The handsome Belt Revivals edition of Sherwood Anderson’s 1920 novel Poor White includes my new introduction. Read an excerpt of it at The Millions and buy a copy of the book through Belt Publishing.
Other Essays & Articles
Parsing an Eight-Decade Legacy of Praise and Song
A Washington Post profile of the Blind Boys of Alabama on the occasion of their group autobiography, Spirit of the Century.
An Interview with Rhiannon Giddens
For The Believer’s 2023 Music Issue, the longest interview with MacArthur- and Pulitzer-winning banjoist published to date. Includes her statement, “Once Beyoncé picks up the banjo, my job is done,” which she told me just before recording “Texas Hold ’Em” with Cowboy Carter herself.
The Misfit
My debut for The Nation: a long essay about the great, under-sung mid-century writer James Purdy, one of my dearest favorites.
David Remnick Brings Us Musical Idols in Twilight, but the Record Skips
A review for the Washington Post Book World of Remnick’s music-profile collection Holding the Note.
The Grand Portrait of a Hard-Luck Singer Who Disappeared
For the Washington Post Book World, a review of Howard Fishman’s epic biography of Connie Converse, To Anyone Who Ever Asks.
Lonnie Holley always manages to find the beauty in terror
I spoke with Michael Stipe, Sharon Van Etten, and more Lonnie Holley collaborators to learn about his harrowing upbringing and powerful record Oh Me Oh My.
On Ocean Front Property, George Strait Never Misses
My “listening notes” on Strait’s 1987 crowd-pleaser, for a lovely sounding reissue from Vinyl Me, Please.
Lou Reed’s Earliest Transformation
For the Washington Post, my feature on the making of Words & Music: May 1965, the first of a planned series of Reed’s unreleased work.
It’s a Creedence Clearwater Revival revival
To celebrate the release of my CCR bio, I wrote an essay for the Times (UK) about the band’s still-mystifying past and present fame.
Leo Nocentelli’s Long-Lost Folk-Funk Album Sees The Light of Day, 50 Years Later
For the Washington Post, a look at the stranger-than-fiction path to release for Another Side, the debut record by the guitarist from The Meters.
Bobbie Gentry: The Delta Sweete
A Pitchfork Sunday Review about the most consequential, least appreciated “Americana” act of all time.
Bill Frisell Has Spent Half a Century With a Guitar—And With This Song
My contribution to the New York Times Magazine’s 2021 Music Issue, about the great unclassifiable guitarist during lockdown.
How the Baseball Hat Went from Athletic Gear to Fashion Statement
An exceptionally fun subject to research: the history of the baseball hat, for Smithsonian.
Yasmin Williams Puts a Fresh Spin on Finger-Style Guitar
Little profile of the wildly talented Virginia guitarist on the occasion of her record Urban Driftwood. For the Washington Post.
With the Barclay Brass, D.C. takes an outsized role in the small world of classical brass music
My first-ever classical music writing, about a unique Washington-area ensemble that can make a church quake. For the Washington Post Magazine.
The Silence At Buddy’s House
A dilapidated shotgun house in Central City, New Orleans, is the sole remaining physical connection to elusive jazz legend Buddy Bolden. A prominent local family owns it, their famous musician son has promised to renovate it… so why has it been sitting empty and rotting since 2008? My investigation for the 2020 Oxford American Place Issue.
Toward a Fuller Understanding of the Connection Between Jazz and Hip-Hop
Two 2020 records showcase the evolving relationship between the genres—and the lessons that we can learn from artists’ efforts to build bridges between genres, races, and generations. For Inside Hook.
Margo Price’s Breached Paradise
The Nashville singer went to L.A. to make her most expansive album yet, then the world fell apart before she could share it. For Jezebel.
Border Crossings
A career-spanning profile of Terry Allen, surely the only person whose songs have been covered by Lucinda Williams and Little Feat to also have work in MoMa and the Venice Biennale. For The Washington Post Magazine.
Memphis is Making Old Gospel New Again
For Vice, I went to Bluff City to profile Fat Possum honcho Bruce Watson as he inaugurates a new gospel imprint, Bible & Tire, alongside some of the city’s legends and powerful newcomers.
Booker T. Jones, Soul’s Ultimate Sideman, Takes the Lead at Last
Surely one of the greatest assignments I’ll ever get: two days in Venice Beach with Booker T., asking him about his life, his career, and his memoir, Time is Tight. For the New York Times.
The Long, Familiar Obscurity of Charles Wright
A review of three newly reissued classics of Black literature by Wright, George Cain, and James A. McPherson. For Slate.
Sunday Review: Heart Like a Wheel
A weekend Pitchfork paean to Linda Ronstadt.
Why NRBQ Never Needed a Hit Record to Measure its Success
My Washington Post profile of the greatest cult band and their intrepid leader, Terry Adams, on the 50th anniversary of their debut record. Had the privilege of interviewing Bonnie Raitt for this one.
David Berman is Alive and Living in Chicago
He founded Silver Jews, tried to kill himself, overcame drugs, started touring, ended Silver Jews, took ten years off to deal with “shame and shanda,” and now he’s returned as Purple Mountains. I wrote about him for The Ringer. [Tragically, this turned out to be the final profile of Berman published in his lifetime.]
Fire and Glory
Gig night in small-town Kentucky with the greatest band in the modern South, Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires. For Popula.
Rihannon Giddens is Reclaiming the Black Heritage of American Folk Music
A short profile of the MacArthur-winning banjoist and her new all-black-female band, Our Native Daughters. For Time.
Letter of Recommendation: Jazz on European TV
Self-explanatory, for the New York Times Magazine’s recurring column.
Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy Has No Plans to Slow Down
My Washington Post interview with the Loose Fur guitarist.
Rhea Butcher’s Podcast is for Baseball’s Overlooked Fans
Profile of the non-binary comedian whose show, Three Swings, is the most refreshing sports commentary I’ve heard in many years. For Deadspin.
The Baltimore Orioles Have Been Even Worse Than They Look
There was nothing good about the 2018 O’s seasons except the fact that I got to write about it for Deadspin.
Sunday Review: Cosmo's Factory
My weekend paean to Creedence Clearwater Revival's masterpiece.
Working With a Photographer Taught Me to See Writing Differently
A little craft/personal essay for LitHub about the experience of developing Homeplace alongside my friend's pictures.
What Today’s America Could Learn From Patsy Cline
For Slate, I argued that all Americans could learn from Patsy, and more widespread recognition of her life and work could even heal the rural-urban divide.
This Fourth of July, What Unites Us All? Inequality
An Independence Day look at my nominee for biggest threat currently facing the United States.
Fifty States: Maryland
I was privileged to write the Maryland entry in Pacific Standard's ambitious 10th-anniversary feature, which contained some of the best company I've ever been in.
Country Music Needs More Politics, Not Less
An op-ed for the Washington Post about Mike Huckabee's 24-hour tenure on the CMA Foundation's board of directors, and why "neutrality" is a fool's game.
Maggie Roche 1951-2017
My contribution to The New York Times Magazine's 2017 "The Lives They Lived" issue, about the wonderful singer-songwriter and founder of The Roches.
Paint the Corners
I wrote a monthly-ish column for Hazlitt about the first MLB season of the Trump era.
Smokey Robinson is the Greatest American Songwriter
A self-explanatory jeremiad for Deadspin.
All Cameras are Good Cameras
For BuzzFeed, my profile of Baltimore photographer and activist Devin Allen, who shot the defining images of the Freddie Gray uprising.
America’s Long, Rich History of Trashing Poor Whites
An essay-review of Nancy Isenberg’s White Trash, focusing on current manifestations of political poor-hatred. In Pacific Standard.
Behind the Music
Feature profile for BuzzFeed of Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, widely acknowledged as the most prolifically recorded drummer of all time and, in his mid-70s, a burgeoning solo star.
Sick at Heart: The Lonely Radicalism of the Catonsville Nine
Written for Pacific Standard's "Unlikely Patriots" series, my tribute to the Catholic radicals who performed a signal act of Vietnam-era protest in my sleepy hometown.
That Old Black Magic
My contribution to Oxford American's Georgia Music Issue, an essay about Johnny Mercer, the first American pop musician with firsthand knowledge of black culture.
Kind of Weird: How The Köln Concert Made Keith Jarrett an Unlikely Pop Star
A 40th-anniversary celebration of an astonishing record, for Deadspin.
Hank’s Dream
For Oxford American, the story of Hank Deane, who at age 19 produced one of the great bluegrass albums of the 1970s, then disappeared, taking his monumental record with him.
The Storm That Won’t Quit
For Virginia Quarterly Review, a survey of the documentary art that emerged in the decade following Hurricane Katrina, and the ways in which that storm fundamentally affected political and narrative storytelling writ large.
So Normal it Hurts: The Triumph and Tragedy of Phil Hartman
Man, I still miss this guy. For Deadspin.
Clear Victory: A Deep Dive into the World’s Most Prestigious Water-Tasting Competition
My BuzzFeed feature on the “Oscars of Water,” improbably held every year in Berkeley Springs, W.Va., pop. 600. The basis for a chapter in Homeplace.
A Racist Commonwealth
Review of Kristen Green’s Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County for Bookforum, focusing on the subtle Virginia brand of racial animus.
Toxically Pure
A long one for The Baffler, about the tortured and ever-more-relevant life and work of political writer and provocateur Joe Bageant, reported in full for the first time. The basis for a chapter in Homeplace.
Film from the Ashes
Reported for The Verge on the Nitrate Picture Show, the world’s first film festival devoted to the oldest—and most dangerous—celluloid format ever made.
Ethical Pearls
A celebration of The Oysters of Locmariaquer, an unjustly forgotten nonfiction masterpiece that prefigured many of today's essayists. For Hazlitt.
A Form of Literary Anarchy
For Slate, a review of Kevin Birmingham’s The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses, with attention to its place in the continually growing cottage industry of Joyce guides.
Journey Through the Past
For Virginia Quarterly Review, a review of the concluding volume in Patrick Leigh Fermor's epic, unfinished Walking Europe Trilogy.
Rewriting is Redemption
For Hazlitt, a look at one of my favorite books, William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways, and his memoir about writing it.
Forgive Me, Father
A review of James Agee's Letters to Father Flye, a Top 3 Agee book for sure. For Hazlitt.
Big Star's Alex Chilton Wrote the Script for Every Indie Rock Recluse
Review of Holly George-Warren’s A Man Called Destruction: The Life of Alex Chilton, for The New Republic.
Agee, Before He Was Famous
For The American Prospect, a review of James Agee’s rediscovered manuscript, Cotton Tenants, and the mixed legacy of the book it presaged, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
How James Brown and Nina Simone Mourned MLK, Jr. Onstage
For The Atlantic, a look at the in-concert and on-record responses to the Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination by two of the leading figures of black musical liberation.
A Closer Walk With Thee
For The Morning News, a long reported feature on the battle over Patsy Cline’s legacy in her Virginia hometown, and the beginning of my interest in Winchester’s cultural and socioeconomic history. The basis for a chapter in Homeplace.
Bristling Dixie
For Slate, a review of a book about Disney's racist masterpiece, Song of the South, and the movie's uneasy legacy.
Water and Wonder
A little tap-dance around It's a Wonderful Life for the Paris Review Daily, looking at the surprising amount of water onscreen, and how it contributes to the movie's moral statement.
Book-Shopping With the Best-Read Man in America
I went used-book shopping with Michael Dirda for the Paris Review Daily and somehow people found this quite exciting.
Primitives, Amateurs, Cavemen, and Clowns
A long essay for The Quarterly Conversation about the most underappreciated, quietly revolutionary film genre of them all: concert movies.
Soldier's Heart
John Huston's recently unburied documentary Let There Be Light presents a fascinating portrait of early psychotherapy and a society that once treated its warriors with dignity and care. For The Morning News.
Goodbye, Cinema: On Jonathan Rosenbaum
A profile and 70th birthday celebration of one of my favorite film writers. For the Los Angeles Review of Books.
The King of Complacency
Pretty much every thought I've ever had about Stephen King, good and bad, to occasion the release of Under the Dome. For The Quarterly Conversation.
Don't Leave Me
For The Morning News, my look at the phenomenon of soldier-return YouTube videos, the 21st-century's digital approximation of homecoming parades.
Ram On
An ex-con, a drug-hit small town, and a stressed early fatherhood that was aided by Paul McCartney's Ram. For the Los Angeles Review of Books.