have been really great - and texas has so much to draw from

yeah this doesn't look exactly revelatory
http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2014/nov/25/texas-music-issue-cd-tracklist/

Huh, different strokes I guess. Looks good to me, except I've no use for Spoon and probably would have picked a different Barbara Lynn song; love that one but have heard it a ton.

Oh, and no Brave Combo?

Some of that does look good (Barbara Lynn, Lee Ann Womack). Rick Clark who picks most of the music for all of these never seems to go for much new or edgy rock, rap or obscure label Southern soul. So you get NPR friendly soulster Ruthie Foster (who I do like) but not Texas great Southern soulster Mel Waiters. Plus no oddballs like Brave Combo , Butthole Surfers, 13th floor Elevators...

That's a pretty good selection, glad he got Ornette and Janis in there (also, I have heard of, but never heard Funny Paper Smith). Dealing with estates and present owners of masters/reasonably good dubs can get hairy, even if you're reasonably sure the person you're negotiating with is the right one (assuming you can find anybody to negotiate with, not "Yeah we owed our manager a bunch of money so he took the masters and went to Mexico for a meeting and we never saw him again.")
Yeah, pretty good, considering the expected limitations of appeal (though why have the title track from Guy Clark's 2013 album?)
Still, I wonder: what if you reserved some space for songs about a place, not just from it? Then could incl. some great Tin Pan Alley or Hollywood fantasy Texas, which would be true to the roots of Wild Bill getting his name on and on dime novels, Buffalo Bill, with fellow cowboys & Indians, cavalry vets and others who maybe once fought each other for real, now doing it in BB's Wild West Show, performing out west and far, far afield?
Could also have, for inst., “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton,” among other options re The Mountain Goats' All Hail West Texas, reissued last year.

Also, you could maybe include a track from CVB's New Roman Times, (expanded reissue by Omnivore due in Feb, more on Rolling Reissues)
...New Roman Times is a sci-fi alternate-reality rock opera. It is intended as a political farce, a sarcastic commentary on the whole notion of a red state/blue state America. It is not directly a commentary on the Iraq war, although much of it reads that way,” Lowery explains in the liners.
“With tongue firmly in cheek, I created a world where the Christian Republic of Texas opportunistically intervenes in the Republic of California’s civil war. The story is told through the eyes of a young soldier in the Army of Texas. My sympathy lies more with the Republic of California, but as usual, I wanted to tell the story through the eyes of ‘the other,’ the Young Texan. I was torn. In real life, I was born in Texas but raised in California. So once again, it’s me doing battle with myself. All fiction is autobiographical . . . It was really fun to make this record. Once we had the concept, the record came together quickly. It was nearly effortless. It was like Camper Van Beethoven had not been dormant for 10 years.”
T

Glass Eye would have been a great inclusion too. That band needs all the exposure/critical reevaluation it can get imo.

The text in the issue looks promising:

In the magazine: Joe Nick Patoski profiles Willie Nelson’s longtime drummer, Paul “The Devil” English; Amanda Petrusich remembers Houston hip-hop genius DJ Screw; Dom Flemons interviews Arhoolie Records founder Chris Strachwitz; Rachel Monroe tries on Roy Orbison’s glasses; Michelle García searches for the birth of Tejano music; Margaret Moser pays tribute to the Austin music scene.