About P.J. Podesta

Thirty-five years ago last December, Sam Cooke, the legal father of Soul, was shot to death by an L.A. hotel manager. In a time when pop stars died clean martyr deaths in plane or car crashes, the circumstances were sordid: the married Cooke, near-naked when he died, had been at the motel with a Eurasian … Read more

Jay-Z is a “citizen” in that specialized sense that the movie Starship Troopers – a delirious cautionary fantasy on war and patriotism – distinguished from “civilian.” (“What is the moral difference, if any, between a civilian and a citizen? A citizen accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic, defending it with his … Read more

Drive-By Truckers’ new double CD Southern Rock Opera is the most daring and developed expression of rock and roll attitude since the Clash’s Sandinista. The subject of the Truckers’ Opera is the “duality” – their word – of life in the land where blues began. Like (Rhythm &) Blues people, white folks in the South … Read more

One of the greatest treasures in my memory is the night Billie Holiday introduced me to Miles Davis and I introduced Billie Holiday to the Beat Generation. This story begins a woman named Maele. In 1959, [she] was married to Bill Dufty, who was one of my colleagues in the so-called “Poets’ Corner” of the … Read more

The second article I published about the music, in Metronome, was J&TWC. The theme was, broadly, that a fundamental contradiction, sharp, at times antagonistic, existed between American Classical Music, its creators, mainly Black, and the majority of commentators, critics, critical opinion about that music, which historically are not. The cause of this is obvious, whatever … Read more

Lifeline, Iris DeMent, Flariella Records The Way I Should, Iris DeMent, Warner Brothers What’s the Matter with Kansas? , Thomas Frank, Metropolitan Books Spirit and Flesh, James M Ault Jr, Knopf American Jesus, Stephen Prothero, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux What’s the Matter with Kansas? is one of those books passed around and recommended by friends … Read more

First of the Month has asked a number of writers to comment on No Direction Home — Martin Scorcese’s recent documentary about Bob Dylan’s early years. Here’s John Leland’s thoughtful response to our call… No Direction Home carries on the staple of Dylan lore that the folkies who cried betrayal when he plugged in at … Read more