A revelatory new account of Black innovation in American opera, showing how composers, performers, and critics redefined the genre both aesthetically and politically in the early twentieth century. The inauguration of a "golden age" in Black opera is often dated to 1955, when...

A sympathetic but clear-eyed exploration of Paul McCartney's work in the 1990s, arguably his most important since the rise of the Beatles.   Paul McCartney's 1990s was an era like no other, perhaps even the most significant decade of his entire career after the...

The incredible true story of a blind musician, a brutal crime, and the making of an American folk legend In June 1936 James Lee Strother performed thirteen songs at the Virginia State Prison Farm for famed folklorist John Lomax and the Library of Congress. Rooted in...